Blue, da-ba-dee, da-ba-dai

I've had that song running through my head since I started spinning this stuff back in late January!

A fellow Posh Knitter was destashing, and I'd never tried Falkland fiber before. It drafts beautifully. And Spindlefrog's dye work is amazing, though a little internet searching tells me she's no longer selling fiber. A shame - I really enjoyed this!

Some stats:

100 grams
327 yards
n-plied

This is the finest 3-ply I've done yet. It actually beats a couple of commercial sock yarns (coughcoughJitterbugcoughcough) in the yards per 100g category, making this my first true sock yarn. I'm not going to use it for socks, of course - there's no nylon in it, and I don't think it's sufficiently tightly plied to withstand so much wear. But I'm getting there!

I think I'll probably knit a shawl with this. I know, don't all faint in shock. Me? Knitting a shawl? Surely not!

Long weekend

Despite having to work on Saturday, I still ended up having a long weekend thanks to Monday off and a half-day of classes on Tuesday. Although much of that time was taken up with a total time-suck of a wordgame, I spent a great deal of time knitting.

Ergo, new shawl:

It's made from the handspun I finished recently. I have about a yard of the stuff leftover, thanks to the joys of the modular pattern. It's the first heavy shawl I've made for myself, and came in handy today. It's getting warmer in London, but still jacket weather. It's also heavy shawl weather!

A few thoughts:

• Ruffles look great but are a total pain to knit and cast off. It took me four hours to finish the cast-off.
• Garter stitch doesn't need blocking if the yarn is squidgy enough.
• Garter stitch really doesn't need blocking if the ruffle contains half the total yarn. I predict that two weeks of wear will stretch it to double the current size, which is already bigger than any of my other shawls.
• Worsted weight shawls don't work as scarf alternatives unless I want to look like a linebacker under my jacket.
• There's a lot of room for variegation in a semi-solid fiber/yarn.
• Knitting with handspun is much more exciting than knitting with commercial yarn.
• I need to spin more.

Landmarks

It seems to be the season for landmark points in life right now. Today I renewed my Young Person's Railcard for the last time, because tomorrow is my birthday and I'll no longer qualify. I don't mind getting older, but I'm definitely going to miss the cheap train fares! Baby L isn't a baby anymore. I went to visit yesterday, and while S and I were having a lovely evening of knitting and gossip, Baby L has figured out whole sentences and can have conversations. Strange how she's gone from being a noisy little lump to being a small person with opinions and a wicked sense of humour in such a short time.

And of course there are spinnerly landmarks. There's the obvious one - spinning yarn that you can knit with for the first time. That one was pretty exciting. But not nearly as exciting as the one I just got to - spinning yarn you'd actually WANT to knit with! Over the course of a couple of months, I turned this:



into this:



which I'm now turning into one of these.

It's real yarn. Finally. It squidges and is soft. It's evenly plied. It's sproingy. I love it. I love it so much that all of my other projects have been dropped like hotcakes so that I can devote myself to knitting it. I cast on two days ago and am a quarter of the way through my yarn. And since I took the day off for my birthday, I could conceivably finish it this weekend!

Busy signal

I can't come to the blog right now. I've figured out how to use my spindle at long last. I expect to resurface when I run out of undesignated fiber to spin, or for my birthday, whichever happens first.

Ta-ta for now!

A wee bit more shopping

Just realised I'd never posted my haul from the Knitting and Stiching Show! Or in fact blogged about it at all - oops!

I was unexpectedly able to attend this year, which meant that my shopping budget was rather limited. I think I did a good job of being restrained. Only three needlework things and the obligatory chocolate for my spouse. (It's his reward for cooing over yarn and FOs and not complaining about the shopping!)

Two kits were the main focus this year. First, a knitting kit that I've been lusting over ever since I laid eyes on it a few years ago - Sanquhar gloves. I've chosen mulberry as my colour and a pale grey for the neutral contrast. If you can't see from the photo, these are stranded laceweight gloves knitted on 1.5mm needles. I may be mad, but they will be gorgeous once they are made up!

Second, a beautiful kit to make a goldwork holiday ornament. I've wanted to learn goldwork for a long time, but the materials cost has always put me off - especially since I might end up not liking the technique. A small kit for something pretty is perfect. The designer does a range of goldwork kits, but this ornament series are designed as teaching tools. Thus, they've got small areas of most of the usual techniques used with precious metals. And the kits come in silver, too!

The weekend wasn't all shopping, though. A very dear Ravelry friend, SD, had come over from Iceland to visit the show and she came over to have dinner with us. It was lovely to get to meet her in person after years of online correspondence, and we had a fab evening of spinning and gossiping and delicious food. SD was after a spinning lesson, so I gathered my paltry skills and taught what I knew. It seems to have taken, as she's been spinning up a storm since returning home!

Generous soul that she is, SD also brought me some beautiful gifts. Bags of Icelandic fleece and yarn (hello, felted slipper-socks!), some mystery roving in stunning shades of sea glass green, and a treasure of a gift. This is handdyed spinning fiber done by another Posh Knitter, who has his own online fiber shop. SD gave me her double batch of one of his club offerings because it's my favourite colours. Needless to say, I was a bit blown away!

We have a winner!

And it's me! Unbeknownst to me, the group with which I was participating in WIPs Wrestling decided to have a prize draw at the end of July. Every completed project got you one entry into the draw. And I won! My prize was a skein of hand-dyed yarn from Sheepy Time Knits, in my choice of base yarns. I picked laceweight (surprise, surprise!), and am really looking forward to seeing what it looks like.

A personal best

One of my Ravelry groups tracks the total yardage of all yarn that each person knits or crochets into a project or otherwise destashes. I've chosen to only count yarn once the project is completely finished. This means that there are months where I've done a ton of knitting but have a very low total. There are also months like this one. Total yarn knitted, crocheted or gifted out of stash - 4889 yards!!!!!!!

Goals for the coming month:

• Finish the Franken-Mei Socks I'm working on
• Make 20 more granny squares
• Make progress on two other WIPs
• Work on a piece of garb
• Finish another section of the Santa embroidery

It's too hot for spinning, my hands get all sticky and mess up the fiber. But I'm trying hard to work on all of my hobbies, not just knitting. Tomorrow I plan to do a big photo update, since I've started a couple of projects that have never featured on the blog...

WIPs Wrestling Update

It's now two thirds of the way through the month. And I've finished four of my six WIPs! Woohoo! The first was the pair of green Monkey socks which were nearly done anyway. The second was this chunky neckwarmer, made from yarn I was given by a dear friend.

Mum's heavy winter shawl, finished just in time for her mid-July birthday. :D It's so big I couldn't block it properly on my bed, so I'll be reblocking when next I visit her.

And finally, the one of which I'm most proud. I've finally, as of 11:30 last night, finished the crocheted ripple bedspread I started two years ago. I can't even fathom how many episodes of assorted crime dramas went into the making of this bedspread. It's on the bed, and thanks to a bout of unseasonable weather was very welcome last night.

And as a bonus:

My lovely grandmother decided that we really, really needed a microwave, since we've never had one. She let me pick, and now this adorable red Whirlpool is living in our kitchen. And thanks to the microwave, we were able to make the popcorn that fortified me through last night's crochet marathon. Thanks Grammy!

WWKIP Day and new knitting friends

Saturday before last was World Wide Knitting In Public Day - featuring the iKnit Scavenger Hunt! I'd heard stories of this marvellous event, but had never been. This year I was determined to go. I even skipped a reenactment event* for it. :D

I got up bright and early on Saturday and headed down to iKnit. Thankfully the Northern Line was running normally! Oystercard loaded up in case of emergency bus journeys and bag full of snacks, knitting and water and I was good to go. None of my regular London knitting buddies was around, so I went hoping to join another team when I arrived. Most people already had teams of the maximum size, but there was another woman who had no team. And thus it was that Grimwitch and JeffNet** met and formed Team Bob!

We'd a long list of tasks to complete, ranging from spotting letters on shop signs to knitting a scarf to taking a picture of ourselves knitting with a naked person. No, really! Here's the photos to prove it!

Knitting in a red phone box:

Knitting with a London policeman

Knitting with pigeons:

Knitting with a celebrity:

Knitting with a statue of a naked person:

Knitting with a bunch of real naked people - the London Naked Bike Ride!

And finally, knitting on a Routemaster bus.

We lost, spectacularly, but had a ton of fun. We even stopped for a dodgy hot sausage from the Bulgarian guys outside the British Museum. (As an aside, one of my favourite hobbies is listening to the two of them being snarky about passers-by, since they assume no-one around them understands. Oh, how wrong you are, chaps!)

Then on the Saturday just gone I attended a wedding reception. It being an evening do, I decided to wear my red Swallowtail Shawl over a black dress. Good call - I didn't need the warmth, but I met another knitter! Turns out that a girl I'd been at uni with has turned into a knitter. She came bouncing over to ask me about the shawl and we ended up swapping spinning wheel stories and chatting about Ravelry. Lots of fun, especially when combined with a cheesy disco and lots of champagne.

*It was only the monthly revel, not a real 'event'
**Ravelry names given to protect the innocent!

A wedding!

Last Wednesday I managed to finally finish the wedding dress for S. Which was good because the wedding was on Saturday! It fit her like a glove, and thanks to her mum I managed to not have to do the underdress. S bought a premade underdress and her mum had a vintage slip, so once the back had been reshaped it was perfect.

The coolest part of the whole thing for me? The groom toasted me during his speech and the dress got a round of applause. :D

I'm really glad it's finished, but I've been feeling a little lost without my neverending pile of green yarn to work on. My elbow is very pleased to be done - no more crochet for me until the end of the month.

Some pretty things

First up, some handspun silk. I am so happy with it! I ended up dyeing it with kool-aid, four of berry blue and one of strawberry. Weirdly, it doesn't smell of fruit like wool does.

And on a totally unrelated note, last weekend the hubby and I went to an event. And we got called up in court and presented with our Awards of Arms!!! Not a major award by any means, but it's the one that means that we can design and display coats of arms.

Hubs', with gorgeous Celtic knotwork:

Mine, beautifully done by the hand of Her Majesty, Queen Fiona (!):

It's good to be a Knitter

I walk to and from work. It's about 35 minutes in either direction, so good exercise for me every day. Now that it's autumn in this hemisphere, my knitwear is really coming into its own. Last night I walked home bundled up in my Dr Who mitts, my Tapestry scarf and the red hat I made last year. Today I walked in wearing my Calorimetry and my tiger-ish Jitterbug socks. I am fantasizing about mittens, gloves and more hats. And let's be honest, more scarves. I really need more scarves. I don't yet have any made out of cashmere, for example. Shocking! :D

I realized this morning while doing my daily round of blog reading with breakfast that there is a reason my brain is telling me to make more socks. It's the 3rd of October. More accurately, it is the third day of Socktoberfest! I have never participated in this before, but I think that now is a good time to start. I have 3 pairs of socks on the go, plus another half-a-dozen or so that I want to cast on. I think that socks and I have a weird relationship, truth be told. I love wearing handknit socks. I love giving people handknit socks. I love the thought of knitting socks, and I love having socks in my bag to knit. I don't really like knitting socks. They get incredibly boring by the time I get to knitting the heel flap. I like the way toe-up socks fit, but all my favourite patterns are cuff-down and I'm too lazy to convert them. I could probably avert the heel flap boredom by using a different heel, but again there's the lazy factor. Oh well. I shall keep knitting socks, knit the occasional toe-up number when I'm going nuts over heel flaps, and be bored occasionally. It's better than not having handknit socks!

Husbands - Help or Hindrance?

Discuss, citing examples to support your argument.

After going through all of my sock yarn the other day and choosing patterns, I discovered that I really needed some more DPNs - 2.25mms and 2.75mms. I've thus far been fudging things with 2mms, 2.5s and 3s. So yesterday when the hub rang me over my lunch hour to say he was in a yarn shop with a knitting mutual friend and did I want anything, of course my answer was "Yes!" And he very kindly picked up the 2 sizes I needed.

And being the sweet man that he is, he decided I needed something to cheer* me up. We met up that evening and he handed me a bag containing a skein of Cherry Tree Hill Supersock! The colourway is Dusk, a lovely deep blue-purple-green with flashes of hot pink that is ever so yummy. I'm thinking that it is destined to become a pair of Coupling Socks.
And of course, this means that my stash is now one skein bigger than it was, although I love the yarn. Whoops.

And I have just arranged for a couple of hours' access to a sewing machine this weekend for the making of garb. Thank goodness for kind friends!


*Originally I typed shear. Clearly I am warped and in need of taking up spinning.

Another one bites the dust

No, I haven't finished another project. I've started teaching one of my friends to knit socks. He thinks the construction of toe-up socks is pure genius (and of course I agree), so I have high hopes of seeing some finished stuff from him soon!

Of course, I worked on my own knitting as well. The neckwarmer is extremely close to being finished. I might even manage it over my lunch hour! And that means I get to case on a new project over the weekend. Although, I've now figured out what I want to do with the mitts, so I may work on them instead.

The weekend is probably not going to be all that productive, as I have a list of chores and errands as long as my arm. Ah well. I might get something done.

One sock, two sock...

...orange sock, new sock!

Yes, I finished the Monkey Socks. They are amazing and perfect and I don't want to take them off my feet. However, since the heels are looking decidedly felted after one morning of wear around the house, I won't be keeping them on.

Want to see how close my race with the yarn was? This is how much I had left:

Your projects may be destined for glory

As I discovered last night. The friend for whom I made the Dr Who scarf, along with some other friends, was recently filmed for an episode of the quiz show Eggheads, produced by the BBC. And my friend being who he is, he decided to wear the scarf while they were filming! So the work of my hands is going to be shown on national television at some point.

(Apparently he got some rather odd looks and kudos while wandering around the BBC studios wearing such a classic item of apparel. Go figure.)

Other stuff happening in the world of the Fiend's needlework. The Monkeys are rocking along. I finished the cuff today and am going to work on the heel flap during my dinner break later. They are soft and lovely and wonderful, and it is going to be very hard to not spend Monday and Tuesday knitting them instead of the shawl. But I have decided that the shawl will be finished. Sigh. So I shall be good and put on a DVD (possibly a Lord of the Rings marathon) and see how much shawl I get done in two days. What I may do is knit on the shawl during the day and then the socks in the evening.

I have decided that I am not going to enter the Piecework Exellence in Needle Arts competition this year. I had a very good idea for it, but frankly wanted to knit rather than embroider, and I refuse to be rushed. At the end of the day, needlework is supposed to be my fun hobby, not a source of pressure and stress, so I don't have to knit anything I don't want to. I suspect that I will do some embroidery this year because I have a bunch of big projects I really want to finish (some of which are not in this country! Ack!), but I'll do it as and when I want to. No guilt-tripping on not doing a million things at once.

Maybe that should be my mantra for the year. "I can't and don't have to do everything at once. Slow down!"

Now I just have to figure out what to do with the fabric I cut out for the competition.