A finished thing!

Six months of knitting, this has taken. I only seem to knit while I am on holiday recently, and even then only erratically. I have discovered that I rather enjoy these marathon knits. The shawl is about 5ft wide across the top and can actually be wrapped around my shoulders in a useful keeping out the cold sort of way. I started it while I was at the Cambridge Folk Festival, knitting while I was in a tent that smelled of squashed grass and beer; and finished it the other night sitting in front of the fire on a dark evening. I now feel rather bereft and am not sure what to knit next. A girl can only have so many scarves and hats. I don't think I need a third shawl however much I like knitting them. Perhaps it is time to attempt another jumper, though the one I started just after I began to knit again is still languishing under the sofa and is never likely to be completed. Apart from being badly knitted with yarn from two different lots (and therefore not the same colour, but in a bad looking way rather than an on-purpose sort of way) it's also boxy and likely to be highly unflattering. So no to finishing that.

Scarves for Leila and Stanley

Well, yes. It's been a while. I would like to ressurect this blog. I would mainly like to be making more things, as it makes me happy. The last year has been very difficult indeed and I am very much hoping that things will get a bit easier in the coming months and that I'll get my making mojo back. We'll see.

So to start off, here are two scarves that I knitted for friends' children this Christmas. The urge came very suddenly, and given that my current wip has been on the needles since July, this was SUPER SPEED KNITTING for me. Both scarves took about a day to knit. How I love 8mm needles. And holidays.

I cast on 17 stitches, and in the case of the blue scarf knitted a combination of knit purl and yarn over holes in stripes. In the case of the green scarf I did about 12 rows of moss stitch and then knitted to the end and did an equal amount of moss stitch.

I’m pleased to say that both scarves have been very positively recieved. Hooray for friends who appreciate knitting!

I have finished a thing!

This is miraculous. Not only this, but I have almost finished another thing as well (just 4597 ends to weave in before that's finished too).
My amazing finishyness is probably due to the fact that I have recently started going to a knitting night at the Pelton Arms in Greenwich. I am enjoying this very much not only because of the knitting, but also and especially because of the opportunity to chat with a) people over 3ft tall b) intelligent adults with whom I do not work. Come along if you're local: I highly recommend it.

UFO Attack

I have a confession. I am currently suffering from the terrible inability to actually finish anything. Fortunately this doesn't extend to cooking (getting to eat is always an excellent motivator for me), but in the knitting department? Oh my. I am hoping that a confession will cleanse my soul.

Here is the list of unfinished object shame:

1. Lacy scarf. Abandoned because of my complete inability to follow the simplest lace pattern. Seriously bad for the ego, that. This scarf comes from a book called 'Knitting in No Time'. The book completely fails to mention that you have to actually knit to complete anything. Swizz!

2. Sock(s). I have about one and a half inch of sock. I can't get the bloody thing to knit up without a ladder up the side and have you seen the size of those stitches? Tiny. I know socks are supposed to be quick, easy and addictive but frankly they sell very nice socks at Uni Qlo which will not take me 300 years to finish and probably never fit, and I don't need to swear and throw them across the room (unless the cat does something particularly irritating).

3. Log Cabin blanket. Admittedly, I'm still thinking I might finish this, but that's mainly because I am clearly bloody delusional. I've knitted one peasly square of it. I don't much like the colour of yarn (I know: why the fuck did I buy it?!) which doesn't help as I'm not dreaming little dreams of putting a finished browny-orange blanket over anything (cat, for instance).

4. Black cowl. This will definitely (eventually) get finished, as I have promised a lifetime's supply to a friend who is going to GIVE ME his DSLR in return (I LOVE him). Guilt is almost as good a motivator as food (not as fun, admittedly). Still, it remains unfinished as it's a wool cashmere blend and a winter garment and it just seems wrong to knit that sort of stuff when it's (theoretically, at least) spring. That's the excuse, anyhow.

As well as the above four, I owe one knitted/crocheted baby gift and have one pending. I may be forced to visit Mamas and Papas. Have you seen the price of their crocheted blankets? It's enough to make me start something else.

I'm not even going to mention the sewing.

Diary of a sock pt1.

I've been meaning to knit socks ever since I started knitting about two years ago. It may even have been the sight of someone knitting a sock in the pub at a blogmeet which triggered the desire to knit. There is something special about knitting a sock; such an ordinary item which we wear almost without thinking, which makes it a desirable thing to make for myself.

I've been working up to it for some time now. I bought myself a Regia sock kit in the sales after last Christmas, and spent some time staring at the coded pattern and eyeing the incy wincy teeny weeny double pointy pointy needles. Terrifying. I managed to lose one of the needles in the kit almost instantly and after a month or so shoved the rest of the kit under the sofa (which is where my knitting yarn stash lives).

A while later I bumped into a fellow knitter at a Londonist meetup, and she suggested I try the magic loop method. I spent hours on Ravelry trying to find out about this (for free: I am an internet cheapskate), and eventually got to grips with it when knitting the hat for my Dad this December. This meant I was Ready For Socks, or so I thought. In the inevitable post-Christmas Amazon splurge (or is that just me?) I ordered two books about knitting socks. One for knitting from the toe up, and one for magic loop knitting two at a time (a boon for impatient folk such as I, surely?) I cannot fail! I thought. I cannot fail to be more confused, it turns out. Back to the incy wincy teeny weeny double pointed needles and the original kit pattern. Back to cursing and swearing at thin yarn slipping through my fingers, dropped stitches and mis-counting. I can't deal with those needles, however easy other people seem to find them.

Luckily the other day I stumbled upon a magic loop tutorial for one sock at a time, and I have now managed to both cast on and knit about an inch of cuff. Inevitably, I have cast on four stitches too many (I was confused, alright?), and as usual it took three goes to do that. I am not at all convinced that I have the stamina to make it through two whole socks with yarn not much thicker than button thread, and I am steadfastly ignoring the bit in the pattern where I have to go around a corner, but at last I am knitting a sock!

A hat actually for me.

Every time I knit something, I have to cast on at least three times. Don't ask me why, it's just one of the mildly irritating idiosyncrasies of my knitting life. This time though, I excelled myself. Not only did I cast on several times; I actually started three different hats. The first was a cloche style which I quickly realised might look as terrible on me as all beanies. The second was a straightforward beret which three inches in I realised was boring me stupid and therefore never likely to be completed, and the third was this Star Crossed Beret. You will need a Ravelry account to access this free pattern, but if you like knitting even a bit then you should get one. I'm on there as cheerfulone: add me as a friend.

There were several hairy moments in this 'ideal first cable project', mainly brought about by my inability to reliably count a pattern of three lots of three (you will begin to understand why I have no intention of ever attempting any Fairisle.) Fortunately I am adept at knitting backwards. You have to be, when you can barely count to three. The stickiest moment was when my stitch counter fell off and I began to cable a row I'd already cabled: something which it turned out I was unable to knit backwards, but the pattern is forgiving and if you can see the mistake I'll thank you not to mention it.



With a cast on of 72 stitches and 8mm needles it's a quick knit even with backwards knitting and trying to knit in semi-darkness whilst watching Max Beasley dig people out a heap of rubble in Survivors. It took me about four days and I am the world's slowest knitter. Knitted in Rowan Cocoon it's nicely hairy and warm and just in time for the snow to melt.

I'm going to attempt socks next. Pray for me.

A hat for my Dad

I promise knitted items rashly. I've been meaning to knit a gardening hat for my Dad for at least a year, and may even have promised this one to him on Christmas Day 2008. Slightly more than a year later he's getting it for his birthday. In my head I have all kinds of grandiose plans for all sorts of knitted projects, but in reality it takes me ages to finish things. I'm not so much a slow knitter as an irregular one. I spend a lot more time thinking about knitting than actually doing it, and find that at the end of a day's work I often can't face doing anything which might actually involve thinking (which doesn't bode well for this blog). This means that the knitting of squares is a particular speciality.



This hat was a very pleasant knit mainly involving going round and around: something which I found extremely managable. I used it to get my head around the magic loop method and it was a useful tool for that. Unfortunately for Dad I didn't work out how to prevent the small ladders which appeared as I knitted until after I'd finished, which means that his present has plenty of the small imperfections which make it authentically made by me.

The pattern is here.