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Sunday 30 September 2012

Blogger app! Yay!

I've just discovered an iPhone app for Blogger! This is a very excellent thing and may mean I keep my blog more up to date! This is a test to see how it works.

Wednesday 18 April 2012

Back to basics

Well last night, in an attempt to rediscover the urge to make stuff, I started just about the simplest project possible. Using all my cheap acrylic yarn that came in kits with magazines, I'm making a giant granny square for a car blanket. No, the car isn't cold, it's me that needs the blanket when I'm in the car! When we're travelling home late at night from ice hockey games or gigs, my legs often get chilly and I don't really want the air con on as then my head just gets roasted, so really a nice cheap blanket that I can sling in the washing machine when necessary is the perfect answer. And it'll let me use up all the dodgy free yarn that, even if I make the projects intended by the magazine, probably would not be made in the specified yarn. So hopefully in the near future (or by next winter, anyway) I'll have a nice big multicoloured blankie for travelling, and in the meantime I have a nice, easy project that requires little concentration and no pattern and is thus ideal for my current, brain-cell free, condition.

Tuesday 17 April 2012

Ribbit ribbit

Instead of knitting, lately I seem to have been mainly frogging!

First up was my Hypernova, which I started in January 2011.  I don't know why, but I just wasn't loving it as I should have, even though I bought a skein of Wollmeise Lacegarn in Rosenrot specially for it.  Perhaps it was making a few mistakes early on, perhaps it was getting sidetracked with other projects, but eventually I looked at it and realised I was never going to finish it.  Since January 2011 I've mysteriously managed to acquire, um, "some" more WM Lacegarn and on a number of occasions have thought how much more I'd like Hypernova in one of the other colours.  Equally, Rosenrot has other potential.  So I frogged - quite liberating!  This was a badly overexposed picture taken with flash, that makes the Rosenrot look neon.


A harder decision was my Glows, started way back in August 2010 with one of my very first skeins of Wollmeise, obtained at Knit Nation.  I "only" bought three skeins, and they were all highly variegated multis.  Having never knitted with multis before, I had no clue about pattern selection and having fallen in love with Julia Mueller's designs that were displayed on the Wollmeise stand, I wanted to knit one of her patterns.  I picked Glows and it was going swimmingly on the cuff section, but when I got to the intricate cables I knew doubt.  A lot of doubt.  I even resorted to asking my OH if he thought the colour was too much for the pattern - I don't think he really understood what I was asking, and I think he felt (bless him) that he was supposed to validate my choices and said that it looked great.  I persevered, with this nagging doubt at the back of my mind, until I got to the start of the thumb, at which point I put it down in favour of other things and never picked it up again.  It seemed clear what needed to be done, but the amount of work that had gone into getting that far put me off.  I agonised for some time and eventually took a deep breath, pulled the needles out and ripripripped - the Johannesbeer und Brennessel will find a happier home in something like one of Martina Behm's lovely patterns, and I can find another, semisolid, yarn for the Glows which will work much better.

Monday 16 April 2012

Jewellery bits and pieces

I made this very simple necklace for my sister-in-law's birthday last month, having spotted some lovely glass pendants in my local jewellery making shop.


I also developed the idea of my charm style shawl pins further to include interchangeable charms, and made one with a set of matching stitch markers to donate as a prize in a KAL being run by the Wollmeise Ravelry group.

Sunday 15 April 2012

Polaris

My first project of the new year, Polaris.  This was made in Wollmeise 100% in Merlot with silver beads.  It was my first ever beaded project, and I'm delighted with the way it turned out.

Saturday 14 April 2012

Knitting for my mother-in-law

We'll gloss over this first one quite quickly, as it must be my most hated project ever - the backstory to this is that I took her to the Creative Stitches and Hobbycrafts show in Cardiff last autumn, and she spotted a sample cardigan hanging up in a booth which she wanted to buy.  I explained that it was only for display but then in a moment of selflessness said if she bought the yarn I'd do the knitting (she's not a knitter).  The yarn was really nasty to work with but I managed it in the end!


The second one was because she admired my Hockey scarf and was very impressed with the publication of my pattern, so I decided to reward her good taste by making her one for Christmas (lol)!  I made some modifications to the published pattern as detailed here on my Ravelry project page.

Friday 13 April 2012

Here's one I made earlier

But no sticky backed plastic was involved at any stage!  This is my first pair of socks since my teens, and my first ever with proper sock yarn.  The pattern is Nasturtium and the yarn is Wollmeise 80/20 Twin in Morchren.  I made these over the course of September 2011, but never got round to posting them.

Thursday 12 April 2012

Sad times

Because for some reason that I can't work out, I've completely lost my knitting mojo.  I finished a shawl on 3 Feb, cast on another one on the 8th, and a glove on the 19th.  In total on those two projects, I've probably managed no more than 50 rows.  I can't think what's wrong with me, normally I can't wait to get home from work and pick up my knitting, and the only thing that stops me from working on a project is the sudden, impossible to ignore need to cast on a new one.

At the moment, when I get home (and finish the chores, obviously!) I sit down and play on my iPad or watch telly, and I can't be bothered to pick up the knitting that is RIGHT BESIDE ME!  It's not like I even have to walk across the room to fetch it or anything like that, it's right there and I still won't touch it.  I haven't knitted a stitch in over a month.  And even though it feels wrong and I miss it, I don't have the urge to actually knit, and not even the thought of starting something new perks me up.

What on earth am I going to do?

Well, while I'm not producing anything new, I think I'll try and catch up a bit here by posting some projects "I made earlier" but never got round to posting.  Hopefully that will help make me want to make more!

After that, maybe I need to go and play with yarn and patterns for a bit and try and find some inspiration that way, and just start something new - perhaps a fresh start is what I need, and if I pick something relatively quick and actually finish it, then maybe I'll be able to go back to my WIPs in a better frame of mind.

Fingers crossed!