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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.