Victorian shawl

The shawl is finished and blocked and in regular use of an evening while I knit. I was really surprised at just how much it opened out after washing and blocking, but it certainly shows the lace now, and came out at almost the exact size on the pattern - which makes a distinct change for me even when I do hit gauge!

Victorian aran Weight Shawl Jaeger Matchmaker Aran modelled by DD

The socks are coming along, I`m just about to turn the heel - I can`t say I`m enjoying making them, the only thing that keeps me going is when I try them on they feel so nice.

Last night I decided to do a little bit of sewing, as I could do with a small needle case to keep in one of my knitting bags, just so I can have a needle and a couple of safety pins holding stitch markers to hand, I got fabric ready and settled down to stich but then discovered I had a little bit of a problem ....

It`s all Kelleys fault

I really, really want to like knitting socks! A couple of years ago a made a pair on dpns, then a (still) lone sock followed, but it wasn`t fun. A few months back I made DD a pair, two at a time on two circs, and that was better, but I still wasn`t hooked, so the other day when I was listening to some `back issues` of the Knit Picks Podcast and Kelley Petkun was talking about knitting two socks on one long circ using the magic loop, I thought I`d give that a try. So off I went and found a brilliant tutorial by Cometosilver , and a l-o-n-g circ from Knit n Caboodle .

The very next day postie knocked on the door with this....

Well you can`t just buy a cirular needle on it`s own now can you? especially when the sock yarn is reduced to £3.95 a ball.
DD was quite amused that I became excited when I saw it was in a Purple posting bag, wrapped in lilac tissue, with a free cable needle. Luckily I had just finished the Aran shawl (which is blocking as I write) so I was able to cast on straight away.
The Hiya Hiya needles are quite nice to use, the joins are good and the cable very flexible, if a little curly, and so far I`m enjoying it - though with 32st to 4" and size 8 feet (!) to knit for, they won`t be the quickest socks in history, but I just love the colours - perfect for brightening up a dull january day.

Happy New Year

Where on earth did 2007 go? Even Christmas seems a dim and distant memory fortunately. (yes I know it could have been much much worse, in truth it was only mildly irritating, and I have just a slightly sore tongue from constantly biting it to prevent me expressing how I felt to certain relatives regarding their and their offsprings behaviour- but hey isn`t that families all over)

Regarding New Years resolutions, how did I do... well I intended to knit 10 things for charity and.....

I actually ended up with more than 10, which makes up for the fact that I failed dismally on resolution no.2 - to get fitter - ah well, gives me something to carry over to 2008!


Christmas pressy wise, I received Folk Shawls by Cheryl Oberle, and my only problem is ... What do I knit first - there is very little in there that I don`t like
I also had a gorgeous skein of Lane Borgosesia Cashsoft Lace yarn in Nutmeg - it is soooooo soft and squishy, but oh my, talk about fine, I`ve always wanted to try lace weight but, it`s scarily fine. (Yes, yes, I know you are all laughing at me, but you are reading the blog of the person who usually uses dk acrylic!) Despite having the Folk Shawls book, this is most likely going to become Pomegranate from the autumn Yarn Forward magazine, which I love, and because there isn`t really anything in the book that uses just one skein of lace weight!
DH nearly bought me a knitting book - he went off to the shop all by himself and came back with the perfect book for me, 200 Knitted Blocks, then he looked at my bookshelf and in fact found it was so perfect, it`s one of the very few I had bought myself!
So he took it back and bought this CD instead and I can now be found dancing round the kitchen and bopping along while I do the ironing.