Monday 21 June 2010

I am a bad blogger

I started this blog with the intention of contributing to it regularly. I shouldn't have made that commitment in my mind as I always seem to rebel against such things. No idea why - I just do. It's like setting myself knitting deadlines of the x rows per day on y project variety so I get things done. It just doesn't happen - I think I resent the formalising of my knitting in such a way.

Anyhow - it's been months and months and months since I last updated this. On my birthday, in fact. So, what have I been up to knitting-wise?

Well, quite a lot really, but some things are still hanging around from last year.

Such as, the Burridge Lake Aran Afghan. I finally finished the first panel last week and cast on for the second one. I had a look around Ravelry at some of the other versions of this lovely pattern to have a look at the middle section cables in more detail, if there were any closer-up shots than on the pattern site. I noticed that one Ravelry member had written a chart for the this section, so I though 'woohoo' and had a look. I then saw that this chart was an amended chart to the one that the designer had added to the pattern page, so I went and had a look. That's when it all started to go a bit pear-shaped. I spent almost the entire morning trying to fathom out why the chart didn't seem to work compared to the one I'd written out for myself when I first started knitting this (I used the new chart for the first couple of rows before something didn't seem to be Quite Right). I think I worked out that the new charted pattern is reversed from the written instructions (which had an error in them that wasn't difficult to spot if you're familiar with the way cables work). Unfortunately, it wasn't until I got up to about row 19 that I realised that it wasn't Quite Right. Anyway, I went back to my own chart, changed one thing and am hoping that the mistake in the first row won't be noticeable once the border's on (the cables cross the wrong way on the outside sections). Anyway, I've now done 2 x 24-row repeats on this with another 14 to go for this section!

Other things on the needles at the moment are:

- Child's Surprise Jacket. I'm making this in Sirdar Bonus DK in royal blue as it's intended to be for DD1 as a school cardigan and royal blue is her school's colour. Hit a glitch as I ran out of yarn so had to buy a new ball for the sleeves and it's a different dye lot, so there's a slight variation in colour. DD1 says she doesn't mind as a. no-one else will probably notice and b. it's only for school anyway!

- Tempest cardigan. This is a funny one - well, for me anyway. It's 4-ply/fingering yarn knitted up at a DK tension (20sts/4" once blocked), so the fabric's very drapey and it's a bit outside my comfort zone. I'm using two colourways of Unicorn yarn from the Natural Dye Studio. One colour is semi-solid light green and the other is pink/mauve/light green. The pattern's striped and with the colours I'm using, the striping is subtle due to the light green in the pink/mauve colourway blending in with the other colour. I quite like it though and the more I do of this, the more I like it. The yarn's beautiful (70% baby llama, 20% cashmere, 10% silk). I've finished the back and have started on one of the fronts. As the fronts are (obviously) knitted on fewer stitches - 50 for the size I'm making - the yarn's pooling. On the first pink/mauve/green stripe, it pooled at the side where the button band will be, so for the second stripe with this skein, I've joined the yarn at a place where it will pool on the opposite side, to balance the pooling. Just got the remember to make sure I do the same with the other front now!

- Crocheted Granny Square blanket. Using a mix of Patons Diploma DK and Wendy Mode DK. I'm aiming for a block effect, a bit like a patchwork quilt and have done four blocks so far. Not sure at the moment how big I'm going to make it. I'll see how heavy it gets.

That's it. Four projects - just four. Although...... I've got some 4-ply 100% silk which was going to be an Ishbel, but got frogged as it just wasn't working out. It's a tricky yarn as it's quite splitty (tried crocheting with it but very quickly realised that was not one of my best ideas) and it's quite a thin 4-ply. It's something like 700 metres per 100g skein (I've got just the one) so I'm now thinking Clapotis. Doesn't need proper blocking (I gather that silk doesn't have much memory) and the amount of yarn I've got should make a decent-sized scarf.

Will try not to leave it so long next time. Will also try to find my camera (I think I know where it is) and my camera charger (no idea on the location for that) and fathom uploading pictures!

Byeeee

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