WIP and FO Round-Up

It's been one of those weeks where I seem to have been busy, but with nothing to show at the end of it - I'm sure you all know what I mean.  I often feel this when I've had a week where I've had to do more shopping than usual.  Living in the smallest town in England means that if I want more than just the basics, I have to travel to another town - usually Colchester or Harwich/Dovercourt.  Hubby asked me the other day if I'd drop off his suit at the dry cleaner.  Fine.  Not a problem.  Except the dry cleaner we use is in Dovercourt, which is 11 miles away.  By the time I've driven there, parked, gone to the dry cleaner and then back to the car, at least an hour has passed, usually longer as I try to fit in other things to make the journey worthwhile (there's a Lidl in Harwich - mmm Christmas Gingerbread etc).  Such is life, but I don't mind as it's a nice place to live.

On the crafting front, I didn't think I'd made much progress with anything, but having taken some photos this morning, I've proved myself wrong.

First off, with the Volna scarf, I've progressed a bit.  I'm find this a time-consuming scarf to knit.  The pattern needs attention and the yarn's a bit slippery, but the end result will be worth it, and that's the main thing.


Three full repeats to date and I'm hoping to get 8 or 9 repeats in total. 


I also cast on for the James C Brett Marble Chunky sweaters, using Elizabeth Zimmermann's 'percentage' recipe from "Knitting Without Tears".  At a tension/gauge of 15sts per 4", I've cast on 150 stitches for the body, which will give me a sweater of 40".  So far, I've done 30-odd rounds and it's easy TV knitting although I have to take care to keep an eye as it's easy to split this plied yarn.

A closer-up pic of the way the yarn's striping and marbling (I'm rather pleased with the effect):

 

I've also been doing some spinning and here are some FOs (I'm calling them FOs because it takes me less time to knit a pair of socks than it does to spin 100g of fibre into something resembling yarn).  Hubby bought me an Ashford Traveller (which I named Betty) for Christmas last year and I've slowly been learning how to spin with it.  I'm a very slow spinner and there are days when I end up despairing that I'll ever get the hang of it, especially if I get distracted and break the strand so I have to attach a new bit of 'fluff'.  However, a couple of weeks ago I finished Navajo plying some pretty peach fibre that I got from my friend Lucy (Bearium on Ravelry).  It's 102g and made (from memory as my notebook's upstairs and I've been up and down the stairs all morning) approx 200 metres, which I think makes it a worsted weight.  Not sure what I'll make from it - maybe a feather & fan neckwarmer/cowl.

I also finished spinning some merino/silk mix which I bought months ago from The Alpaca Spinner, plied it earlier this week and it's now been soaked this morning and is hanging up to dry.  It's the Peppercorn shade and I'm very pleased with how it's turned out.  This is more of a light DK weight.  Just under 250m and about 94g (I don't think I weighed the two halves of the fibre correctly, so there's still some on one of the bobbins).  I two-plied this.

Do you like my Niddy-Noddy?  I made it from some waste pipe and t-connectors I got in B&Q.  Cost me a few £ and about half-an-hour of my time (I didn't even try to find the hacksaw from the garage - I use the bread knife!).

So, nothing exciting really, but I want to keep the momentum going and make a post once a week or so otherwise I'll never get round to it.


Ooh - nearly forgot.  I ordered and received in the post yesterday a copy of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's "Free-Range Knitter" and started reading it yesterday evening.  Enjoying it very much so far - I enjoy reading Stephanie's blog and the book's written in the same friendly, chatty style.