Birlinn Blanket again

I finished it! I have about 5 WIPs at the moment and I'm not keen on multiple WIPs (I always say that!). Being a slow knitter I find they play on my mind and sort of slow me down, I find it difficult to focus if I've got 3 out at the same time. I've stashed the others away and made a plan to work on two at a time, although that plan was because of the Hygge CAL and really I'd prefer one at a time!

The Hygge CAL is nearly done now, I'm on week 13, nearly ready to block the shawl and then next week will give the lining instructions. So that will be another finished object and will reduce the WIPs further.

Next to finish will be my Kildalton cardigan, another Kate Davies pattern which I've shortened the body of so it sits at my waist. I'm planning on knitting cropped sleeves too. This one hasn't been hugely enjoyable to knit because I think I hate knitting cables! It's a beautiful design but it's been slow-going and fiddly for me. My brain doesn't seem to find cables easy (and these are simple ones), it's slow-going with me having to double and triple-check each set of cables. The yarn I'm knitting it in is gorgeous, a Blacker Yarns natural coloured Elegance DK held doubled with some Hedgehog Fibres speckled laceweight. Derading picking it up again but very much looking forward to wearing the finished cardigan!

Birlinn Blanket

The final pattern from the wonderful Inspired by Islay collection/club by Kate Davies was the Birlinn Blanket, a gorgeous modular blanket which Kate knit up in rainbow shades. Despite having many other projects on the go (including two from Inspired by Islay) I cast it on almost immediately. It is the most fun project to knit, each little square is both logical and enjoyable knitting. I hadn't any Buachaille in my stash but I keep a rolling sort of stash of Shetland Spindrift by Jamieson's so I was able to put together a selection of colours. Many of the colours in this blanket were originally purchased so I could knit Marie Wallin's Sage Tunic. I had to scrap that idea due to the charts, I find Marie's charts quite difficult to work from. It's great to have Spindrift in my stash though for any random cast-ons.

The pattern fits logically if spread over 4 dpns although many people are using two circulars to knit each square. I find circulars a bit whippy and annoying so I'll stick with the dpns.

I kept finding a little bowl of water leftover from the boys' bathtime, useful for soaking each square (when I was knocking out one a day!).

First 12 squares joined together. I'm very pleased with the fabric, it's light and warm and woolly. The Spindrift colours are just perfect, I'm a huge fan of Spindrift and really enjoy getting my shadecard out to plan new projects.

My joins are wonky but I'm not much of a perfectionist with my knitting so it's not a problem (although I know eagle-eyed fellow knitters will spot that issue). I loved joining the squares, I'd imagine it wouldn't be so pleasant if you weren't keen on picking up stitches. I never used to enjoy picking up stitches because I had never learnt how to do it correctly. I used to literally pick up loops of the already knit fabric in a haphazard sort of fashion. A couple of years ago I read something about picking up stitches on Kate Davies's blog and looked up how to do it correctly, it was a bit of a revelation and I enjoy picking up stitches now!

That colourwork cardigan

I always remember starting this cardigan with a slight mental grimace! It was Easter Sunday in 2015 and I was sitting in the lounge with the boys and Rich after a long solitary walk to the Butter Cross (a local possibly ancient site). I had walked alone as I was trying to lose a little weight and was doing a fast-paced 10,000 steps a day... I had my phone out and was on Instagram when a beautiful cardigan appeared in my feed. It was from Susan Crawford's knitting blog and she had seen it in an exhibition - the bog post is here - well, what a cardigan! I had the urge to go to my Jamieson's Spindrift breadbin and choose colours. I had everything in stock. Now what pattern to follow, what stitch counts?

I chose Ursula of course, it's colourwork, same sort of yarn weight and naturally, I'd start with a sleeve to be sure of my gauge (which doesn't seem to change much when I'm knitting with the Spindrift). Tubular cast on and I was off! Later that night I woke with a burning pain in my stomach, went downstairs to make a hot water bottle and then ended up being sick. The next day was truly awful, I hate sickness bugs! The whole family got it and so the cardigan always reminds me of the Easter vomiting bug.

It's Ravelled here, all the info you might need/want to know. It remains my most worn cardigan and it makes me smile every time I see it.

Fruity Knitting

I was recently asked if I would like to be on the Fruity Knitting podcast as one of their Knitters of the World. I had a think and then I decided to try as I really enjoy that segment of the podcast.

Filming my little part was so difficult, I'm not very good at that type of thing and have no idea how Andrea and Andrew do it. If you go back to the first episode Andrea is pretty perfect in that one too so perhaps it's something she has naturally (if that makes sens?). I forget what I'm saying halfway through a sentence and will gesticulate wildly at Rich (my partner) as if he will somehow manage to figure out what word I'm looking for.
My first run-through in front of the camera consisted of about half an hour of wasted attempts which were all deleted! I then got a good run but watched it back and realised that I was out of focus for the entire thing. The next run was in focus but once uploaded to the computer I saw that the footage was very grainy (my camera is over 10 years old). Scrap that!
Next I enlisted the help of Rich who set up the Go-Pro and then left me to it. I was fine until I picked up my colourwork cardigan (which I never blogged about but I will do after I post this!). As I was explaining the origins of said cardigan I suddenly froze up and couldn't think of a word to say. I just held the cardigan up silently for about 20 seconds before I frustratedly switched off the camera. I was a little flustered after that but got back into the flow and finished the video.

Andrea did a beautiful job editing my footage, I was so nervous to watch it and absolutely delighted with what she had done with it.
Fruity Knitting is quite a special podcast, it's very high quality, fun and informative and filled with genuinely interesting guests. Also, Andrea's knitting is extremely good, she makes things like intarsia look do-able and she's happy to share when things don't work out and show us her solutions.

I''ve had a rubbish couple of weeks with RSI in my right wrist. A combination of factors including two large-scale commissioned paintings, so it's not just knitting which is to blame.
Oliver is now at that delightful age (3) where tantrums seem to happen at the drop of a hat, and he's so heavy to lug away from a situation - he also does the 'go limp' thing which doesn't help. I remember James's tantrums, they were very different, same age, same pushing the boundaries, same noise level.. James just had different techniques! Ol will hit and bite... I'm hoping the worst of this will have passed by the time he starts nursery in September and the 'we do NOT bite/hit message will have well and truly sunk in!'.

I currently have 5 WIPs (and a dress that has been cut in half and needs ribbing to turn it into a cardigan/skirt), so 7 WIPs if I count the dress re-jig. This is about 4 too many for my liking! They're getting me down a little and I had planned on spending March finishing things but then the wrist pain hit and I knew I had to give it a rest. It's not been all bad news though, I hunted out some of my old jigsaws and have been enjoying working on those with James (who seems to have inherited my love of jigsaws to my mum's delight!).

Mittens and cables

I bought a copy of Find Your Fade and I cast it on and then I began to have doubts... Basically, I have several shawls now, several gorgeous ones, all different sizes, I really do feel all set in the shawl department. I use my Moder dy shawl all the time, it's definitely my favourite.
For me the Find Your Fade comes out far too big and not quite my favourite shawl shape, and with my brain feeling slightly foggy I just couldn't figure out how to make it smaller (I know... Fewer rows or something!).
Anyway, I ripped back what I had knit and look forward to seeing all the lovely FOs appear on Instagram and Ravelry!

I did make a pair of mittens though, and a dress (which I can share on the 31st - it's a test knit).

Yarn pairing for an imminent cast on of Kate Davies' new design, Kildalton (a gorgeous cabled cardigan). I ended up choosing Hedgehog Fibres Merino Lace in the colourway 'Echo' (past club) held doubled with Blacker Yarns Elegance (in the centre of the above picture).

I've been working on the ribbing above for a week or so, it has taken ages to knit! It's all twisted ribbing and the cardigan is meant to be worn with positive ease, so that meant more stitches. I finished the ribbing yesterday and got on with the main block of knitting and I'm pleased to say that progress has sped up! It's looking lovely and will be such a gorgeous cardigan to wear. I think I mentioned it in a previous post, it's Leitzel by Alison Green and was published in Twist Collective's Autumn collection, 2015.

A Finished Object and lots of plans.

Been enjoying doing lots of painting and having all the lovely Christmas decorations out, the little smoking man in particular!

I finished my Juveler cardigan! I'm really pleased with it, it's an open-fronted cardi, reminds me of a bolero or shrug, something to pop on over dresses in the Summer or if you're a bit chilly.
It was really quick to knit and took less than 5 balls of Noro Silk Garden (on 5mm needles). I knit the medium but could easily have made the large and been comfortable, I didn't do any sleeve decreases till I was past my elbow as I worried my sleeves would end up too tight.

I'm currently working on a testknit for a knitter whose work I love. It's going ok, I was really worried it wasn't going to fit how I want it to but it seems to be alright now. I'm working hard on this testknit as I'm keen to cast on a couple of cardigans... The first is Leitzel by Alison Green (pattern from Twist Collective, Fall 2015).

I fell in love with this one afternoon while I was idly trawling Ravelry... I then spent a fun evening looking at yarn and chose Jamieson's Shetland Heather in the end, and after much debate over colour I went for Mist.

Mist! It's a subtle lilac/grey/blue with pink flecks - I LOVE it. I was saying to Rich that I wanted to get back to buying yarn for a project, then knitting it up fairly quickly (he raised an eyebrow when yarn arrived the other day!).

Another pattern I decided I want to cast on soon is a pretty colourwork cardigan. I was watching The Box of Delights with Rich (a family tradition, every Christmas!) and Miss Maria was wearing a corgeous colourwork cardigan, it had moss green, dark blue and red... BBC production so I'd not be surprised if the cardi lives in their wardrobe department and has made an appearance in other 1930s/40s period programmes. I've had a bit of a google and I can't find any images so I'll snap one on my phone this evening when we watch episode 5. Here is the cardigan I chose last night...

I like the fit on this one, also the fact that the sleeves are knit separately and seamed, I'm not keen on steeked sleeves. I think that I'll not make the shoulders quite so wide, I'll make it more like my colourwork cardi (below). Most of the versions on Ravelry have fairly big shoulders (true to the pattern and the style of the time), there are some fab versions on there - here if you're a Raveller.

By the way, I bought the pattern from this lovely lady - the Vintage Knitting Lady - she has so many gorgeous patterns to choose from, her site is a real treasure trove!

The other pattern I've been resisting (because it is massive) is Find your Fade by Andrea Mowry. Definitely a good pattern for subscribers to yarn clubs! There's a lot of knitting in it though, I think about 1400 metres which is nearly the amount I used for my colourwork cardigan above. A month's solid knitting for me as I'm slow, also, I have 3 shawls and don't wear them as much as I wear all my cardigans. Sorry, this is me telling myself that I don't need to cast on Find Your Fade (although I have enough pre-wound Life in the Long Grass yarn)...

It's so pretty though!!!! Let's see how I do over the Christmas period, like I've said before, I really don't do so well with multilpe WIPs...

Updates

I've been in a right knitting funk since finishing my blanket. Casting things on, feeling overwhelmed by longstanding WIPs, not really wanting to work on anything... I was also owed money by a gallery and beginning to panic that they were never going to pay up, so I went through my stash and spent a couple of days putting it all on ebay. I say all, I've still got enough to last me a year at least!

I promised my mum that I'd knit a pair of socks for her friend as a Christmas present. I gave mum the first pair of socks I knit last year (made them too small) and she loves them. She asked if I wouldn't mind whipping up a pair for Sue as Sue's made lots of lovely things for me over the years (she's an incredible seamstress). I did not enjoy knitting these socks, in fact I hated knitting them! The yarn was lovely and the pattern was nice but it's just the small rounds, fiddly dpns (and I dislike magic-loop even more so that wasn't an option). I had to knuckle down and get them done!

 The yarn was a past club colour from Life in the Long Grass called Garden Fall, I think from the Autumn club last year. The colours in the skein were soothing as I worked on the socks, they really did reflect the colours outside as the leaves fell.

Speaking of yarn, back to my massive de-stash on ebay! I've been feeling a little overwhelmed by all the yarn I accummulated over the last couple of years (since discovering indie dyers). Indie dyers are great, but the nature of their work means you get into this odd mindset that you *must buy* when they do updates because they might not dye up a particular colour again for a while, or dye it up quite the same sort of tone in the next batch (or never dye it up again!!). Then you have their yarn clubs, which are great but again, you end up accummulating yarn very rapidly with no concrete plans for what to knit with it. I kept opening my stash boxes and staring at all the yarn and trying to make plans to use it up. It just wasn't working for me...

The good thing about dyers like Hedgehog Fibres is that you can generally re-sell the yarn at a good price via their group's ISO/de-stash board, the same goes for stuff like Bohus leftovers, although I ended up dealing with a bit of a Wally over my Bohus yarn scraps. And why are there so many idiots on ebay? Questions about some yarn I was selling included 'why did you unravel it?' - fair enough that one, a bit nosey, but it could have been because the yarn was horrible to work with. Then there was 'what does frogged mean?', erm, if you can use ebay then you can use GOOGLE! FOllowed by 'What were you knitting?', none of your business!!!!! I got quite wound up by that person and didn't reply because the tone of the messages was fairly rude in tone, I'd rather give my yarn away than sell it to rude people. Incidentally, that particular skein didn't sell so I gave it to the charity shop the very next day! 

All that yarn selling and I bought this! I've wanted some if this colourway for ages (lace club colour - Husk), so I jumped at the chance to get a double-skein. Then I left the Hedgehog Fibres Rav group, the ISO/Destash thread is just too much of a temptation for me. 

I've spotted the hashtag #wipdowntogether on Instagram over the last month, a lovely idea (knitters often seem to cast on many things!). I was planning to finish all my WIPs and then I made the snap decision to rip them all. Funnily enough this was at the same time as my massive ebay destash. All the ripped yarn was listed, all of it sold too! I spent some of the funds on some Shetland Heather for my next project, a gorgeous cardigan from Twist Collective's Autumn 2015 collection. I'll link to it later, I'm typing this post on my phone!

I'm currently working on a lovely test knit, I'm pretty sure that my gauge had changed since I started knitting though (and yes, I did swatch!). It'll work as written (I tried it on last night), just not as I had originally planned to knit it. 

Colourwork Blanket

Last year I had a long night in hospital after a painful minor operation. It was fairly grim and I spent a lot of my night lying awake staring at the celing tiles and thinking about Marie Wallin's Fair Isle Club. With Marie's club you get a pattern a month to knit a square of a stunning blanket, it runs over 12 months and I was lying there trying to think of ways to justify the price of the patterns to myself (around £120 I think, this year's is cheaper but still out of my price range). I kept returning to the conclusion that although it looked as though it would be fantastic to make, I couldn't do it. I ended up buying her other gorgeous pattern, Sage Throw, which I will make at some point (Sage Throw isn't on Ravelry).

Anyway! I'm a massive Kate Davies fan and had the happy thought (while I stared at those celing tiles), that I could make a Kate Davies colourwork blanket! Yes! I was very excited, it really helped as I tried to get myself to go off to sleep, I played a game trying to remember how many colourwork designs Kate had on her pattern page on Ravelry.

As always, I had a backlog of WIPs and I made myself clear as many as possible before I finally cast on the blanket. Had a fun few months of working on it and then took a break at 6 and a half squares. I decided to try and finish it during this year's run of the Great British Bake Off. I like a challenge, just to help keep me focussed when I become distracted by other new projects! I managed to stick to it and got it finished a few days after the final episode was shown.

It's really difficult to get a photo of the entire blanket in one piece - I'll try changing to the wide lens on my camera and will add more photos tomorrow.

The response to this blanket from Ravellers has been absolutely amazing, everyone has been so lovely!