Monday Morning...

lets start with appologies....

sorry I haven't bloged for a while but I haven't really had anything to show and I'm not one of these people able to create interesting discussions on a topic....

sorry to fleegle as it's a photo-less post again!!!!

Just because I haven't been blogging doesn't mean I haven't been knitting I promise.....

I have completed the 1st sock of the Kaffee Fassett Landscape Caribbean pair, I couldn't believe I'd knit the foot so quickly but when you mainly do size 9+ socks doing a size 4 is finished before you know.... I actually rather like the colour combinations although if I was being picky I'd not have bothered putting in the greens and browns, but hey I don't have KF's colour ability or experience so who am I to complain.....

I have also started an Autumnal pair in Trekking 171; this appears to be a random blend of autumnal colours I'm praying to god that it doesn't have any semblence of a pattern or I shall have to try and match it and as the 1st two pairs of socks for my friend have been fraught with problems I could do with a nice easy knit otherwise I'm going to become paranoid about knitting socks for this particular friend!!!!

I have finished the "lacey birthday" present, it has been knit, dyed & blocked (it was finished on Friday and dyed & blocked Saturday) but the recipient's birthday isn't until Thursday and I don't think she'll be getting the present until Saturday and as she reads my blog, you know the rest....

I have almost finished the edging on the VLT stole too ***gasp***, just a 1/4 of one long side and a short edge to go, but I have run out of yarn so I ordered a couple of 25m skeins yesterday so hopefully despatched today and should have it by the end of the week so you never know by this time next week, the VLT stole could all be over!!!!

Today I plan to cast on (it's my day off) a baby bolero cardigan in 4ply for my goddaughter as part of her Christmas present and to cast on for the Bee stole for my SIL's Christmas present, watch this space to see if she get's it for Christmas or next October for her birthday although I am quite looking forward to doing it as the "lacey surprise" and the VLT edging have been a bit tedious and what with doing a 3rd Swallowtail previously I think I'm in need of something different and a little challenging.....

Bumbling along....

sorry about the tacky title of the post but I couldn't resist...


The Bee socks are finally complete *said with a sigh of relief* they have been a nightmare. I've never had as much trouble matching the pattern up on a pair of socks as I did with these, it's a miracle they match at all...

But when you see a photo like this:

you pull the yarn until you see the change of colour cast on and away you knit......

The clue really should have been I didn't seem to be getting big blocks of colour more stripes of colour interspersed with little narrow stripes.... very nice I quite like it and prefer it to the photo advertising it....

The problem is those stripes of colour in my photo aren't made up of a long colour run with a short colour run in-between, so what looks like 3 bands of honey coloured yarn actually is made up of 11 shorter runs of colour with an inch or two of contrast :o( and you've guessed it I actually started the sock somewhere in one of these colour runs rather than right at the beginning of the colour sequence.....

When it came to the 2nd sock I thought I'd got the right place to start, but I had cut the yarn off far too soon, so I had to pull it back and cut a bit more yarn off... it looks like it matches but the cuff is about 2 rows shorter on the 2nd sock than the 1st but the nature of the pattern doesn't make it too noticeable, I hope!

I got to the end of the leg and had made a note were to start the heel shaping at the end of the 2nd white stripe... yeh right! which bit of white is the end of the 2nd stripe.... well I guessed and got halfway through the heel and realised I'd knit the leg too far, so the stripes on the 2nd foot wouldn't have matched the 1st sock, so I pulled it back and re-did the heel... 2nd time lucky as they say.....

By the time I got to the toe shaping I was getting a bit better at this, that and I had resigned myself to the fact I would probably be pulling it back to make it match the 1st sock.... but sigh of relief I did it first time....

So a note to anyone out there who is about to knit this pattern and would like matching socks; pull the yarn off to the start of either the honey, white, milk chocolate or dark chocolate long sequences (ignore the little runs of colour in between those colour sequences) before casting on, it will make your life a lot easier.

I thought messing with the Hundertwasser sock was a problem because of the mis-printed yarn, but it had nothing on this.... what will the next pair of socks bring I wonder???

A Quick update...

I thought seeing since it was over a week since I blogged I'd just give you a quick update....

Both socks in the previous post are now complete and the cuffs completed on their respective partners... I've had a hell of a job matching the second sock for the bee sock, not quite as straight forward as it looks and an error of judgement on Wednesday evening saw me cursing on Thursday morning, but more when I finish the socks......

The 2nd KF Mirage storm will hopefully progress up to the heel today. I have to say I'm not overly impressed with the 'mirage' series I much prefer the look of the 'landscape' series..... I'm not bored knitting them as usually I've got other people round me talking & chattering but I wouldn't like to do a 2nd pair..... I like the colours not the pattern....

On the Lace knitting front I am over halfway down the 1st long edge of the VLT shawl and doing 5 repeats a day which equates to about an hour is manageable and I have more or less memorised the 12 row pattern now. I'm sure as I get closer to the finish line I will do more repeats a day!!!!

The Swallowtail is now into the 2nd Lily of the Valley border so just another 8 rows before reaching the edging..... I calculated that the first 12 row border used 4/5g of yarn leaving me with 18g to complete the shawl. I know the shawl is still increasing but even if the 2nd border uses 6/7g of yarn I still have 11g left to do the edging (which doesn't increase on the last 6 rows) and the cast off, I'm sure I have enough yarn, don't I?

At least I know my maths caluculations were right that if you want the maths to fit with this pattern you need to -/+ 5 repeats of the budding lace pattern to make the stitches work without fudging for the following border patterns... I might even do a smaller Swallowtail (9 budding lace repeats) at some point so it's like a triangular neck scarf.... might be quite useful for using up the odd 20g of yarn leftover from other projects....

Progress...

of sorts...... as you've seen both pairs of socks are complete and I've started another two pairs.... one is the Kaffee Fassett Mirage in "Storm" and the other pair is Rainforest 2 "Bee"

I know they're not as exciting as other peoples socks with fancy patterns and yarns, but at the end of the day there's something elegant about a smoothly knitted sock and when I haven't felt like picking up my knitting recently my trusty socks have always been there so I haven't felt completely useless....

The one thing that I love about my socks is I can just grab the bag and run out the door at a moments notice, everything is in my little Go Knit pouch to provide me with entertainment should I need it.... Whilst exchanging emails with n of the The Yarn Yard this morning I realised just how travelled my socks are..... the Bee pair so far this week went to the hairdressers on Monday, MIL's on Wednesday, tomorrow they will go to the Hospital and on Sunday they will be going to Harrogate and back!!!!

If you read n's blog you will see she is talking about October being Breast Cancer Awareness month and that she's asking all her friends if they've checked their breasts and she asked who would we be asking, so I'm going to publically ask you all...

Have you checked your breasts today?

Back on the Lace knitting front here as promised is a photo of the current Swallowtail which if I stick to the pattern is at the end of the budding lace chart, but as I've not yet used a full 25g ball I'm going to risk doing 5 more pattern repeats to make a bigger shawl, that and I won't get it finished for tomorrow so it can be my Godmother's christmas present.... that's the only nice thing about people who have birthdays near Christmas, you can 'shuffle' their presents around should they not be finished in time for the first ocassion ;o) !!!!!

Just to prove I've actually started on the border of the VLT shawl, I will be happier when I've got a few more repeats done, then it might not feel so flimsy and awkward to work with.... I haven't managed to do 5 repeats a day as you can see, but I will try to stick to it in the future....