Stupid plan, really

I thought I was being clever. If I avoided all the front pages of Pinterest, and concentrated on sorting all my stuff out, I'd be set. Less mindless browsing, more free time to knit, right?

Idiot. Moron. Cretan.

I need to make so many more things!

 I need a Princess Leia beanie!

I have twenty balls of royal blue wool. I need a TARDIS cardigan - a TARDIgan!

Felix needs these Iron Man glovsies!

I need to crochet Dot a massive crochet blanket for her bed - granny ripple, maybe?

Breathe, you eejit.

Breathe.

...

Right now I think I need less coffee and much less Pinterest. More books on tape and to cast on the sleeves for Marcus' green jumper.




* It is a pretty cool Tardigan, though.

Free to a good home

Actually, I'll pay you to take my children. My knitting night at my place was somewhat disturbed by two enfants, truly terrible.

No, they're not that bad, but their refusal to go to bed until 9:50 and 10:40 respectively was somewhat trying. It also meant I managed sweet Fanny Adams on my BFF cowl. I did manage to hand over the 221B beanie to Jon, and Chantal and I spent too long trying to pick out jewellery from the Gatsby collection at Tiffany & Co. Who needs a house when they can have a tiara?

So today is back to slogging it out on Marcus' green jumper. I need sixty rows of stocking stitch until the sleeves start, then it'll be fifty rows of too many stitches. That takes up a LOT of knitting time. I can feel my right hand starting to cramp at the thought. If I get desperate I can always pat Lolli, though.

High functioning sociopath

Being a huge fan of the BBC series "Sherlock" I fell a bit hard for the 221B beanie on Knitty. The wallpaper from the lounge room, complete with smiley face (minus the bullet holes)? Gimme.

I've been a Sherlock Holmes fan ever since I was in primary school. My parents let me stay up and watch the Jeremy Brett series, and they took me along to the "Holmes Away From Home" exhibition in 1986. Eventually I made it to Baker Street and met up with staff at the museum who were even more fanatical than I am, and I own The Good Old Index!

When I heard about the new series I was giddy with joy. Steven Moffat writing? It'll be brilliant, I thought. Not even close to describing how much fun this show is. One of the best moments is near the end, where the mystery of the moving bullet is finally explained, which is also the first thing my friend Jon mentioned when he called me up during the closing credits. We were cacking ourselves and talking over the top of each other: "Oh, and what about that bit when-" "Oh that was brilliant! Did you get that bit-" "I know! But that's from-" "Well, yeah, but what about-" "Yes! That was amazing!".

(If you think this is bad, you should see us when a new Pratchett comes out. We communicate solely in sign language and squeaks of joy.)

So I made my beautiful beanie and I embroidered on my smiley face yesterday. If you cut a perfect circle out of label paper and use it as a guide, it helps a lot. As I mentioned before, the beanie is too long for my freakishly huge head so I'm passing it along to Jon, whose head is even freakisher.

Enjoy it Jon. I'm looking forward to our conversation after episode one of season three. In the meantime, no Reichenbach theory is too crazy to be contemplated.

Unlucky numbers

13.  I have thirteen unfinished projects floating around, mostly in a hidden corner of my lounge room.

Holy heckmonkeys, I don't think I've ever been this bad. So what do we say to the Knitting God of Death? Not today. Knitting triage time!

I had a check of how much I had left to do on each project, what needs to be purchased (for some of them) and made a spreadsheet to sort it all out. Nothing like messing around in Excel to make you feel like you're really accomplishing something.

1. Sherlock beanie (221b): I only started this ten days ago and it's done, except I need to embroider on my smiley face. It's a bit big for my head too. I may need to make another one in 10ply instead of 12. If only I knew who to give the first one to... Status: 95%

2. Radiant: I may or may not have stuffed up the sewing up of this jumper. It's now a Mobious jumper, so I need to open up the seam again and untwist and resew. It's cotton. This is going to be a nightmare. Status: 95%

3. Doorstop: I need a brick and an hour to sew this up. I'm currently lacking a brick. Status: 95%

4. Jade's purple gloves: a project for someone else that needs some tweaking, followed by a three needle cast off. I need about an hour to nut the mistake out and finish it up. Status: 90%

5. Cat draught stopper: the back of this project has to be made up with a zip, and I need to make up a cushion center but I have some lovely rocks to stuff down the bottom to give it enough weight to both stop the wind pushing it over and Dorothy dragging it around (I'll need the full 20kg bag of rocks to stop the latter). Status: 80%

6. Duck tapestry: I needed some blue for the sky. I have blue for the sky now. Should take about two or three hours to finish off. Status: 70%

7. Doctor Who mittens: I'm about a third of the way through the second mitten. The problem is that it's fair isle. I ADORE fair isle, but you can't watch anything but the knitting, and I can't even listen to my books because I'm counting numbers. I'll have to fire up some Cantigas and knit for a few solid hours. About five, more than likely. Status: 65%

8. Marcus' green jumper: This is ridiculous. I started this on Australia Day! Get knitting woman! Status: 60%

9. Marcus' orange jumper: I need more wool for this, so until it comes in I can't do a thing. Status: 60%

10. Marcus' blanket: Only just past halfway, this will need about another 100 hours. I plan to finish it before August. Maybe. Status: 95%

11. Egeblad doily: I found it! Now I need to actually work on it! Another Cantigas knit, or maybe some Enya? Status: 50%

12. BFF cowl: I'm knitting this with Chantal, so I need to hurry it along (she's kicking my backside at the moment). Maybe as soon as I finish Marcus' green jumper, so I can use the 4.5mm needles? Status: 20%

13. Marcus' new jacket: Oops. I started a new project on Sunday. Morris is having a 20% off sale! I had to buy yarn! Status: 5%.

The plan is to finish up the easiest ones first, and my carry-around knitting will be the project that is easiest and almost finished. Green jumper it is!

I'm coping without the internet by the way. Has anyone else decided to join in?

Faffing about

I'm at a bit of a loose end here. I want to get everything finished,  but I keep starting new projects, without finishing the old ones. The curse of the modern knitter, I think.

You see,  in Ye Olde Days of knitting you made clothing to wear, and you worked on one piece at a time.  Now, we get easily distracted by whatever new project everyone else is starting on Ravelry, or something we've seen on Pinterest, and then it's all "Oooo, look shiny things!"

So until I finish at least five projects I'm banning myself from the internet, with exceptions.:

1. This blog. Dur.
2. Ravelry, but only my own projects page.
3. Pinterest, but only my likes so I can clear them out (I use my likes as a springboard to becoming pins.  I'm fussy that way.).
4. Gmail.
5. Anything to do with work.

That's it. No The Age, no Metapicture,  definitely no Facebook.

Double dare you to try it.

Well, today sucks

I hope everyone else had a lovely weekend. Mine partly sucked.

Saturday was fine. Lots of fun, work, lots of laughing, an episode of "Defience". Not a bad day. Sunday started off great fun too. We went out for breakfast to celebrate my mum's birthday last week. As a family we take up a LOT of room in a restaurant, as there was 17 of us there yesterday. We drove in for me to start my Sunday at Morris & Sons and that's where the day started sucking.

The phone call about my nan happened, and I rushed back to see her before she was gone. My nan was turning 97 in August, so she had a pretty great run. Her knowledge of the Golden Age of Hollywood and Agatha Christie were encyclopaedic, and I'll miss our chats about both. Nan was a knitter and a crocheter, and I have two amazing ponchos she hooked up in the 70's that I still get stopped in the street for questions about.

I had some knitting with me yesterday in the hospital and just sat talking to my cousins and knitting while we all waited. I ran out of yarn late in the afternoon, but found a small amount when I got home later. I was going to pick some up at work yesterday but I just bolted out of the place. Maybe during the week I can grab some. After the funeral, perhaps. I think Nan might be a bit ticked if I was knitting during the service.

I've written before about how knitting helps and yesterday was no exception. I'll be able to look at Marcus in his little orange jumper and remember it was there at my Nan's last day.

We won't be mourning her, we'll definitely be celebrating her life. She was a knitter, after all.

*Please* hold still!

On Wednesday night I sewed up Dorothy's little sea shell jumper. It took 30 minutes to set two sleeves and sew up all the seams. I really am quite lazy, aren't I?

The pattern is called Sea Shells and is from the book "Heirloom Baby Knits" by Deborah Newton. I found it at Morris and Sons one browsy afternoon and realised that it was perfect for using up the bamboo/cotton I'd frogged from Dot's little hexagon cardigan that she outgrew in a week. It's very VERY boxy, but then, so is Dot.

It was a lovely fast knit in 10ply with an easy to remember pattern. I made the 18-24 month size and there's still room to grow in it, although the sleeves look very short when Dot holds her hands up. I checked when she's just moving around and it's down to her wrists so I'll have to suck it up.

Getting her to hold still for a photo was a bit of a trial. First we had the kitchen...

...then the couch attack...

...by the time she was back standing I'd given up.

So of course Dot sat down and looked cute.

My children drive me nuts.

So wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully pretty...

As previously shown, I'd almost finished my kitschy draught stopper.

I said it would only take another two hours and so it did. You're looking at about 250 hours of cross stitching here. I knew I needed something so we didn't all catch pneumonia this year, but this was just spot on. I still need to sew it all up, but at least all the hard work is done.

Look at that face! It's just so kitsch, but who says kitsch can't be cute?

My children respect neither my craft nor my photography. I am an artiste, dammit!

A very low-fat Easter

I know that I'm biased, working for Weight Watchers as I do, but this really is a great alternative to a chocolate egg at Easter time.

Marcus and Dorothy may not have had these at Easter but I don't care. Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran makes the perfect chocolate colours, milk and dark.

The pattern is the Chocolate Easter Bunny by Doni Spiegle and it was a really quick make. The actual bunny bodies only took 5 hours for the pair of them, but I just couldn't seem to get it together in time to finish them up!

Marcus thought it really was chocolate, so he was disappointed when it wasn't, while Dot cuddled hers and then tried to eat it.  They don't look that real, kiddos.

It's the tail that kills me. I want to carry the bunny around calling "Poofy tail! Heeheeheehee! Poofy tail!" like Homer Simpson and the poodle.

Almost two hours

It was closer to three hours to finish off Marcus' beanie, and he's not very impressed with it.

The pattern is Debbie Bliss' Contrasting Edge hat, minus the edge. I shortened it by 1.5inches (yes, I still sometimes work in inches, much easier for knitting) and it fits like a dream. Well, probably only for this year.

The edge is Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran and the blues are Misti Alpaca Tonos Worsted I had left over from another project, so using some up was a way to tidy up the stash.

Unfortunately, the photography cut into Marcus' pwning time, so the session ended rather swiftly.

Stick around this week to see how much of my Wednesday list I've almost finished!

Unrealistic expectations

Knitters have no idea of time.  We really don't.  We think that we can knit a beanie overnight,  or a jumper in a week. We start to calculate stitches per minute and work out how many inches we can "whip up" in an hour. Sometimes we're asked to knit something for someone else and we think "Pffft! Two hours, if that!".

Knitters are the most delusional of crafters.

I thought I could knit Marcus a new beanie overnight. I started Wednesday afternoon, but by the end of the night I had only four of the eight inches I needed before the decrease (feel free to create your own joke here). Yesterday was Anzac Day here, so a whole day off to knit? Bliss! However, I've been pretty sick the last few weeks, and I was wiped out yesterday by a headache so I spent most of the morning sleeping. I took the knitting to my nephew's birthday party in the afternoon but spent most of the time there trying to stop Dorothy eating an entire orange, including the peel  (failed miserably, by the way). When we got home I went straight back to bed to nap, so the evening was a write off. When in doubt, revise the pattern.

I've decided the beanie doesn't need a turn up, so now I only need to knit another inch before the decreasing starts. So there's an excellent chance I'll have it all done by tonight. Absolutely.

Two hours, if that.

I almost got something done

I am about two hours away from finishing something.

It's a cross stitch kit to make a draught stopper that we desperately need in our little crooked house. I felt that a cat with yarn fitted here perfectly. Two hours to go, seems possible right?

But wait! There's still more!

A latch hook cushion for my little Dot.

Doctor Who mittens for Felix (winter is coming).

A new cardigan for Dot.

What needs finishing, though?

 Mum's doily. Once I find it again...

 Marcus and Dorothy's Easter bunnies.

Sewing in the ends of my cotton top.

Sewing up Dorothy's cotton jumper.

Frogging my Skew socks to make a beanie for Dorothy.

Buckets to keep me occupied right? Lots to do? Which do I attack first?

None of them.

Marcus got to the scissors while I was changing Dorothy and now needs a beanie to cover up his new hideous hair style. I swear I could just scream sometimes!

Round and round we go

Nothing like a bad toothache to get you up at 2:00am and knitting.

Today's effort? Egeblad, a doily made by the lovely Bells, and currently being made for the exact same reason: a present for my mum. Mother's Day is coming up and I believe that handmade and purposeless presents are the norm.

Can't get more purposeless than a doily. Throw in some "Spartacus" and I'm almost awake.

Almost.

How long?!?

We interrupt our regular knitted items to bring you a very old piece of tapestry.

This is a Queen Adelaide tramme tapestry door stop kit I bought when I was fifteen, at a craft show at the Malvern Town Hall. The background yarn wasn't included, and I ran out of what I had bought. So I put it aside.

For 23 years. With only 99 stitches to go. 99 out of 9799. I worked 99% and gave up.

Yarn purchased Sunday.  This will be finished in the next hour. Then I'll need two bricks: one for the door stop, and one for the back of my head.

The ends are near

I run a finishing business where I volunteer to sew in the ends of other people's jumpers, yet my own languishes from my avoidance.

To be fair, there are an awful lot of ends and it is cotton. That's a reason, not an excuse, I swear!

Stress not

In years gone by when I was upset or stressed I'd pour a large glass of wine or eat some ice cream.

Now I sit down and make things.

After a stressful morning I sat down and crocheted this button bracelet in about 15 minutes. Much better for me than wine, I think.

Dear Debbie Bliss...

I have enough projects to finish. I have many unfinished and very many to start. I even have the stash set aside.

Then my da saw a gansey in your latest magazine.

"It's says "Barry's Gansey Sweater". My name is Barry. It must be mine, mustn't it?"

Thanks Debbie, thanks a lot.

Little Mannikins

One of the UFO's I was looking forward to working on was a little green vest I started for Marcus. I was a bit worried it might be too small for him, but no fear!

When I pulled it out of the bag the back was finished and the front was worked until about an inch below the armholes. I pulled it out on Saturday morning and by Sunday night it was all done bar the sewing up.

The pattern is Sirdar 337, and the yarn is Sublime Yarns Cashmerino DK that I bought on sale. The yarn is gorgeous, if not a tad fluffy already. As for the Sirdar pattern, well, I adore Sirdar patterns.  Beautiful, clear instructions, nary a mistake (so far) and - best of all - size 0-7! So Marcus will have another vest next year, and the year after, and the year after...


Did he like it?

Hard to tell!

Ooops.

Today's finished object is one of shame.

At the beginning of the year I wrangled my ufo's into some semblance of order, namely THE LIST. Now, to do this I had to open boxes that had been hermetically sealed for years, containing things that man dare not what of, etc etc. One of the boxes contained a dodgy looking Audrey Hepburn emblazoned bag and my heart sunk, for inside was someone else's knitting.

 This is possibly the worst of the worst. I'd taken Jade's knitting, from Scotland, faithfully promised to fix it (the scarf) and finish it (the gloves), then I would post it back to Scotland. Please note that two weeks after we arrived home from Scotland we found out Marcus was on the way and my entire life turned into baby knitting.

But enough excuses, here's Jade's scarf.

It's a plain stocking stitch scarf of 450 stitches on a 5mm needle, and early on Jade turned around mid-row, creating a hole. I promised to pull it back and finish it for her. To do this I had to undo about 15 rows, then started again, only to realise that the mistake was three rows lower. So I picked up the stitches three rows below, while in Gold Class watching "The Hobbit".

I couldn't look down at any point, because the film was just too brilliant. Luckily, after about an hour, I was off and knitting again. It took another three days and then I cast off 450 stitches.

Yeah, so Jade: it's finished. Still want it sent to Dundee?

Well, they're done...

I needed only enough yarn to knit a plain toe and once that was done I had no more excuses to not show them, so here are the Butteryarn Socks ("Nice pattern, butteryarn...?!").

The yarn is so impossibly chunky that a sock can almost stand up by itself. The pattern is "Log Cabin Socks" from "Handknit Holidays" and it was great fun. The fact that the first set of cables branch out and join up to make the next set was lots of fun but still kept me on my toes.

Felix actually likes his socks. Mind you, they're handknitted socks , so obviously he likes them. He seems to like the colour and yarn as well.

I think he's just being nice again...

PS: "They're really cool! They're like wearing armour!"

I give up.