Hiatus

So I refound my knitting mojo, only to lose it again fairly swiftly. I'm having to do a lot of lying down now as my ankles swell up so much, and my back and ribs hurt. You are supposed to lie on your left side where possible, and that means I'm at the wrong end of the sofa for my knitting light. Plus its hard to knit lying down :-(

But I have a date for being induced now, so don't have long to go.

My knitting group were amazing, and I have a hand-made quilt, bibs, changing bag and a knitted purple and black outfit, complete with skull and crossbones on the jumper. All made of win.

So no knitting progress to report, but baby is coming along well :D

Something finished!

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Originally uploaded by cob_web

I finished my Forest Canopy Cowl. I picked up this yarn in America, and had NO IDEA what to do with it, it just had to come home with me. But this pattern was written for it. WIN! I Did the smaller size, which was a very good idea as it is a little loose. Nice pattern.

Hello World

Well I haven't been blogging lately, neither here nor LJ. Indeed, I haven't been doing much of anything, other than incubating a bean. Yes, in case you didn't know from other places on the interwebs, tomorrow I will be 22 weeks pregnant. Its been a long journey to get here, and I am finally accepting that there might be a real live baby at the end of it all. Various problems + my diabetes have made this a rather stressful adventure, but the 20 week scan was all good, and little ninja-bean appears to be a boy. Which kind of sucks as I don't like boys names and had a sizeable list of lovely girls names! But quite frankly what sex it is has been the least of my worries!

Knitting has most definitely taken a back seat, and dying even more so (indeed, my best dying pan is on long term loan to a friend). I've been too brain dead and tired to do anything other than flump when I get home from work.

I have recently picked up something I started for a friend's bump (I won't link to it yet as I think this gets picked up by Buzz). The pattern is so shockingly written it really is evil, but I want to get it finished to a) find out if my bodging was successful and b) it will be so cute and perfect for the recipient that it just has to be finished. I've not knit anything for my own bean, all the knitting I touch seems to break. Even a simple cowl I started at 12 weeks, thinking it would take my mind off things I have messed up and can't face ripping back.

So yes, its been a knitting disaster area lately, but hopefully I'm getting back into it. Who knows, I may even be able to knit something for bean before he arrives and chaos descends!

Sock Yarn

Do you think I have enough?

Top row (left to right):

Lidl sock yarn (x2) dyed with logwood;
Nice sock yarn dyed with logwood;
Nice sock yarn dyed with some other natural dye I forgot;
3 skeins dyed with acid dye;
Koigu (x2) (from New York)
Malabrigo sock (x2) (from Boston)

Bottom row (left to right):
Noro Kureyon sock (x2) from Tokyo
Noro Silk Garden Sock
Noro Kureyon sock
My first ever dyeing attempt using easter egg dyes
Zauberball
Abstract Cat sock
Fyberspates (x2)

Natural dyeing

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Originally uploaded by cob_web

A few weeks ago I dyed up the really cheap sock yarn I got from Lidl ages ago. The logwood at the bottom turned out the best. The middle is madder powder, so not at impressive as the madder bark I used a while back. The top is also supposed to be a red but.... yeah. Thems the breaks with natural dyeing!

Not sure what to do with this as the yarn is a workhorse yarn, and very rough and ready. I'm knitting the logwood up into a shawl as I like the colour, but it is rough! The other colours aren't really my thing, but I can't sell it.

Paraphernalia

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Originally uploaded by cob_web

I finished these socks a little while ago and they are lovely. The pattern is Paraphernalia and is really nice. One word of warning, the pattern doesn't have any finished dimensions, and it was only by luck that I didn't follow the pattern to the letter - they'd have been knee length! But without calf shaping. Other than that small niggle I'm so pleased with them.

The yarn is Dream in Color Stardust, an "experimental" yarn. Subtley sparkly, and such a gorgeous colour. The yarn was nice to knit with, although was occasionally a bit thin, I got the feeling it was overspun at those spots. Can't tell in the finished object though. The yarn was a gift, which made them extra special to knit.

healing socks

healing socks3
Originally uploaded by cob_web

Apparently I didn't post my finished socks! These are the spiralling socks pattern from The Knitter. Lots of new things for me here, knitting toe-up, after thought heel, and the spiralling method (thought up by Grumperina I think).

Loved the toe-up method, although the turkish cast on was tricky without 2 circs! I bought some for sock number 2! They are a bit short, but not too short, and I like the afterthought heel.

Shame the 2nd sock found a knot in on of the balls of yarn, which gives a disjointed effect, but I still like them.

The Zauberball was interesting, a bit thick and thin in places, and doesn't strike me as particularly hard wearing. Love the effect though!

When they were washed they twisted a bit, probably due to the spiralling nature of them.

More socks

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Originally uploaded by cob_web

With the lovely dream in colour stardust yarn given to me when I was going through a really hard time in November by my friend Kate I have cast on some Paraphernalia socks.

There are no measurements in the pattern, so it wasn't until I got to the end of the chart for the 2nd time that I realised these socks were going to be a strange length. Mid-calf - so not knee length but somewhere in the middle. I wasn't keen on that so I completely ignored the instructions about dong a 3rd repeat up to a certain point before starting the heel. Fingers crossed this doesn't screw things up later!

Shroooom!

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Originally uploaded by cob_web

So I made a hat from the latest Knitty. Matt laughed when I first put it on. Oh well, it was a fun knit.

A hat for Pip

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Originally uploaded by cob_web

I have no idea what to get my friend for Christmas, especially since she said she doesn't want anything for herself, and she can't eat diary at the moment so chocolates are out and she doesn't drink alcohol. So I decided to knit a hat for her baby, Pip. Pip is 7 (probably 8 now) months old, and the pattern (Umbilical cord hat from Stitch n Bitch) was for up to 6 months. So I added an inch in diameter and knit for a bit longer before decreasing.

I hope it fits!

More Aliens

Kate Alien
Originally uploaded by cob_web

and another one...

aliens!

aliens!
Originally uploaded by cob_web

I'm making lots of little aliens to add to gifts at Christmas. I am putting them on keychains as they are small enough. I think they are really cute! Being me I want to knit them all out of different yarn, but its proving tricky! The pattern calls for DK, but I just don't have much DK. As each one only takes about 10g of yarn I can't really justify buying yarn, even the cheapo stuff is more than £1.50 a ball - and that is for 100g! I don't need 100g!

Sock yarn doubled is working OK, but it is very tight to knit. I could go up a bit to 3.25mm, but then they'll be larger, and I like them being very mini.

The Naked Sheep

The Naked Sheep
Originally uploaded by cob_web

So, yesterday my mum took me to the Naked Sheep, along with my sister and brother-in-law. Matt stayed at home to watch tennis. Anyway, it was a lovely little place!

I went to school in Buckingham, but haven’t been back for years, and it is a nice little town now. The shop is near Stowe Landscape Gardens, so if you are into that sort of thing the two combined would make a nice little day-trip. If not, Buckingham has some nice little shops now, there was a quilting shop with some yarns in, and some gifty/boutique/gallery type places.

Its a nice drive out of Buckingham to the farm, as you drive up the road towards the gate to Stowe, which is impressive.

Once at the farm, we had to negotiate the free range chickens (they have 6000, and some are more free range than the rest and just roam around the farm as they like). Once parked we decided to do the Naked Sheep first incase the others had to leave me there while they went to the farm shop! On the way we got sidetracked by the Alpacas, who were gorgeous! You can buy a bag of feed to give them, but some small people were already doing that. Then the owner of the shop came out and told us all bits about the Alpaca and all their names and what they are like. One had a punk hair do as his fringe kept going in his eyes so they have to tie it up!

Then we went into the little shop, which was lovely. They do all their own spinning, and keep each fleece separate. They have a small team of knitters, who handknit all sorts of items which you can buy. As you can imagine they are not cheap! The owner was lovely, and spent quite a while chatting to us, and let me take photos.

Apparently at the moment they have 6 knitters, but she said that they have casual knitters too, who will knit a garment like a hat or scarf for them in exchange for yarn. Sounds like a good deal to me! Sadly I had to explain I didn’t live nearby any more (I think she was trying to recruit me). I was able to show her photos of my shawl though, which she liked!

She would have even let us look round the spinning room if we wanted, but time was limited so we didn’t.

I bought 50g of alpaca yarn (£8 - promptly confiscated by my mum as I couldn’t think of anything I wanted for christmas!) and was given a hat pattern to go with it.

As well as alpaca and sheep yarn from the farm they sold Jamisons, and a few other UK-based spun yarn.

She had some things knitted from Buffalo and Qivit (or however you spell it), and it really is as soft as the people say. Luckily she didn’t have any yarn for sale, as it is the second most expensive yarn in the world!

Then we went to the farm shop, where there was lots of lovely stuff, and they have a cafe/restaurant as well.

Finished Shawl

I finished the shawl for my sister's wedding about a week before the date! Just enough time to block it. Blocking was hard work, I didn't have enough space to block it all at once, and then I ran out of pins for the complex half, so it was blocked in three stages! The basket weave half was easy to block as you could line things up well. The cherry blossom half was much harder.

Anyway, here is me wearing it on the day:

and here are two shots to show the ends, taken after the wedding, so it is a bit crumpled!

Dyeing again

I've been doing some acid-dyeing today, in theory it is less faff than natural dying, but you know, its really not! Its equally unpredictable.

I had one nice result with some purple and black yarn, but the sea-green variegated yarn I was going for hasn't worked at all. In fact, it didn't hold onto the dye at all well, and I have green hands! I stopped using gloves for rinsing as the yarn always soaked up all the dye. I guess I'll go back to using gloves in future!

I'll have to assess the colour in daylight when it is all dried out (so probably next weekend then now winter is creeping up!), but currently I don't like it, its just a mid-green, very plain. I might try over-dying one skein and leave the other.

We shall see!

Shawl progress

hanami 3
Originally uploaded by cob_web

I got to the end of chart C of the blossom section last night. 3 more charts to go!

A Yarn Crawl

So I've been going to some knit-nights with Ravelry-types. We meet every other week and alternate between Woking and Guildford. Woking is great because i just go after work, Guildford is great cos I get the train and can drink cider... mmmm... cider...

We got loads of new people last time, but prior to that there was a core of just 4 of us, and we get on well, share a slightly wicked sense of humour!

It was proposed that we should do a yarn crawl around the area, and this coincided with the Stitch and Craft show at Sandown Racecourse. So on saturday we all met up at Woking station, and greentrianglegirl (I never know whether to use real names or not in internetland, I shall stick to Rav names) gamely volunteered to drive. She had cause to utilise her London driving Skilz so I was glad it wasn't me behind the wheel, I am far too meek a driver for almost-London-driving!

The show was a disappointment, especially since we were led to believe there would be wizards (long story) and, well, more yarn! There was one nice stall with a less-nice sales lady, plus a stand with real life angora rabbits (cute!). I got a bag of 10 balls of RYC Angora Soft (or something) in a nice purple colour for less than half price at a discount stall. Its a bit boucle-ly, which is never good, but its not too extreme, and should make a cosy jumper or cardigan. It will be stashed for now though, ready for when I can't afford yarn any more!

Other than that we all left with lovely lovely cheese.

Then we went to Hampton to find a rather bizarre yarn store with a hair dressers in the back. We were clearly not their usual age-range, and there wan't much for us there (not bad as such, just nothing out of the ordinary). Redcathy saved the day by buying a yarn pen thing, and then we ran away.

Then we went to Kingston to John Lewis. This is apparently my closed JL, but after experiencing Kingston and the car parks I'll stick to Reading thanks! No more sales, so we left slightly disappointed and raced down the A3 and A31 to Farnham. InterKnit Cafe was the highlight of the day really. They have less Collinette than they used to, but though it always looks lovely I've never had great success knitting it, so that's no bad thing. They stock Zauberballs! But I have 2 already so was good. Good to see they stock KnitPro needles now, I shall remember that when I need to stock up!

Then we went to Guildford and took in CandH fabrics and Pandora (where were not appreciated, we left after one of the staff members made a pointed comment about wanting to hoover but not being able to).

We had a nice drink, and then I got the train home. Reading trains appear to miss out Ash on saturdays now, so I had to wait for the Ascot train, but it wasn't too long to wait, and I got to sit next to a proper punk with an impressive mohecan while I waited!

Got home, and promptly tried to burn the house down :-(

As for actual knitting - I'm still plodding along with the shawl, near the end of chart C of the blossom end now, hurrah!

I'm knitting the second Giraffe sock at knit-nights, but the talking and the cider at the last one mean I've messed up quite significantly. I'm not ripping it though, they are for me.

Progress

hanami2
Originally uploaded by cob_web

I've done 4 repeats of the first half now, so a quarter of the way through!

experiments

experiments
Originally uploaded by cob_web

Earlier this week I did some experimenting. Unfortunately I lost track of what was what :-/

I have here fustic, common horsetail and tansey. The pink is madder exhaust. I used some organic 100% merino, and it definitely feels nicer than the superwash sock yarn. Not sure about the wisdom of knitting socks with no nylon in though. I was kind of hoping that the four colours would go together and I could knit some socks using the spiral technique to combine the yarns, but the pink doesn't go. No idea what do with these now, they aren't my kind of colours at all!

From bloodroot to madder

From bloodroot to Madder
Originally uploaded by cob_web

This photo shows the journey of the poor experimental skein.

Bloodroot, then Cherry Bark, then Madder.