The general consensus seems to be that hints, without saying too much, may be ok. So I am going to give just a little bit away for now.
I am knitting with this.
Handmaiden Sea Silk in the Moss colourway. It's a gorgeous yarn to knit with and if it weren't for the p5 bits of my pattern, I'd be thoroughly in love. The colour is so "me" that I know that I am going to find it hard to give this to its intended recipient.
I am also knitting with some Rowan 4ply Soft in a colour called Victoria. I have only managed to find one picture online which shows the real colour so pop over to Mustaa Villa and look at the second picture in this post. That's the colour I am using. It's very pretty.
So that's it from me for this weekend. I have parents to go and see, lights to buy (we're starting to redecorate the Knitting Retreat) and a shedload of work to do so I suspect there won't be a lot of knitting in these parts.
And as I wrote that I just remembered that I still need to:
- Block Birch
- Shorten the sleeves and neck on the ski sweater
- Sew the buttons and straps on to Flighty (how do you sew the straps on??)
- Finish the Fiery Bolero
- Dig out Martha and start the second sleeve
And NOT order Joy until next week. Sigh.
One of the big problems of having a knitting blog is that if you are knitting presents for other people you can quite quickly find yourself without anything to talk about. I have 2 gifts on the needles at the moment, both for people who look at my blog at least now and again so I am struggling to find anything to write about.
I am making progress on Dandelion but do you really want to see more pictures of lilac cotton dk stocking stitch? I thought not.
And I've been really good and have still not bought joy, but shall do on the 1st of May (the husband thinks that I am going to stay up late the night before so I can submit the order at about 30 seconds after midnight. I have talked about it rather incessantly...)
So instead I give you a picture of some gorgeous yarn.
And the project that it will grew up to be.
The yarn is Alpaca Silk from Blue Sky Alpacas and the pattern is the Lace Leaf shawl from Fiber Trends. I have skeined the yarn and it's just waiting for some of the other projects to be finished.
The London Marathon is taking place today. I am obviously far too lazy to even consider running.
But the BBC this morning was talking about this lady, Susie Hewer, who, in memory of her mother, is going to run the London Marthon whilst knitting. Now I can stand and knit and I can even walk and knit. But run and knit? I haven't tried but suspect that the results wouldn't be great (on either the running or the knitting front). So I have a lot of respect for this lady. Oh, and apparently Cast Off are organising a knit-in along the route and there are various other knitting related events going on.
So, instead of buying Joy, which I was going to do today (this week has been a rather tough one and I am weak) I've donated some money to this lady. It's a far more worthy cause and Joy can wait until my next pay day.
(PS: If you were to want to support Susie, her fundraising page is here, complete with a picture of her knitting and running at the same time.)
I seem to have forgotten to own up to what was in the box when I posted a picture of it a few weeks ago. So here goes.
Here's the first hint.
Any of you who have had one of these arrive at home will recognise it instantaneously.
And then once you pull back the tissue paper there's this.
10 balls of Rowan's Wool cotton in a shade called Grand.
It comes with the prettiest buttons too.
And here's what it's going to be knitted into.
Sal from the 'New Beginnings' collection by Kim Hargreaves.
One day. Before that, there's a wedding shawl to be knitted for the bestest of friends, a leaf lace shawl for me in some Blue Sky Alpaca 'Alpaca silk' and so many pairs of socks to be finished it's not even funny. But I thought I'd whet your appetite.
And yes, there does seem to be rather a lot of lilac in my life at the moment (Dandelion is lilac too), especially for a colour that I wouldn't say I particularly like. Most odd really.
Oh and the only problem with all of the entry above is that what I actually want to buy and knit is this:
Joy from Kim Hargreaves. I need a little summer cardigan in white to go over all the gorgeous Boden dress that I bought. You just can't win can you?
True to the title, I am bang in the middle of knitting doldrums, not helped by the fact that I just wrote this whole post and then managed to lose it. Note to self: save blog postings more regularly!
I haven't really been in the mood for picking up my needles for a while, although I did manage to finish my Birch in the car on the way to see my gorgeous nephews yesterday. But other than that, there's not been a lot of knitting at the Knitting Retreat.
Part of the reason is that I've been doing some sewing. I went on a sewing course (actually, I went on two sewing courses and bumped into another knitter on one of them but that's another story). I am now the proud owner of a sewing machine and a rapidly growing stash of fabric, mostly from Liberty.
And
But this is, and shall remain, a knitting blog, so I'll spare you loads of pictures of my wonky sewing. But, add to fact that I've been sewing, the fact that I just cannot face the idea of ripping back the neck of the ski sweater or undoing the cuffs and trying to work out how you make sure that you rip back the same amount either side. So the ski sweater is relegated to a bag on the floor next to the sofa in the hope that she just might magically improve. You never know.
But there has been the teeniest bit of progress - which I shall now milk to death seeing as there is pretty much nothing else for me to write about. Remember Flighty from Rowan 23 that I cast on in August 2004? Well I decided that there was no way that I was going to have a 3 year old WIP when all that needed doing was a bit of sewing (there are older WIPs but they require proper knitting to be completed).
Here's Flighty after I had sewn in what felt like a gazillion ends. There are only so many strands that you can carry up the side and eventually some of them need to be cut and sewn in. It's a fact.
I do like the zig zag effect that this pattern produces.
However, there is a slight problem with her. I suspect that this may have something to do with my rather haphazard reading and subsequent interpretation of the pattern rather than the pattern itself.
The front "pointy bit" rolls up. Too much for me to wear her as she is. I think I will try to give her a good pressing and maybe even attempt a splash of starch although I am already resigning myself to the fact that this may turn out to be a design feature. In which case Flighty may well find herself heading to the charity shop.
The button holes were a bit of an adventure as I hadn't attempted these loopy ones before.
It turns out that they are quite easy but I did learn one lesson: it's best to do them all in one sitting. I did mine in two sittings and managed, between the two, to lose the pen that I was using to create the initial loops which means that the loops aren't all the same size. I'll live.
Finally I finished the straps. Icord is officially preferable to these.
So all that's left to do is sew in the buttons (I have some lovely Rowan red buttons) and sew the straps in. Not sure how I'll do that but I am sure to come up with something or other.