A weekend to recover from the weekend

That's how I'm feeling after this particularly busy Monday. You see I spent the weekend at London Excel, doing an exhibition for start up businesses. Apart from the fact that the whole thing was manic, and I was on my feet for 2 days solid, I drew the short straw, and had to give a seminar to 100 people on online networking.

It all seemed to go ok, and I got home Saturday with the distinct feeling that it is going to take me a year to recover! On the upside, someone else drove there and back, which gave me a chance to complete a pair of trainer socs for me, made from the left over yarn from sister in laws socks. I wore them all day yesterday, without even sewing in the ends. I needed the comfort.

I spent all day yesterday madly spinning, and now have enough in cream and brown to complete 1 sock, the only downside to this is that I think I have second sock spinning syndrome, to accompany the second sock syndrome on bro in laws birthday socks!

The sockapalooza matches were announced today too, so now I have to start thinking about that pair, and the sock contest I have entered, and the interweave knits entrelac pair......

Someone remind me again why I do this?!?

Off for tea and a nap now.

Finally finished

I have been playing with this all day, which is not quite what I intended doing, as I lost yesterday, working at an exhibition. Exhausted is not the word. But finally the new template is in place, and I'm happy with it.

My html must be coming along, because I have had to edit everything in it! I think I need a cuppa, so I'll leave the proper post about my adventures this weekend until tomorrow.

Changing template

Just in case you all think I've gone mad, I am in the process of changing my template as the last one didn't have enough room, so my blog won't be working properly until Sunday.

I Want this Cardigan

So I'm perusing through Yarn harlot's blog, and I come across a post about a sweater she wants. now I'm not a great follower of links, but this time I did, and I came across vanessa's blog, with this picture. Is that not the most beautiful thing you have ever seen.









Even more amazingly it is adapted from this, rather less beautiful
sweater >
So now the cries of I want one can be heard echoing. I am going to try and get hold of this pattern asap! I wonder if it would work in rowan spun, as I would be more than happy to unravel the Mademoiselle jacket that I just know I am never going to finish for this.

I think a call to the un-blogging Claire, the queen and keeper of all beautiful patterns is in order.

You Are 44% Nerdy

You may be a bit surprised with this score, but your more of a closet nerd than an actual nerd. Stop denying your inner nerd! You're truly dorkier than you think.

How Nerdy Are You?

Nerdy me? Ok so I work in IT, but I'm the sales manager, and yes I have the entire 5 season box set of Babylon 5, and the original Battlestar Galactica on DVD, and so what if I love Zombie films, and anything with Simon Pegg in it.

Humm, perhaps I should re-name this blog the knitting nerd!

A busy weekend

Sill no word from Curious yarns, I think I may have to wave goodbye to the money I spent there. I rate my chances of getting it back as slim to none.

However to cheer myself up I have been having a very productive weekend. The undyed sock yarn arrived yesterday, and I promptly got to dyeing it. This was my first real go at dyeing, but always one to try something new, I went against convention, and did not use Kool aid, food colouring, or proper dye. As Iwanted some boyish, subtle colours, I decided to use tea and coffee to get some nice brown tones. I also added some roving that I had into the coffee pot, and here are the results. I have to say I'm very pleased.

This is the drying skein

And this is the roving, I've photographed it next to some undyed so you can see the difference

This is what it looked like re-skeinedAnd this is the half finished socks it is making
I then decided that it was time the spare bedroom / craft room had a makeover, So after a long tidy up, some furniture shifting, and some stash re-organisation, it now looks like this

These are my fabric and hand knit stash,
My machine knitting stash

and project corner in the living room

And finally I went to my LYS, to buy some new DPN's and came away with 6 balls of Debbie Bliss DK cotton, as I decided I wanted to knit the shrug from the Erika knits classics book in a different colour (I did the first in baby pink Debbie Bliss Cathay) It's a lovely summer shade of dark blue and I can't wait to get started on it.

This purchase also lead me to the conclusion that I am going to gracefully bow out of the stashalong. Although part of me knows I need to de-stash, when it comes down to it I simply don't want to, so that's that. Phew, time for a cup of tea I think!

So it's come to this

With exasperation and frustration, I have asked for my money back from Curious yarns, although they haven't replied to any of my other emails, so I don't know why I think that they will reply to this one. I am sure that I will have to ask Pay pal to do the refund in the end.

This of course means that I have no sock yarn for brother in laws socks! for sister in law I was ok as I could use some of the girlie colours from my stash, but I don't think bro in law would appreciate pink socks! So I have decided to be adventurous, and have ordered some undyed sock yarn from Get Knitted. I placed this order at about 5.30 last night, and have had an email this morning saying that my order has been dispatched. Now that's customer service, so thank you Get Knitted, for restoring my faith in buying yarn from the Internet. You are being added to my favourite shops list right now!

Bamboo Socks

Yay, another project finished. These are the Bamboo socks that hubby has been waiting ages for. I'va also taken my curious yarn socks off my to do list as I still haven't recieved the yarn i ordered ages ago. So I'm going to do the Interweave knits entrelac socks instead.

April
1. complete Regia pink cotton socks for SIL b.day
2. complete Regia bamboo socks for hubby
3. complete mademoiselle jacket for me
4. complete 1st pair of socks on the knitting machine
5. Interweave knits entrelac socks

6. 5 Tote bags (sewing)

Handspun

I've just finished my first ball of hand spun yarn, and here it is

You can't really see it here but the yarn is a lovely pale green, and quite consistent for a first go. While I'm on the subject of nice yarns, this is the 2 colourways I got from the natural dye studio a couple of weeks ago
The left skeins are Dye Studio's Merino Fine Sock Wool in Raspberry Spring & the right skeins are Hand-dyed Alpaca/Silk Sock Wool in Sugar Tiger. I would love to be able to show you the yarns from Curious yarns that I ordered at the same time, but unfortunately they haven't arrived yet, which is starting to become very disconcerting, as the site has been down for 10 days now, and they are not responding to emails......Hopefully everything is OK, and my yarn will arrive soon, but I have to say I am very disappointed, and won't be ordering from there again. Which I think is a bit sad, as I have heard such fantastic things about the quality of their yarn.

If anyone else is having problems, or has received yarn they have recently ordered from there I would love to hear from you, I'll keep you posted if I hear from them.

A spinning revelation

I joined another yahoo group the other day, SpinToKnitSocks, and this has been an absolute revelation to me. I bought a drop spindle 4 months ago, and felt like a 3 year old trying to paint a Van Gough, yes the yarn I spun was that bad, having read the posts from the lovely people in this group, I have made a couple of changes to the way I spin, chopped a few inches off the doweling on my spindle, and voila, yarn so thin I'll be able to 2 ply it and make socks.

Oooh i can't wait till I have enough.

Birthday socks

At last, I have finally completed one of my projects for this month. The Pink socks for my sister in law's birthday. here they are.


I used a ridged eyelet pattern, that you can't see very clearly, but they look ever so pretty.

Right, on to the next!

April
1. complete Regia pink cotton socks for SIL b.day
2. complete Regia bamboo socks for hubby
3. complete mademoiselle jacket for me
4. complete 1st pair of socks on the knitting machine
5. 1 pair dark blue curious yarn socks
6. 5 Tote bags (sewing)

Where are the woods?

As it is the last day of the bank holiday, hubby & I decided to go for a walk. Originally I wanted to go up a mountain, and tick another one off the list. But living in Leicestershire there aren't many mountains within reasonable driving distance (well none actually) and I didn't fancy getting up at the crack of dawn. So instead, we decided to go for a woodland walk.

Out came the trusty OS map, and I found an area of the National forest within a 15 minute drive. We donned the walking boots and off we went. I am now wondering if I can sue OS under the trade descriptions act. Not only did the map, not correspond with any of the marked routes,but we managed to walk through only 3 feet of forest, despite the fact that the entire 4 miles was meant to be woodland.

The day wasn't a complete washout though, we managed to see 2 sets of frogs matingwhich at least made me titter And a beautiful little church on the edge of the resevior, and as it was such a nice day, I was just glad to be out of the house. So now I'm determined to do nothing in anticipation of going back to work tomorrow.

Bad hands

I have spent the last 2 days knitting fair isle socks for my sister in law's 30th birthday.They were going to say 30 all the way round, with her name. However after ripping them back twice, I have given up, and decided to just do some pretty pink ones in self striping wool (I already have one done in my UFO box, so shouldn't take too long). This none stop marathon has given me bad hands though, so i am trying to give them a rest today. Instead, I have taken the opportunity to re-do my "to knit list" and have set myself some targets of things to get finished. This will take me right up to the end of June, so i have no excuses to buy new yarn. So here it is, feel free to hold me to it. I have also included some of my sewing projects.


April
1. complete Regia pink cotton socks for SIL b.day
2. complete Regia bamboo socks for hubby
3. complete mademoiselle jacket for me
4. complete 1st pair of socks on the knitting machine
5. 1 pair dark blue curious yarn socks
6. 5 Tote bags (sewing)

May
1. Military cardigan
2 pink & peach natural dye studio socks
3. green socks
4. long machine socks
5. Spare fabric skirt
6 5 tote bags

June
1. grey socks
2. white machine socks
3. light blue curious yarn socks
4. Click Cardigan
5. 5 tote bags

July
1. stripey Natural dye studio socks
2. double colour stash blanket
3. 20 afghan squares
4. 5 tote bags

Once all of that is finished, I have another 60 afghan squares to do, another 10 tote bags, and some lovely blue rowanspun to find a pattern for. Phew, i need a cup of tea just thinking about it!

Babylonglegs had this on her blog, so I thought I'd have a go, not really my thing, but mentions sleep, which is very relevant for me...hummm

You are The Moon

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Moon is a card of magic and mystery - when prominent you know that nothing is as it seems, particularly when it concerns relationships. All logic is thrown out the window.

The Moon is all about visions and illusions, madness, genius and poetry. This is a card that has to do with sleep, and so with both dreams and nightmares. It is a scary card in that it warns that there might be hidden enemies, tricks and falsehoods. But it should also be remembered that this is a card of great creativity, of powerful magic, primal feelings and intuition. You may be going through a time of emotional and mental trial; if you have any past mental problems, you must be vigilant in taking your medication but avoid drugs or alcohol, as abuse of either will cause them irreparable damage. This time however, can also result in great creativity, psychic powers, visions and insight. You can and should trust your intuition.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

No seam socks on 2 needles

Ok, I have had an epiphany moment, for no seam socks knitted on 2 needles. Impossible I hear you shout! well maybe, they came to me this morning, so I haven't had chance to give them a try yet, but I needed to get the pattern down quick before I forget. So If you're feeling brave, or just like being a test subject feel free to give them a try. (they do assume that you have knit socks and particularly a short row heel before. If you have never knit socks, keep checking back. I will post the full pattern once I have had chance to try it myself)

Cast on 60 st (or however many you normally cast on for socs. It needs to be an even number though)
move half onto a second needle (one that you're not going to use for knitting)
now with the second needle from the pair you are going to knit with, pick up one stitch from each needle alternately.

All rows: k1 sl1p, p1 sl1k until you have an inch or so of rib (this is the bit I'm not sure will work, but bare with me)
once you have finished the rib;
all rows: k1 sl1p until you have the length of your sock right down to the bottom of your heel.

slip alternate stitches onto 2 separate needles, you should have found that you have made a tube? If so then now you see where this is going...if not it's probably my instructions, so frog it, use the yarn for something else, and pop back in a few days when i have had chance to have a go my self.

knit a short row heel

move all of the stitches back onto one needle, alternating as before
k1sl1p on all rows, until you have reached the desired foot length.

Toe shaping
1 & 2) k1sl1 pkso k1 sl1p across (pkso = pass knit stitch over)
3 & 4) sl1p * k1 sl1p* across
5 & 6) sl1p k1 psso sl1p * to * across
7&8) k1 sl1p across

Repeat these 4 rows 14 times more

split back onto 2 needles & cast off / graft toes

Hope this works. Let me know if you give it a go. I'll post back when I finish it myself.

Getting the hang of this now

Ok so i am a useless blogger, probably brought on by the fact that I know no-one is looking, so I have no need to write. Catch 22, I don't put by blog address anywhere, because there is nothing on it, so I know no one is reading it, so I don't bother writing anything in it. Ok time to start writing, and adding my address to things.

Also time for a bit of a catch up me thinks. I have been beavering away with all of my knitting projects, I have finished my pink shrug (pic to follow) and am currently working my way through a small mountain of sock yarn. I have come to the conclusion that i prefer short row heels, not lease because when I do heel flaps, I always end up with a sock 4 inches shorter then I thought it would be - As with this pair I finished for him indoors last week

So i am working on numerous socks, including a pair for the sister in law's 30th, which I bought yet more sock yarn for, from Curious yarns. As you can tell the yarn diet is going rather badly. Oh well. I'll keep at it.

I am a naughty naughty knitter, I have bought far too much yarn lately. I am determined to stick with the stash busting, and have also joined wadrobe refashion this week. Here is my pledge.

I Sarah Goodwin pledge that I shall abstain from the purchase of "new" manufactured items of clothing, for the period of 6 months. I pledge that i shall refashion, renovate, recycle preloved items for myself with my own hands in fabric, yarn or other medium for the term of my contract. I pledge that I will share the love and post a photo of my refashioned, renovoated, recylcled, crafted or created item of clothing on the Wardrobe Refashion blog, so that others may share the joy that thy thriftyness brings! Signed Sarah Goodwin.

Wish me luck