Confession

Take a look at any knitting blog at the moment, and they'll pretty much all be saying: 'it's nearly Christmas and I've not knitted all my gifts'.  I've found an easy way round that; don't knit gifts for other people (unless you're sickenly organised and have them done by November). 

There, I've said it.  I'm not planning on knitting any gifts for Christmas.

Of course, this is likely to all slip once I've found the right size needles to hit gauge on the jumper for my ninja nephew.  (Knitted way too big, so if I don't get it done in time for Christmas, he can have it for Easter). 

There are things I'd meant to knit by now.  There are knitting deadlines I have for next year.  I'm going to have to get cracking soon and put it all in a spreadsheet.

What I do want, knittting-wise, is a project to last me over Christmas/New Year.  Most likely this will be a shawl of some sort.  I also have sewing, and need to find a new job, and reading some plays and catching up on sleep and tidying the flat and sewing up some of my UFOs... 

Good to have a holiday with nothing to do, isn't it! 

Overdue

Yes, I'm still here - I just haven't been doing much knitting.  Partly, because I haven't had the time, and partly because I've had a flare up of my wrists, which is usually made worse by knitting.  It's all a bit sucky, but health has to come before knitting.

There's a great long list of things I need to finish up; that is, sew up, or weave in ends, or simply just block.  There are two scarves which could be completed today, if I'd just do the final weave and block.  I may use this as a procrastination tool when I'm bored of cleaning.

There is a massive list of things I want to knit, not least of all a sweater for me.  I also need to learn how to turn a heel on a pair of socks.  That, combined with the daily commute and the vast amount of sock yarn I have, should deal with a lot of the stash.  I've also seen that West Yorkshire Spinners have new colours in their Country Birds range.  (Kingfisher, Goldfinch and Peacock).

I need to re-think the way I blog.  Rather than doing it when I have something to say, I've got ideas of having a bit more structure.

Paris has happened.  Nick Alexander, the first confirmed British casualty was somebody I knew during 6th form and youth theatre.  I'm not going to pretend that we were bestest buds; I think I've seen him once since we left school.  However, his death has come as a massive shock to me and several of my friends.  The number of times I've seen news reports where the same photo appears over and over again, whilst tributes are paid to the deceased.  There's something very weird about seeing the same photo appearing over and over again, when it's somebody you know.

However, a much more happy event, which will impact my knitting life, is the birth of my sister's baby boy; my ninja nephew.  Photos will only ever happen with parental permission, so you'll just have to imagine a cute little baby with round chubby cheeks and a lot of hair.  Seriously, everybody commented on the hair!  He, like this blog was also (albeit slightly) overdue. 

Not going to plan

Since it’s the end of the working week, I think it’s perfectly acceptable to be hitting the beer cellar. (Other tipples are available). Please join me in raising a glass to knitting projects that didn’t always go to plan. 

Last Friday, Mr Knitty and I had tickets to see a live recording of The Last Leg  (If you get the opportunity, go). The Plan was to knit something in the queue. 

As an aside, Adam Hills must be a brilliant person to knit socks for. If anybody’s going to benefit from hand knitted socks, it’s going to be somebody with two very different feet. 

 Anyway. I had some un-labelled yarn from Sweden and a pattern which is basically knitted until you get to the end of the yarn, so can be as big or as small as you wanted.  I bought the yarn because I liked the colours, and the mystery of it having no label appealed to me:

The yarn with no name

And, because I didn't have a clue how long the skein was, having a pattern which didn't rely on having a specific length of yarn, also appealed to me.

The problem with having a skein, is that it needs winding into a ball.  Trust me, if you try doing this, ten minutes before you need to leave the house to catch a train, it's going to get messy.  It took Mr Knitty and I two days to sort it all out, by which time the waiting for the TV programme was well over.

(Seriously, I wanted to give this a standing ovation).

Once I got knitting, it was lovely.  I'm crediting the train delays earlier this week as a major factor in this getting finished so quickly.  As is the way with self-striping yarn, it's kind of exciting to watch the colours change.  And, oh my, the colours were beautiful.  Muted, autumnal and beautiful.  It was almost like watching the seasons change, as I knitted:

Scarf on my desk at work

Close-up of the colours

I did worry that I was going to get pooling, but I got to the end of the yarn before the rows got too long.

Then it came to binding off.

There's always the problem when using circular needles to knit flat, that you're not always sure how long the live edge is.  In my case, I didn't know how much yarn I needed to bind off.  For this, I used the Russian Lace bind-off to give a bit of elasticity.  (First learned in Kate Atherley's Sick Day Shawl) 

Got about a third of the way through and realised that there was no way I was going to get to the end.  No problem, we all misjudge from time to time.  Ripped out the bind-off and tinked back the row, before trying again.  This time was better; I nearly got to the end before realising there wasn't enough yarn to complete the job.

Yup, just a few centimetres of yarn to bind off eleven stitches

I appreciate this is a fairly personal definition of 'better'. 

So, one more row ripped out, and I was able to bind off properly. At this point, I wasn't that fussed about stitches being twisted or not. I just wanted the thing done, so I could get on with the next thing.  I got to the end, I had yarn to spare.  Everything was looking good, until I pulled the yarn through the final loop...

The snag at the end of the Rainbow

Here's to knitting projects which don't quite go to plan.

Cheers. 

Yarn shopping in Tokyo

If you're ever on a yarn diet, do you have a clause for souvenir yarn?  And does it make any kind of difference?  I'd love to pretend that I've kept to my resolution of not buying any yarn (excluding souvenirs of holiday), but I really haven't.  I can honestly say that there's no need to buy any yarn in 2016 and I'd probably still have too much.

The day before our shopping trip, we went to the Miraikan, the National Museum for Emerging Science and Innovation.  I'd decided against buying a handkerchief of the Tokyo Metro system and had the following discussion with Mr Knitty:

Me - In the long run, which is going to better benefit my life?  Spending a thousand yen on...
Him - Yarn.

He knows me too well. 

Yarn shopping in a language I don't speak was an interesting experience.  Having had a look at Ravelry and reading various blogs, I had an idea of where I was heading.  I handed the list to Mr Knitty, who is far better on maps and Metro stations than I am.

Sockmania had a lot of stuff on their website, which I could get back in the UK, so that was dropped from the list.  The Travel Knitter's Guide  and Knitfitch both mentioned Avril which sounded amazing but their Tokyo shop was a bit too far out to attempt as part of our shopping trip.  (Although, I've just discovered that there's also a branch in Kyoto which may have been easier to get to).  The Puppy  shop was also a bit too far out, although I did find some of their yarns in one of the shops I went to.

HK Housewife pointed me towards Okadaya near Shibuya Station.  We looked on every floor and found loads of expensive buttons, which were very cute but I didn't know where I'd be able to use them.  No photos of any of the stuff we saw, as photos weren't allowed.  The Travel Knitter's Guide said that this was the best place in Tokyo she found for knitting books.  I did have a look at the selection they had - but they were all in Japanese.  I was hoping for one either in English with Japanese patterns, or something bilingual.  The only one I vaguely considered was one on Shetland lace, as it had charts which don't rely on language to interpret.  Since I don't really have any desire to knit Shetland lace, I left it where it was.

I did, however buy two lots of yarn - Noro and Puppy.  I'd been a bit prepared and found out what is charged for Noro in the UK and what the equivalents are in yen - then found several lines of Noro yarn which I've never heard of.  So of course, I had to buy them:

Puppy Pichenette, Noro Melody and Noro Kama

Maroon yarn = Puppy Pichenette
Blue/purple = Noro Melody
Green = Noro Kama

We then went to Shinjinku to find Tokyo Hands , which other bloggers have recommended.  

Anpanman origami paper 

Maybe my blood sugar was too low, but I didn't find it anything to rave about.  It had a lot of stuff, it was worth visiting but it mostly left me a bit 'meh' - until I found the origami papers.  There were some beautiful ones, which were much more expensive than I'd seen elsewhere.  I did, however, find Anpanman origami paper, which made me happy, so it had to come home with me. 


After this, we went to 

Yuzawaya sign

which was in the same building as Tokyo Hands, a few floors up.  I absolutely loved this shop, it had all sorts.  I bought myself a small cut of fabric to make a bag for my wrist splints, and a cross stitch kit for my best friend.  


There was a lot of yarn (sorry, they didn't allow photos), mostly Japanese brands which weren't Noro.  I did find some from Italy and some non-Japanese cotton yarn.  This was the point that Mr Knitty had gone for a sit-down, so my spending ability was somewhat un-curbed.  He's very good at standing next to me, asking what I'm planning on using that yarn for.  My aim was to find yarn to make him socks.  After a lot of going round in circles and trying to work out what the yarn labels said, using the knitting dictionary on the Planet Purl website, I gave up and pointed at the phrase asking for sock yarn, which I then augmented with 'Nippon; Japanese'.  The guy pointed me towards Olympus MakeMake socks.  I wasn't sure if one pack of three was enough for both socks, or just for one - so I bought two packs of three, in both colours which I thought Mr Knitty would like.  (Still trying to figure out this 'turning the heel' business, so he may have to wait a bit longer).  Seems I lucked out; the yarn is 70% merino, so will be gorgeously soft, even if any socks don't last for long. 

Olympus MakeMake socks - colourway 908 

Olympus MakeMake socks - colourway 907

Then I discovered the bargain bin, with ten balls of yarn for 98 yen, (52p) plus tax.  There was other stuff, but I didn't really like the colours.  Now, you'd think that if something was being sold off so cheap, then it was probably cheap to start with, right?  After putting it in my basket, taking it out of my basket to have a proper think (what would I actually use this for?) I then decided I was going to buy it after all.  Why not, it was cheap!  Turns out the cheapness was due to it being 100% polyester.  Oh well, you win some, you lose some.  



Then we went to Harajuku and may have snickered at the name of the street where we were headed.

Of course, we were taking a photo of the screen, as it had a camera on the crowd and we just wanted a self-portrait. 

This trip was to a shop called Daiso.  For UK readers, this is a cross between Wilkinsons and Poundland.  Lots of stuff at pretty cheap prices.  The branch in Hiroshima had 100% wool yarn for a grand total of 55p a ball.  Possibly a bit scratchy for wearing next to your skin; perfect for felting.  None of that in the Tokyo branch, they only had acrylic yarn.  I did manage to buy a lot of origami paper.  For 55p.  Would almost be rude not to.

I didn't manage to make it to Fabric Town.  Nor did I make it to Loft, which is another shop that bloggers have said good things about.  By that point in the day, I thought I'd run out of money (I hadn't), was slightly concerned about the space we had to carry stuff back and was feeling slightly overwhelmed with the amount of choice of stuff available to spend cash on. 

I no longer need any more yarn.  I have a stash of 60; enough for at least another year.  On updating my Ravelry stash, I realised that there are several batches of yarn which I haven't uploaded.  I don't regret the yarn I've bought - even the polyester stuff.  Just please remind me not to buy any more, not to invoke the souvenir clause and not to travel anywhere else, just in case! 

Knitting on Top Of The World

We're back from Japan.  Arrived back home yesterday, still feeling groggy and not really that keen on doing the sensible things like unpacking and putting stuff away. 

I may have over-bought on both yarn and origami paper.  Most of the origami paper came from Daiso for Y108, the equivalent of 55p/ 89 cents.  My plan is to fold a whole load more paper cranes and send them back to Hiroshima.  I have enough for several hundred; after a fit of insomnia at 4:00 this morning, fifteen cranes have already been folded. 

I did manage some knitting, during train journeys and flights - and waiting time for said train journeys and flights. 

Knitting on the train between Fukoshima and Hiroshima

The best knitting, as far as I'm concerned was at the top of the world's tallest tower - Tokyo Skytree  I was knitting in the queue to get tickets from the Tembo desk to the Tembo galleria (the highest point of the tower).  Only I was half way through a row as we got in the lift, so I had to finish it at the top. 

Knitting at the top of Tokyo Skytree

Literally, knitting on top of the world. 

View from Tokyo Skytree; Mount Fuji is somewhere in the distance

The yarn purchases will be covered in another post - but there was some.  Come on, this is Japan - home of Noro, there was no way I was coming home empty handed.  Turns out that it's the home of other lesser known yarn brands too.  

Dinner on the last night was in the Tokyo Bay area, which was just beautiful.

Tokyo Bay

Then on the monorail to the airport I found a new definition of over-eager - trying to knit standing up on a train, with a 16kg rucksack and no hand holds.  It didn't last more than a few rows:

Knitting on the monorail

The item I was knitting in that photo is now waiting to be sewn up, again another blog post awaits.

Now if you'll please excuse me, I think it's bed time. 

I hope this works...

Given that I am currently in Kyoto, it's no real surprise that parts of my internet are now speaking Japanese at me.  Problem is, I don't understand - so I'm clicking a lot of buttons and hoping.  If you can read this, then my method's clearly worked.  (Pictures may be one step too far; we'll see how it goes).

I started with a couple of days in Tokyo.  Love the city, totally confused by the metro system.  Stations which are marked as interchanges can have walks between them of several hundred metres.  My friend (and tent buddy) C and I went to the Tokyo Museum, where we saw, amongst other things, a whole load of the most beautiful gowns:

Just look at the detail:

Then travelled to the World Scout Jamboree in Yamaguchi, where we started the experience by avoiding a typhoon tropical storm.  The weather was possibly the hottest I've ever experienced, and it's certainly the most I have ever sweat in my life when taking the tent down.  Seriously, sweat in your eyes stings like billy-o.

Husband then flew out to meet me and we met up in Hiroshima.  Although there is lots we saw in Hiroshima, it would be ignorant to ignore the one thing for which it's famous:

The A-Bomb dome, as it's known.  This is the closest building to the hypocentre of the atomic bomb which was dropped in 1945.  The decision was made to keep it exactly as it was.  Personally, I found it far more creepy and evocative at night.

Now, if London lives off coffee, Hiroshima seems to live off cranes.  (Its residents probably drink a lot of coffee too, given the number of drinks machines we saw out and about).  Cranes are a symbol of peace and you will see them everywhere in Hiroshima.

So, in the name of being creative, I learned to make my own, using this tutorial on Youtube. 

Which I then hung up at The Children's Peace Monument with the assistance of our Brownie's mascot - Brownie Bear.

Knitting has also happened - mostly whilst waiting for planes or trains, or on said trains and planes.  I've got five baby hats and a layette which I want to get done by the end of this trip.  I'm two and a half hats in, minus the sewing up.  We've got a long journey tomorrow, so three hats is possible.  I'm saving the layette for the plane journey home.  I can't help thinking that the Japanese class knitting in public as 'something strange that foreigners do'.

Here, have some photos of Buddhas in beanies:

Sock it to me

Have you ever had projects which seem to gather bad karma, the way TV screens gather dust?  The ones which, no matter how you try, just don't seem to click?  I seemed to have that with cuff-down socks.  I had a pair which I tried to knit on double points; it didn't work.  I then tried it on magic loop and ended up knitting back on myself.  The third time I cast on, the needles sat in the WIP bin and when I tried to do anything with them, they ended up so tight on the cable, they wouldn't budge.

Meanwhile Andi is knitting a pair of socks every month for a year, choosing the yarn at random.  I've got about siz month's worth of yarn if I wanted to do the same.  Janna has done a recent post on knitting socks.  My friend Fluffy Owl has shared some beautiful socks on Instagram.  The watermelon socks were particularly luscious.  Let's Knit magazine in the UK is celebrating a summer of socks.  Where am I going wrong?


So on Thursday evening, my friend JP taught me to knit toe-up and it's brilliant.  It made me feel good, and apparently I was grinning like a loon.  She used this cast-on and I was off.  In the space of less than 48 hours it's grown quicker than I realised it would.  Thank goodness for train journeys!

After we left John Lewis, Thursday evening.

Friday morning, after Thursday's train journey home

Friday morning, after the journey to work

Saturday morning, after Friday's delayed journey home

I love that I can see the progress by the way the stripes change.  For those interested, the yarn is Sirdar Heart and Sole in colourway 104 - Move to the Groove.

If I spend the next six months knitting toe-up stockinette socks in self-patterning yarns, I think I can cope with that.  Maybe I'll get a bit more confident with magic loop and try another cuff-down pattern.  Maybe I'll get too impatient of knitting the two socks individually and will try knitting them both at the same time.  (Also good for making sure you get identical twins, rather than fraternal twins).  Who knows!

But first, please excuse me whilst I learn to turn the heel.....

| just want to knit....

Knitting on the train most days (40 minutes of knitting time each way, plus delays and platform waiting time), means that I've got my knitting groove back, slowly and all I want to do this weekend is knit.  There are three bits of stash I want to bust, the unlabelled yarn from Sweden has a pattern I want to knit it up into and there are at least three projects waiting to be finished.  (One of which I suspect is going to have to wait quite a long time, as it's a bit of a knit)  and I want to find stuff for knitting on the flight to Japan.   

Here, have the out-takes from As Time Goes By, my usual knitting viewing at the weekend.  The aim for this weekend is:

• Finish green shrug
• Knit more of the ecru yarn
• Finish big wool wristwarmers and cowl
• Block Turkish Delight scarf

Progress updates to follow.....

The weekends appear to be running away with me....

I don't quite know what's happening to the weekends at the moment. A couple of weeks ago, it was spring and now we're mid June. I may have blinked once too many times. 

I went to visit my sister; we went swimming and shopping and to the theatre, and walking in the hills. When you see the number of shades of green that are possible, you understand where Noro get their inspiration from:

I didn't tell my sister this; she was already a little put out at me knitting in the car, rather than looking at the view.  (As a side note, I've never bought Noro yarns in the UK.  Cannot wait to go find them in Japan). 

Even the grey clouds had a kind of beauty to them:

Not quite fifty shades of grey - but certainly more than one

We had lunch overlooking Sugar Loaf Mountain, which I'd only previously known through song lyrics No photos for that one, you'll just have to have the lyrics.

Other people may have seen trees against a light green/yellow field.  I saw a Fair Isle border to something or another:

There was also a yarn shop.  (I only found it as it was next to the pub where I was waiting for my sister, on the Friday evening.  I wasn't actively looking for a yarn shop, it just happened)

Yarn shop, of course, meant yarn:

Which then got taken, a few weeks later, to Switzerland...

Where I laughed about the place names:

And went for a hike up a mountain with some German scouts:

And I generally reminded myself what it's like to be outside London:

This is the route we took - the village at the bottom is where we started out.

This is where we had our lunch

Julia, one of the German scouts took photos of almost every waterfall, so I did the same too!

Of course, there was knitting - but that's for another time. 

Swedish Stash

Please reassure me that I'm not the only knitter who's planned to get a couple of balls of souvenir yarn, and then come back with slightly more than planned?  Yeah, that.

The first place we visited was Litet Nystan, Sankt Paulsgatan 20  (No photo as it was behind scaffolding).  Of course, I forgot to write down which number of the road the shop was located at, so we did a bit of going up and down.  Once I saw a yarn bombed tree, I knew I was going in the right direction.

Loved this shop.  Quite a lot of cotton, some Italian made sock yarn and lots of stuff with no labels - which I found quite exciting.  I got this:

I did think about getting a second ball, but I couldn't assume that they were both of the same dye lots.  I could have bought more, but the husband was with me, and was already questioning what I was going to use the one skein for. 

The next shop we looked for was Sticka & Virka which has now closed (although the website has only just updated to confirm that). We spent some time going up and down the street to make sure. 

The next lot of yarn was the linen yarn I bought at the Nordic Museum (Yes, they sell knitting yarn in the museum shop). One hundred percent linen yarn,which I've never knitted with before.

Then, on the last day, I went yarn shopping on my own.  Again, I couldn't find Anntorps Vav - I suspect that it's shut down and is internet only.  Gamla Stan (Old Town), the part of Stockholm where it is/was located is beautiful and I wish I had time to look round more.
And you know what, I was!


The thing I love about Stockholm is the way the signs show you which block you're on. So, if you're looking for Ljungqvist Garn, Odenplan on Karlbergsvägen 10, then you know you're getting close:

And do you know what ?  I was. 

And in the absence of my husband, I may have lost a little control - to the point that the lady behind the counter asked if I needed a basket, as I was dropping stuff all over the floor.  (I only went in for enough for one project). 

First, I wanted something for the Easy as Pie shawl from Ravelry.  (There were others,but they needed longer lengths of yarn).  So I got this one from Marks and Kattens:

Marks and Kattens Fame

It was available in purple, but as I'm trying to expand the colours in my stash, I went for the grey and black.

Then was the sock yarn I saw, and bought for my husband. I keep telling him I'm going to knit him something.  He wants a dark red jumper, which I've promised him at some point.  I thought the dark red and black sock yarn would be a good start for a pair of socks for him.


Finally (and trust me, I could have bought the same again), was this, which I loved because of the colour.  There is a cuff-down sock pattern on the inside of the yarn band, which I may not use for knitting - but may use to help with learning Swedish.

The final yarn I bought, I bought because I loved, loved, loved the colours.  No idea what I want to knit with it, possibly another shawl/wrap or socks.  (There are apparently 12 projects on Ravelry, so not a lot of inspiration there, at the moment)

The colours in the yarn bring to mind the yellow and blue in the Swedish flag, which feels kind of appropriate for souvenir yarn. 

What's your favourite souvenir yarn, and what did you knit it into ? 

The Frances sampler scarf

This came about after going through my stitch dictionary and realising that there were several patterns which could be worked over 35 stitches.  As a learning exercise, I'd recommend it, but as a knitting project there's still a lot I need to learn!

I started by trying to work out which stitches would go best together, have a similar drape etc.  Then I tried to work out the length of yarn needed.  I did this by knitting a set number of rows in garter stitch, measuring the amount of yarn used, and worked out how many rows I could do with the yarn I had. Note - this isn't a method which works!

NB - all photos taken before blocking.

I still have a lot to learn, like the fact that different stitches take up a different breadth of the scarf:

Ooops! 

I started with ribbed border stitch, worked over a two row repeat.  Loved it as a stitch pattern, but it has a clear front and back - which I don't like for scarves.  (I like my scarves to be the same back and front).  The problem was, I couldn't work out which was supposed to be the front, and which was supposed to be the back.  

My least favourite side:

ribbed border stitch

My favourite side:

ribbed border stitch

Close up of the crossed stitch pattern:

ribbed border stitch

I'd probably use this one again, but on a jumper or other piece of clothing.  Not sure it's stretchy enough for a ribbed edging, but it looks pretty and is easy to knit.

Next were the open striped rows, again worked over a two row pattern.

Open striped rows

I think I changed this from a stockingette stitch pattern, to a garter stitch pattern to make the fabric lie flat.  Again, liked the pattern, would use it for a scarf or something similar for future patterns.

After that were the open worked squares, in both stockingette stitch and garter stitch - to stop the scarf rolling up too much.  This was worked over a ten row pattern.  Interestingly, the garter stitch squares were much shorter than the stockingette stitch (which was how the pattern was written).

Open work squares - stockingette at the bottom and top, garter in the middle.

I think the pattern needs to be worked at a tighter gauge than the one I used.  The pattern doesn't work  as well in garter stitch and I wouldn't use it in stockingette stitch for a scarf.  I like the look of the pattern, but am unlikely to use it again, as I don't know where I would use it.

Then came the crossed cardigan stitch

Crossed cardigan stitch

I liked this one - worked over one row, so the same back and front.  It looked like ribs, but wasn't.  It was much thinner across the width of the scarf, so if I were making a scarf with this stitch again, I'd probably need more stitches on the needle.  I'd also use this for sweaters or other clothing. 

Then, my second favourite stitch - eyelet mesh, worked over four rows. 

Eyelet mesh

The only downside is that the front is not the same as the back (one side is flatter than the other), so not one I'd choose for a scarf again.  I don't know about using it for other clothing, as I don't know how much it would stretch after being worn and washed a few times.  No point having a sweater which sags and looks like a tent after knitting, is there?


Then, my favourite, just because I thought it looked so pretty - Turkish stitch.

Turkish stitch

Again, this was worked over one row, with an odd number of stitches: k1 *YO, k2tog - repeat from * to end of row.  The YO K2tog combo felt a bit hard going at times, and didn't do my wrists any favours.  I'm sure there are other variations which could be made: moss stitch border, slip the first stitch rather than knit it, cast on an even number of stitches and knit both the first and last stitches.....

After the above pattern, I then reversed it and went back through eyelet mesh, crossed cardigan stitch, open worked squares, open striped rows etc.  Only, I ended up with this much yarn left for about thirty or so rows.  Now maths isn't my greatest strength, but....

Overall, as an exercise I was glad I did it.  I discovered some stitch patterns which I'd use again, I've discovered that guessing the yarn length needed isn't really the most exact way of doing it.  I almost managed to join in My Sister's Knitter  stash down knitalong, but just flunked the deadline.  I've got a vague idea about how to write a pattern, albeit a scarf pattern.  I'd recommend it to others, and would do it myself again.

Reader, I frogged it.