Oh to Heel With It!

I've turned the heel on the first of the current pair of socks.  I've used the fish lips kiss heel and, in an attempt at being clever, have actually ended up being quite the opposite:

One of the two holes at each end of the heel rows

There is part of me who wants the socks finished on target, so is happy to fudge it (either by making new stitches to close the gap, or by sewing up the holes) and part of me knows that this will always bug me, so it's worth ripping it out and starting again. 

Next time, I will use a different heel construction.

Meanwhile, I've been chatting with friends about going to Unravel next months and discussing the possibilities of going to Dublin with Mr Knitty for Woollinn, combined with a weekend away, in May. 

To blow away the cobwebs, Mr Knitty and I have spent this afternoon feeding the ducks.  And the coots, and the moorhens and the gulls, and the swans and the geese.  

I never realised quite how big a coot's feet really are

The other visitors to the park were mostly families with small children or dogs, or both.  Mr Knitty was heard to comment: "There's a very happy boy dog with a big bit of wood" and he wasn't talking about the stick in the dog's mouth. 

A mute swan - just after it was trying to assert its authority

Feeding the birds took the ultimate in diplomacy, given how territorial some of them were getting.  The Egyptian geese in particular did not like the Canada geese, so he fed the Egyptian geese at one end of the inlet and I fed the Canada geese at the other.  We've got another half bag of bird food, so we can do it all again in a couple of weekends time. 

Egyptian geese - who always have better eye make-up than I do.

I have three more days at work - and I've already planned which hand knit socks I will be wearing on those days.  I just need to work out what clothes are going to go with them. 

What is on the horizon for you this week? 

I Totally Knit a Hat!

Yesterday wasn't the greatest.  This is the end of my time being signed off sick with work related stress.  Given how the NHS is supposedly so stretched, it's odd that they choose not to avoid sickness levels in their staff - but there you go.

I don't have the inclination to go into all the reasons why I'm not happy with the situation - but suffice it to say, I don't think I've been treated fairly and my work clearly has not been valued in the way it should have been.  It's one of these workplaces where people who are lazy or cut corners are rewarded, and those who work hard and do a good job are treated badly or let go.  It's totally the wrong way round, and I don't understand how it's allowed to happen.

Yesterday I spoke to my line manager about coming back to work.  I'm not going back to the department which caused me the problems (hurrah!).  However, the thought of going back has made me feel teary and anxious, which isn't a good thing.

However, I do have some things to cheer me up:

Wednesday's haul from the charity shop

Whilst talking to one of my neighbours last year, she commented that I only read non fiction, which I entirely refuted - before realising the truth in the comment.  This year, I've decided to alternate a fiction with a non-fiction book.  Buying from the charity shop makes more sense; it's cheaper than first hand, and when I've finished with them, I can return them to the charity shop. 

Thursday's package.  Yes, we do have an underground bedspread.  All the best people do. 

Whilst on the phone, these arrived. Not all were for me; some were for Mr Knitty.  This package included books from Oxfam; radios and trains for Mr Knitty, knitting for me.   All my books were from the 50s, back when measurements were in imperial, and illustrations looked like this: 

Illustrations from Odhams Knitting Encyclopaedia 

and schematics looked like this: 

Schematic from The Complete Knitting Book, by Marjorie Tillotson

The bottom package was my (slightly drunken) Amazon purchase from New Year's Eve.  During the Design Your Own Lace class last year, Karie Westerman made mention of the stitch dictionaries by Barbara G. Walker - so they were on the wish list, and they are glorious.  

Today I finished knitting a hat for Mr Knitty.  It's slightly loose on him, but he says that's OK.  I had to let it swing, to try and untwist the yarn - and it was slightly hypnotic to watch. 

Pattern - Invisicrown by Sockmatician
Yarn - Regia, double knit. 

Right 2018, I've actually managed to achieve something.  I feel far more prepared for whatever Monday brings.  Bring it on! 

The Elk Under the Sofa

I've just dropped a whole load of loom bands on the floor, and in clearing them up - found an elk under the sofa.  He's a Christmas decoration that I bought in Stockholm last August.  I have no idea how he ended up under the sofa, instead of on the tree - but we can rectify that in December.

Since last posting, we've not had any more major terrorist attacks (yay!) but we have had a General Election (boo!).  The Prime Minister wanted a strong mandate to carry on with negotiations to leave the EU.  She ended up with a reduced minority and a hung parliament.  At the moment of writing, she is still leader of the party, has just 'reshuffled' her cabinet and is going into partnership with the DUP to get a majority.  Many people, quite rightly, are expressing concern about the government now no longer having neutrality in the power sharing talks in Northern Ireland and as a result risk totally destroying the Good Friday Agreement.

But back to the loom bands. 

The loom bands were to help match up a batch of knitting needles that I've been bequeathed.  At my grandmother's memorial earlier this year, I was given unused yarn and needles from my uncle's mother, so not a direct blood relative.

Yesterday was only the single point needles; the box of DPNs will have to wait until a later date.

All together, I ended up with 36 marriages (of which three weren't true pairings, but they were the same size and length and basically looked good together) and 42 orphans.  As one of my friends said: "Knitting needles breed, but are lousy parents".

I'm knitting a secret thing for Mr Knitty's birthday, which is later this month.  He's probably worked out what it is, but is pretending not to.  I want to keep it a secret, so can only knit when he's not around.  Graciously, he's said that he's happy to wait if needed.  

Yesterday, we went for a walk in a local park and saw the birds, and a fallen down tree.  

Love where you live - the walk yesterday afternoon

As I was taking this photo - a small dog decided to take a poo at my feet 

There was something about the inside of the tree branch which seemed so fresh and meaty; I ended up taking loads of photos, all of which were pretty much the same. 

Odd that I should describe this as meaty, given that I'm a vegetarian 

Today was all about the knitting of the socks.  This pair started off so well.  Sock one had the foot done in pretty much one evening.  Sock two came with me to Gilwell Park (the headquarters of The Scouts and that's where things started to go wrong.  I was using Drops basic needles, as a friend of mine said that they were cheap, but long lasting.  This is the second pair of socks I've knit with these needles, and something happened to the join between the cable and the needle, to the extent I couldn't get the yarn past it, without it badly fraying - so I had to cut the cable. 

Yarn is King Cole 50:50 (discontinued) in colourway Jubilee 

Then I had a mare turning the heel of the first sock - all now sorted.  I'm at the heel turning point on both socks, but it's not going to happen tonight.  Pattern is Time Traveller by Liz Sedmak (Ravelry link)  Free pattern with an easy heel.  What's not to love? 

So what have you been knitting this weekend?  Has it all gone to plan?  

(Just checked.  Theresa May is still PM)

Running to keep up

Love Knitting has a Frog or Finish challenge running; the yarn version of put up or shut up.  If it's something that's working - get on and make it work and finish it up.  If it's not working, get rid and make it into something that is.  This may have been running for just January, but I'm going to take it into the rest of the year.

So, I was all keen to get on with this, and get rid of the neon scarf thing I started in March 2015, using the initial section of the gallatin scarf.  

The original neon scarf, before ripping out

Whilst was fun to knit, the fabric is too stiff and it's highly unlikely that I'll ever wear anything quite so bright around my neck - even if the 80s do make a come-back.  So, it's time to hit the frog pond and free-up a set of needles.

At the same time, I'd been sort-of-training for London Winter Run.  My running hat is 100% acrylic, and I don't particularly like it as a result.  So, the plan was to get the neon yarn knit into a new running hat.  Hopefully being a higher percentage of natural fibre would make it more comfortable to run in.  And what better place to début a new running hat, that at a winter running event? 

It sort of did and sort of didn't go to plan.  I ripped out the scarf, as it was.  I did some editing of the yarn.  I did a gauge swatch, I did the maths and started knitting.  Then had a major flap about whether I'd left enough ease and whether it was going to be big enough, so ripped it out and started again with four more stitches to the row.  Four.  Freaking.  Stitches.

Had I not had the freak out and rip out, the hat would have been done in time, even if it didn't properly fit.  As it was, the 10k was finished before the hat. 

Before the run - with the acrylic hat

At the end of the run

The new hat

I did try a photo of me wearing the new hat, but it basically looked like I was wearing a condom on my head.  I've not run in it yet, but it feels like a good fit. 

You'll notice that the hat has a decided absence of pink.  I'd love to tell you that I don't have anything against the colour, but that's a lie.  There's very little in our flat which is pink, and it's not a colour I choose to have around me in swathes.  I don't dislike pink as a colour; I simply loathe the fact that it's become the colour of gender stereotyping. 

Today, I've spent most of the day in bed with a cough, cold and general lurgy.  What I'd really like to knit is another Sick Day Pi Shawl just to see how easy it is when ill.  Ironically, despite the size of my stash, I'm not sure I've got any yarn... 

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. 

I wasn’t going to get caught up in this ‘Christmas knitting’ thing.  I swore I wasn’t going to get caught up in it, and somehow I have without realising.  Maybe I just wanted an excuse to buy more yarn ?  (For those interested, Red Lion acrylic in red and white, and a white Stylecraft eyelash yarn.  Bet you can't guess what I'm going to be knitting with that!)

I Have A Plan, but having looked at the pattern yesterday it didn’t make as much sense as I wanted it to, and apparently involves Swiss darning.  Swiss darning!  I’ve never darned anything in my life.  Yet. 

I would do it this evening, but the in-laws are visiting today and all tidying up that I’ve done has somehow managed to be undone this last week.  That leaves Sunday, in amongst packing to go away and buying Christmas presents, and blocking the shawl from York.  And decided which knitting projects to take away, copying the patterns and swatching to know which needles I should take; that’s going to take at least half a day!

If the worst comes to the worse, I’ll stay home from midnight mass.  Or darn in church, and thereby give away the secret.  Or darn on the train and risk stabbing myself horribly.  This is the one advantage of knitting with acrylic – no need to worry about blocking time. 

It will all work out fine,  because if I don’t get this sorted for Christmas 2014, I’ll be well ahead for Christmas 2015!

Summer Holidays

I'm currently staying with my (slightly dotty) grandmother for the long weekend.  I'm determined that I'm going to learn how to knit socks - these were the socks I was going to knit went to Northampton, but didn't in the end, as I didn't have the right size needles.

Having never knit in the round before, I didn't know about joining the stitches, so as to avoid a massive gap.  Attempt one - frogged.  The second time, I forgot that you need to swap needles as you knit, so I ended up with everything on two needles.  I lost count of the number of failed attempts, although I do have one photo from where it was going right:

About two rows later, I dropped a stitch, couldn't work out where it had gone and started again. Attempt whichever-we're-at-now - frogged.  The yarn is Sirdar Heart and Sole, using the cuff down pattern on the ball band.

Thank goodness for YouTube (seems I wasn't joining properly anyway).  With luck, and enough Bank Holiday rain to keep me inside, these socks may yet happen.

The other project I had with me, is a shrug pattern, from the Free Vintage Knitting website, in a discontinued Jaeger yarn, labelled as a baby merino.  The first problem is the number of splits I had in the yarn (this one wasn't the worst, by a long way).

The second issue I had, and this is a surprising one, was the colourway.  In the balls, it looks nice and autumnal-ish and the kind of colours I'd go for.  All knit up, it actually looked like the camouflage pattern, used on army fatigues.  As a pacifist, I don't really like the idea of wearing something that looks like Army uniform, let alone the fact that this is baby merino.  Not appropriate at all for baby clothing, in my opinion.  Due to the number of the split ends, and the fact that I didn't follow the pattern properly and have much better ideas on how the pattern can be improved, this has also been ripped back to where it started.

But then, with this amount of Bank Holiday rain, I guess an abundance of frogs are par for the course.

A Guide Makes Good Use of her Time

Once upon a time there were ten Guide laws, one of which was 'A Guide makes good use of her time (now ‘A Guide is helpful and uses her time and abilities wisely). Since my Guiding (and knitting friend) Smudgepuss and I have to get up at stupid o’clock this weekend for a Scout camp (preparation for the World Scout Jamboree in Japan - I’ve already been checked out yarn shops in Tokyo), she’s agreed to use the journey to teach me how to knit socks. 

 Of the stash of sock yarn, I’m taking this one, mostly because I like it least.

 (The mosaic yarn from the same company may well end up being used on wristwarmers instead). The Heart and Sole yarn has a pattern included on the yarn band, which I’ll tackle once I’m more au fait with reading sock patterns. The two basic patterns I’ve been sent by another Guiding/knitting friend are this one (cuff down) and this one (toe up). I’m somewhat scared off by tales of turning heels and cuff down patterns, but there’s only one way to find out if they’re true. 

More excitingly, My Sister's Knitter has a sock yarn knit along on Ravelry. Whilst you don’t have to knit socks, I’ve never done a knit along and this fits quite nicely. 

Will update on how we get on.