Spiral

My Spiral Cowl came off the needles back in December, but I’ve only just gotten around to photographing it.

Spiral Cowl by Keri McKiernan

Yarn: Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend

Ravelled here.

This started off as a gift for one of my best friends, but gradually morphed into a Christmas gift for my Mum since she’s a big fan of cowl. Instead, the Flutterby mittens went to my bestie after I spied the book that inspired the pattern on her bookshelf.

Spiral would have been a quick knit if I hadn’t taken an almost month long hiatus from it to concentrate on the mittens, but it was still a relaxing knit which allowed me to enjoy quite a bit of reading throughout. (looking back at my pics of Spiral as a WIP reminds me that I’m yet to post my Amsterdam trip photos! That shall go on my to-do list…)

I made a couple of mods to the pattern. I’m not a fan of picot edges so changed it to a garter stitch edge. I also increased one stitch after the border, which allows you to knit the cowl in one continuous spiral rather than working a pattern repeat over 7 rows. If you’re ever going to knit this pattern then I’d definitely recommend this mod. It really frees you up just knit and not have to count rows or pay any attention to a pattern. Just keep going round in a spiral until it’s long enough or you get bored. Much easier, and much more fun!

The Manos yarn is an absolute dream and I loved every moment of knitting with it. It’s soft, has a wonderful sheen and is sooo warm. I’m a complete sucker for semi solid yarns, so I adore the subtle colour variations within the skein. I probably wouldn’t rush out and start buying it regularly, but for a once-in-a-while indulgence it’s definitely a winner.

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chasing the lights

I’ve always wanted to see The Northern Lights, and for the past couple of nights they have been visible from the northern parts of the UK. Last night the Boy and I went in search of them.

I thought Northumberland might have been a good place to try (and a closer place!) but there were spectacular views of the event from Tan Hill Inn on Sunday night so the Boy wanted to drive out to Tan Hill in the hopes of seeing them again (the very excited bar girl told us that we’d missed the BBC news crew filming the report I linked to by about 15 minutes!). Sadly we didn’t see any lights, but i did get the chance to wear lots of my nice woolly hand knits and play around with my camera and some long exposure settings.

There were a lot of people around the Inn, but I found the headlight trails in the long exposures quite fun!

We eventually left the inn and drove a little further down the road where it was a bit quieter. I’d read reports that the Lights were sometimes tricky to see with the naked eye but appeared quite well on camera, so I thought I’d try again in an area where we could get a better view of the northern horizon where the Lights were supposed to appear but there was still no luck. I’m assuming the orange lights are just inner city light pollution, but it was quite pretty to see. Most of the time I really couldn’t see what I was photographing in the darkness, it was very much a case of pointing the camera in the general direction of the sky/horizon and see what we end up with!

So we failed in our quest to see the Northern Lights, but it ended up being a pretty decent night for stargazing and I loved the quiet serenity of the dales at midnight. Hard to capture the constellations on camera though, you can barely make out Orion’s Belt!

Apparently the Lights are supposed to be visible for the rest of the week so we night try again. I’m not holding out much hope for tonight though, it’s a horrid, overcast, drizzly kind of day so unless things clear up dramatically there’ll not be much of the sky to see tonight!

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dragon knitting

新年快乐 (xi nian kuai le – happy new year) and 恭喜发财 (gong xi fa cai – congratulations and be prosperous) for the year of the Dragon! We had our New Year’s Eve family dinner of steamboat last night, and it was so warming and delicious!

I haven’t had  a whole lot of time this week for knitting, (still haven’t caught up with Sherlock!) but I’m on my last stripe before the short row heel so hopefully I’ll get these socks finished before the end of the New Year!

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small pleasures

fresh off the wheel, squishably soft merino & silk handspun…

a new pink, rose scented shower gel…

a book to get lost in…

green tea in a pretty Japanese cup…

and a bit of chocolate never goes amiss either.

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socks & stuffies

 

I finally picked up Sophie again, and although the body and leg appeared surprisingly quickly I seem to have lost momentum again. I think I’m putting off the picking up of stitches. It’s not that it’s hard to do, it’s just that I don’t particularly enjoy doing it! I’ve also been a little over zealous with the stuffing. I find it hard to  know when to stop, which is very apparent by the stretched out stitches on the body and leg. Sadly I was too keen to bury the ends, so there’s not much I can do about it now! I might try steam blocking when (if!) I finish to see if that will even things out a little.

 

There’s also been very little sock progress as I’ve been distracted by spinning, but I’ve got some catching up to do with Sherlock so I’m anticipating a good chunk of knitting getting done whilst I enjoy that. Mindless stripes and t.v. are made for each other!

 

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one down…

one to go.

After one and a quarter Harry Potter films, and a good chunk of Escape to New York I finally finished (just about) my sock. I say just about because I was in no mood after midnight to start kitchenering, so I left that for this morning.

I couldn’t resist trying it on before I kitchenered, and although it looked a bit weird I’m pretty pleased with the fit. I used the Priscilla Wild short rows that I mentioned in my last post to make the toe, and I found it just as straight forward as the shadow wraps. It’s probably even simpler as you don’t need to do anything particularly special, but it is a bit easier to identify the wrapped stitches using the shadow wraps.

At this stage I’m not really convinced on the benefits of a short row toe. I can see where short rows can be a preferable method for heels, but the jury’s out for toes. I don’t find that the fit is any different than my usual method, and in the end I had to kitchener over 70 stitches instead of my usual 18. I also started grafting too tight so it took me twice as long since I had to go back over the row and loosen things up. Not fun! I’ve started the cast on for the second sock now, so we’ll see if the learning curve makes this one any easier!

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Fourth time’s a charm

I finally succeeded with my short row heel! After complaining about it all going wrong on Wednesday, I ripped it out and started again on Thursday morning and finally managed to get things going smoothly. It’s sort of weirdly pointy at the sides which I suspect is caused by leaving too many unwrapped stitches in the centre (I left 16) so next time I’ll have to experiment a little. I briefly considered ripping back again, but frankly I was so fed up with taking so long to get past the heel that I really couldn’t be bothered. Perhaps they’ll block out, and thankfully they pretty much disappear when the socks are on my feet so it shouldn’t annoy me too much.

I ended up following the directions on Minniemoll’s blog (how gorgeous are her socks in that post?!) where she suggested wrapping a second time on the return row so that you create another “shadow” just before you k3tog to incorporate the wrapped stitched back into the knitting (that’ll probably make no sense to me when I refer back to this post the next time I try shadow wraps! I loved the idea that pinkundine suggested on Twitter of knitting the shadow with the stitch before it instead of with it’s twinned stitch, but for some reason that method still gave me holes.

The only downside I see to this method is that it’s rather messy on the inside, but again this isn’t something that bothered me too much when I tried the sock on.

I’m now really keen to try the Priscilla Wild method of short rows, which Leah was sweet enough to point me towards on my last post. I googled it and it looks so simple, so I might have to give it a shot when I come to the toes…

 

I managed to knit a couple of blocks of stripes whilst I was at the cinema yesterday, so I’m pleased that I didn’t completely screw up the stripes in the dark! We went to see The Artist, and although I wasn’t really in the mood for it before I went in I ended up completely falling in love. It is the most beautiful film, and it’s worth every bit of praise that’s being heaped upon it. I definitely recommend it.

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back to stripes

My stripey socks are on the go again. I abandoned these in favour of Christmas knitting, and in the spirit of my 2012 “resolutions” I’m going to try and get a few WIPs off the needles even though I’m itching to start something new.

These socks are my first attempt at a short row heel. I’m a big fan of a nice, thick cushiony heel flap, but I thought I’d try something different with the stripes, and a short row heel would probably look a bit neater than my usual flap and gusset. Unfortunately it’s not going too well.

I’ve worked short rows before, even though I’ve never tried a full on short row heel, and despite trying a variety of different short row techniques, like many knitters I often end up with holes. I thought I’d try Shadow Wraps this time around, and even though I really like the technique I’m still ending up with holes. I refuse to be beaten though, so I’m giving it another go tonight and if my heels are still full of holes I’ll have to start again with wrap & turns!

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flutter on by

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year! It’s all been a bit hectic round at chez EJ so I didn’t manage an end of year round up. But I am kicking off my first blog post of 2012 with an FO!

The Flutterby mittens are done and gifted and were very happily received.

I was running late (as usual) on the day of gifting, so all these photos are a tad rushed and the mittens are still damp from blocking, but hopefully it doesn’t show too much!

Flutter Butterfly Mittens by Mimi Hill

Yarn: Sirdar Country Style 4 Ply in Cream & Navy

Ravelled here.

I love these mittens. Love them.

It’s one of those patterns which looks a bit more complicated than it actually is, and as a result progress is quite speedy. It does take some concentration though, as colourwork invariably does, and knitting these mittens in a moving car on the afternoon of a British winter is not a good idea… trust me. After finishing the first mitten and cockily thinking that I had things down pat for the second one, I thought I’d be clever and get a bit of gift knitting done on my birthday trip to Yorkshire. Never mind that it was too dark and fiddly to read a chart in the car, I’d done this before!

No.

I’d completely forgotten about the rather large and beautiful butterfly who sits in the palm of the second mitten. The next day all my smug feelings of how I was pretty much on track for finishing these on time were wiped clean away when I picked up my mitten in daylight and realised my error. Cue much swearing and frogging.

But aside from that little incident, this was a fun project to work on. I don’t often knit colourwork because it often requires more concentration than I like to give my knitting, but after these pretties I may have to rethink that mind set.

I didn’t modify this pattern at all, other than knitting the cuff in twisted rib because it looks neater. If I was to knit these again however, I think I’d knit the cuff on smaller needles and work it for a bit longer, it was a bit too short and loose for my tastes. I’d probably go up a needle size for the body of the mitten too, as although this pair are a perfect fit for their recipient, my hands are not as dainty as hers and they’re too snug a fit for me.

I was furiously trying to dry the mittens on the dashboard heaters in the car… it didn’t work!

Mittens and gloves are definitely things which are in deficit in my stash of handknit goodies, so I’m going to make an effort to knit more of them in 2012. I was a little disappointed when I looked over my Ravelry page and realised that I’d only finished 13 projects in the whole of 2011! In contrast I have a whopping 7 projects which were started and then abandoned, so I’m going to make a concerted effort to finish the projects that I start.

I’m not actually a fan of New Year and never really make resolutions, but I admit that I do still get seduced by the idea of a clean slate at the beginning of the year, so my plans for 2012 are more socks, more mittens, more spinning, just more of everything except unfinished projects! I also want to design and dye more and be much more active on the Ravelry forums. I’m afraid I’m a bit of a lurker, which probably has it’s roots in the fact that I’m really quite shy, but I think it’s time to break out of that and try and participate a bit more, especially since I joined some really lovely forums towards the end of 2011. So what do you guys have planned for 2012?

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