Not Calorimetry

• Pattern: none, I just cast on 86 sts and went for it.
• Yarn: mystery leftovers from stash, high wool content, aran/worsted weight.
• Needles: 1 x 80cm 4mm metal circular.
• Finished measurements: 21in long or thereabouts.

I had a load of leftover bits of yarn, about 20g worth, from different projects that I just couldn’t bear to part with. Calorimetry was a pattern that I’d looked at in the past and never got round to trying. Guess what? I still haven’t tried it

I cast on 86 st (I think), worked 6 to 8 rows of 2×2 rib, then did several short rows til I had maybe 46 ‘live’ stitches. Rather than than working the short rows on the way back out again, I just knit straight across the lot and worked the rib across all 86 sts for another 6 to 8 rows – until I ran out of yarn. 

The piece ended up with an assymetric shape, which works well. The tighter cast on edge holds the band in place when it’s used as an earwarmer and the looser edge allows it to ‘flare’ up under the chin when it’s worn as a neck warmer.  It fits perfectly just inside the collar of the fleece I wear to work  most of the time.

Walking Socks

Went for a 2 hour walk on a local country estate with a friend and thought I’d test my new walking boots. Comedy moments included slipping down a very muddy slope when I was supposed to be climbing up it, and teetering on a rock taking pictures of a little waterfall. I was rather glad I had the only camera

The boots worked out fine, but I was wearing a pair of “widdershins” that I’d made last year. They’re fantastic for day to day stuff. Inside a walking boot? Never again! When I was making my way downhill one of the cable crossovers rubbed my little toe to a blister.

Note to self, must make some 2-colour stockinette socks for walking boots. Not that I need any excuses to make socks!

No Pictures Just Knitting

Haven’t been around much recently, what with work being busy and worrying about the house. I went to a council meeting yesterday where all the residents presented their concerns to the local councillor. With any luck something may happen.

Who am I kidding?!! Nothing’ll happen for ages, then a couple of small things may be set in motion which are far too little too late. And we’ll all still be in danger of being flooded again.

On happier notes, I’ve been doing a little more knitting – mainly swatches for the neverending sampler blanket. I think I’ve decided it’s going to be ‘lap quilt’ sized. Mainly because I’m impatient and want to see it finished

With any luck, I’ll have another batch of ’squares’ ready by the end of the month. Will let you see pictures then.

Happy New Year

Sampler Blanket Squares 45 – 59

It’s been a busy few months. The renovation work on my house is finally done, so I’ve moved back in. There’s the constant task of cleaning plaster dust off everything, but that should (I hope) be less of an issue by March.  I cope by knitting swatches…

In the course of cleaning everything, I rediscovered the rest of the ’squares’ for my sampler blanket – the neverending UFO. I’ve actually started piecing it together. yay!  On the other hand, I keep looking through ‘Charted Knitting Designs’ and finding more patterns to try.  These are the latest:

Fronds

  Long Loop I

  Heart Strings

  Rabbit Ears

  Ear of Corn

  Celtic Flourish

  Mirror Cable

  Pod Pattern

  Spot Pattern Twist

  Fancy Vine

  Curlicue

  Little Twist Honeycomb

  Bootlacing Cable

  Nubby Stitch

  Four Lobed Escutcheon

Whoops!

I gave in to temptation – I’ve ordered yet more knitting books. The rest of the Barbara Walker knitting treasuries. Had been thinking about it for a while, then got my mitts on a friends copy of the 1st treasury and was won over.

Sock designs keep popping into my head. Anybody’d think it was autumn…

WTP and sampler blanket

The Walker Treasury Project is back!
The WTP,  is ‘ a pooling of efforts to illustrate in color all five of the Walker treasuries’.  The project was founded back in January 2007 by Nicole Hindes of allbuttonedup. So far we have illustrated nearly 300 swatches from the five books, which include the 1st 2nd 3rd and 4th ‘Treasuries’ as well as ‘Mosaic Knitting’.

The WTP was revitalised when two new moderators joined the ranks, vjicha and veiland (ravelry ids). Veiland created a new swatch claiming system and wrote the associated ‘how to pages’. Vjicha has the swatch bug! She’s contributed a lot of swatches  in the last month, as well as helping populate the swatch claiming database with unclaimed swatch data and sanity checking my rewrites of the ‘about’, ‘photo tips’  and ‘rules’ pages amongst others. 

All the moderators are really psyched to see the project taking off again. If you want to get involved, head over to ‘how to join the project’ and get started

Meanwhile I’ll leave you all with  a picture of the latest swatches I’ve done for the WTP and my sampler blanket. They’ll be up on the WTP blog in the next couple of days.

SP12 wrap-up

A lovely surprise was waiting for me when I got home today:

The final parcel from my SP -  Ruth of ‘Roo Knits‘.
Check out her orange ‘express lane’ socks – they’re great!

Two hanks of cashmere ‘Posh yarn’ – I giggled when I saw the shade name ‘Temper’ 2 ball of ’sock it to me’ yarn, mainly cotton with a bit of elastan. ‘Divine’ chocolate, 2 different kinds of chocolate covered marzipan, a sweet little notebook, skittles, a shawl pattern and last but by no means least – a signed copy of ‘Things I Learned from Knitting  …whether I wanted to or not’  by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee.

Thankyou so much Ruth, you certainly have spoiled me! I’ve already started on the book and marzipan, and I’m having ideas about the posh yarn too (yep probably a scarf…)

On a similar note, the final parcel I sent out to my downstream pal Jule has arrived. She has already started spinning the merino roving, and I can’t wait to see the results.

Busy Busy Busy

And still not a lot of knitting.

The insurance company’s finally told the contractor they have the job, so I need to make notes about where I want elecrical sockets, arial points, switches and phone sockets put. Oh yes, and any extras I want done at the same time, because it’ll be cheaper to do all at once. All I do is have to pay for the parts and any top-up labour. Methinks I may break out Illustrator for doing some floor plans

And I’m currently integrating/editing/rewriting reams of text on the rules page of the WTP – opinions welcome!