mad ideas

Glenda has gorgeous Blue Heron Metallic yarn and I'm trying to find a pattern for it. Saroyan would look perfect, the yarn is mottled subtly in cheery spring green tones. Something with leafs would be perfect, but I'm just not finding anything that's grabbing me.

Found one pattern which is called something else, but is just Barbara Walker's Scroll Pattern. I saw that in a recent trawl of the pattern book and thought I could make it reversible. So that's what I'm currently playing with, although I really should make some tortillas, since we're having fajitas for supper...

It seems to be working, but the yarnovers are getting lost. They might not in the BHM, my test yarn is Berroco Comfort. So I might try this pattern with a double yarnover that will then get dropped the next row. maybe.

resurrecting my blog

My long neglected blog! I sort of take notes during Ravelry projects, but sometimes I have knitting ramblings that don't really apply to a specific project or do so only indirectly.

Like the cardigan I started on. I'm using two strands of Jawoll Magic held together and I seem to have gotten two skeins with nearly the exact dye spacing. Which would be fabulous if I was making socks. As a sweater it came out all stripey. Which is also awesome, but on a bust as big as mine horizontal striping is not the way to go!

So, I switched to the other two skeins, and those two have different dye spacing and it's coming out all mottled, which is exactly the effect I wanted.

Thankfully I'd only done about 5 inches, so that's not so bad, but I will have to unravel and re-wind one other skein so that the colours don't match up again.


Unwanted stripes:














How I wanted it to be:

Where did May go?

Sheesh, it's June already!

I keep getting design ideas, they won't stop hounding me! And if I don't work on them my brain pesters me unmercifully as I'm trying to go to sleep, so that I dream tangled knitting dreams. (which, frankly are no worse than the nonsense my brain typically flings at me, like this morning's bizarreness of a bear cub an ostrich, terrorising the countryside. I attacked the bear with a bread knife and the ostrich was about to peck me when I woke up)

Despite the fact that most of me thinks it's an idiotic idea, part of me keeps thinking that I should write a knitting book. And that's why I keep getting all the design ideas. It's not merely good enough to just design one blanket, no, my brain keeps flinging these designs at me, through headaches, just before I go to sleep... I don't know how to get a book published! I don't even think that many people would be interested! But several people from several boards have shown interest, maybe not in buying a book, but at least in my designs. But I keep feeling like I'm just re-inventing the wheel and why would anyone buy that?

But I am actually writing out a proper pattern - for possibly the first time ever. And I have a notebook and drawings and everything I see twists its way into my skull and tries to become a pattern. (ooh, skulls!) See? :)

Latest projects and general babbling

SOCKS! I finally got bored enough to make socks. I am project-less and Gina convinced me to try making socks. I found a pattern on Knitty that I adored, but when I got to the yarn shop I fell in lust with this brown and green and gold wool/bamboo yarn. So I made plain socks.



I wish I hadn't done 3x3 ribbing - it's stretching a lot as I wear these socks. Plus, I couldn't find a really stretchy cast off and did this sort of sewing method that I think is effective, but sloppy. Also, I should have used size 1 needles, not size 2.

But, Devlin demanded socks for himself, so I let him choose the yarn and I finished one. I like the cast off method/improvisation that I did and perhaps I'll write about that later after I upload some new pics.

I have yummy yarn for socks for myself (it's cotton and bamboo) and size 1 circular needles, after visiting the yarn shop in Centre Hall.

I had a lovely visit with Giabow and Limertilly (from the World's End/Neil Gaiman message board) It was such a wonderful thing to fondle yarn and knit with them. :)

Design idea breakthrough!

It's all due to aitapata - she posted a picture of a stripey shrug and it clicked in my head this is how to salvage my design. I don't have to rip out the two panels I've done, I won't have to buy any more yarn (although I did rather like the idea of having russet in there, to set everything off) and I will most likely wear it more often as a shrug than as a poncho.

I have two panels that are about 13 inches wide by 25 inches long. Those will join together to span my arms and across the back. They stretch to my forearms on either side, where they will be sewn together and then V area is where I'll add the collar/edging in mustard. In a sort of V-shaped cable-ish piece.

I think it will work. I'll have pictures sometime soon - it's Christmas, and Kathy is visiting, so I never really know what I'll be busy with.

Things that are finished - Hats. I started out doing one for myself, that actually didn't happen. I was using up old alpaca that turned out to be far too hot for a sweater and it wasn't spun very well or something because it kept coming undone. Well, I missed a spot in my hat and it came unraveled before it could even start to felt, so the brim had this huge strand-y hole. feh. Then there was the weird dyeing mishap that kinda came out interesting - it was supposed to be purple, but came out a sort of chocolate cherry. The recipient said she liked it, but I think she was just making me feel better :) One of them shrunk too much and that will be a prezzie for my sister in law who has a smaller head than I do. There's a green one for a friend on Next Exit who bought me tomato seeds whilst on holiday in Italy. That dye experiment turned out odd but interesting too.

So I might still make a hat for myself, but I don't like the colours of any of the wool I have in my stash. I think perhaps I'll try that Bamboo wool I saw at AC Moore.

Aran Poncho ideas

First off - argh! at Blogger for making the sign-in so damn frustrating. I don't have the brain capacity to remember every damn username and password - especially when I'm forced to use letters AND numbers! I don't blog daily, so I don't remember this blasted information!


All I wanted to do was babble about finally finishing up what began life as a shawl - only a thick one, not a lacy one. It started life out as a tree done in a diamond shape, was supposed to have "legs" of cables and vining leafs and it was supposed to be a thick V shaped shawl/wrap type thing.

Well, I could never get the tree right. It curls, it never lays flat and it just bugs me. So I don't want to rip out the other two pieces I have done, they're just fine, but I didn't want to do just a really wide, rather long scarf, so I'm going to rearrange the pieces into a V shaped poncho. I will probably need to buy one more colour to go up the neckline. Although I want to get russet to go with the Autumn colours thing I have going on (other colours are dark green, brown, mustard) and I'm not wild about red (ish) near my head.

I have to do measuring.

I have some cable motifs in mind - currently swatching Barbara Walker's Baroque Cable. I had to completely re-graph the thing though because her graphs confuse me! Is it because I learnt doing cables by graphs from doing an Alice Starmore Aran sweater? Starmore's graph make sense to me.

Duh du jour: I spent two nights graphing out a cable design from a knot design I printed out, only to discover that I basically tweaked a Saxon braid. sigh.

It's finished!

Actually I finished it about a month ago. I've worn it a few times and gotten several compliments, but I must say that it's not really "me". I just don't have the proper body to wear a shrug. Perhaps it's the colours, too - red is not a favourite.

I'm currently working on a to-be-felted satchel-type purse for Roberta. I'm using Patons SWS, which is a wool and soy blend. I had no idea you could make yarn out of soy? It felts quite nicely, if somewhat furry, and with cute little nubs.

I've also knitted up a swath of a Moda Dea yarn which is 65% wool, 35% acrylic. I have yet to felt it, I'll chuck it in with the satchel when that goes in. It's over half wool in content, so it should felt somewhat at least. Mostly I'm just curious. I like the colourways and I think it would make an interesting bag or backpack.

I told Mark that I'd make him a Dr Who scarf if he buys the yarn. I must be mad! :)

Actually, I've always wanted to do one, but never really knew anyone who would truly wear and enjoy it. Mark's a die-hard fan though, so I know it'll go to a good home. aitapata from the neil gaiman board found a great site [url]knitpicks.com[/url] and the Wool of the Andes yarn matches fairly well with the original scarf's colours - although it's extremely frustrating to match online pictures - and depending on the lighting for the old TV show, and which scarf was used (apparently there were several)... well, it gets down to... I'm picking this and winging it!

I think that's everything so far.