Tequila Sunrise FO

I’ve finally managed to take a photo the Tequila Sunrise jumper that I can put up with.  If I knitted it again I would make the sleeves shorter but apart from that I’m quite happy with it and am looking forward to wearing it when the weather gets a little bit cooler. At the moment it’s too mild for me to wear a jumper. Oh and the top I’m wearing underneath was a dress that became a little tight and tooooo short so I got my mum to cut it off and re-hem it and voila a top that I have worn loads of times this summer.

Short blog as I haven’t done much knitting at all this week. I spent a lovely evening on Monday watching a dvd and knitting with my friend Nic but that was all until this morning when I decided to teach myself to do intarsia so I can knit a vertically striped pair of socks. I’ve made a swatch of blue and white striped knitting, at first I did one stitch in each colour but then I doubled the stitches and am doing two stitches in each colour. I’m trying to figure out how the stripes will work around the heel and then will give it a go. I want to use black and purple Elle Stretch DK to make some elastic knee highs.

Sock Knitting

Last Sunday I guided my friend Nic as she started knitting her first pair of socks. At first we were sitting on the grass in the Close but after an hour we finally admitted it was rather chilly and adjourned to a local coffee shop. I had described the pros and cons of toe ups and top downs  to help Nic choose which method to use.

Nic decided on the toe up Widdershins method and I started a new sock as well to aid the teaching process. By the end of the afternoon Nic had a lovely pink toe of a sock and has knitted most of the sock foot this week. I was going to frog the green toe that I had started for demo purposes but Nic said she would like it and as the yarn is the Opal Uni that unfortunately is too itchy for me I thought that was a great idea. I spent the rest of Sunday (with a brief break for dinner) knitting a lacy sock. I found the lace pattern in a book from the local library and by bedtime I had knitted most of the foot. The pattern doesn’t have a name and I mainly chose it because it was the right size for the 27 stitches across the top of the sock. Since then I have knitted the heel and then added enough stitches for the leg part so that the pattern would repeat all the way round the leg. It took a bit of figuring out and as I work on dpns it’s a challenge if the yarn forwards/overs are near the end of needles but I think it’s doing ok. I will do a few more rows and then a rib and then start the second sock. All in all I’m quite proud of myself for figuring it all out by myself. I even did some knitting in public in the rec room at work!!

Last night I felt like a break from the slight brain strain of following the lace pattern so I finished the first pink/purple sock that I started for my other friend the week before. It’s got a pink toe, a purple foot, pink heel and a striped leg with pink rib. The other one will be the reverse purple toe, pink foot, purple heel and reverse striped leg with purple rib. I figure that in shoes it won’t be noticeable that the stripes are reversed but around the house she will have odd feet, which I think is fun. I do hope she agrees.

My knitting book

	I just thought I’d post pics of my knitting book as I like it. It’s a Clarice Bean notebook I got free at my old job and has a mixture of blank, lined and squared pages. I tend to use the square pages for my knitting to mark off the rows as I’m not fabulous at counting them on the knitting itself. The page shown is my Tofutsies socks.
I also forgot to say that the yarn I ordered from Get Knitted arrived on Tuesday, it was a well wrapped up parcel and I got a free lollipop and pen with it! They sent yarn from the same dyelot as I requested so I can get going on the Little Pixie Coat again now.

New Shoes

I finally took pictures of the knee high lacy socks that I knitted in April. They are knitted with Elle Stretch DK, which IS acrylic, but it means that I can knit knee high socks that stay up because they are elastic. The pattern was from a free sock supplement with Knit Today magazine in the Spring. I bought the yarn intending to knit a different pattern in the supplement but decided I preferred the lace design of the Rowan 4 Ply Soft pattern instead. So I switched! It was an easy pattern repeat to learn and I really enjoyed knitting them. It’s a top down pattern with a grafted toe and the only thing I didn’t like was the heel flap and having to pick up stitches. But I don’t like picking up stitches generally. I ended up with a ball and a half of the yarn left so today while I was in Trowbridge I bought another ball of black and two balls of a burgundy/purple so that I can knit another pair of knee high socks that stay up – I’m thinking of vertical stripes…. While I was there I got distracted by these shoes (as you do!) and thought that they would look great with my knee socks, be perfect for work as they are not too high or dressy and they really reminded me of the shoes Betty wore in Ugly Betty (I saw a rerun of it this morning so it was obviously fate). I also bought a new set of 2.5mm dpns so that I can have two socks on the needles at once.

This week I have been combining knitting with exercise, no I haven’t been knitting on a treadmill. I have been listening to knitting podcasts while I walk or cycle every evening after work. I’ve discovered a route that is about 5-6 miles and takes me 80 mins to walk and 40 mins to cycle, and Brenda Dayne of Cast On has been with me all week. It makes the time go so much quicker if I’m distracted by Brenda’s knitting news and essays. Normally on my bike I’m just thinking about how much my legs hurt, how tiring it is or do I really have to cycle up this hill but with knitting talk to listen to I hardly notice any of that. I’m listening to back “issues” as I only discovered podcasts a couple of months ago so I have about 36 episodes still to listen to so that is about 7 weeks of exercising.

I’m currently knitting a pair of toe up Widdershins purple and pink socks for my friend Bex. We met up last Sunday afternoon and afterwards I realised that she loves pink and purple and I have a ball of each in Opal Uni that I can’t use for myself as it’s wool therefore making me itch so I cast on some socks there and then. Bex’s feet are a little bigger than mine and my Tofutsies are a little big as I forgot that knitted fabric stretches when you put it on so I’m knitting the foot part the same size and will just add a few increases after the heels as her ankles and calves are a little wider. Should be fine – hope they fit.

I’ve booked my ticket for the knitting and stitching show at Alexandra Palace next month and I’m getting really excited!

Aaargh…

…..I ran out of yarn. I’ve finished the back, two fronts, both sleeves and the first side of the hood for the Little Pixie Coat and I’m about 2/3 up the hood and I’ve run out of Debbie Bliss Rialto. I bought the amount of balls the pattern said but I used Rialto instead of the Sirdar Sublime Cashmerino and Rialto is 105m per ball and Cashmerino is 116m per ball. So I have ordered 2 more balls (so I definitely have enough and will be able to make matching booties too!!) from Get Knitted and it is being despatched on Monday. Picture is of the pattern in the book, my hood side in progress, a sleeve and the corner of the other half of the hood. The turquoise wool through the hood in progress is incase I made anymore stupid mistakes and had to undo it AGAIN.

In the meantime I am sort of a bit lost for something to do, I did try to start the Jaywalker socks I plan to make out of the Lana Grossa Cotton Spirit but after about 4 rows (toe up using Widdershins pattern but adding Jaywalker zigzags) I realised I had a gaping hole in the toe and obviously wasn’t in the right mood for the magic cast on. So I undid it and wound it back on the ball. I just really want to finish the Little Pixie Coat, I’m really enjoying knitting it.

I was off work for a day and a half this week with a stupid summer cold and cough, I feel fine now but it was very frustrating as I had a lot of things I HAD to do at work this week. While I was off I did do some knitting but had to unknit a few rows due to the fuzzy head making me do the wrong row in moss stitch a couple of times. I also read The Shadow Of The Wind by Carlos Ruis Zafon, it’s a fantastic book set in Barcelona post Spanish Civil War and I loved it. It was immensly readable. A young boy is taken to the Cemetary of Lost Books by his father where he choses a book and from that point on his life is turned upside down in the search for answers about the author. I have been thinking about visiting Barcelona in the future and really wanted to read a story set there, this book describes the city in the 1950s and made me want to visit it even more.

P.S.

I saw a lovely cardigan on a girl in Waitrose this week, it was a very fine knit in a deep green but what I liked most was that it had stars of different sizes all over it done like a lace pattern. It was really subtle as you only noticed them after a little while and only because the girl was wearing a white t-shirt underneath the cardigan. I kept trying to look at it but had to stop in the end as I think her dad thought I was a lunatic.

So now I kinda want to learn do lace knitting….. can anyone recommend a good book/website?

Pixie things

I still haven’t managed to take a picture of my finished tequila sunrise jumper but this is me sat on my bed like a pixie trying to sew it all together. Look at the look of concentration on my face!

This week I’ve completed the back, two fronts and two sleeves of the Little Pixie Coat from the The Second Little Sublime Hand Knit Book I got at Get Knitted a few weeks ago. I’m halfway up the left side of the hood now too. I love knitting baby things the speed is so gratifying. The Debbie Bliss Rialto in red is lovely to knit with and really soft, I almost think that it might not be itchy if I made myself something in it.

Later I have to be measured because mum is making me a chocolate brown tank top (UK for a sleeveless sweater not a vest – I’m not sure what they are called in American). It’s a v-neck to wear over a shirt for those days where it’s a little chilly for just a shirt but not cold enough for a shirt and a jumper. Hopefully it will be finished in time for Autumn/Fall.

I’m not feeling fabulous this week as I have a cough and cold but I have been listening to back “issues” of the Cast On Podcast by Brenda Dayne and really enjoying them. Particularly the review of Amy Singer’s No Sheep For You as it’s persuaded me to buy the book without even seeing it. Except grrrrr it’s out of stock at Amazon.co.uk!!!!

My sale tofutsies sock yarn I ordered two weeks ago hasn’t arrived yet so I’m quite disappointed. I hope it arrives soon.