I'm so dead

I am speaking to you today from beyond the grave. The Yarn Smackdown has smacked me down. I am dead.

Killed, on my own doorstep by a beautiful lime green hat from lisalaraine. I thought all was well, as the postman had passed me by in the morning. Don't be fooled. Three thirty saw the Parcel Force van at my door and there I was - laid low.

The kids came home.

"How are you, Mummy?"

"Well, since you ask, I'm dead."

Wails from both.

Then they saw the hat, lying on the table in one of those re-sealable bags (the ones that I can never get resealed).

#1 daughter snatched it up - "Here's the evidence!"



#1 son said, "Here's the murder weapon."

I think they've been watching too much CSI (and if that Horatio Cane isn't the hottest redhead on TV, I don't know who is.)

The Sock Yarn Blanket is starting to take over my life. I started by making it five blocks wide, just to see if I liked the idea of it. Well, I like the idea of it. So now I'm thinking twenty squares wide, so it can act as a "throw" on the sofa. I don't know how long it will need to be. Let's just say, "long".

Shelly Kang (who made the original sock yarn blanket) asked for yarn donations. Then she got the Yarn Harlot involved and soon became buried in sock yarn. I was thinking of applying the simpler expedient of going to the yarn shop and buying the stuff but, hey, if anyone has spare sock yarn...

I'm up to forty-three squares now and I'm still not fed up with it, which must be some kind of a record.

I need to go and knit another few (squillion) squares.

Third time lucky?

I've been trying (and trying and trying) to start a tablecloth, which I will use as a shawl, of course. It's the "Tablecloth with center (sic) star" from "Anna" February 1987. I am using the olive green Cashwool I got in Yorkshire and my trusty Hiya Hiya 2.5mm circular needles.

It all seemed to be going fairly well until I managed to make a complete pig's ear (technical term) of one of the double decreases used to close the top of the petals. I didn't discover this until the next round, by which time there was a huge hole. As I was so near the beginning (just about twenty rounds in), I decided to rip out and start again. I was quickly back on track and then I got to about round 45 and just didn't like the look of the area around where the "magic" loop came out. I tried readjusting the tension with a sewing needle. No better. I tried dropping down the offending four stitches and knitting them back up. Even worse. I carried on for two more rounds and then I just knew I wasn't happy with it and I didn't think I ever would be. Out it came.

Part of the difficulty was that in this particular area there were YOs at the end (or beginning) of the needle. It seemed to make a huge hole and just accentuated the ladder effect that all lace knitters need to guard against when changing needles while working a piece in the round. I'm trying to counteract that this time round by not doing a YO at the beginning (or end) of the needle but waiting until the next round and picking up the running thread between the needles. This seems to be tightening that area a little bit, though I'm only up to round sixteen so I haven't done that more than once so far.

I'm almost to the point of flinging it across the room.

I think this was the first try:



I started the Wrap Me Up wrap again, this time using Rowan Tapestry in the rainbow colourway:



This is much, much better in my opinion, though I wasn't able to buy enough yarn in my LYS, so I'm now stalled for lack of yarn - it seems to be taking a long time to get here. One of my knitting friends has just made this same wrap using the same yarn. She has yarn left and has very generously offered to send it to me - I bet that arrives before Rowan gets round to sending it.

For light relief, I've started a "Sock Yarn Blanket". Garter stitch mitred squares using left over sock yarn and joining together as I go. I've made about thirty squares, so it is growing, if rather slowly. This is obviously going to be a long term project.



Ann-at-work's Smart car has died. She is blaming it on all the yarn that I crammed into it on the way back from SkipNorth. I am not so sure and think there may be a deeper, darker reason. She's got a very zizzy (technical term) new Golf and my first thought when she appeared in it was, "Wow, we could fit tons of yarn in that!"

There were going to be pictures in this post but Blogger is playing up (as is often the case these days) and doesn't seem to want to play with me. I'll publish this anyway - just so you know I'm still alive and knitting, and come back later and try to add the pictures. (Edited later: finally got the pictures uploaded.)

Oh, and I'm through to the second round of the Yarn Smackdown and have just sent off a pink number in Rowan Kid Classic to my victim in Maryland - little does she know her death is on its way (though I expect mine from her is too - it's all down to the USPS and the good old Royal Mail at this stage. May the best postman win.)

Last week they said it would snow.

It did:

Kauni Complete

The Kauni has been lurking, untouched, for a few months; partly because I couldn't face the picking up of the 175 stitches around the sleeve opening; partly because I feared I may run out of yarn. Decisive action was called for and to that end the whole job lot went to SkipNorth with me last weekend.

Though it took me all of Friday evening and part of Saturday, too, I finally managed to pick up all the stitches and was ready to whirl my way gaily down the final sleeve. I've been such a good girl and have resisted the call of the nine (9) kilos of lace weight yarn I can't quite believe I bought in Yorkshire; the call of the Niebling patterns I acquired; the spindle and roving I got to learn to spin with; the wrap pattern that I got, with the yarn already wound for it. I turned away from all of them and I finished the Kauni - just in time to present it to 'im indoors on his birthday.

The front:



The back:



All done and am I pleased.

I didn't have time to wash and block it so I did a little steaming. Basically, I laid a wet cloth over the knitting and very gently (hardly touching at all) placed a hot iron over the cloth to force steam through the fibres. My knitting is fairly even, anyway, so this was enough. It also sorted out the slight tendency of the back neckband to flip to the outside. Never underestimate the power of blocking!

I've now started on the Wrap Me Up Wrap but things are not going well. There is nothing wrong with the pattern (except there are no charts and I'd really rather have charts now) but it's all down to the choice of yarn. I bought three huge skeins (about a kilo) of brown/beige/grey variegated yarn from Coldspring Mill while we were in Yorkshire, specifically for this wrap. However, I am not happy with progress.

Here's the first (of 21) blocks:



See, I just don't think that this pattern does anything for this yarn (or maybe vice versa). I think the pattern needs longer runs of colour - something like Noro Silk Garden or Kureyon, or maybe Rowan Tapestry. So now I have a few options - frog the thing right now or keep on going for a bit longer (but I don't think it's going to get any better); order some more yarn to make it (more research needed and a money tree in the garden would be handy); root through the stash to see if there is enough of something suitable. I know there isn't - I'd have to mix and match colours and yarns and when Debbie New or Prudence Mapstone do that it looks like a work of art, when I do it, it looks like a dog's dinner.

Also, what to do with a kilo of brown/beige/grey variegated yarn from Coldspring. Any ideas?

Saturday field is, in fact, Sunday field this week:



I don't know how that happened - it has been raining quite a bit but the river seemed to creep up on me while my back was turned.

SkipNorth

Here I am, back from SkipNorth. A few pounds lighter in the pocket, a few pounds heavier in the yarn department. (I am told that those who attended last year's SkipNorth managed to buy half a ton of yarn at the KCG alone - that's 1120 pounds, which is about the weight of an adult American alligator.)

We stayed in the Youth Hostel in Haworth - a beautiful Victorian mill owner's mansion, set above the village:



We were well fed and watered and had plenty of room to knit and spin and show off our talents.

It was lovely to meet so many like-minded souls - some of whom I "know" from the blogging world, others who were completely new to me.

A certain amount of stash enhancement took place with visits to Coldspring Mill, The Skep, The Knitting and Crochet Guild and Wingham Wool Works.

Coldspring is a funny sort of a place. The downstairs is full of yarn of all descriptions - some cheap and cheerful acrylic; some unnamed (but easily identified) "designer" yarns; some cones of wool or cotton or silk but all a bit fat (technical term) for me. Upstairs there is a large selection of camping gear and outdoors stuff.

I was very restrained (really I was). I bought some brown/cream/grey variegated wool to make the "Wrap Me Up Wrap" (no picture yet, I was too busy winding the yarn for when the pattern arrives that I didn't have a spare hand for the camera). In spite of the treasure trove, I contented myself with just that.

We then moved on to the Skep and because it is so small, half of the party went in and half went first to a nearby haberdasher's. A real old fashioned place with every bit of kit for knitting, sewing, quilting, paper crafts. There were plenty of buttons in little drawers with one example button on the front - no stupid little cards here - you can buy exactly the number of buttons you require (even if it's one). Here, I had the great good fortune to snap up a box of nickel plated T-pins, which are indispensable for blocking lace projects and extremely hard to come by.

Back at the Skep I bought two balls of sock yarn because Jo at Crafty Cottage in Warwick has twisted my arm into teaching a sock knitting class (of which more later), so I need to knit a few pairs of socks into various stages of completion. That's all I bought. (I did say I was very restrained.)

In fact, I was saving myself for the Knitting and Crochet Guild, because I knew they had plenty of just the sort of skinny (technical term) yarn that I like.

I wasn't disappointed. There was skinny (tt) yarn on cones from floor to ceiling. We had to ask the man for a step ladder to go adventuring up to the higher reaches. Thanks partly to my own greed and inability to pass up a bargain (all cones were £1.00 - that's about 50 cents to you lot across the pond) and partly to that great enabler, Sue, I managed to acquire eleven cones of yarn - various fibres (some unknown), various colours. This is enough skinny yarn to keep me knitting far into the next century. I don't suppose I'll be here then but if there is no knitting in heaven, then I'm not going.

I was also tipped off (by that minx Sue again) to the sale of old Anna magazines for £1.00 a go. I snaffled five containing Herbert Niebling lace patterns and considering these are very rare and going for about $150 on ebay I don't think I did too badly. Again, there is enough lace knitting to keep me going for a good while yet, my only difficulty being in deciding which lace to knit next.

I seemed to end up with a huge bag of yarn - yes, those three bags are all mine:



(though I really spent very little) and there were concerns about how it could possibly fit into a Smart car for the journey home. There were visions of me being packed into the car with only a pair of eyes on show. In the end, it all fitted perfectly:



Sunday saw us visiting Wingham Wool Works and while it is mostly stuff for spinners - a fibre art that I have not yet succumbed to - there was other stuff too. I bought a cone of "mucky green" (tt) raw silk (once again, thrust into my hands by the demon Sue) that is just lovely and even though I've just told you I haven't succumbed to the spinning bug, I bought a drop spindle and some Cheviot roving that I am assured by someone in the know will be a good thing for a beginner to start with.

I know you haven't had "Saturday Back Field" for a while, so here's the back field where I was on Saturday:



This is the view from the terrace outside Coldspring Mill. Dark, windswept and brooding - no wonder Emily Bronte wrote "Wuthering Heights"!

That's all for now - I'm off to fondle some yarn (and, let's face it, I've got plenty of yarn to fondle).