Christmas knitting blogging

Have you noticed the crashing silence from most knitting blogs around this time? I’ve just done an early-morning visit to some of my favourites – Yarn Harlot (of course), Lickety Knit (a very good writer), Peaceful Knitter (loving the updates on baby progress) and some others. Everybody’s knitting like mad for Christmas and no time to post.

I, on the other hand, am not knitting madly for Christmas… In fact Christmas has caught me somewhat on the hop this year. We haven’t got a tree yet (because it will go where the baby’s bouncer lives and she loves the bouncer so much I feel bad about depriving her of it), I’ve barely got anyone to buy presents for (small family), I don’t really shop and I’m not at work so haven’t got the ‘are you ready for Christmas?’ conversation three times a day. My first inkling something might be up was when we started getting Christmas cards.

Think I’d better get my ass in gear.

 

God bless John Lewis

I had some John Lewis vouchers as a wedding present and my lovely parents-in-law gave me vouchers for a birthday present too. I cannot stress enough how much immense enjoyment I had going around the yarn department of John Lewis in Reading humming quietly and plucking a few balls of this, a few balls of that…

Quite a lot of yarn

I have four balls of Rowan Purelife Organic cotton, six balls of Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino in gender-neutral colours, four balls of Regia sockyarn and six balls of Patons Fairytale 3ply (the 100% wool one). At the moment I don’t have any real idea of what I’m going to do with it, I’m just gloating over my Pile o’ Yarn. Happy days.

 

Breaking the yarn diet

I know one of the last things I posted was that I had plenty of yarn and projects to be going on with, but being on a strict yarn diet really doesn’t agree with me (am still trying to avoid buying yarn because of being on maternity leave and Not Having Any Money). So tomorrow I am going to John Lewis in Reading with the John Lewis vouchers that I got for my birthday (requested for this very purpose). And I am going to buy yarn. I want some sockyarn (because it doesn’t feel right not to have socks on the needles) and I want some baby yarn. Probably Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino because it’s so lovely and soft and practically everyone I know is having a baby. And perhaps something from their clearance bin, because they always have good deals.

I am very excited.

 

Burrowing through the stash

I have as much guilt about the size of my stash as anyone… so when my mother announced that she was going to knit her new sweater in a yarn I just happened to have six balls of, I was happy to donate the four balls that enabled her to get going (because as everyone knows, when you want to knit a new thing, You Want To Knit It NOW!). Worry about buying the rest later.

And finishing off the latest sweater for the Bear (well within the time limits of Single Skein September)

Child's Denim Sweater

has reduced the Enormous Ball of Yarn to something more manageable.

A Considerably Smaller ball of yarn

Though there’s probably still enough in there for at least three hats or something.

This is the last-but-one pair of socks from the sockyarn stash:Which means that my sockyarn scarf will be able to have another couple of colours added to its stripes (this picture really doesn’t do it justice).

Sideways stripe scarf

Then there’s the baby blanket to finish (which is going to have to become a present for someone because the Bear has outgrown her cot-sized blankets):

Leaf pattern blanket

And then there’s the laceweight stash. There’s a lot of shawls in there.

So I suppose I’ve got plenty to be getting on with.

 

Single-Skein September

I heard about Single-Skein September on Stash and Burn, and in the interests of joining in this stash-busting exercise (as well as the excuse to cast on something new) I am joining in. And cheating.

I have had a ginormous ball of Wendy aran acrylic-with-wool in my knitting basket for – oooh – about seven years. It was originally going to be a sweater for someone who I now no longer speak to (and was back before I knew about Proper Yarn). It’s truly huge – look:

A Giant Ball of Yarn

That’s not a dinky-size knitting needle or anything – that’s a standard 14″ knitting pin. So. Lots of yarn. Not really in the spirit of Single-Skein September, which I suspect is supposed to apply to normal-sized balls of yarn. However, I’ve now cast on my project and am rattling through it. It’s the Child’s Denim Sweater from Debbie Bliss – a freebie pattern that looks cosy and unisex and because it’s in aran is super fast to knit.

Half a sweater

The back and front are exactly the same and the stocking-stitch can be hammered away at while watching a film (the majority of the front was completed in front of The Deer Hunter. Incidentally a film that’s not quite as good as it wants to be.)  There’s enough rib interest at hems and cuffs that it’s not completely boring. But a nice basic pattern. Unfortunately it doesn’t so far appear to have made a dent in the Huge Ball so God knows what I’m going to do with the rest of it.

And of course, casting on something new has enabled me conveniently to forget the other projects languishing in the basket.

 

Unfinished objects

As well as the queen-sized bedspread there’s another baby blanket on the go and the mohair shawl – which currently looks like an old-fashioned mob-cap while I work out how to start patterning outwards in a spiral. Trouble with mohair is there is no possibility of mistakes because as everyone know, Mohair Does Not Frog. It clings stubbornly to itself as though its destiny was always to be in that particular stitch next to that other particular stitch, and having achieved this nirvana it’s not going to be parted from it. At some point soon I am going to have to sit down with graph paper and a pencil and a stitch dictionary and work it out properly, but that’s going to have to wait for the bedspread to be finished.

I haven’t cast anything on (other than the bedspread) for AGES and am feeling very virtuous. I don’t even have any socks on the go, though have three balls of yarn in the stash calling seductively to me. I also haven’t bought any yarn for ages, but that’s not so much virtue as enforced abstinence brought on by being on maternity leave and Not Having Any Money.

 

Yay! New (old) projects

This is where the bedspread is:

Bedspread half-finished

Probably rather more than halfway through, but I’m telling myself it’s halfway because I need to motivate myself to add a border, rather than calling it finished when I’ve done the blocks. It’s a good pattern, and the blocks do go pretty quickly, but I find it immensely difficult knitting only one thing at once.

So it’s been fun finishing one project altogether and taking up another that’s a long-term one.

This is the finished baby blanket in Opal’s 6 ply wool, colourway Flamingo. It’s in feather and fan pattern, which I always adapt to be stocking-stitch lace because I like the smooth look. It’s not a very good photo, so I’ll post another when I can get the baby to pose photogenically with it!

Feather and fan blanket

The long-term project is the sideways scarf. I started it a few months back – it’s sideways because I want vertical stripes, not horizontal, and is proving to be an excellent way to use up ends of sock yarn. I can even use more than one little end in a single stripe, because it just adds to the overall effect. There are 600 stitches per row – about 50 stitches to the foot so hopefully at least six foot long and perhaps more when it’s blocked.

Sideways scarf

 

Whiteout

I Am So Bored Of Only Working On One Project. The bedspread is doing my head in – I’m sick to death of knitting with white splitty stuff and repeating the same pattern over and over again. One consolation is that I’m about to run out of yarn again and I can’t currently afford to buy any more of it (certainly not another ten balls, which I reckon I’ll need), and another is that I now know the pattern so well I was able to watch Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution last night while knitting, which is a film you have to read… So once I’ve finished the ball-and-a-half remaining there’s going to have to be some Object-Finishing and Stash-Busting.

Have just added this to my queue as well, though I’m currently considering the wisdom of horizontal stripes when I’m quite wide enough already, thank you very much.

 

(Bed)spreading the love

I’m sewing blocks together as I go, so this is where we are now. I’m not knitting on anything else, so it’s going quite fast!

Five blocks down... 11 to go

It’s taken ten balls of yarn to get five and a half blocks. I don’t like the raw-looking edge, so I’m going to knit on a border when it’s finished, I think. Nothing too obtrusive or fussy, and preferably with a leaf pattern in it.

 

Unfinished-itis

While I’m working on blocks for the Australian bedspread I should perhaps dig out the blanket that I got partway through about 18 months ago (it really doesn’t feel like that long…). This is designed to be a warm blanket (as we have no heating in our bedroom!) so it’s in 100% wool aran. Each block is different though, so there has to be some maths involved when I start a new block to make sure it’s not too big or small.

Block 1

This one was a sweater pattern from a book of aran patterns. Then I bought a stitch dictionary and started making up my own patterns…

Block 2

Now I have ten blocks, which is nearly halfway through.

Block 3

I WILL finish this one this winter!