Castle Cat Couture Hat

Now this on the other hand, I absolutely love - just because it is so silly and I am sort of proud of it, as the pattern is my very first ever one:

Yep, this folks is my final version of the Puss in Boots, Castle Cat Couture hat sported with yet another UFO scarf that I need to finish from last year. I have adjusted the proportions a bit and added the optional hat band.

Pattern is all written up and will be emailed over to Robynn by the end of this weekend. Honest. Honest. Honest.

I will cross post this over at my Katherine Laarzen blog by the end of this weekend.

Shh! Don't startle the UFOs...

...as I am stalking them with serious intent.

The reason behind my UFO busting is that I was not able to work on the Puss in Boots wrap template either last or this weekend - so I am still not at the point where I can cast it on.




It's very frustrating and lack of progress has threatened to leave me with nothing to work on during my commutes. As a result, I have been stalking old projects, trying to clear the decks a bit:

Striped Top: it might not be not striped but it is now knitted, blocked and dry, ready for me to sew a shoulder together and pick up the stitches to do the neckband. Sadly, it is also sizing up to be the most boring baby jumper known to humankind. I think that it needs a duplicate stitch motif of some description to cheer it up? I bought teddy bear buttons for it at K&S last weekend but actually, I don't like them - it was the desparate, random button buying act, of a desparate to have buttons, to finish a jumper woman. Yes, me.

Castle Couture Hat: Progress was bought to a swift halt on the hat because every time I tried to knit parts of its optional knitted accessory, little golden dog turds squeezed themselves off the ends of my needles. Foul. In the end, I gave up and the project hibernated over the summer. I am having another go as the weather is cooler and people might be interested in knocking themselves up a warm hat? It's okay - I know. My golden motifs do not look great but compared with the first batch I experimented with - they are improving slowly! I'll get them right in the end.

Ribbed Shrug: I tried to unpick across to my ribbing error but it all started to look hideous and I was afraid that I was going to make one mistake look several times worse. So I have quietly picked the stitches back up, woven in the ends and I am going to stitch up the sleeves so that I can pick up stitches for the centre part of the shrug. If the ribbing error stands out in an obvious way when the shrug is finished (I am hoping that it will end up under my arm), then I will try Kelli's suggestion of snipping and darning. Or maybe trying darning a duplicate stitch over the top of the error?

Otherwise, what's been going on this weekend?

1) Well, I picked up a copy of The Happy Hooker - I went through all of the 'learn how to crochet books' at Borders (I have a stitch reference/pattern book at home but I wasn't feeling inspired by either of them) and this book seemed to stand out as having beginner things to try that looked wearable and achievable in the-less-than-great-learning-environment-of-an-aircraft-cabin (in the event that my Denise interchangeable needle ends are confiscated by security).

2) I picked up some skeins/balls of these two yarns: Rowan Cocoon and Mirasol Sulka (which is John Lewis's new fairtrade type yarn - I think).

The colours are as requested by my gift recipients but I cannot say much more until the presents are handed over, as they read my blog!

So if I am a bit quiet in the coming days, it is just because I am working on the wrap template, UFO busting and sneaking out two small offline presents.

PS - I have had a few questions from people asking me what I plan to do with the Habu Textiles 100% Linen Paper that I bought last weekend.

Please see left for a small clue! (It is not socks.)

Sigh...now what is it about the colour aubergine, eggplant or purple (collective wisdom of team blokes) that makes it so bloomin' appealing to me, right now?! I cannot help it - I just love it!

22/10 Edit: Yikes! I think that I have just had an out of body experience - I just stopped by using my work computer (as I was having pagination problems with my post last night at home) and discovered that I have, in fact, posted a photo of myself with a skein of yarn balanced on my head.

What on earth am I doing?! This blogging thing - it's got to stop!

Puss in Boots - Daylight Bead Auditions

I have finally managed to post the Daylight Bead Auditions for my wrap over at my Puss in Boots project blog. I have also uploaded some of the photos that I took into Flickr, if you are interested.

My project post centres around the fact that I have a quandry to resolve over which beads to use. I would be interested to know what you think.

So it would be very cool if you could pop over, take a look and let me know what you think via a comment.

Crikey, a proper knitting post. Well I never!

Time to make another pot of coffee and unblock my progress on the wrap template itself. You know what? I think that I am going to make a toile.

Is that even the correct word?!

Ho Hum - Sunday

I have that classic Sunday evening homework feeling!

I am wondering what I should have prepared for work tomorrow morning, my work laundry is churning its (noisy) way through the all-purpose 40 degree wash cycle as I type and a Sunday Night London R'n'B music programme is blasting out of the radio behind me.

I am in the second half of my 30s and I feel like I should be stapled to my chair, doing maths homework or something. Ngg - does anyone else suffer from this Sunday evening feeling?!

I am resisting an urge to check my work email before tomorrow morning as I am determined to finish the 2nd sleeve on my shaped lace tee this evening - I have knitting to do.

All but the final sleeve (half done) of the shaped lace tee is being blocked on the bed in my spare room this evening - I am so close to finishing the first ever garment I have knitted for myself, I can smell it!

However, I have my fingers crossed optimistically as I have modified the sleeve, then followed the errata instructions for its top shaping from the errata posted at the Knitting Lingerie Style Along...and it looks a bit too big to be set into the body. Hmm.

I have taken close up photos of the beads for the Castle Couture wrap - I am not going to post these onto my Puss in Boots project until tomorrow/Tuesday evening as I have knitting to do!

The majority of opinion so far is that I should opt for the crystal, twinkly beads - most effective (not shown here). I tend to agree.

I am just fighting my natural inclination to go for the beads that I personally find most sympathetic. Even though I acknowledge that they won't be nearly as effective as the twinkly ones. Damn, opps, I think that I just disappeared up my own backside?!

Finally, I met my father, brother and nephew (who is the princely age of 4) for a coffee in Kew Gardens this morning and I am afraid that I experienced a 'Philistine Moment'.

Initially, I was delighted that there was a Henry Moore exhibition going on - I was optimistic that I would experience both a coffee and a cultural experience. I know Henry Moore's work and I understand his ideas (in the main, I think). I appreciate the strong spacial quality of his work - I do. However, I took a few photos and I was abruptly reminded why I have not ever liked his work. I cannot help it - I just don't.

My father, assessed my nephew's humour and suggested that I might need to walk around the rest of the exhibition on my own. I suggested that accompanying my nephew to the newsagents in order to get a Thomas the Tank Engine comic was a far higher priority!

I am sure that you will be scandalised. I am sorry, I tried but I cannot help it - this stuff just leaves me cold. Utterly and totally cold - I tried. Honest.

My father and I stopped by the pod thing (see picture with lake backdrop). I commented quietly that I used to make and bring that type of thing home with me from college. (I used to site my artistic endeavours around my parent's garden in an amateur display of 'Undergraduate Garden Art'.)

My father chuckled, "How funny you should mention that. Your stepmother set about this big, overgrown bush in the garden this summer and once she'd fought off over 10 years growth, we all stood round it and said, What's that?! Then, following much debate, Oh look....it's Gabrielle's shell."

Hmm. Now, I didn't spot it out in the garden when I was at my parent's house earlier today. It is my guess that this artist's early work was quietly deposited in the bin after its summer rediscovery?

I might be doing my parents a disservice but who could blame them for feeling that 20+ years is sufficient to demonstrate familial loyality to a piece of garden art they were probably relieved disappeared into the undergrowth as the years wore on, obliterating itself from collective family memory? Particularly as I have not continued to make my way in the world as any type of serious, full time artist.

Damn - bet that never happened to Henry Moore though - bah humbug!

Coffee, templates, mistakes and gourmet platters!

Sunday was all about:

- good coffee;

- Puss in Boots wrap templates;

- catching up with friends; and

- ripping and reknitting a section of the lace shaped tee (ready to take with me on my Monday commute).


Oh yes. Knit, rip, knit. At eleven pm, Sunday evening, I looked at my lace shaped tee, sighed, admitted defeat and set it aside for ripping back again. Can you spot why? Left hand photo.

I reworked it again today on the train and I think that it is looking a bit more correct now - actually who knows?

I am that point with it, I swear, where I no longer care so much. Hmm, not a good sign!

So yesterday was all about Puss in Boots wrap beads, as I am close with the template. The final bit of swatching? I live in hope!

Sadly, on my way into work, I ruled out the beads that I bought back in July. They simply disappeared into the knitted fabric. Oufff!

So after 7 hours of 7, back to back (life force sucking) meetings, I bid my boss a fond farewell and pegged it to a local bead shop, 30 minutes before closing. I felt like I was doing the frantic bead equivilent of a supermarket sweep for anything in the right sort of size and colour.

I carried my gourmet beads home, like precious cargo. There, I found an unmissable invitation from Katherine to share a glass of wine and a platter designed for the discerning knitter.

Go see! You can also access it via the Puss in Boots - O.R.K. Knitting Projects link, top right.

Red, red wine...it goes to my head!

It is Saturday evening and I am sitting here sipping, what I feel is, a well deserved glass of red wine - apt as, if you pop over to look at my Puss in Boots project, you will see that red has been the theme of my afternoon. Oddly - even my hands and nails are stained slightly red from this exercise.

No, not dying - ball winding!

Actually, red is likely to continue to my theme long into the evening (or until this red wine knocks me out) as Megan and I plan to do battle with the Castle Couture Wrap pattern template this evening. Or, at least, make a start.

I will take photos but how much of it I can show you now, I am not sure - it might spoil the surprise of the finished item? I feel that it would be sort of nice to reveal it in its totality, once Robynn has the written up pattern to publish? In the meantime, I will show you snippets as I work on it (if only to be mindful that I need to keep up progress on it).

Just be aware that I am a slow knitter and I am using 2ply cashmere, so....?!

In other knitting news (apologies, for the uber cheesy, auto-timer flash photo), it's been an up and down week for the Lace Shaped Tee.

Quite literally. I knitted up to the armholes and neck, then discovered that I had overknitted. The front did not match the back in length - so I spent my last knitting commute this week, unworking it to match the front, bah humbug!

I have also discovered a pretty obvious error in my work but y'know? I ain't working back that far to undo it - gawddamnit - it can stay as a feature.

I am determined to finish this. It will be the first ever knit that I will have completed for myself (the phyllo yoked languishes forlornly on my needles). You see, all my other knits have been presents for other people.

Actually, if this had been a present for someone else, I would rip it back to correct the mistake as I couldn't bear to give someone a flawed gift.

"Per-fect-ion-ist!" I hear you shout...

...I did post a techniques question on a ravelry forum this week regarding the shaped lace tee -I got the concept but was thrown by the instruction to lose a single stitch (yes, 1 lonely stitch) evenly across 32 stitches. Particularly when the section in question is right across the chest area (around the neck) and it is the transition from the striped lace pattern back into a vines pattern (as seen at the bottom). Logically, I would knit the 16th and 17th stitch together but surely that would show as it would be right in the centre of the top and would narrow the central lace stripe from 6 stitches to 5?

Yet quietly, knitting two stitches together at the edge of the lace section doesn't feel right either. Ho hum. Perhaps I just fuss over these things too much. Perhaps. Yet, while I am learning, it feels important to do things the right way, so that I know when and how to take liberties with patterns later.

Ahhh, well, I am off to poke Katherine with my Lantern Moons, so that there are photos of this afternoon's efforts tortuous ball winding efforts posted for you to see if you follow the links!

Have a wonderful Saturday evening, wherever you happen to be and whatever you happen to be doing. I'm now 0.5 of my way down that bottle of red wine. Megan is scowling at me. She may have to wait until tomorrow, so I can do the template tomorrow morning, clear headed(ish) with a fresh caffettiere of Whitards Coffee. Mmm, looking forwards to that already.

Lots of Things

Puss in Boots - Yarn Auditions
I have given Katherine a prod with the business end of my Lantern Moons and the results of the Puss in Boots wrap yarn and stitch auditions have been posted at last.

See Roobeedoo? I have been knitting!

A Tale of the Summer Sales
Just before I went on holiday...I went to the sales. Just at John Lewis. Actually Mel and I were there at 9am on the first day of their sale. I have never done that before.

I was so grown up and reserved - I felt inwardly proud. I have been burnt at the sales before and I have yarn that I may never knit as a result.

So I was strong. I didn't get anything I didn't need - no impulse buys. I put Cathay in my basket, I put it back. I got some yarn for one of my future Puss in Boots knits, picked up some Big Wool, then spent the next hour placing balls of yarn in and out of my basket while it felt (to me) that Mel stacked hers with beautiful things.

I wondered why I hadn't spotted the things that she had found but I congratulated her and agreed that she would do wonderful things with them (and she will too). I admit, I felt the slightest twinge of envy when the pinky-lavender Alpaca-Silk DK went into her basket along with some co-ordinating silk. I ignored it. I was strong. In fact, I only bought the Cathay book on the basis that it had some patterns in it that would be good for my Jaegar DK silk.

We departed John Lewis. Mel excitedly showed off her purchases in the car. I was glad that I was driving. My 14 balls of mauve Big Wool (no idea why I bought that many) were unable to compete with the delicious lustre of some of her yarns.

I went home. I looked at the Cathay book. I had placed enough of it in my basket to do any of the patterns in the book. It had only been £1.60 a ball. I felt that twinge of regret again. Oh well. It knits on small needles, I would never finish anything that knits on anything that small. The DK silk is a big enough journey.

I went to work. Monday...Tuesday...and I could not bear it anymore.

I jumped on a bus to John Lewis in Oxford Street after work. I spent an hour, fussing over the odds and sods left in reasonable colours. The same colours that I had placed in and out of my basket in copious quantities on the previous Saturday - here I was, 3 days or so into the sale and not enough of anything for anything.

I sighed. I bought them anyway (reason had left me).

So in the end, I am thinking that I might have got burnt at the sales again anyway...?

Damn. Please tell me that it is not just me who falls into this trap.

My Sales Haul (my mojo was in the red-blue part of the colour spectrum)
Rowan Big Wool - 14 Balls - more than enough for a single project = a sales triumph?!

DB Cathay - 11 Balls - enough for one of the patterns in the book. Hmm, not sure that I'd either wear or knit it but hey, I got enough for a project - a semi-sales triumph?

DB Cashmerino Superchunky - 9 Balls - think that I have found a pattern that I use this yarn as a substitute in Glamour Knits.

Disaster averted? Yet I need to buy an expensive book.

Not a sales success even if aubergine is one of my favourite colours. No really...I mean one of my favourite colours.

DB Cotton Cashmere - 9 Balls - I had a Knitting Lingerie pattern in mind...hmm...see below.

General Knitting Update
The good news is that I have started to sew up the Baby Ballerina Wrap. I know, at last. It's the one thing that I should be able to do ok, right?!

After all it's knitted. It is lucky that I knitted size 6-9 months but it less good that September is the start month of month 6?

Okay, yes - I am ashamed. I have shown the bits to the gift recipient's mother who said, 'Well, now I have seen it, I am going to start hassling you otherwise she will have grown out of it by the time that you finish it.' My friend has a point.

The slightly less great news is that the Debbie Bliss Cotton Cashmere is proving too thick to knit the lacy t-shirt from the Knitting Lingerie book.

If I am honest, my tension square suggests that it would be more like wearing armour plating than dainty lingerie. I am struggling to get the correct gauge and the swatch that I have knitted? The only word that comes to mind is 'armadillo'.

It's not a good sign.

It's a shame as I am waiting for yarn my my Puss in Boots wrap and knitters on the Knitting Lingerie Knitalong are declaring that they finished this t-shirt in a week. If that is the case, this project would fit between now and my yarn arrival...?

Oh...do you think that these knitters work on their projects for more than an hour a day?

Hmm - well, even if they do not, that's what I plan to say at the end of week when my armadillo project languishes unfinished on my needles and they are headed out on a Saturday night wearing their finished and beautifully sewn up project!

If this sale yarn project dwindles on my needles because I cannot get the yells of 'armadillo' out of my head, does anyone have any sensible ideas for 800m of Debbie Bliss cotton cashmere?!

Introducing Megan...

I do not think that it is possible to have a human or animal shaped item inside ones home without giving it a name - it would be weird - it would become 'the thing with no name'.

So when I needed a body form (and found out that my friend Mel had a dressmaker's dummy hiding in her loft, all neglected and dusty), I liberated it on loan, dusted it off and named it Megan (Meg for short).

So please see left, for some reason, it feels very important for me to introduce you to Meg, as she and I have our work cut out over the next few weeks.

I am looking at her now. Interestingly, Meg hails from an era where ladies were slim. Although I have lost 53 pounds (in weight, not through financial carelessness) over the last 6 months, I have pushed Meg to the very outermost limit if her capacity, to approximate my curent dimensions.

Actually, I am not 100% certain that my efforts have been that effective as she really does not have enough ease in her centimetres to represent me - luckily, I am working on a Puss in Boots wrap, so she only needs to approximate me in the most minute of ways.

Over the next week or so, I need to spend some time with Meg, checking my wrap design and dimensions, while Dee dyes some more yarn for me.

You know, at last, I feel swatched out - I really need and want to start on the real thing, even though I love my unruly swatch, truly I do. In fact, today, to stop me carrying on with my swatching, I cast on a tension square for something in the Knitting Lingerie book and took that on the train with me into work.

'Just' (ahem) some Debbie Bliss Cashmere Cotton that I rescued from the John Lewis summer sale along with some Cashmerino Super Chunky, Big Wool and Cathay (don't ask. My house is now officially bulging with yarn). It is not as though I do not have other projects queued for finishing either e.g. Phyllo Yoked Sweater, sewing up the baby ballerina wrap before the gift recipient outgrowns it...plus other unfinished projects of shame!

Moving swiftly on, I have set aside the other yarns that I auditioned for this wrap and in my head, I have identified other projects for them - at some point.

If you would like to see more on the yarn auditions and the endless swatching that I seem to have done lately - please keep an eye on Katherine Laarzen (Puss in Boots blog), over the next day or so! The photos are taken but life and work seem to conspire against me, so I just need a bit of time to organise and upload them.

Roobeedoo - I am knitting, honest I am!