Distractions

This time last week I thought I’d have not one, but two new patterns to post. Actually, I’m nowhere near either – but some exciting stuff has been happening, so I have good reasons to delay.

I had my mid year review at work, which couldn’t have gone much better. Nothing official is riding on it, but it’s still great to get such positive feedback at work.

I went to the opera last night to see la Boheme, which was beautiful, and went to a fantastic Indian restaurant beforehand. I also went to see the Gauguin exhibition at the Tate Modern – a real weekend of culture.

On the way home I totally saw Tim from the Junior Apprentice on the Northern Line, which is pretty much the most exciting thing ever. He’s smaller than he looks on TV.

My housemates and I made an epic pumpkin for Hallow’een (see below). If you get what it is, post in the comments!

And I was invited to go for a walk on Hampstead Heath with my boyfriend’s family, but I’m feeling a bit coldy (all that culture must have caused it) so I couldn’t face it, even with Vallombrosa and Hermine to keep me warm. I’m now curled up on the sofa complete with my knitting glasses on, with a cup of coffee and a new squared jotter for finally fixing a way to keep my knitting project notes in something approaching order. I expect the next pattern (Provisional title Oatmeal because of the colour of the wool) to appear some time this week.

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Three Wolf Moon Pumpkin …

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Too many WIPs

I am currently working on…

• A pair of reversible fingerless mittens on huge needles (quick, at least)
• The Giant Granny Square (currently bankrupting me with every round I complete)
• Some oatmeal coloured mittens that have almost killed me five or six times now
• A crochet hat copied from a really cute one I saw at work, but with my own twist on it
• Never ending Noro Entrelac scarf that my mum will get one day
• Evergreen! Still sitting there, almost finished and so beautiful, but I don’t quite have the strength to complete it.

So when some of these are finished there will be some new patterns, but it might take a while …

Giant Granny Square is getting gianter!

Hermine

In february of this year, I went ski-ing for the first time. I’m not the wealthiest of people, so I went wearing my boyfriend’s dad’s ski gear, six of us stayed in a room the size of a playing card and I didn’t get ski lessons.

On my first day on the slopes, before I’d learned how to stop, steer or even fall without landing on my face, my friends decided the thing I needed to do to learn to ski was to go down a blue (moderately challenging) run on my own. The run was called Hermine.

This was, without a doubt, the worst experience of my life. After walking most of the way down and taking a few pretty nasty tumbles, I vowed never to ski again and forced my boyfriend to take me to a cafe to calm down. Here I am being cheered up by a really cute dog in that cafe (seriously, what is that dog? It’s adorable), and here are my friends without me having a great time while I was back in the lodge knitting some stripy mittens.

I christened the mittens ‘Hermine’ after the infamous run in Val Thorens that destroyed my desire to ski for at least a day. (Eventually my kindly boyfriend taught me the basics of steering and stopping and I managed to conquer Hermine by the final day!)

Anyway, These cute little mittens sat in my knitting basket until yesterday when I realised I was 80% of the way through and had far too many works in progress. A flurry of stockinette stitching, sewing in ends, writing up the pattern and bribing boyfriend to take photos by promising coffee ensued.

I was pretty new to knitting when I made them so I’m sure there are loads of ways they could be improved, particularly the wrist shaping, but I think they’re just about cute enough to share with the world. Hope you enjoy!

The pattern for Hermine can be found here.

My precious

I spent Saturday morning with a couple of good friends at the Knitting and Stitching Show in Alexandra Palace. I came back with a much lighter wallet and (clockwise from top left), the most amazing pure angora wool from Artisan Yarns in “Snow White”, some also gorgeous alpaca, silk and cashmere lace yarn also from Artisan, two skiens of lovely linen wool from the knitshop.co.uk stall and an amazing 900g reel of pure dusky pink wool which was astonishingly cheap.

You’d think I’d be inspired by this to start knitting immediately, but I was at work last week and saw the most amazing giant granny square, and had to start one immediately. This is made from cheap-as-chips wool from the Trinity Hospice shop but I’m amazed at how quickly it’s growing (especially considering this time last week, I couldn’t crochet at all!)

How hard is a Luau?

All you need are some grass skirts, pineapple, poi, tiki torches, suckling pig, some fire dancers. That’s all you need. – Michael Scott

We managed precisely none of those, but we did have an inflatable monkey and an inflatable parrot. I don’t remember much else and woke up the next day with the worst hangover of my life, hence not a lot of knitting activity recently.

East Coast hat

The name makes this pattern sound a lot cooler than it really is. I’m from England – the East Coast means a shoddy nationalised rail service. But it’s where I knitted this.

I’m moving this pattern and its sub-par photography over to my new blog.

Original blurb:

Simple, cosy hat with a ribbed brim. I designed this to practice knitting in the round, and enjoyed it so much I made two of them!

Each individual hat took less than 1 skein of yarn, so I have scraps I don’t know what to do with!

Here’s the link.

How about now?

I’m just swapping this over from my previous blog, which I couldn’t think of a name for.

Here’s the original blurb:

A pair of cute, comfy herringbone/zig zag mittens, made in easily adaptable dk wool. The pattern contains loads of suggested modifications – I’ve got loads of ideas for how to make them better, and not enough time to knit them up again!

Two colour knitting in dk wool and 3.25mm needles makes lovely thick fabric. I designed these in the middle of a cold snap in London, and I can testify that they work!

Next steps – create some string, and thread them through my coat like a toddler. It’s the future.

You can find the pattern here.

Ways to freak out your boyfriend

Number 1: Knit baby booties, forget to mention they’re for a friend at work.

The pattern is Tiny Shoes by Ysolda Teague, someone I live slightly in awe of. True to form I made some unintended modifications – missed a few bits of the pattern here or there- but I think they came out well. Project details on ravelry here.

Anyway, I think boyfriend deserved a bit of freaking out. Maybe it’s revenge for him calling my Evergreen names. In other news, it’s grown by a few feet and now everyone mistakes it for giant underpants instead of a thong.

Philistines. I live with Philistines.

ps. I’ve lost a stitch on the right hand side of this photo but it’s OK, I fixed it. Panic over.