comfortstitching

The good elf

I finished up my Diamond Gansey socks and gave them to my eldest daughter.  She kept hinting she wanted them the whole time I was knitting and she has been a good elf lately (most of the time).  She was big time surprised as I don't think she thought I would really actually give them to her.  She's hardly taken them off since (which I'm taking as a good thing).

Pattern is from the book Socks From The Toe Up by Wendy Knits.  Yarn is by Cakewalk on Etsy in Cherry Blossom.

The little elf meanwhile, has decided she doesn't ever want her photo taken again.

It's been so cold lately and all quilts are being constantly used and left crumpled up around the place like this.  I am constantly folding, folding, folding....

To calm myself down from my new job as cheif (only) quilt folding elf, I bought some Christmas knitting yarn - Malarigo worsted in Chapel Stone and MadelineTosh Vintage in Violin.  Both of these can look forward to the destiny of being cowls.

In fact, I might have already be more than half way through one of said cowls already....

Addicted. Me. Never.

needling

Life has been so grey lately.  Grey outside with grey clouds and grey rain and grey-ish light all day long.  Greyness inside, with the monotony of sorting out all of the things that need sorting.  Lugging endless boxes from the loft, only to discover more stuff we don't need and wondering why we kept it all.

My life needs a little colour that isn't coloured grey and yesterday I gave in.  Found some Cakewalk yarn in the bottom of my knitting bag and somehow ended up casting on stitches for a new pair of socks. Or at least a sock, I have a toe for now.  

These will take forever because I can only allow myself a few minutes here and there but if that's all there is, I'll  take it.

It feels so good to be knitting again :)

sock o'clock

I finished my first sock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and it's making me ever so happy just sitting here and stroking it, waiting until I finish it's twin sibling so I can wear them.  The sock took me a week of evening only knitting (or sock o'clock as I like to call it) to finish.  So if I continue at this rate of a pair a fortnight - I could have 19 pairs by Christmas day :)

Socking facts

Gusset heel basic sock pattern from the book 'socks from the toe up'.  This book and pattern were recommended to me by Amanda on Twitter and as a beginner sock knitter I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested enjoying a bit of sock o'clock.

Yarn - cakewalk yarn in cam

Knitted using a pair of 2.5mm/size 1 knitting needles - my first time doing this, the book explains how to.

I used Judy's magic cast on and finished in russian bind off, again all explained in the book

Happiness factor on finishing - 11/10

BTW - I signed up to Ravelry two years ago but still haven't actually done anything on my page, I'm hoping to start when I get a minute so if you are interested you can soon find me here.

I was so happy knitting with the cakewalk yarn that my daughter easily convinced me to buy a couple more (left to right - Brooklyn and Cherry Blossom).  She does seem to have got it in her head that I am going to be using the cherry blossom to knit up a pair for her...................mmmm.   The yarn is looking lovely displayed on this pretty dresden mini sent to me by Allison (with the cute drawstring bag) to say thank you for the honour of winning one of my giveaways from last year - isn't that nice??!

socking

I felt it was time I dipped my toes into something new, so over the weekend I took full advantage of it being St Patricks day, National quilting day and Mother's day by learning how to knit socks....  I've been wanting to learn for some time and after two days of socking I'm only wondering what took me so long.  I'm knitting the gusset heel basic sock pattern from the book Socks From The Toe Up on a pair of 2.5mm (size 1) circular needles using Cakewalk yarn in Cam.  As someone who has only ever knitted one item (my eternity cowl) in the round before all I can say is I think I will be knitting a LOT of socks from now on.

just in time

I finished up my eternity cowl at the end of last week, perfectly timed for the chilly dip in temperature of the last few days.  It has been constantly around my neck non-stop,  I love everything about it, the yarn, the colour, the snugglyness............ but it is the texture of the pattern stripes that I love the most, just scrummyliscious.

I would describe this pattern as one small step up from beginner, it's very repetitive, so perfect for telly watching, chatting or helping your kids with the homework, cooking the dinner and answering the phone multi-tasking type knitting.

It took me just under one month of evening only knitting most days to finish.

Pattern is the Eternity Scarf by Michele Wang (you might need to sign in to Ravelry to see the page)

Yarn is Malabrigo in Chesnut (I used just over 1 1/2" skeins for this) bought from Loop.

I used 60cm/5,5mm circular needles

Inspiration was from Angela

I have some very exciting news to share with you tomorrow.

Don't miss it.

monday habits

I finished sewing the binding on a couple more mini quilts to hang up behind my computer, the block used for the one above is called ducks foot and I will definitely be playing with this one again.

This one is the good old shoofly, I've never shooflied before but I definitely want to shoofly again too.

I loved playing around with the quilting on this one, I really wish I had a bigger sewing table so I could do this kind of thing on larger quilts without the palaver.

Here they are hanging out with the other minis, nothing really goes together with anything else but somehow that's the point.

My little work cubby is looking so much cosier, which is a good job because I'm spending most of my day here today catching up after my little bug holiday.

Keeping me company today, is this little box of fabric scraps.  I always need to be in whiffing distance of fabric especially if I can't sew all day, it keeps me working hard so I can earn a little sewing time later this week.

I'd much rather be sat here though beside my new daffs on MY sofa - do you do the MY sofa thing in your house too?  you know the one the kiddies must vacate if you walk in the room with a cup of tea ready to sit down?

Lastly, on Friday I had to grit my teeth and take a deep breath whilst I frogged about 20 rows of this baby.  I'd messed up a few rows earlier on and they were becoming more and more obvious the more I progressed.  Luckily things went smoothly and my little cowl is looking so much healthier.  A few more days and I should be done :)

cowl-ing

Thank you for the well wishes from yesterday's post:) thankfully I am feeling much better today (when armed with paracetomol at least).  I've been knitting away at my cowl in progress - there has been a gentle background tune of click, clack, cough for the past few days and I've managed to make only a couple of mistakes whilst knitting so far.  Which I'm hoping will be hidden in the slouchiness of the finished piece (thank heavens for them slouches).

So far I have only one concern with this cowl.  When I bought the yarn online I thought it would be a great colour to pick.  Now that I have been knitting it for a while, I have come to the conclusion that because it pretty much resembles the same shade as my hair, this cowl is going to end up looking like a big old beard when strewn across my neck....

Time will tell.

(and I promise to show you the photo's).

burnt toffee

I got some yarn mail yesterday - Malabrigo in Chesnut and my first ever pair of circular needles, purchased from Loop - all ready to knit myself up an Eternity cowl.

I wasted no time and balled that wool right up.  So far it's only three attempts to cast on and knit the first row....

But I'm getting there with the help of of the dark stuff (you've got to love it when your choice of chocolate pick me up matches your project bag).

I'm feeling highly scatterbrained today so I'm definitely in need of a little burnt (yorkshire) toffee dark choco treat to get me through the next few rows.

Fancy a piece?

a little yarn

Yaaaaaayyyyy!!

It is good to be back!  Dear readers how I have missed you in this little space of blogness!  I do hope Christmas and the good old new year treated you all good and that you managed to sneak yourselves a little bit of feet up time in the midst of all the sparkly tinted chaos?

I feel well rested and ready to go!!! go! go!!! (in a relaxing kind of way).

For me, this years holiday was all about spending time with the family.  And while sitting together chatting and eating, I attempted to brush up on my knitting skills.  One reason I wanted to knit was, I somehow have managed to accumulate the above stash of yarn over the last couple of years and wanted to start using it up.

So I started by keeping it simple and knitting myself a stripy scarf,

I quickly got bored of the pink stripes so started unravelling and dumped them for blue and grey.

And somehow I sat around chatting and eating and knitting long enough to get the scarf done which made me very happy indeed.  The only trouble was it was all rolled up like a roly-poly along the width, so I decided it was time to try my hand at blocking it, I pinned it out along the mattress from the fold up bed, sprayed it wet and left it to work it's blocking magic.  When it was dry it looked so perfectly flat and smooth and crisp! and I felt very grown up and like a proper knitter,  I couldn't wait to unpin the thing and get it on!!!

And when I did, it promptly rolled back into it's roly poly former self.

Still it's a scarf, it still works.  It is pelting with rain and wind here today so this ole stripy roly sausage of a scarf will be wrapped around my neck for a while.

Here it is with the stripys I've knitted my daughters over the last couple of years.

I also attempted (and abandoned) my first ever attempt at sock knitting over the holidays but it's out of my skill range right now so I'm sticking with scarfing over socking for now - inspired by Angela, I'm attempting the Eternity cowl next.

But I haven't forgotten the fabric stuff!  More on that tommorow!

summers end

Today it's raining and with my eldest daughter back in school, it seems summer is more than over.  My girl's have left me plenty of reminders of their summer busyness dotted about the house, for me to think of them whilst they are busy in the school year to come.  So it was only fair that I stitched them up a little reminder of me for them to carry off with themselves each day.

And what could be better than a little fabric something to house a rainbow of colour (to get them through the more dreary parts of the school day)?

Cue - pencil rolls! 

My girls were all over these instantly - it might just have something to do with all those pockets, something so neat and orderly about those.

I used the Colored Pencil Roll pattern from Joelle Hoverson's book 'Last minute patchwork and quilted gifts' (which uses a pattern originally created by Kathy Mack).  I was heavily influenced by recent back to school projects which have popped up in my flickr group, such as these, this and this.

Of course you need more than just colouring pens, so I also knocked out a couple of pouches to house all the other instruments essential for daily educational needs.

As little C is back in school tomorrow, she is squeezing in a few last stitches in her latest obsession...

Knitting!!!  These are all the current WIPs I came across just by walking into the girls room this AM. 

Of course if you have this many knits on the go at once, you might just have to improvise occassionally when you start running out of those knitting needles..