Bits and Pieces

As usual there is knitting progress here but a lot slower than it has been for a while. I fairly zipped through the last couple of big projects (even though the sewing up isn't done yet) and now Lepidoptera is only going at snails pace.

Here's the latest progress shot.


I took this just before I started to introduce the 3rd colour and have now completed the 12 row transition into that 3rd colour. There is now a gentle hint of lilac starting to appear in the orange, but I haven't taken a photo of that yet. The rows are getting longer and longer so it takes longer and longer to work each of the rows. I find I can't do much at a time as my hands are tiring and cramping a bit working with fine circulars. I will have to rest them to get the kinks out. Perhaps I'll resurrect a WIP on straights to see if the needle change will help.

I met up with Gilraen last week and we had a long lunch talking about knitting, books, films,... She suggested I might like to go along to one of the weekend SNB meetings with her, so I might just do that. While I was having lunch with gilraen my car was in for a service and MOT check, turns out it needed a good bit of work. It is now 8 years old and it is not unexpected that things are wearing out and needing replaced. It doesn't half cost money though AND my big freezer decided to bite the dust at the same time and we had to get a new freezer PDQ. That was a very costly few days.

DH and I went to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince on Saturday night, I enjoyed it very much. SIL and her DH will be visiting MIL from 7th to 17th August so we will have to plan a few excursions while they are here. The Tall Ships will be in Belfast from 13th to 16th so we are going to organise one outing to inculde that.

To conclude here is some stash enhancement from June. Some Posh Yarn, 3 skeins of Martha (80% merino 10% cashmere 10% nylon) 4 ply (fingering) in colour Wheat.

Unfinished Symphony

Photos, I have 'em. I waited until the CLP is mostly pulled together....i.e it is off the needles but not sewn up yet. I'm just one of theose people who doesn't get to the sewing up without a lot of pressure. So the number of WIPs which are at the waiting stage is growing. There will have to be a reckoning one of these days and I will tackle my basket of mostly finished projects (MFPs) and then they will grow into fully fledged Finished Objects. Not yet however. In the meantime here is the penultimate photo of the CLP, the next time you see her she will be all sewn up.....


Just don't hold your breath waiting for the next one. OK so the photo is up to my usual crappy standard, the weather has been so wet and dark and the light so poor it doesn't help my appalling lack of skill. I've changed the neckline, as you may or may not be able to tell from the photo. I decided that as it is going to be a warm sweater I'd make the neck a bit more snuggly. So I did some decreasing and finished out the neck in SS. Then I cast off using 4.5mm needles to enable a nice rollover.

On to the next subject. I wound a couple of skeins of the Sashimi last night and made a start on the Lepidoptera shawl. It doesn't look like much at the moment but it will grow.


This is the first time I've done a triangular shawl but it's only a matter of shape. The knitting is all the same no matter the shape. I'm looking forward to seeing how the gradience dyed yarn makes the shawl change as the colours start to bloom. I need to work 8" of colour 1 before starting to blend on colour 2, and it is a blending process as you have to merge the 2 colours over 8 rows.

I'll give you a peek of one of the 3 little parcels I got last month.


This is my parcel from the Unique Sheep for the Rubber Ducky Club, June shipment. I haven't chosen a pattern for it yet. I think DH will like this as he is a "blue" person so I'll have to pick a pattern he'll like. Shouldn't be too difficult, nothing frilly.

I succumbed to one of the Tilda shawl kits from Posh Yarn a few weeks ago, I'll have to take a photo of that for another post some time.

I'm going to meet up with Gilrean next week, we have not met before but discovered we live relatively close. She goes to some of the knitting get togethers around the country but I have never attended any of these. It will be nice to meet up with someone from the knitting community, I'm usually to be found knitting on my own.

Enough for now, I'll keep you updated on Lepidoptera as she grows. For now I'll have to get back to some decluttering as SIL and her husband are visiting for 10 days next month. I'm going to have to dig the dining room out for underneath a clutter of computer bits, saucepans and yarn...... Here is where it would be nice to be able to conjure up "storage space". Think there's any chance I could wiggle my nose and it would happen? Oh well wishful thinking.

And then there was the White Rabbit.....

Not literally, it just seems like I have followed the White Rabbit down the rabbit hole.

Time has been marching on apace, at such a pace that I coudn't even catch it if I was the world record holder for the 100m sprint.

I have knitting to report but no photos - yet. I'm going to make time over the weekend and get some photos taken to update my projects. My CLP now consists of a finished body and 2 finished sleeves all strung together on the circular needles ready to join for the neck. I need to sew in the sleeves first, but it is nearing completion, photos soon.

I shall be winding my skeins of sashimi in preparation for the lepidoptera shawl. I'm looking forward to seeing how the gradience dyed yarn knits up. As it is triangular I'm expecting to see huge progress to begin with and then it'll get slower and slower as it grows. I'd love to be starting my Sunday cardigan too but I do need a rest from knitting garments, so I think some smaller things for a while. My hands need a rest, they are cramping a bit so I think I'd better have a break before I do damage.

This weekend is a big holiday weekend in Northern Ireland, referred to locally as "The 12th". The 12th July is given over to marches with bands and gatherings of the Loyal Orange Order who celebrate the victory of King William of Orange over King James II at the River Boyne. DH gets 2 days off work so we have a long weekend. The weather forecast is not very promising for the next few days however. As the 12th is a Sunday this year the parades will be taking place on Monday, there will be no marches on Sunday. Whichever day we will be staying at home, enjoying the peace and quiet of the country, well away from the parades.

I was reminded last week about some skirts I'd promised to look out for my BF, so I got them out..... Then I fought my way into a wardrobe that has been blocked in for a while and could not believe what was in it. Well half the contents have now been divided out between a couple of friends, who got a couple of things out of the clear out, and the rest has gone to charity shops. The other half will be tackled at some future stage and I'm sure most if it will end up in charirty shops too, perhaps I'll find room for all the overspill in my bedroom after all.

The two birthday outings last weekend were a great success but it took me days to get over the indigestion and I felt totally exhausted for several days. I feel like I'm getting my energy back so I'll have to turn my attention to some more sorting out again.

We took MIL for a Tepanyaki lunch and she thoroughly enjoyed it, so much so that she spent the afternoon writing a letter to her daughter giving her a full account of the whole thing. We all enjoyed it, perhaps we'll do it again when SIL and husband are over for a visit next month.

Our Saturday evening surprise birthday party went very well. Shirley was totally surprised at the gathering who were waiting for her at the restaraunt. She thought her husband was taking her out for a quiet meal. There was 10 of us and a good evening was had by all. The food was superb and the staff were very good. Her husband had got a cake made with a photo of Shirley as a little girl on it. I think she will be making him pay for that.

I have some photos of the birthdays and of some new parcels I got, of course they are still in the camera. I'll get them all downloaded soon, I have to send Shirley some from her birthday.

Time to go now and catch the last episode of "Torchwood: Children of Earth". I'm looking forward to a new series starting on FX next week ------"TrueBlood", based on the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlene Harris, I've read them all so far.

Nothing to see here

No, nothing at all. Move along now, move right along. That is still no photos. That doesn't mean no progress.

The first sleeve is almost finished, just some final raglan decreases then it goes on the holders along with the front and back stitches. The sleeve looks remarkably like the front and back, just narrower anyway, so just look at the other photos and use your imagination.

I thought I'd get in a quick post though as I will be extremely busy over the next few days and I didn't want any of you out there to think I'd fallen off the planet (haha). I will hopefully get some knitting in but I don't see any photos happening. I'm out tomorrow then I need to spend most of Thursday get me sorted for Birthday Friday and Saturday(now that is a big job). Come Sunday I'll be glad to rest up and very probably not eat.

So nothing more here until next week. I promise I will have some photos then.

CLP resumes

No photos folks, I haven't taken the camera out to catch up on progress yet. I got my needles on Wednesday but didn't get the sleeve cast on until Thursday as I was out on Wednesday. Progress has been good though, I'm about the elbow I suppose. I have made the sleeve longer by adding another pattern on the lace as I did with the body, this means it will be in proportion too. I'm rattling along apace at the moment as sleeves (at this point) are a lot smaller than the body. I'll get some photos next week but progress will HAVE to slow due to 2 big birthdays at the end of next week (and some much needed tidying and cleaning).

So this is short and sweet, just to let you know I'm progressing.

BTW I'm so looking forward to starting Lepidoptera, but .... I'm finishing CLP first.


OH and before I forget, does anybody know where I might look for a reasonably priced copy of Cat Bordhis "A Treasury of Magical Knitting" in the UK.

There will be a short delay

......while I await delivery of a set of 3.75mm DPNs.

Just when you think there can't be anything missing from your substantial stock of needles, you find a gap. I've got everything up to and including 3.5mm, then 4mm and up (well most of those). So after finishing the body of the CLP after midnight last night I decided to search out the DPNs for the sleeves before going to bed. Only I couldn't find any 3.75mm. Now I do have 3.75 circs as that was what I was using on the body, but don't have a cord short enough and I'm not sure I would enjoy fighting with a cord short enough if there was one (there probably is). I could do the sleeves flat but then I'd have to seam the sleeves and that's the whole reason I did the body in the round. I always think sleeve seams never look as tidy due to the increases anyway. So I've ordered the 3.75mm DPNs and I'll just have to wait for them. In the meantime here's the latest




Pretty isn't it. The stitch pattern will open up better once blocked I think, there's lots of stretch to it. It is beautifully soft and cosy and such a lovely colour.

I really don't want to start another project until the knitting on this is finished so I think the house will at least get a clean and the laundry will get caught up on for a day or 2. I also have the soap sack I started a few weeks ago so that will keep me going for a day or two plus all those projects needing finished off. Now I do have a plan for finishing them off just not quite yet. I had a thought of doing a burst of finishing just before the cooler weather of autumn so that I had several new things to wear. That would make it feel like a whole new wardrobe and perhaps I would get back to some smaller things and perhaps even some Christmas knitting for this year. I haven't decided on the Christmas knitting yet but I'm thinking about it. I only have 2 nieces, a SIL, BIL and DH who would be potential recipients, so not a big list and achievable if I decide to do it.

I got 3 new deliverys in the last few days - a Posh Yarn parcel from last weeks sale, 3 skeins of a lovely wheat colour, then June LOTR sock club and June Rubber Ducky club. I haven't any photos of those to show. Have to keep something up my sleeve for when I have no progress shots. So that's why I'm back so soon for an update - no CLP knitting today. My hands are itching, I'll have to pull out that soap sack later, or .... one of the hibernating projects shamefully resting in the WIP pile. Who knows what lengths I might go to later.

See you all soon.

Magnificent Obsession

Well I don't know if magnificent is the right adjective here but there has definitely been a big obsession going on here. I can't seem to put the CLP down, it has a grip on me, so much so that I have been knitting the CLP to the exclusion of everything else. Now I don't mean that in just knitting terms, I mean to the absolute exclusion of everything else, cleaning, cooking, laundry,... you get the picture. I've taken photos several times over the past few days for the express purpose of posting on progress and then can't put the CLP down long enough to get the laptop set up and logged on. So today I have forced myself to put the CLP down for a few hours to get caught up online. Yesterday's progress to date on the CLP.


This was a few rounds off the armhole. I haven't taken a photo today but I am now approx 16 rows from finishing the raglan on the back. I'll have that done in the next couple of hours and hopefully by the time I go to bed I'll be well up the front raglan decreases. I can't believe how fast this is going, of course that's proabably to do with the obsessive knitting. Perhaps I'll get a sleeve started and come to a halt, who knows. Mind you it's not as if I'll be wearing this before September/October as it is alpaca and will be a cosy sweater. I'm finding it difficult to get the colour right in the photos. It is a lovely strong honey yellow - yes Katherine a good "redhead" colour. I absoloutely love yellow, strong warm yellow.

Speaking of yellow I won a prize in a competition over at RockpoolCandy. The prize was a skein of yarn dyed especially for me in my fave colour. Here it is


Pepper on guard duty (or sleeping on it), actually she is doing her best to ignore me setting the photo up and flashing at her. The photo doesn't do it justice, it is multihued.


She named it Anne's Egg Fest as she based it mostly on egg yolk yellow. The yarn is a mix of Merino, banana, texel, wenslydale, silk and corriedale. I have no idea what it will become YET, in the meantime it will rest for a while and wait for inspiration. When the time comes I will keep you posted on its development.

Now I promised a photo of a recent delivery from The Unique Sheep so here goes


The shawl is called Lepidoptera and I'm doing it in one of the Unique Sheeps Gradience colourways - Daybreak. The colour starts with number one on the far right and number 6 is the far left. The pattern has instructions how to work the gradience colours. I think this will be my next major project after the CLP and once I get through the birthdays coming up in July.

I'm organising a night out for a friend's 50th birthday. Her birthday is July 2nd but their wedding anniversay in July 4th so a group of us are going out for a meal on Sat 4th July. She doesn't know about it, I'm coordianting with her husband. Then we have MIL 88th birthday on July 3rd, so DH and I are taking her to lunch on Friday 3rd. We won't need to eat for a week at least after those few days.

Now back to work on my CLP. I'll be back soon with more.