Library Girl Knits!

Blimey, there have been a glut of posts on here the past few days. The coding is complete (for now – I still need to check for more responses and revise what I’ve coded). I swear if I ever see another incorrect spelling (and we are talking really basic stuff here. I dare not demonstrate it for fear of breaking the rules, but trust me on this one!) or inappropriate use of apostrophes, I will scream. I will scream so loudly you guys across the water will hear me. Then I’ll get stabby. Do they still teach grammar in school? Probably not, given my memories, but still, these are university students, and not all 102 of them can claim that they have dyslexia or similar! Appalling. No wonder the world is coming to an end and the chavs are taking over. BlueADT – this is the group of people who are supposed to save us from those people who complained about your dogs (and the link you had up too)!
Ok, now I’m getting too bitter, but you would too if you had spent a good 36 hours looking at the same thing over and over again over the weekend – that’s enough to make anyone go potty. But now I get to knit/slob the afternoon away! Yay!

Well, after reading Leah’s comment on Cath’s blog about a lace knitalong, I decided to join in. I have piles of lace weight yarn to use up, including lots of Kidsilk Haze leftover from projects, some Kaalund Yarns Expressions, and that lovely stuff I got from the Knitting and Crochet Guild, plus a few patterns. I haven’t decided which pattern to use, but I’m currently considering the Rowan River shawl, Eunny’s Print O’ the Wave, the Baltic Sea Stole, and I just this very morning purchased Heartstring’s Lead or Follow scarf pattern (my very first US paypal payment 😀 I’m so impressed I can finally buy in the States!). I am deeply in love with the last 3, and the first would be a good way to use some of the KSH. Would KSH work for any of the others? It might be a bit fluffy/scary/slippy for some of them, especially considering that my needles aren’t really all that sharp pointed, and I don’t have a shop that sells good ones. I’d have to buy online, without being able to check them, which could be expensive if they don’t do the job properly when they arrive… Besides, I may yet despise the scarf knitting! I am drawn to it though, for the technical aspect, and for the opportunity of using that lightweight yarn, so the knitalong is a good way to discover whether my K&CG stuff is destined for scarves or for a veeery fine knit jumper.
DB ordered some t-shirts for us today from Threadless.com. I really wanted the girly sizes to just do one size bigger, but I’ve heard they are on the small size anyway, and while my t-shirts match the girly XL, most of them are forgivingly stretchy, and don’t have waist shaping to the degree that threadless has. So I had to go for the guy L. What a bummer. But the images on them are worth it 😀 Thank goodness for DB and his yearly clothes shopping binges. I’ve asked him to get me Water, Moby and Mourning Girl (for the bit of punk/grunge in me that is restrained by library work wear). The UK really needs sites like this 😀
Ok, that’s it for now. I need to do the last batch of coding, and I want to finish by lunchtime, for an afternoon of laziness, Deal or No Deal, and swatching/sock knitting. Now that Yahaira has demanded the pattern, I have to complete it 😉 And it would be nice to turn the heel today if I can, so that I can start writing a draft for Leah to test/scrutinise/completely pull apart. Woohoo!

Well, I had spent some time writing a very lovely page full of pictures, but crappy IE closed it at the same time as me closing the picture upload page, and now I am miserable. So here is a very poor attempt to recreate it quickly, seeing as I already spent close to half an hour writing it.
Firstly, I want to say that you are all very cool for submitting so many lovely comments and advice to Cath’s blog. She seems to be supermotivated in posting, but less so in revising, which is kind of a good sign 😉 And I didn’t even make you post to her ;D
Secondly, I posted about a visit Sue made the other week. She’s made me a fantastic jumper, but it is currently being washed, so you will have to wait to see it. We did some yarn dyeing with some Kool Aid and Opal yarn I got from the K&CG (I’ve already used the first hank just playing with the colours, and got a result that I will call Crayon, for reasons you might discover in the future!), and here is what we came up with. Sue picked the colours – Lemon Lime, Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade, and Changing Cherry.


The colours aren’t as glary as they are in the hank piccie, and are sometimes more subtle than in the swatch pic, but you get the idea (the light in here never lets me get an accurate picture 🙁 ). I love it, and need a good pattern to use to knit it up – either Pomotamous, or one of the Amelia Raitte patterns. Suggestions are welcome!
Next up, a pic of THE sock. I’ve had to frog and re knit several times, purely because sizing has been difficult. The yarn is RYC Cashcotton 4 ply, which may prove to be terrible sock yarn, but for demo and practice purposes is fantastic, and it was on cheap.

The stitch definition, as you can see, is good, and the yarn produces soft, cosy and comfortable fabric, while maintaining a firmness that you need for socks and this pattern. I’ll have to let you know how it wears, but I hope it stays as good as it is now! But I suppose the fact that it has already been frogged a few times and doesn’t really look any worse for it bodes well. And I wasn’t even too put off when Amelia Raitte had her argyle pattern published in Magknits – hers is different to mine, so I’m glad of that, but I know that my skills and techniques aren’t exactly up to her level, and that made me balk a little at continuing. But, I threw that off and became more determined to do it! So, what I need now is some feedback. Looking at the pics as they are now, would you think of knitting these? Is the argyle patterning of a quality to interest you? It isn’t as if I’d charge for this, but I don’t want to leave anything to chance if I end up posting it! Honest thoughts are welcomed – if you can see something that looks wonky or nasty in the pattern design, please say! I admit that it currently looks a bit squishy, and I think I need an extra row in the middle of the knit diamonds to make the widest point more obvious, but that kind of change is negligable, especially compared to the ones I though I might need to make for the width sizing… I’ll try adding that extra row on the leg to compare results and avoid reknitting the foot a 5th time, seeing as it won’t make any difference to the way the foot is knit up in terms of sizing the length.
Anyway, that’s another half hour where I haven’t had breakfast, showered, and started coding again yet. I have lots of pics from a walk I took yesterday while it was still good weather, but they will wait till a day when I have not much knitting to show 😉 I like posting piccies 😀 And I’d rather save the time I’ll have free later for knitting some more goodies up, like the Vogue Knitting Astrakhan cardi (which is knitting up rather speedily and I might even have some to show you this week).

My mate Cath, a relative newbie to knitting has just discovered the world of blogging, and her opener? The Jayne Cobb hat 😀 She’s a v brave girly to do a hat, having only done things with no shaping so far, and she did even better considering I gave her a tutorial over the phone this evening for how to pick up sts. You wouldn’t believe how poorly I described it to her, but her pic shows that the jobs a good’en. Yay Cath! Go and see her and encourage her to make lots more things 😀 And she might tell you about when she was on telly… She’ll kill me for saying that 😉

I’ve just spent an hour coding responses for my coursework. I’ve done all of 4 surveys in that time. Out of 102. This weekend is going to be looooong…

I think everyone knows her. She’s the popular girl. The pretty one who everyone wants to be like and be liked by. She’s the one that, with a flick of her hair and a little wiggle, can get the boys to do whatever she wants them to. And after that, they are hers. I’ve spent the past few months with that girl. She is beautiful, and that wiggle is very wiggly. I admit that I’ve fallen for her, been led on by her. She’s pretended to be my friend. But you know what? Underneath that she’s pretty boring, a little dull. There isn’t much to her really. She led me on for a while, but I got tired of her. When she realised I was starting to think about cutting her out altogether, she grabbed me by the hair and pulled me back in. I’m not sure what she gets out of the relationship, but I look damn good hanging out with her, and that might do for now.
I’d like you to meet her.

That’s not her true hair colour tho. The next pic, although blurry, is much more accurate.

Yeah, she’s hot, but she has no substance. She took months of my time, and bored the hell out of me, but thanks to Yahaira, she’s away. Free from my needles, she looks a lot more glamorous than she is. I will never fall for her charms again, but I’ll enjoy what I got from this particular incarnation of our relationship (5 and a half balls of South West Trading Karaoke in Forest. And she may be boring, but blimey she must have a good conditioner – she is smooth and swift move round the needles).
Thanks Y 😀 Your nudging did good things and helped tidy up my pile of WIPs! Now I just have to transfer something I haven’t mentioned being knit to the list… 😉
The next plans are for the argyle sock pattern, with test knitter(s) so that I can make sure I’ve not just written a big piece of incomprehensible crap (I’ve not written a pattern before, so I think it is a good idea if I get someone to play before I plonk it on the web for all to criticise), the completion of the magic loop socks (almost 50% there), and the knitting of the maddest thing I worked with, which will no doubt soon be known as the worst thing I’ve knitted, but at least it will be warm and soft (two words important in my knitting vocab). And ideas for lots of summery light knits. Today it was about 15 degrees, but for some inexplicable reason, it was 26 inside at work. I need to prepare by making lots of cotton garments in case it continues to be strangely over heated. By that point they will probably realise the temps aren’t quite right and make the place colder than the poles. Nice.
In other news, I have had a delivery. My final SP7 parcel arrived from the lovely Aileen.

She totally surprised me 😀 There was no warning that something might be on its way. She was also rather lucky – yet again the postie decided the bin was a perfect place to leave a parcel. On the day before the bin men come. Phew… Anyway, in the parcel was a very very cool collection of goodies! A lovely long letter from Aileen (Aileen petal, I’m going to write you a response rather than email you. And who knows what else I might have in store…), two Sandra magazines, two balls of yarn, a bar of soap and a bar of choccy. The yarn is native Irish, with one coming from her trip to the Aran Isles in a lovely creamy 100% pure wool, and the other a big ball of cream with flecks of black, grey and brown in a superwash 100% wool 😀 Yay! The soap is Elderflower and Apple, and is absolutely luscious smelling and full of natural ingredients. The choccy is sadly absent from the piccy as it is currently on the chair arm next to me tempting my nostrils. It comes from an Irish maker called Butlers, and is 70% cocoa. I thought Green and Blacks were good. This is better – it has a long lingering aftertaste and an incredible creamy buttery texture. Mmmmmmmmmm. Finally the Sandra magazines – full of more of that incredible cerise pink I showed you from the first she sent me, with some fabulous lace patterns, gorgeous cabling/aran creations, and one pattern that particularly caught my eye – a cardi constructed so that is diagonally shaped at the bust and straight below that, with long wide sleeves, so that it looks a little like a cross between a kaftan and an empire line (if that were possible!). Sadly I can’t take pics of that – it got too dark and the flash will reflect from the paper, but I’ll try and get one soon.
Thank you Aileen – you have been a wonderful pal, regardless of what you think of your timing, but you seem to always have managed to get things to me when I’ve been having a rough week 😀 (this week it was ‘back to school and time to shout at librarians for things I have done and won’t admit to being responsible for or pay for’ week. They get stressed at this time of year, and who can blame them, but still, no need to take out their overdue fines on us and shoot the messenger).
I haven’t signed up for SP8 yet – I haven’t quite decided whether I’m committed enough right now, as it will fall while I’m preparing to submit the dissertation (if I ever get there). BUT, I have signed up for the One Skein swap, which requires less time but still plenty of contemplation and consideration of yarn, and the opportunity to knit lovely things – what more could I need right now?

Take a look at my side bar. Something has changed. And it isn’t the dissertation…
Thank goodness for that. More tomorrow.

At last. I’ve just spent an hour on some of the questionnaires, just briefly reading and making notes, logging ideas and thoughts as I go on each one, and at last, I feel like I’m getting somewhere. What a relief. I’m a fair way from finishing, but things are going quicker than I imagined, and ideas and themes are emerging sooner than I thought they would in qualitative research. I might actually be able to write something soon! The sooner the better, I say.
Just had to get that off my chest! Maybe I’m jumping the gun, but I have hope in a situation that hasn’t had hope for some time.
Phew.

Well, we went, we saw, we purchased. Saturday was a day of admiring others’ work and lusting after yarns. I suspect we would have got more if we had been braver, and Amelia hadn’t beaten us to the last area of stash before we’d even left the doorway 😉
First of all, before we get into all that coolness, thanks for the lovely (and very useful) feedback on the argyle design 🙂 It has been frogged from the Regia version, and will be knitted in something more defined and crisp. More on what I’m using in a sec. I promise Necia I will try not to use the f work again, or at least too much… Ooooh, and may be ruthless and sort some stash out for selling. Or maybe not! Anyway, I’ll have another go, but I may still need advice about sizing. The stitch pattern is pretty strict and effects how the sock will fit and shape up. Maybe it could take just a bit of changing the needle size for changing the sock width. We shall see, but thank you, thank you all! The cheques are in the post…
A friend and I went to the Knitting and Crochet Guild open day, with thanks to Amelia for pointing out that they had one and making several of us very excited 🙂 And thanks to SkipNorth too for putting up pics of the yarn mountain (or a very very small section of it). We had an ace time – we were welcomed when we arrived and given a history of the guild, and the mill where they have their displays and stock. The guild are trying to get to museum status, and they need a lot of support to do so, so go along to their next open day near Holmfirth and meet the lovely people. The displays are wonderful, but because they can’t get bigger accommodation until their status improves, they have a huge amount hidden away in boxes. But those they had on display – wow 🙂 A cave with stalagtites and stalagmites, wall hangings, supersized toy blocks, knitted village and gardens, and canal/waterway crochet were just some of the things they were showing. They had piles of old equipment and patterns, and spinning wheels and swifts all over the place. The guild members were uber friendly and really helpful and chatty, and we learnt a lot from them just hanging around. They did a talk on some antique knitting and crochet too (which we missed because we were too busy drooling over yarn). The yarn, oh the yarn! Yarn mountain is not an understatement. There were cones for sale everywhere, boxes piled with packs of yarn, more boxes piled up all over the place, more cones, more boxes, and those were just the cheapy 1p a gram yarns! In fact the cones were cheaper – £5.00 for a kilo. They had lots of big brand stuff too – plenty of Addi metal and bamboo circs, drawers filled with crochet hooks, kits for crochet flowers and knitted jewellry, shelves of fibre arts books. Ohhhh and that isn’t even half of it 🙂 It was all crammed into this little unit in the mill, but they really made the most of the space.
Soooo, what you are really waiting for are some piccies… Well, I was very very restrained after the shock of the stash the other day. And I don’t get paid till the end of this week too, which meant more carefulness. I got a lot for my cash though 😀

Here we have: one addi turbo (4.5mm 100cm long) to replace the evil crappy needle I’d been using on hourglass, two hanks of Opal sock yarn ready to dye up when I buy something to colour it, 3 balls of what I am 99% sure is RYC Cashcotton 4ply in a soft pale blue (it had a different brand name on the bag it was in, but still used cashcotton in the yarn name), a cone of very lightweight yarn for lace knitting, and the Baltic Sea Stole pattern (you can buy it online, but have to pay postage for it, so I got it while it was there in front of me). The two purple balls are most definitely RYC Cashcotton 4 ply, but from Up Country, a yarn shop in the centre of Holmfirth. The sock knitting theme is pretty dominant here! The blue cashcotton will be used to test my argyle pattern again, while the purple will probably be used on a sock pattern someone gifted me ages ago and I haven’t done anything with it. I’m going to see how the argyle pattern goes first to see how it knits up and fits etc etc.
The cone, I think, is around cobweb weight. It is very very light, and looks positively Nicole Richie next to the Angelina sock yarn. See?

Can anyone confirm this, or tell me what it actually is? Anyway, I have about 340g of this stuff, which I estimate is enough for at least two very beautiful scarf/stole things. I don’t do triangular shawls or anything like that, but a light airy wrap to use as a scarf does me very nicely, hence Baltic Sea. I also adore Eunny’s gorgeous Print O’ the Wave. And if I decide I hate lace knitting with tiny yarn and tiny needles, it doesn’t matter, because the cone only cost me £1.70… Woot!

Ok, LOTS of piccies this weekend… But when depends on how much I can be arsed altering, saving and adding, and what happens as the weekend progresses 🙂
Firstly, I can reveal what I was doing for the gifty knitting. Sue received her parcel yesterday (in a super speedly less than 24 hours – if you want to post something in town, use a university campus post box), so here is what she found.

They are River Rapids socks designed by Sock Bug, knitted in Curious Yarns sock yarn, colourway Beach. Here’s a side view – notice the beautiful slip stitch design for the heel. I’ve not seen that on many designs (I may not have knitted all that many pairs, but I’ve trawled through a LOT of patterns :D)

Ok, so you guys already know that I have had issues with these socks. Sue also knows that, so I owe it to her and Sock Bug to explain why. Firstly the pattern is fab. It is easy to follow, easy to memorise, and is ultimately so simple yet so effective visually it hurts 🙂 Sadly, I kept forgetting what kind of decrease I was meant to do – entirely my own fault, and frogged both socks a few times each 🙁 Here is a piccie of the pattern close up, but it is a bit glarey – sorry 🙁

The yarn is nice too. I’ve not tried Curious Yarns before, but I’ve seen them mentioned a few times, and thought I’d give it a go, given it can be machine washed (always good for gifting). The colourways are just gorgeous and luscious and edible. BUT, when the yarn came, it didn’t have nearly as much blue as it shows on the website pic. On the website, the blue is really deep like the sea, with the sand and stone colours as they are in my pics. The blue in my yarn is more like a really pale cloudy sky blue. I was a bit concerned when I started knitting because the blue barely shows on the ribbing, and you only see it on the heel and sole, but in the end, it all worked out 🙂 Also note that the pattern calls for 2.75mm needles, which are few and far between/expensive in the UK, so I first went for 3mm judging by the yarn gauge, hit gauge, but also found the fit, shape and pattern too loose. I dropped down to 2.5mm and got a much better fit and shaping from them. So, in short, use Sock Bug patterns – they rock and have a sock bug at the top, and use Curious Yarns sock yarn, cos it is pretty and knits up well, but watch out for that hand dying batch/on screen colours factor.
And I have more! Here is what happened when I tried to design an argyle pattern and knitted a test version in Regia Silk Shine.

Either my design is off, or the yarn doesn’t do stitch definition very well. Here is a slightly better picture where the light is hitting the sock right to catch the purl diamonds.

I’m thinking it is the yarn, and that it would work much better in a flat, paler colour (like a nice dusty pink or pale blue). Incidentally, I’d love to do the cashmere thing with these socks, but I’m not going to use it until I’m happy with the pattern design. I figured the Regia would frog easily because of the silk content, while the cashmere is just too gorgeous to risk a frogging.
Anyway, your opinions on the pattern (what little you can see in the sock) would be much appreciated – is it me or the yarn? Oh, and the grey on the sock isn’t the light reflecting – that’s fuzz from the lining inside my toothy bag 🙁 Goodness knows how that happened…
Lastly, I decided to have a bit of a sort out of my knitting today. I got out all 7 of my projects on the needles. Yup, 7. 2 pairs of socks, 2 scarves, a cardi, hourglass, and the Vogue bolero (which even though it went in for frogging, I consider it on the needles because of it still sitting there taunting me). It was a slap in the face. I frogged the bolero all morning, then decided that I have not knitted hourglass because I hate the needle I’m using (a nasty metal and plastic cheapo circular, which is to be replaced asap), so frogged it too. I will still knit it, but only when I have a better needle. I then had to rejig my stash to fit the frogged yarn in it. Then I realised just how much stash I have. It still isn’t as much as a lot of people have, but enough to be embarrassed.
Firstly…

Secondly

And that doesn’t include the box behind the sofa under the stairs that has 2 kilo of chunky black stuff, and the stuff I have in the ongoing projects box that I’m knitting with, and the other stuff in the same box that I’ve been planning to use for AGES. Please note that the sofa is a 3 seater.
It also doesn’t include my trip planned to the Knitting and Crochet Guild open day tomorrow, to their 1p a gram yarn mountain/volcano… This is why I have a lot of photos today, just in case I am tempted to buy tomorrow, or do buy and have a lot to discuss. Ohhhhhhhh baby…