So Much to Knit, So Little Time

One of the things about me being pregnant is that, for the first half of it, I can't knit. Three first trimesters now and three periods of time when the thought of knitting just leaves me cold. I can read and this time I watched a fair amount of Netflix 'cause I couldn't just lay in bed all day but I also wasn't up to getting up and doing anything. So no knitting for the first three months and, this time around, I could and did knit a little in the fourth month but my heart wasn't in it.

Imagine my delight, in September, when I got my knitting mojo back! Except I didn't particularly want to knit any of those boring projects I'd been working on before, no,I wanted shiny new knitting projects and bouncy new yarns to knit them in! I, uh, went way off the rails. For the most part I am aware that I have a bountiful stash with a huge variety of wools and colours, but in September that simply Would Not Do.

It started innocently enough, with the purchase of Ysolda Teague's Inglis mitts which were originally publish in the Edinburgh Yarn Festival magazine back in March, to showcase her new British wool, Blend no. 1. I loved the look of the pattern (and one other in the magazine) but it was only available in dead tree format, not digitally, and I really don't need more Stuff so I didn't buy it, nor did I buy the (small batch) yarn in the hope that I would find something to do with it. Well, having bought the pattern, when Ms Teague announced that she was getting another delivery of Bn1 and it would be available on her website as of this time and date, I was right there (on our holiday), ordering a skein. Chris wanted something to keep his hands warm when typing; I'll knit these for him, I told myself. 

Oh, my goodness! Blend no. 1 seems like a nice enough yarn in the skein and even the cake, but once I started to knit with it and had a few rows of ribbing....wow. Heavenly amounts of squish. I gave the just-started cuff to Chris to squish and he went online to see how many more skeins were available to purchase and started requesting intimate items I could knit for him so he could spend every waking minute figuratively rolling around naked in it. Me, I hoped the mitts would come out small and, darn it, I guess I'd just have to keep them. They didn't. 

The pattern is not overly complicated and has lovely details like the way the ribbing slants across the palm from the thumb gusset and the cuff that can be worn up or down depending on temperature and if you need to use your fingers. The only tricky bit is that, because the patten never repeats and is asymetrical you have to keep checking the charts for both mitts. I could knit while talking to people or watching telly -just glancing at the chart at the start of each round- but it wasn't suitable as a handbag project.

Then, right after I started the Inglis mitts, Ms Teague released the first pattern in her annual Knitworthy series, the Belyse fingerless gloves. It was love at first sight! Which unfortunately wasn't in time to get any of the kits she'd released to knit them in her wool and EasyKnit's Squidge, which is a similar blend of sheepies. I decided that, rather than order from two shops I'd just try to skeins of Squidge. My first several contrast colour choices were sold out (blue and silver again? Me?) but got one I liked and joined the mailing list...and the day my order arrived I got an email saying "wow, we had no idea our wool would be featured in this popular pattern, but we've restocked and even made kits!" Sigh. I still haven't started these, but looking at the pattern again, they're certainly top of the queue. 

I also bought a gradient set on the Big Boy base, as long as I was trying a new-to-me dyer, to make something from Carol Feller's new book "Knitting with Rainbows" which I also bought in September. Only I hadn't looked closely enough at the meterage and it's a bit short for what I had in mind but might work for a hat or mix with a contrast colour for an easy gradient colourwork project. I caked two of the colours together to start and I was surprised how course the yarn is. Will have to plan accordingly.

My other accomplishment in early September was finishing my vanilla, after-thought heel purple stripey socks. One sock appears to have two more stitches than the other as they start off at the same point in the colour sequence and they're the same length, but they end at a very different point. Oops. This is not my bothered face. I've not worn them much as I dropped a stitch picking up one of the heels and it's secured with a safety pin until I get around to sewing it down. They're knit in Opal's "happy" range, "sweet & spicy" colourway on a sparkle base which I ordered last year with two self-striping rainbow colours. I have a lot of sock yarn but I'd have to be dead to pass up sparkly, self-striping rainbows.

October KALs: Status Update

As you may recall, I signed up for two Knit-a-longs (KALs) both of which started on 1 October: Carol Feller's Mithral pullover KAL, and the Great British Socksaway KAL. I thought that by now I'd be a gibbering ball of stress, knowing that I've failed them both and wanting to go knit stockingette cowls for the rest of my life. Surprisingly, I'm doing rather well.

Tarsi Toddler Socks
I really hit the ground running with these darling little socks, finishing them in 11 days. I used every last bit of wool, ending with only inches left so the fact that they're ever so slightly too short in the foot is just a crying shame. Little Djinn loves them, but they just shift right off her little feet and no amount of pulling them up can keep them on. Oh well. I tried and I will keep on trying.

Mithral
At the same time, I knit the first clue of Mithral, which was for the front and back of the shoulders, from the neckline down to the bottom of the armholes (Clue 2 starts with joining the two pieces in the round - the picture above was a few rows into Clue 2). The wool is deliciously soft in my hands but, as I anticipated, that doesn't mean it's easy to work with. It's not difficult, I'm not fighting it, but I am having to check from time to time that I've got the actual stitch and not just fluff and it's very slippy on my needles. Between that and the eternal worry that the finished sweater won't fit or make me happy, and working on it has kind of become duty knitting - I want to finish and wear my lovely new sweater, but I can't be disappointed with the finished object if I never, you know, finish it. The good news is that I thought this KAL ran for the same length as the GBSocksawayKal, 6 weeks, but it actually goes into December! So as long as I do a little work on it here and there, I shouldn't fall too far behind. And, while I like wining, I don't need prizes.

Pheasant Socks
Remember how I said I had two suitable sock yarns for the wool from British sheep qualification for the GBSocksawayKAL? I was wrong. My other wool is, as I said, from the Faeroe Islands. Faeroe. Denmark. Somehow despite typing the word "Faeroe" my brain was still thinking "Orkney". Um, oops. I was faced with two problems here - I like to always have a pair of socks on the needle as "handbag knitting", eg something small enough to be portable and easy enough to be picked up and put down a lot, and I was feeling a lot of envy for the self-striping Pheasant colourway from West Yorkshire Spinner's Birds range. So when my friend Miss Morgan was visiting and short one ball of yarn for a hat she was knitting, I ordered a skein of Pheasant at the same time. Then there was a problem with placing the order, Miss Morgan got sick and left early, and it didn't show up until after she left. Oops. But the WYS pheasant, at least, is as wonderful as I hope.

For whatever reason, WYS doesn't have any publicity shots of the skeins knit up, just in the ball, and when I'd seen people's probjects they all seemed to be like the Blue Tit colourway - stripes but a a lot of mottling of colour between the stripes in the way that Opal does self-striping yarns. Opal is (was?) my default sock yarn, but I mostly thought of picking a colour as getting the least annoying one. Pheasant isn't like that: Pheasant has five tonal colours (rust, pumpkin, goldenrod, navy, and petrol (dark teal)) in clear stripes with a small stripe of grey between each colour. For me that works out as five rows of a colour, two rows of grey, five rows of the next colour. They are stunning. I decided to do a pair of very plain, vanilla socks with an afterthought heel, neither of which I've actually knit before.

I don't know how much is the stripes ("just one more!") and how much is the vanilla sock so it's just round and round, but I have never knit a sock that quickly. I kept making myself work on other things and I still knit one sock in four days. Remember how happy I was above to knit a pair of toddler socks in 11 days? 5.5 days each sock? I just knit a full size sock in 4 days. I put off starting the second one to work on Mithral. And then knit a hat and half a mitt instead - then I checked the timeline for the Mithral KAL and realized I could finish my socks like I want to do anyway. Someone please tell me I'm not the only person who won't let myself do A because I have to do B and so I do C instead?

This is my first time working an afterthought heel, though the pattern I picked, Fork in the Road Socks by Laura Neel, has you work the afterthought heel in the same order as if you were doing a heel-flap and gusset, after the leg and before the foot. I'm not sure I like it from a construction esthetic - and please note this is a critique of the style, not the pattern which is clear and results in a correctly sized sock - the unworn socks look...weird. They don't lie flat. There's a fair argument to be made that because feet are not flat, socks shouldn't be either, and I'll have to see how comfortable they are to wear before deciding if I'd knit them for a non-stripy yarn. For stripy yarns the afterthought heel is perfect as it keeps the stripes in perfect order.

And Chris looked at my beautiful Pheasant socks and requested a pair for himself. I showed him the colourways available and he picked Bullfinch with Cayenne (from their solid "spice rack" range) for contrast cuffs, heels, and toes. I also picked up Blue Tit for when I've knit those, with contrast Blueberry Bonbon ("sweet shop" range) and the limited edition Christmas colour Cherry Drop.

Highland Wool Festival 2015 - Inverness

October brings the smaller (and original) Highland Wool Festival to the Bishop's Palace at Eden Court. There are no classes or "events" at this one, just £2 to get in and wool to buy. We don't have a lot of LYS (local yarn shops) in the highlands, and the ones we have tend to carry a lot of acrylic yarns in pastel colours, suitable for baby knitting if you don't much like the baby*. A chance to buy a range of beautiful fibres and crafts in exquisite colours is not to be passed up.

I was there with Little Djinn (as usual) so first thing first we had to look at buttons and we picked up a dozen big round buttons in crayola colours for £1 for her to play with. I'm hoping the orangish-red buttons will work for her Wee Meelia cardigan but letting her have a button stash (and keep her out of mine) is an end in and of itself.

Then it was over to Ripple's Crafts, my favourite yarn enabler. I picked up three skeins from Helen - two skeins of her Suilven 4ply merino/yak/silk blend in the colourways "Orkney Sea and Sky" for Wooly Wormhead's Bedragonned beret I mentioned in my fantasy hat knitting post and "Autumn Sunset" for a maple leaf shawl KAL on google+ I've been invited to participate in in December. I'm starting to worry that it's not going to be enough meterage, so I need to see if she can do up a second skein for me - colour variations would be suitable for the project! The other skein I got was her 6ply DK Doubly Reliable sockyarn in a varigated green called "Wendy", which amuses me as one of the ladies at my Knit Night is named Wendy and she's usually decked out in green. Also pictured is a previously purchased second skein of Doubly Reliable sockyarn in one of unnamed colourways, both intended for winter socks.

I got a rainbow DK skein from a small dyer I'd not purchased anything from previously, Gongcraft (they don't appear to have a website and their etsy shop is empty). I'm not hugely interested in plant dyes as I prefer super-saturated colours, but I'm a sucker for rainbows. I was thinking of making a hooded scarf for Little Djinn, but then I remembered I have a pattern for a Cuddly Chameleon by Browneyed Babs who designed the fuzzy teddy bear I knit. How adorable is this?

There was also a stand selling British breeds wool, which is where I got the six balls of Jamieson's Shetland Heather that I talked about in my last post. Little Djinn rummaged through the stall's (foolishly I didn't write down the name of the business) bins of wool and came up with a ball of Wensleydale Longsheep DK in a bright raspberry. She insisted that I buy it for her, and not one of the 50g 4ply balls, though I bought one of those for myself in cream. I also picked up a skein of John Arbon Exmoor Sock in "Midnight". Another knitter in the Great British SocksAway KAL knit socks in that colour and they looked so lovely, I want a pair myself.

At Yarn Garden I picked up three skeins of 100% Corriedale DK in "raspberry wine". It was half price, only £10/skein so I presume it was being discontinued. I'm thinking of making some nice warm leg warmers for under my trousers at work, maybe Sadler's Wells?

I got an ornament from TJ Frog, maker of lovely Dorset Buttons. I wanted the blue one with silver beads but Little Djinn wanted the purple one with gold beads, so that's what we got. I don't have a picture of it as she insists it's hers, though she is holding it in the top picture.

And finally, Little Djinn picked out a tiny pair of fingerless mitts in a rainbow colourway of sock yarn, which she insists she'll wear but so far has refused to do so. I'd rather buy something she won't use than make it, but we'll see if she's more willing as it gets colder.

We didn't see anyone we knew wandering about, though a few of the knitters from InStitches said they'd be there. Little Djinn and I had some tea and split a traybake in the cafe before heading over to Bellfield Park so she could play until Daddy walked into town, then we all went for a late lunch/early dinner at the tapas restaurant before walking home again. It was a really good day.

~ ~ * ~ ~

* when on fire, plant fibres burn, animal fibres self-extinguish, and acrylics melt. If a baby is under an acrylic blanket - or heaven forfend - in an acrylic hat or jumper, it will melt to the baby's skin and then, when the knit item is removed, it will rip off the baby's skin. You would never buy something for a child that you knew failed fire safety standards - why would you spend your time creating something with such great potential to harm?