KnittingNatty

Holiday retreat - a snapshot (or two)

We're back from our family holiday, which was really well appreciated by everyone and lets just say a little overdue for some of us.  We went to the usual place in the bush which is secluded, no phone, no tv, no radio, no mobile reception, no internets; just perfect! We cooked porridge for breakfast, warming soups for lunch and good hearty food for dinner each night, accompanied by a little red wine, to ward off the cold, of course ;) We did some bushwalking, snoozing, played board games, that kind of thing.

It was not exactly freezing, but at least we all got to wear our winter woolies!
 I took knitting, and lots of it. Of course, I took more than I could possibly knit and still be responsible for the supervision of small children, and some of my estimates of what was possible were  based on sitting up late into the night just to get extra knitting done, but this did not eventuate, as catching up on sleep proved to be more important on the day.  And not just for me, it seems.

I got to read my new book, Buddism for Mothers (recommended reading), using the bookseat. This next picture is pretty typical of what the first 2 or so days looked like:







And, what about the knitting, you say? Well, I got roped into making some socks for the kids. I always tell myself that "socks don't take much time". Note to self - socks do so take time! Last week, DS Ian was allowed to wear "odd or unusual socks" to school, and well that brought out the first request. Except to make an odd pair, requires the eventual knitting of 2 whole pairs. And what is good for one child is also good for his or her sibling. They chose the colours themselves. Sigh.

The Fo' s for the family knitting retreat are:

• Noro st st socks

 
These socks are purposely non matching, and the wool was a lovely and unexpected present from Donna. I cut out the yellow colour on the first sock and put in an afterthought heel. By using an afterthought heel, and by leaving the yellow in, the socks (would have) had a reasonable chance of matching. These socks are cast on over 60 stitches and the foot is not overly long.

The yarn does catch on itself, which can lead to lots of unnecessary tangling. I countered this by not pulling very much out of the skein at one time (makes sense, right?), and by pulling on any tangles from the skein end of the yarn. This helped a lot. I have a reasonable amount of yarn left.

• TOFUtsies socks

These are the socks for Ian's odd sock day at school. They have been on a few bushwalking adventures, and somehow missed the washing machine this morning, and are presented for your viewing pleasure in all their red mud glory.

These socks are cast on over 50 sts.






 

• Caitlyns purple socks

These are the "what about me?" sibling socks. Purple Opal sock wool from stash. Cast on over 50 stitches as well. Call it insurance for next year's odd sock day. (Can I just whine for a moment? My socks are only cast on over 60 stitches! Whinge over!)

• Caitlyns yellow socks

Same as for the purple sock, above. Except mercifully without partner for the moment. I could take no more of the stocking stitch fest that was our family knitting retreat. I am so over  stocking stitch!

• Noro coffee pot cozy

This is a bit of a cheat - all the knitting, and felting has been done for some time, it just needed some sewing up.The yarn is the left over Silk Garden from my Clapotis. I added blanket stitch in Dream no Colour Smooshy "Strange Harvest". I cut the size piece I needed without fear or favour - the pot has no real need of further insulation, having a double wall already. But this coffee pot is something I use absolutely everyday (yes, it comes on holidays with us), and I liked the idea, having been inspired by 2007's tea cozy swap (but being too busy to play at that time).




I am still on holidays today and tomorrow, and looking forward to some more knitting time. Yay for holidays!

Oh, one last thing - family portrait time!

Stash knit down 2008

I have calculated the totals for DS's jumper; DD's cardi and the Hubster's pullover for the April challenge, and it has come out at just a smidge over 2.5 klms. There is a bit of knitting for March included in here, but not a great deal.

So it must be time for an updated photo of the Hubster's pullover:

This is the front, the back is already completed, and there's not much to go to the cast off, and then its off to sleeve island we go!

I'm itching to start something else for me, but I must also finish the thick and thin cardi first!

Stash knit down 2008 January challenge update

So, we had 226 meters on the boards.

Add one and a half balls to finish Ariann - 170m
Add 335 meters for the Hubster's socks.
731 meters.

Aiming for 1609 meters by Feb 19th. 878 more meters of yarn. Time to cast on!

Stash knit down 2008

So, I've gone and joined another Ravelry group: Stash Knit down 2008.

There's no yarn diet involved - but there will be challenges. Now I know that I have been slow in a lot of regards when it comes to KAL's, but I'm going to give the first challenge my best shot: to knit one mile of stash yarn between now (the starter's pistol has already gone off) and February 19th @ 5 pm Eastern (GMT - 5 hours).

Will you join me? It's 1609 meters, my trusty mac converter tells me. That's only a few empty ball bands away, don't you think?

I see socks in your future

And some beautiful esty hand dyed yarn from Donni! I'm fessing up to one each of the burned butter and the bruised bloodwood.

I know that I am buying faster than I  can possibly knit at the moment and that it has to stop, but I'm really enjoying myself and my stash is not scaring me (yet!). I am planning a pair of chevron socks for me with the blue/ orange yarn (top picture), and something special and lacy with the bruised bloodwood.

Time will tell, and in the meantime, I am contemplating even *more" yarn for the gorgeous peacock shawl!

Ahhh, yarn-y goodness! My favourite!

Bad blogger, bad bad blogger

Where to start? A while ago, I won a comp over at Sandy's,  and here are the spoils:

The yarn at the left is a lovely tweedy laceweight, and the other two are sock yarns!!
Here's the lace weight snuggling gup with the brown /rust red sock yarn:

And here's a closeup of that yummy varigated colour in the  skein. All together now, yuuuuum!
And Sandy very kindly also threw in some candy! Yum! I can tell you they did not last very long!

So, thanks, Sandy!

I am half way through Chart 4 for Icarus, and it has been a bit painful as I made a mistake and then had to tink back twice 2 rows. There's a lot of stitches in them rows now! But I can see the finishing gline and am looking forward to getting there!

The weekend turned out to not be very productive on the knitting front, but thems the breaks! I am hoping to finish up the final pair of windter socks for the kids this week as well as to get started on a new blankie project for my dear now-not-so-pregnant-friend (the one I made a big shawl for in the past). I am going to freestyle a blankie based on Grumperina's recent success.

When I say "freestyling" I mean that I am not going to use a pattern. I think I can work this baby out on my own! Well, here's hoping anyway!

What came in the post - part 1

Donna from Random Knits sent me a lovely sock blocker  keyring a couple of weeks ago! Isn't it precious!

More progress on Chart 4 underway - midweek knitting! Where will it all end?

I'm  almost caught up on my podcasts! That means that things are almost back to normal! Yay!~

The slippery slope - the spectrum of stash

I once published a post which listed, more than discussed, the merits of casting on lots of projects at once lead me a train of thought, which turned out to be interesting enough to be blog-worthy. Well, I thought so anyway - you be the judge...

I was thinking about the way we knit (not the knit one purl one drop one kinda thing),but more how we decide whether a project is worthy of our time and effort; what it takes to make it to the "A" list. And how we justify how many projects we will have on the needles at any one time.

I was brought up in a strict 8 ply jumper project kinda way. One at a time. Hurry to cast off and sew up and then buy yarn from Myers or David Jones for the next one. (That dates me, these department stores haven't sold the stuff for years.)

Then in 1992, a girl called Stephanie (the girlfriend of a dear friend of mine) taught me how to make socks. No particular pattern, but different needles and yarns (I was initiated straight into the 75% wool 25% nylon brigade). She took me to a yarn shop in Hamburg where she lived (I still remember that yarn shop to this day - jaw dropping!) and picked out some sock yarns for me. A fledgling sock yarn stash was born. I now can recognise some of the yarns purchased then: Regia, Ja Woll, and Stahl socka. All impossible to obtain in Australia at the time (I looked). I found a basic sock pattern book published by Patons upon my return to Australia, and knitted on. My dear friend sent me some more sock yarns.

I knitted more socks, 3 or so pairs. I always had a pair of socks on the needles, regardless of the 8 ply knitting I was doing. I asked everyone I knew who was travelling overseas to bring me home some sock yarn. Duty free goods were easily passed over in favour of sock yarn. I received some odd assortments, some strange brands I've never seen before or since, all gratefully received and used up.

Scroll forwards to 1998 when I visited with my sis in San Fransisco. We went yarn shopping. Several times. I bought sock yarn. A shopping bag full of sock yarn came home with me, I knitted it all up. (Well, there might be scraps, but there is nothing substantial left over to speak of).

There were more people to knit for by then. My now dear Hubster, and members of his family. And I think this is where the cast-on-itis really set in for me. A jumper for me, a jumper for him. A pair of socks on the needles for him and a pair for me. DS Ian is expected. I cast on a baby blanket (or 2) for him. More projects got added to the "to do" list. Now there are the 4 of us to knit for (not counting extended family) - that's potentially a lot of socks and jumpers!

I'm not sure how it evolved. All I can say is that it was gradual. 1992 - 2006 is fifteen years, people. (God, I'm getting old!) Whatever the thought process about the choice of project,
(1)  I'm constantly and optimistically bouyed by the fact that I have always finished what I have started (with only a couple of exceptions - there are some long lasting WIPs, but I consider them to be still current).
(2) I have used up a great deal of yarn in my lifetime knitting the things I said I would. This may be attributed to a variety of things
        (1) Maybe you could say that my confidence was growing.
        (2) Maybe you could say that I have been influenced by the evils of the internet in that
                (a) more yarns were available by internet order than I could ever have imagined in my Myer/ David Jones wool buying wildest dreams; and
                (b) the persuasive arguments of other knitters that I should have more yarn were very compelling (and still are) . This is also possibly true. Buying yarn over the internet is incredibly easy, and it feels so good to be conversing with like minded people who love yarn and who love knitting it.

Most of the yarn actually in my non-sock yarn stash is actually left overs from other completed  projects.  And I'm comfortable with that. My sock yarn stash is larger than it has ever been before. But I have more people to knit socks for than ever before (although not more time). And I go back to the fact that I have had this hobby/ obsession a long time and have always knitted through the yarn I own.

Sure, I may not need many jumpers where we live now, but the *instant* we travel to a higher altitude or south, we will be needing warm woolllies! I don't yet consider myself a member of SABLE ("Stash ascquired beyond life expectancy"); although I have both yarns which do not have a project yet attributed to them and more yarn than I could probably knit up in a 12 month period.

So, what is a comfortable level of stash? What is my level of confidence? Or does stash accumulation speak more of our lack of confidence to buy the yarns/ patterns that we want when the time comes to knit them? Or our fear that we will miss out? So, what do you think? Where do you place yourself in this spectrum of  stash?

Birthday goodies

A very late but heartfelt thanks go to Donna and Donni (aka mog's blog/ indulging my inner knitter - seems her blog is down at the moment) for making my birthday last for a whole week, and providing some stash enhancement that was otherwise sorely lacking:

A Caliometry, knitted for me by Donni:

(Yes, my schnoz really is that big, hadn't you noticed before??)

And some lovely fibre for spinning with, all colours of the spectrum represented! The red on the left is a silk blend and is going to be kept until I get a bit good at spinning - I already know what I want to knit with it!

Some "dye your own" Knitpicks sock yarn. Now to  pick one of my favourite colours for the  dyeing process... hmmm...

and some bath goodies , already gone  gone gone!

And my good yarn karma? A present from Jess! (Knitpicks gossamer in a lovely girly colourway)

Thank you ladies, your  kindness will warm me as I knit with and use the goodies you sent!

Stolen Bloggy moment

Stash of a different kind today - book stash!

I heard about this online book store that has free shipping to Australia - which means that it beats Amazon hands down.

It is the Book Depository in the UK. I search for knitting revealled 2500 or so titles.

I have placed my order for four books. (Knitting ganseys x 2; Victorian Lace Today and Fitted Knits) I'll let you know how I go when it gets here.

Book reviews too...