YOP: post 9

Okay, so I haven't go round to post for a month and a half, which definitely means I'm a baddy. But hey, schoolwork goes first, doesn't it?

First of all some new yarn. There was an 'open day' at my LYS, which meant there was some yarn on sale at reduced price. I'm not usually one for pinks, but combined with the red and orange I think they'll make a nice project. I don't know what yet, but maybe an Inspira Cowl?

Moving on to my WIP's:
The stripey socks are growing, but not very fast, as I always seem to have something more interesting to do than finish them. All three culprits can be seen below. I want to have these finished for my mother's birthday at the end of November, so I'll have to get my skates on and concentrate on them.

My scarf/shawl is growing, slowly but surely, but it still needs quite a lot of work. The basketweave stitch is simple enough to make this a mindless knit, so I think I'll take it with me when I go and watch a film with my friends tomorrow afternoon. It's getting rather big and unportable, but it's at someone's house, so I should be able to negotiate some extra space on the sofa to knit comfortably.

My last WIP is one I started yesterday, because I had come to the conclusion that I didn't have a single YOP-list project on the go. Browsing through my Ravelry library, I found 'Entre Deux Saisons', a perfect project: small, more or less portable, modular and colourful. It was also my first try at entrelac, one of my YOP goals. The pattern uses DPN's and although I far prefer DPN's to circ's, I felt the urge to switch right away. As the technique means you're always shifting groups of stitches around, circ's are just so much easier to work with. At this moment, the mitt has already had two more rounds added to it. Entrelac is really addicting!

My only FO in all this time has been a pair of mitts, because it's getting too cold to cycle with bare hands, but it's not cold enough -yet- to need real gloves. I had a single ball of yarn that I had fallen in love with some time ago, and have now finally found a project for. I wanted to make the best of that single ball, so I started with a provisional cast-on, and then knit up. Then I used the remaining yarn to knit the cuff down from her cast-on. After having worn them for a week, I have found that I should have made the thumbs longer. I made these because the cold causes me pain in my joints. The tops of the mitts cover my fingers enough for them not to hurt, but the thumb cover tube finishes just under my thumb joint, so that still hurts if it gets really cold... But anyway: they look nice, they're warm enough and they've taught me how to do a provisional cast-on. Things can't always be perfect, can they?

I hope to be able to update my YOP-list this week, before term starts again...

Mnz

YOP: post 7

Term has started again, which means that my flying progress on my cable cardi has somewhat ground to a halt. I Finished the first front on Sunday, so my jumper looked like this after I'd seamed it on Monday morning, before going to school. (I only had to be there at 11.10 AM)












On Friday afternoon, I cast on for the second front. That means I hadn't been able to knit a single stitch of jumper during the whole week. On Friday evening the front looked like this.


Luckily, I don't have too much homework this weekend, which means that I managed to go to the monthly knitting group at my LYS. The weather is nice for the moment, so we sat outside and KIP'ed. Knitting group is usually quite a productive moment for me, so after about two hours of knitting, my front looked like this.

I finished turning the short-row corner and did the increases. I also bought the buttons that will be used to keep the jumper closed, and then remembered -only just in time- that that meant that I had to make buttonholes. I wouldn't be the first time that I forget and have to frog my project back 10 cm or so. But anyway, as it happens, I remembered. I hope to have this cardi finished for next weekend, I think that's an achievable goal if I concentrate on it.

If you read my last YOP post you might remember I wanted to design a lace edging for my stripey shawl. As I had never made a sideways border, I decided I would knit one first, so I had a look around on Ravelry and I found the Rectangular Crow Waltz Shawl. The edging on this looked rather different to what I have I mind for the Stripey Shawl, but I thought it would be a good start. The pattern is an easy to remember 10 row repeat. The points will need blocking out, but I rather like the YO, P2tog band along the top because it reminds me of crochet.



I used some yellow-orange-gold yarn of which I had most of a ball in my stash for the border, so I had to knit both edges first in order to make the most of the yarn I had. Because I knew I'd have way too much of the brown yarn from my jumper (I bought two 400 gr balls and only started the second ball when I started the second front, which is the last piece of the cardi), I started the main body of the scarf/shawl. (This is all last week's work BTW, if I'd have had the time this week I'd have worked on the jumper). I've still got a fair way to go, but I'm quite enjoying the pattern: it's not too simple, but it's not that complicated that you can't do it while catching up with season 8 of HOUSE M.D. , which, in my case, was rather much essential during the last week of the holidays ;)

The one project that has benefited from the start of term are my socks, because they get to come to school with me to occupy my hands during break time. I had already put the left sock on hold until I reached the same point on the right one and I am now, slowly but surely, progressing in that direction. I had to frog this sock back partially because I had forgotten to start the stripes, but now I've finished the increases, so I hope to be able to start turning the heel somewhere next week, as I'll be spending a few hours on the train to Ghent and back. I could have made more progress, because when I went to Sint-Nilkaas last week not only did the train get stuck in Puurs for an hour and a half (on top of the hour it takes to get there from Leuven), but I had also forgotten to transfer my knitting into the bag I was taking, so I had nothing to do! Luckily, I was in good company, so the wait wasn't too boring. I hope it doesn't happen again this week! Anyway, that's all for now.

Mnz

I haven't posted for ages.

I'm really going to have to discipline myself to keep posting, otherwise there's be too much stuff to post when I finally get round to it.
So first up: the yarnbombing.

I finished my bench cover (first 2 photos) and the hat (3rd). Because the appeal was such a success that they needed people to sew other people's knitting onto the trees and benches. I went along and decided that I quite liked one of the trees(5th and 6th photo, both (nearly)upside down, sorry) there, which already had some knitting sewn onto it, so I clambered in (with some one's help, being small has it's downsides) and sewed for a bit. When I couldn't reach any higher I climbed back down (without falling out of the tree, hooray!) and sewed the base :)
It was really beautiful on the evening itself and a lot of people were interested in what we were doing. I think it's a great project because it help us knitters get rid of our 'old-ladies-knitting-socks-and-scratchy-jumpers-image', which is totally outdated and cliche...
Next, my 'normal knitting' projects:

The patchwork bag is coming on nicely after being put on hold for quite a while: I've sewn the bag itself and am now working on the shoulderstrap. One side is already finished (multicolour), the blue and grey side still has to be started. And when everything have been knitted it'll all have to be sewn...

After that, a promise I made 2 years ago. I promised a girl from my old class that I would knit a jumper for her with a big 'K' on the back. When I discovered the principal of a 'circular shrug' I decided I'd knit one of those for her. Here it is! Sewing in the ends has taken me longer than knitting the thing, and I haven't even finished yet. The letters themselves are done, but the seams that actually constitute the shrug need to be finished of...

Another promise: An Ondas scarf for my mother. I made her one some time ago , but she sold it to a colleague, so she was left scarf-less. When I went back to my LYS to buy another skein, I found they weren't selling that colour anymore. A few visits later, I still hadn't found it, so I decided to order it over the Internet, together with another skein for another colleague of my mother's who wanted one in the red shades. A month later, the yarn still hadn't arrived, so I rang the shop. It turned out that they weren't getting any in either, so I had to cancel the order... Some time after that I popped into my LYS (which is conveniently situated on my way to and from school) and found they had the red yarn again. (that was in May) so I knitted the red scarf . And now finally, nearly a year later, I've found the blue/green yarn again! It's so ironic that it literally took me ages to find the yarn, while I knitted the scarf in about 2 hours...

And last but not least: socks!

The blue socks are for me, I got the yarn in Hay last summer. The green and brown socks are both for my mother. It'll be her birthday in November, so I thought I'd knit her some socks as a birthday present... What I think is great about knitting socks for both of us is that we both have small feet, and I like ankle socks, so 100 gr of sock yarn makes 2 pairs of socks :)

 This is my sock bag. I like to take some knitting to school so I can use my breaks usefully and relax at the same time, and of course socks are the ideal WIP-on-the-go, as long as you don't have needles sticking out of your bag... I used to have a little woven bag to transport my socks in, but that wasn't very tasteful and was falling to pieces, really... So I used some leftover yarn to knit a new little pouch, ans I must say I'm rather pleased with it :)


That's all for today. I have a long weekend this weekend, so I might post again tomorrow, we'll see...
Mnz

my exams are over, finally part 2

I thought I'd just upload some more photos.


To start with, another braided ball.
I knitted this one on 5mm needles (the pattern is 3 mm) because my pupil had some Katia Alaska left over from a hat she knitted and didn't know what to do with it. I absolutely adore this pattern. It's easy to make, looks complicated, uses up your yarn scrap and makes a great gift.


Next, a sock.
This sock came from the 'Knitting for dummies' book. The leg part fit very nicely, but I have very slim feet, so the foot is WAY to wide. A nice  easy pattern though, and exactly what it says on the box: (sock) knitting for dummies.

Another bit of winter knitting now, I've received some photo's from a girl for whom I knitted two scarves last winter. One has already been shown to the world on this blog (the one on the left) The one on the right was a quick knit (K2,P2) on 8 mm needles with three strands of yarn: one brown, one black and one grey.

And last but not least, a photo of a tea cos I knitted some time ago and one of the beginning of the shoulder strap for the patchwork bag




Mnz.

Bits and bobs

A little bit of everything in this post. To start with, a pair of mittens I knitted this winter for a boy in my class. We do a kind of a gift swap at Christmas, and I gave him this, some biros and and a chocolate letter (Very popular in Belgium and Holland for St. Nicolas, but also much appreciated for Christmas.

 And two scarves: one for a cold winter and one for when it gets cooler in the autumn.

Red Katia Ondas scarf for autumn/spring

Green Veritas Laura scarf, very warm, for a cold winter

Now some WIP's.
 
These are the two sides of a patchwork knit bag I've designed myself. I'm a bit worried It'll give to much but I'll have to see that when it's finished....

Something else I've been doing is making a scraps blanket. I bought a black fleece blanket at Wibra's and every time I knit a little patch to test a gauge I sew it on. I know there are a lot of different colours in it, and they don't always work incredibly well together, but I like it because it's something very personal. Nobody will ever have one exactly the same.
It's been quite a slow-growing project, and I've still got some scraps to sew on :)

This is a shrug I knitted , but the fronts aren't wide enough to close it, so I'll have to reknit them.... It had a crochet border, but I took that off before I took the photo...






Oh well, that's all for now, I'll be having exams soon so I'll have to knit a little less and study a little more ...
Mnz.

Some more photos

Coming back from Britain did my new jumper some good, on the other hand it's made my fingers very painful. I knitted for about 7 hours, on circular needles, so you can probably imagine what my finger feel like at the moment. I'm now very much into shrugs. They're not very difficult to knit (I use this pattern) they're quick (so I can knit ones in lots of different colours) and they don't kneed much yarn (witch is great because I've got quite a lot of leftovers). I've now got two shrugs halfway there (just about to cast off for the neck on both).


Anyway, I wanted to post some photos of my winter projects, so here we go. The hat is the same model and colour as the one in  the last post, only this one was knitted for somebody else and they took a better photo.

The next one is another hat. Same pattern (more or less), different colour(s), and of course different person.

And to complete the set, a pair of mittens and a scarf.

 

 

Oh well, that's all  for now,
Mnz