Ally Pally and purnkple yarn

I know. It's been a while.

It's not that I haven't been knitting these past couple of months - I have. But I just don't seem to have anything to show for it. With just one short side of the border left to do, the Melon scarf sits in hibernation, while indecision continues to paralyse me. In the meantime I've started a new lace project, the Myrtle Leaf shawl, using Jaggerspun Zephyr in a deep plum, but there isn't much point showing you that either, since I'm switching to a cashmere, so that's effectively just a big swatch then!

Thank you for all the nice comments about the Print o' the Wave. I absolutely love this stole and have worn her a lot in my overly air-conditioned office. In fact, another reason for not blogging has been because I haven't really finished the last post, and won't do so until I've put up the specs and a final picture of the stole in all her unblocked glory. However, this may not happen for a couple of weeks yet, so I've decided to move on for now, and when I finally post a picture, I'll link it for those of you who want to see it.

While I may not have any knitting to show you, I do have plenty of yarn. First, the latest instalment of Sundara's Petals Collection, a skein of merino in Poppy, a rich burgundy, together with a sock pattern and another pretty card.

Then there is some more Zephyr, intended for the Myrtle Leaf, but now consigned to stash.

A few weeks ago, I scoured the internet looking for pink and green sock yarn, and found two that seemed to fit the bill. First, this Bluefaced Leicester from Fyberspates in the

colourway Flower Garden, which is green, purple and pink, even prettier in real life, and is now being knit into a pair of Dublin Bay socks [pdf].

By contrast, I was very disappointed by the Socks That Rock's Socktopus colourway. At the top of this picture, you can see quite a lot of brown [taupe?], not to my liking. Having said that, looking again at BMFA's website, their colours in the image are completely true. Mea culpa, it was clearly wishful thinking that led me to hope the brown was more salmon pink. Still, it's STR, right? Gotta be grateful to get my hands on the stuff.

I'm late in blogging about this year's Ally Pally, but clearly some mention must be made! First up, my purchases:

Naturally, I had to visit the Fyberspates stand, and of course, I picked up another skein of pink and green. This is in fact a different colourway; there are just the two colours and they are both richer than the first skein. I really do think Jenny has an eye for colour; there was a skein of cashmere [I think?] in a beautiful, deep wine colour, and I am simply kicking myself for not buying it.

From Get Knitted some Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Jungle Stripe. I've been after this colourway for some time, but it's always been out of stock on the GK website, so naturally I pounced on it as soon as I saw it.

[Ok, that's enough of the green and pirnkple yarn. Mission accomplished, I think.]

Other purchases were the Knit Picks Options set [hee] also from GK, a shade card from Jamiesons's, DB's Baby Cashmerino 2 and a charming baby jumper pattern from Laughing Hens.

We also visited some new stands - or new to me at least. Blogless Lynsey was particularly taken by the qiviut [click and scroll down for the fantastic story of the arctic musk ox], but couldn't decide on a project for it. She did buy some laceweight from the House of Hemp and a gorgeous wine coloured skein from the Natural Dye Studio [I have to say, NDS was a real find, I absolutely loved all her colours so it's wonderful that they are soon to be made available at I Knit London].

Lynsey and I hit the show around lunchtime, walked up and down all the aisles, visited many stalls (some of them three times), saw some of the Knit a River project and signed our support to end water poverty, made happy purchases and collected even more cards and leaflets. Luckily, I'm interested in a number of different crafts, so the question of whether there was more or less yarn this year than previously doesn't really bother me, and I found much at Ally Pally to inspire me to pick up old-forgotten crafts or try new ones. There were also many beautiful pieces in the exhibition and elsewhere for sale. We finally ended up in the Palm Court, drinking pink champage and watching Breakfast at Tiffany's [love that orange cat] and Roman Holiday [bizarrely, Lynsey was wearing Audrey Hepburn socks. Seriously.] until Gerard joined us. After more champagne, we met up with Craig in Vauxhall, and had dinner at Pico's, a lively and clearly popular Portuguese restaurant. It was a thoroughly fantastic day spent with lovely people.

Finally, in case you were wondering what the pretty case at the very top was: I have a weakness for small boxes and containers and the like, and simply couldn't resist this totally unecessary and utterly charming Cath Kidson sewing kit.

OK, that's enough for now, this post is wordy enough. If you've made it to the end, thank you. Next time I post, I'll hopefully have some knitting to show!

Thank you SO much for the good wishes about my impending auntydom, I was very touched, and for the baby pattern suggestions. They all look like excellent recommendations, and I know mum-to-be will love them.

So I've not blogged for a while, it's been an incredibly busy couple of weeks. On the few nights I have actually been at home, I've been too tired to do anything other than watch telly and catch up on the latest goings-on in blogland. Oh, and Ravelry.


I am completely hooked on Ravelry. Not because it makes organising and showcasing your WIPs and FOs easy [which it does], not because it provides the opportunity to be inspired by craftmanship and talent from all over the worldwide web [which it does], but because it is the BEST resource library. As one who likes to research the web for examples of a particular yarn or pattern, Ravelry is a complete godsend. Just today, I was thinking of a shawl I'm considering for a gift later in the year, I just typed it in to Ravelry, and page after page of WIPs and FOs were loaded for my review. Then I tapped in the yarn I wanted to use, again, pages of instances of the yarn in projects or in stash were there for me to see [it was a huge thrill for me to find my PotW in the pattern and Zephyr searches]. And that's just the tip of the iceberg - there is so much to see and do, it's a fabulous site, so if you're still waiting for your invitation [as of this weekend, there are 9,802 on the waiting list] be patient, it's worth it.

Speaking of the PotW, with the help of the Gilmore Girls season 1 I finished knitting the border last weekend, and today I got around to grafting the ends. There are still some ends to weave in, but I'll see to those after blocking, which I hope to do sometime this week. There, I've said it out loud, publicly committed myself to blocking the stole. See the projects in the sidebar? In addition to the PotW, four of them are finished, as in there is NO KNITTING left to be done, but they have all been sitting around for months waiting to be blocked. But today, I made ready two huge towels and the (as yet unused) dressing wires from Heirloom Knitting. No excuses left.

With the PotW finished, I was at a real loss today for something to knit. I had my next main project picked out some time ago, but am still undecided about the yarn. So today I worked on a sock, but it was all rather unsatisfying; I do like to have a big project to work on at home, particularly now to accompany me on Gilmore Girls season 2!

Dear me, this is a tedious post, isn't it? I'll stop now, just wanted to say hello and thanks again for the nice words. Knitters are the BEST people.

My head hurts

A lot.

But first, thank you SO MUCH for your lovely comments on the PotW. Each one made me ridiculously happy, and it's always nice to hear from friends, old and new.

I've had loads of knitting time since the last post, and quite frankly, the stole should have been finished a long time ago, but there's a project at work that is hanging over me like a heavy, dark cloud and knitting, reading, any activity that doesn't bring me closer to the end of the project just fills me with dreadful guilt. Absurd, I know. [What's even more absurd, is that I've procrastinated so much on this project, that there's not much progress there either, so lose/lose all round really.]

Anyway, I've turned three corners and am about halfway down the last side. No pictures, since it doesn't look much different from the last time, but there have been many PotWs finished in blogland in recent weeks, and since a number of knitelly's visitors come via a PotW search, I'd like to point you to these beautiful examples at Tangled Creations, PoMo Golightly, Omly Crafts, Posh Yarn [scroll down to June 7th] and DropOne, who's already started another one!

Clearly, at some point, I managed to suppress the guilt long enough to give the old blog a bit of a clean and a slap of paint. I've wanting to update it since Tarilyn added her daisies and made it look so easy. There's still some html tinkering to do, but I think it looks less oppressive now.

As if not being able to knit with a clear conscience isn't bad enough, I've also missed a few I Knit London meets. I went a couple of weeks ago to the meet at the Crown and Two Chairman, where not a lot of knitting went on, but it was nice to chat and catch up on the news. And last night I made it to Men Who Knit night at the shop. Some of us then went to the pub, where I drank an obscene amount of wine. With only nuts for dinner (but they were goooood nuts). Boys, I'm so sorry if I was loud and awful last night, but I did really have a good time. Which brings me to my hurty head, and if it ever stops raining, I might take the Yarn Harlot and my sorry backside out for a gentle walk.

Print o' the Wave update

This is the current state of PotW play: the border of one short side and half of one long side complete. Surprisingly, attaching the border turned out to be as simple as everyone had claimed, but it's taken a long time to get here. Long and unhappy and involving ripping.

First of all, in an attempt to increase the width of the shawl, I increased the stitch count of the border, inserting two lines of double faggotting separated by a column of stocking stitch (this [cough] expertise courtesy of much pouring over the back pages of Victorian Lace Today). After a few pattern repeats, I was satisfied that I had achieved my aim, and congratulated myself on my ability to adopt new techniques so successfully.

But with each repeat, I disliked the result more and more. The additional columns did indeed increase the width, and were perfectly nice to look at, but the hard lines broke up the soft flow of the pattern, and the wave border was too far removed from the centre panel. Time and time again, I looked at the border, tried to imagine it round the entire shawl, and fought the desire to rip.

I also revisited the library of tips I'd accumulated in my research, and of course found a post from the PotW KAL, that perfectly explained why I had more stitches in the eyelet rounds than specified in the pattern. I shoulda just read Eunny's instructions as written. Anyway, it inself, it wasn't too much of a problem, it just required some fudging, but as I got to the first corner, the required fudging on top of the ugliness of the border, well, you can probably see where I'm going with this. I ripped.

Initially, I wanted to rip right back to the centre panel, and pick up 768 border stitches again, as it was SUCH FUN the first time round. But the prospect of losing stitches at the two live ends made me too nervous, so I ripped only the border, counted the stitches on each of the sides and corners, put them on a crude diagram on a spreadsheet and calculated where adjustments were to be made. I then felt comfortable enough to restart the border.

I still wanted to increase the width, but contented myself with one column of double faggotting and an additional two stitches of of stocking stitch at the side of the wave pattern......... and I am really pleased with the result.

Now, did you all notice the large holes at the corner in the first picture? I don't know what the hell went wrong there, but I only noticed them today when I removed some scrap yarn used as a marker. I'm hoping that after blocking and draped around my shoulders, they aren't going to be that visible, otherwise, I foresee some fudging ahead...

It's a bank holiday weekend, and it has rained non-stop. Seriously. Non. Stop. But I don't care, I have the rest of the week off, yipee! That makes nine stress-free days away from the office. On Friday night, I actually fell asleep smiling.

Cliff walking

This weekend was a bank holiday weekend, which means, for those of you not familiar with the term, that Monday is a public holiday, a long weekend. On Saturday I drove down to the Kentish coast to visit my father, who left the big smoke a couple of years ago for the wide open spaces and fresh sea air.

Cliff-walking

We had such a fun day. We started with a pot of tea at the National Trust centre on the white cliffs, where I whipped out a sock (appropriately enough, a new pair I'm making for mon père) and knitted quite happily watching the ferries come and go. Then we walked along the cliffs; the sea was quite grey, but as you can see from the photos, everywhere else was beautifully green, and there were pretty wild flowers growing in the chalk, something you definitely don’t see in the city.

Overlooking the docks

We drove westwards along the coast, stopping to eat fish and chips on the beach and feel the calming influence of the sea. Then, in the evening, I accompanied my father to his bowls club for their annual prize-giving ceremony followed by a dinner and dance. I am extraordinarily proud of him, not only for receiving a medal in something he has only picked up in the past year or so, but for assimilating into and making new friends in the local community.

During the day I had felt quite sleepy, but we had put it down to the sea air. However, in the evening, I started to have brief giddy moments, and when I drove back to London later, I got lost coming off the motorway, a trip I have made countless times, but my normally reliable sense of direction failed me completely, and I took several wrong turnings and for a while drove further away from London, before I finally got back on track. Turns out I wasn’t feeling too well, and I spent the rest of the weekend in bed. On Tuesday, I called in to say I would work from home that day, but as it turned out, I slept until mid-afternoon! Anyway, all this rambling is to explain why, despite a luxurious four-day weekend, I have no knitting to show you, because a) my camera batteries are dead and b) it's remarkable how sleeping for three days and nights can ruin your productivity.

For the record, I have picked up all 768 stitches of PotW and completed the eyelet rounds, in so doing, increasing the stitch count. This does not appear to accord with Eunny’s instructions, but I have read and re-read them till my head hurts and I still don't see how you can NOT increase the number, so I shall forge ahead and start the border. Hmm, I see much fudging ahead. [This dreadful picture was taken with my phone, and the colour is way, way off the deep ruby red in real life.]

Finally, when I opened the door this evening for some pizza delivery [!], I found a package from Amazon containing the iPod I'd ordered on Friday. It was a wonderful, marvellous surprise, and I'm very excited and now looking forward to going back to work tomorrow to start downloading (since it will take forever and a day on my home dial-up).

Actually, I'm writing as though it's Tuesday night, it is in fact Wednesday morning, and I need to be up in three or four hours, so I'll sign off for now, and hopefully return soon with some actual knitting content!

Suck it up

The Americans have a phrase ...... suck it up. I'm not even going to pretend to know where it comes from, but it very neatly describes my PotW knitting activity today.

Having heeded the advice of others and convinced myself to keep to the pattern's specs, I read mid-week Little.Yellow.Different.Better's post, and was inspired to add another eight repeats to the PotW, making a total of 42 repeats. Then I did the math [another fabulous phrase from across the pond] for picking up the additional stitches and marked the long rows into eights to make the whole exercise easier. Today, I sucked it up, and picked up the stitches for the border. I am embarrassed to admit that the calculation and picking up took far, far longer than the couple of hours I had anticipated, and thank goodness it was a good telly day! (double Grey's Anatomy, CSIs New York, Miami and Vegas - just some of what accompanied me on this journey), and yet it still isn't finished, since the last part involves knitting from the original, provisional cast on, and I am too nervous to do this in poor light (it now being close to midnight). I have an absolute horror of removing the waste yarn, the anchor of the entire project, and watching all the stitches unravelling.

So, no pictures today because it's too dark now, and besides, it doesn't look that pretty right now anyway.

For one reason or another, it's been an extemely stressful week at work, and I wouldn't have survived if not for some levity in the evenings. On Monday, I joined Gerard, Craig, and Esther to take part in the record-breaking largest coconut orchestra performance in Trafalgar Square. A completely ridiculous endeavour, and yet huge fun, followed by the most sublime Thai dinner.

On Thursday, I made it to film night at I Knit London to see A Chorus Line. Ah, there were tears, some singing, some wine.......... some sewing up of those ruddy blue squares for Knit a River. I even managed to bring a couple of bags of squares home with me to sew up.

Also coming home with me were the latest Vogue Knitting and Rowan 41. Having looked at VK properly this weekend, I'm none too impressed; the patterns are dowdy and the models and styling belong to the eighties. As for Rowan 41, the styling is beautiful, and I love lots of the designs, but realistically there's only one which I want to add to my to do list: Maris in Rowan Calmer, a lovely spring/summer cardigan. Trouble is, I am not a big fan of knitting with cotton, although I've seen lots of knitbloggers wax lyrical about Calmer. Anyway, looking at all the spring designs and with PotW's end in sight, I'm also inclined to start Debbie Bliss's ribbon-edged cardigan again (still love, love that pattern).

Well I missed film night at I Knit London, but I did make it to Wednesday night's meet at the Crown and Two Chairmen, where I cast on Miss Lambert's shawl from VLT, using my new lace Addis and parcel string for waste yarn. Alas, the combination of dark yarn, chatting and alcohol meant for an unsuccessful start, and I spent most of the evening casting on again and again and again..... until I gave up and worked on my Lucia socks instead, which incidentally are no longer going to be Hedera, since the yarn is too variegated for the lacy pattern. Anyway, an excellent evening was enjoyed by all, with sausage, egg and rhubarb (!) and as ever, Craig has written up an entertaining account of it here.

This weekend, I have been working on PotW, and to my surprise, have completed the centre panel's 34 repeats. In the photo, it is at 33 repeats and measures 12" across and approximately 44" long. I have since added the final repeat and have put it aside to think about what to do next. I'm really tempted to make it longer, but then I remind myself that it will never be wide enough for a wrap, so is it worth the effort? Didn't I say before that I was going to keep to the pattern's specifications, so that I could use it as a yardstick [or should that be yarnstick?]. To be honest, I'm a bit nervous about attaching the border, so I'll probably end up keeping to the specs this time to get a feel for how it works, and save the additional rows and stitches and calculations for PotW no 2.

[The light was not very good today, that sheet is actually white, not grey.]

Everybody cut footloose!

For a few weeks now, I Knit London have been running a film night, and this week I finally managed to make it. Well, I made it to the shop, but unfortunately with only twenty minutes of the film to go. Next week's showing will be Footloose, which I went to see in the summer of 1984, celebrating the end of A' levels. It's not a film that ranks in my list of favourites, but of course, if I come across it on the telly, invariably I find myself singing along and tapping my foot, watching to the very end, remembering a [my own] more innocent time.

Anyway, as I said, I didn't get to see much of the film, but afterwards, it was nice to catch up with Gerard and Craig, who I hadn't seen since an IKL meet in Alibi last month. I also had a long look around the shop. The stock has really grown since I was last there. Gerard showed me some lovely cashmere just in, I forget the name, but remember it was from Devon. Anyway, if you haven't been there for a while, or at all (!), go pay the boys a visit, take your knitting and sit on the Chesterfield. It is a real knitters' haven.

Whilst there, I bought some DPNs. I've been using 2.75mm Pony circulars for my current on-the-go sock, and although the experience hasn't been as bad as with the lace, it still makes for uncomfortable knitting, but now with my DPNs, at least I have managed to get as far as finishing the rib.

I also bought some more Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in Tropical Storm, this time for me, I think. Sorry for the useless picture; my laptop which I use to store my images, has died on me, and I'm using my work laptop, which, given that I work in the glamourous world of accountancy, unsurprisingly does not have sophisticated photo imaging software on it.

In other news, I have turned the heel on each of the stripy socks, and am shaping the gusset on one, and working the foot of the other. As for the Print o' the Wave, I initially thought I would work one 12-row repeat every night, the reality is that I tend to leave it to the long, bright weekend hours. I am now up to 20 out of 34 repeats in the centre panel. No pictures to show on either of these projects, since they just look longer than the last time.

Everybody cut footloose!