Coffee....please....coffee.....

No posting from me in a couple of days, due to it being a bank holiday for me. The first day off I've had in over 3 months to boot. Naturally, shopping was involved.

No yarn. Ain't I a good blogger?
I'm totally going to Bangor next week though! Hehehe

I got my nails done. Not something I do very often, but I smashed my hand into a door at the weekend and broke a nail at a painful and bleeding place. As I was there to have it glued together, I figured some new red polish would cheer me right up!

We didn't get too rained upon on our walk around Belfast, had a fab lunch at Cafe Vaudeville, which lives entirely up to its name, and I picked up a copy of the Sims 2.Which I then stayed up til 1am playing. I am not a well bunny this morning. I feel like I have a hangover, just without the need to throw up all the time.

Simpsons, wot used to be a yarn shop, and now mostly sells touristy stuff, was investigated for the first time in person. They have a great selection of buttons, some of which I now want to find projects to match. The yarn wall mostly consists of baby acrylic, and having gone for a rummage in the 50 pence bin and discovered dead spiders resting peacefully in several balls, I left yarnless.

The shawl is finally making progress. Score one for me!
I still hate the yarn. This was not lessened by my getting to the end of ball one and discovering that the heart of the thing was, essentially, just a giant tangle.




Through no fault of my own, I might add. I keep my yarn in a bag in my bag, so as to avoid tangles and the embedding of various objects like keys and small children.

Really, I've quite impressed myself though. Instead of hurling it into a drawer while profanity fell loudly from my mouth, I've done the grown-up thing and gone about taking the knots apart. Told you that I wasn't feeling well today.

I can't swear that I wasn't at least a little more determined having discovered that I don't have the correct needles for the project I had hoped to start today. I am no closer to finishing my moss stitch cardigan than I was last week. Still, it's ages til Winter, eh?

The running total of WIP's for me now stands at an all time low of 2.
This can't and won't go on. El Shawlo will possibly be too awkward to bring to SnB tomorrow, so I may just have to cast on something else. A nice quick knit, that uses stash yarn and needles that I have already.


Hrmmmm....time to go rummage through Ravelry, I guess.

Robots in disguise

Last night we went to Transformers, and it did rock verily.
We even got a little knitting in.










Note to self: in future, when planning to knit at the cinema, break out the addi's and leave the 35cm straight needles at home. Constantly poking myself in the right bicep was less than a barrel of laughs.

The snot nosed teenagers behind us were also less fun then said barrel.
They talked loudly through the whole film, kept swapping seats and playing with mobile phones. OH said a few choice words to them, as did most of our row and the row behind them. Mouthy feckers. They ran out the door in record time as soon as the credits started rolling though! I have their faces branded into my brain, so if I ever see them again, I'll ask for them to be removed before the film even starts.

Harumph!

Calori two is well under way on this wet and miserable Wednesday. I'm just glad I managed to get the duvet cover off the washing line before it started.

Summer? Hello? You seem to have gone and gotten yourself a tad lost on us!
Please come baaaaack! All is forgiven!

A stitch in time...something something...

It seems that Ruth, one of the SnB group, hates seaming almost as much as I do. I don't feel so bad that it has taken about 10 times the number of hours spent knitting to seam up the baby shrug. In fairness, most of those were spent procrastinating.



It is rather cute though. Especially when I get it ready for posting with the hat and booties.



Well I'm rather chuffed anyway. It's the first lot of baby clothes I've ever knitted. Darling mother keeps making comments about it being "good practice" for the future.




So as a reward to myself for getting the seaming well under way, I allowed myself to cast on a Calorimetry. I finished seaming yesterday, and sewed the button on to the calori. I think it balances out. I think future projects involving seaming should be partnered with some form of instant gratification project. Or another calori.




I spotted the button in my fab LYS before I cast off. It's made from coconut shell, and it rocks my socks. I love ivy and vines. My advise to anyone who hasn't started a calori yet and is thinking of it - don't buy your buttons til you've cast off. You don't make any buttonholes in the calori, as the holes from turning the short rows suffices. This is quite a large button and I really thought that it wasn't going to work in the end.

Plus, it's an excuse to go to your LYS with an FO, and pick up something shiny for your next project while you're there!

My "bad day swap" package is in the post. Yay.
Postage really is mentally expensive. Still, it's worth it, and I hope my swap partner likes the goodies that eventually wing her way.

Other news today, it being one of those days...the wedding is being postponed til the Spring. We thought that we'd get away with it being this year, but I'd rather have my dad be less rushed and better able for it. I'd have liked December, but it would put too much pressure on people both in terms of time and finance. We have lots of friends who are still studying, and it's exam time for them.

This makes me feel much better about having frogged incarnation 3 of the wedding wraps.

Yes, I am a bad, bad person.

I just fricking hate this yarn. It feels nice, but is a nightmare to knit with. I was almost tempted to substitute the lurid pink baby acrylic, but thought that might be noticed. Also, 10mm needles? Rather heavy when you've been knitting with them a while. They do double as nunchucks though, which is handy when you're wip'ing on the bus in a bad neighbourhood.

OH is downstairs hoovering and sorting laundry. Bless.
He is still sans emploi, as they say. The case of the butthead boss is getting more interesting by the day. Can't say much, just in case, but we are looking forward to his next letter to see how many times he contradicts his previous letters in it.
At least he knows where the washing machine is, and no longer whinges when I tell him that he has to clean up if I cook and work all day.

It's amazing how fast he can run through a whole list of chores when he knows a trip to see Transformers is on the cards this evening!

Light fingers make the most noise

Last week, the fabulous Fairytale Frog donated two balls of Freedom Spirit yarn from her stash to my cause, and now I have enough yarn to finish the moss stitch cardigan of dooooooooom!

Due to large amounts of rain, I've been unable to move in my house for the last fortnight, as there are wet things hanging to dry everywhere there is hanging space available. Last night, I was able to give her a return prezzie. Some of my very own handpainted yarn. Thankfully I had my camera with me, as a picture is worth a thousand words. Or giggles, as the case may be.





Mmmmmmyarn.








Is my yarn. Not your yarn. My yarn.








I can has yarn?








.......

Baby shrug, interrupted.

First up, a quick hello to everyone, and thanks for the comments of encouragement. I've finished seaming side one of the shrug, and am down as far as the armpit of side two. I still have all my hair and fingernails (bar that one I broke last week) so it's going well.

I also finished the bootees of gorgeousness.


I had a request from the lovely Denise for a bit of a talk through the baby shrug. It's from the Debbie Bliss book Simply Baby, which I adore.
I have deleted my work in progress photos from the previous cthulhu-baby incarnation, so I'll just use this one.

(If you right click and hit open in new window, it'll make life easier!)

This is a bottom up shrug, knitted in one piece. The cast on edge is at the bottom left of the photo, and is basically the start of a t-shaped section for the back and arms. The next section is slightly more involved. On my first attempt, I got a little...how do you say....over-confident, and in the process of being queen of the universe I left out a line of pattern, which resulted in the previously mentioned cthulhu-baby option.

Divide for fronts
As you're on a circ needle for this, it makes things a zillion times easier.
Knit across the required number of stitches, do the casting off in the middle, and knit across the remaining stitches. This is much easier than having to move them before casting off the middle stitches

Congratulations, you now have what looks like one side of a giant buttonhole!

At this point, take your trusty stitch holder, and put all the stitches from the end of the line - the side that's all cut off by its lonesome - on to it. Then ignore them completely.

The next pattern section is worked on the remaining live stitches that you have on your needles. Work the required number of straight rows, then start on your increases. Do not do what I did, and ignore that end of line that says "and the inc row once more". This leads to much frogging and swearing later, as things end up backwards.

Continue down through the sleeve shaping lines, and then you're home free for the shape front section. These are the small sail-shaped bits right up at the top.
Do not let your brain tell you that the right side is anything other than the nice side with the little v's on it. That way lies madness. And cthulhu-baby arms, and no fronts.

Once you get done with that,and have your stitches moved to a holder, it's time to work on the right front. Again, ignore the stitch holder entirely. Join the yarn to the live stitches as you would if you were changing to a new ball, or changing colours, and off you go.

When she says sleeve edge, she means where the cuff will be, and the side edge is the bit at the U-shaped piece in the middle that you're creating. You'll see these on the photo pretty easily.
On this section, you're basically doing exactly the same as on the other side, just in reverse, so instead of casting off at the start of a row, you'll be doing it at the end.
Work down through the shape front section, and you should end up with a mirror image of the other side, and very few stitches left on your needle.

Here's where I cheated though. Instead of going from there, I moved the live stitches straight to a 4.5mm circ, K1 and then picked up stitches the whole way around. That's the stage the photo is at, and why one of my fronts looks deformed. I didn't, however, use her number of pickups, as it wasn't working for me when I tried. I just picked up every stitch. Yup, all of em. Then worked 5 lines of 2x2 rib, and cast off.

Bottom edge, where the original cast on was, and with the cuffs, I did the same thing.

When that's all done, flip it in half with the wrong side out, and line up the edges.
You'll end up with something that looks like this

You then have the joyous task of seaming. On the plus side, the book gives great info on that.

I hope that helps!
If anything is unclear, or you have any questions, feel free to holler. I like feeling useful :)

I must not knit while sleepy

This really should be my mantra at this stage. Too, too often I continue knitting when I really should be getting sleep or doing something that doesn't involve moving, thinking or counting.

This little bundle of cuteness is the first of a pair of booties that I cast on last week. It's a simple, fast knit, and I love it.



I thought I'd be clever and get the second one done on the train to Cork. That was my first mistake. Sure, I have a pair of cute bootees now, but one is newborn-sized, and the other is baby-sized. Once more teh blonde strikes. At the moment, I'm ignoring my inbox and knitting up bootee number 3. After that, I'll have to do bootie number 4. No idea who I will give the second pair to, but I guess they'll always come in handy, what with everyone in the world having babies and all.

It was my mothers birthday on Friday, so present was bought on behalf of myself and dad, and cake was baked on Thursday night. She cried. Bless her cotton socks.
(Note to self: get off the pot and cast on her socks!)

I finished the ribbing on the shrug, and have it all pinned together, and have started the seaming. I fricking hate seaming.



It will probably take me the rest of the week to get it done, as I can only sit still to do a few inches at a time. Anything more, and I start getting that strange restless sensation in my legs that normally only comes after 3 hours in a train with my legs jammed up against someones suitcase.

Tonight, though, will be bootie city.
Hrm...that sounded less sordid in my head....

I want to cast on a Calorimetry tomorrow night, and get it finished on Wednesday. I even have a button for it, and it's going to be made from my nice Purple Iris yarn that just arrived.

Ain't I a good little stashbuster?

Faster kittycat, kill kill!

Stitch and Bitch today, and not a teal sock in sight.

No, I haven't actually managed to fix the thing. The thought of frogging it makes me want to cry or throw up or both. I was not built for picking up close on a hundred 2mm stitches in dark yarn. Not without lots of chocolate.

Work on the baby outfit has progressed well since last post. Hat is done, and shrug is going to be done tonight, I hope.



I've picked up the stitches for the ribbing, and it's going well so far. Will be bringing it with me to Starbucks, where I hope to get the ribbing finished, and the stitching started. Optimistic, aren't I?

Some yarn may or may not have arrived in the post today.....




On that note, I'm gonna go and grab some food, as I have yet to eat today, and somehow I don't think that 15 caramel machiatos and 4 slices of lemon cake counts as a balanced diet.