On the Needles

I have started  knitting a shawl which I will donate as my contribution to the fund raising auction being held by the Mastocytosis Society; TMS , at their 16th Annual Conference in October this year.

 The yarn is Eki Riva Supreme 100% baby Alpaca 4 ply. The colour is a really soft mauve/lavender. It is beautiful to knit - very soft and buttery. Yummy! Residing in my 'take to India stash' is some navy blue in the same yarn ... twitch, twitch ...


... and ... the red shawl is growing. It has some 'creative' pattern variations in a section that I knitted last week when I was feeling pretty ill ... I don't know what my brain was thinking or what planet it was on 8-/
In the interests of sanity I am learning to let those imperfections just hang out where they fall, as long as I get the stitch count etc back to what it should be by the next row or so - in all honesty, who is going to notice except me unless I point the 'alternative' stitches out.

Green Shawl

Knitted in Manos del Uruguay Wool Classica 100% Merino; Loden & Jungle on 7mm needles.
Details on the pattern and wool used are in the post for Sat Mar 13th. 
Working time 1 week - said week was spent knitting instead of getting ready and sorting  out stuff for our impending shift to India ... hmmm ...





 Just off the needles and prior to blocking.






Blocked and off the wires. I didn't stretch it very much during blocking, just enough to open up the lace.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

The green shawl is off the needles - it was a really quick knit and lots of fun! More photos to follow once I've blocked it.



... and in other breaking news...

Yesterday I decided to plan my knitting projects for the coming year. As I have no idea what the state of play is with yarn supplies in India, I want to go well prepared. Much muttering, calculating, online searching, scheming and plotting ensued. I ended up with list of 14 projects; of which the 14th is a massive undertaking and is my 'home on leave' project for early next year. Geri's going to do rather well out of all of this planned knitting, with 7 of the projects being for her. She's an exclusive young woman to knit for because she can't wear wool, alpaca or cashmere. So for her it is soft cottons, silk and angora. YOUCH!

Once I had finalised my list I took myself off to the yarn store and indulged in an extended session of yarn porn. I already had a pretty good idea what I wanted/needed but hey, there is always room for change especially when yarn groping is involved! After I had lugged my haul of yarn up to the counter and was paying for it I mentioned that the red cotton Minicaraibi that I had picked up and had (more) on order was the wrong red. It was agreed that this was a tragic turn of events and a search of the database and the store began in an effort to find the right colour.  This time I had the yarn label with me so we were able to get it right and wonder of wonders they had the 6 balls I needed. It is a different dye lot but I am  NOT complaining!

 I caught the tram back up the hill - tooooo much yarn to carry! Once back with my list I went through it again; whilst polishing off a large iced coffee, and figured out what I had forgotten or not gotten enough of. Hey! It's really confusing juggling 14 projects, their yarns, yarn substitutions, gauges, m/gm,  etc in your head all at once! When I had sufficiently recovered from my first excursion, I grabbed the offending red Minicaraibi out of my stash and marched down the hill back to the yarn store.

Once the Minicaraibi had been dealt to I filled another bag with the remaining goodies on my list and asked for it to be held for me until my pending loyalty  discount voucher has been issued. I am hoping the coupon will soften the blow just a little!

I've nearly finished boxing up my stash ready for the packers...I am just waiting on that last bag of yarn to come home before I can close the boxes and add them to the 'India' pile.

On the Needles

I have started another shawl, with Knitty once again supplying the pattern:

http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEfall09/PATTcolonnade.php

This is another project which uses Manos del Uruguay wool. This time I'm using their Wool Classica which is a 100% pure Merino. The colours I'm using are  Loden; knitted up in the photo:

http://www.southseasknitting.com/yarns/?p=1&o=1379&u=8a5c6f530a7058c0898ef0d510b6e644

and Jungle; the twisted hank in the photo:

http://www.southseasknitting.com/yarns/?p=2&o=821&u=8a5c6f530a7058c0898ef0d510b6e644

It's knitting up really fast and I'd like to have it finished and posted before we move on April 16th - which shouldn't be a problem... I hope!

I've been chugging along nicely with the Minicaraibi red shawl.... but .... DISASTER has struck! Before Geri and I went to Uluru for her Starlight trip I went and bought the rest of the yarn I needed. While we were away I finished my original ball but didn't start the next one. This week I went to start the next one and it's the wrong colour... completely a different shade... not just a different die batch. How the heck did that happen??? GARG!
So, this is a bit of a problem. I have a horrible feeling that I'm not going to be able to get any more of the right colour so I am trying to decide what to do... All I know is that I can't bear to unravel what I've done so far, so I've put it a holder until I come up with an acceptable solution.

Red and Black Felted Bag

The bag is finished. Now I have something to cart my knitting around in 8-}

I think there is an error in the pattern as when I was in the final stages of knitting the handles, I noticed that the length seeemd too short. The instructions finished off at the end of the shaping which would have made the handles way to short so I kept knitting until the measurements were commensurate with those in the pattern's diagram. This seems to have worked out just right.

I would perhaps like for the bag to be a bit more felted but it will do for now. I might have another go at a later stage to see if I can tighten it up a bit more.

Baby Jumper and Hat

3 mo size outfit in  Morris Empire Superwash Merino 4 Ply 
Knitted on 4mm needles. 28 stitches / 36 rows.
Working time around 3-4 weeks. 
Yarn and pattern details appear in an earlier entry.





Luckily Geri's pug toy was happy to stand in as my model 8-}}

Red and Black Felted Bag... or is it really a Rastafarian hat gone wrong!

Red and Black Felted Bag.

... and yes... it really does look like a massive Rastahat at this stage...

Anyway, the bag is off the needles and is ready to felt.

Youtube once again saved my bacon. This time I needed to learn how to do Kitchener Stitch in order to graft the handles together. It looked pretty tricky in my book, but was much easier to understand once I saw it being done... even if the tutorial was right handed! And so, instead of packing,  I'm off to the washing machine to initiate the felting sequence.

I just had a thought ... Chris has sent me some photos of where we are likely to be living in India. The complex is called Central Park ... HAHA!

http://www.centralpark.in/ 

http://www.centralpark.in/central-park1.asp

Hmmm... experience tells me this is a fairly (completely) 'optomistic' view of the whole place!

The 'laundry' is exactly the same as the set up we had in Semarang - namely a washing machine 'plumbed' in on the balcony ... won't that be fun during the monsoon. The machine was a front loader....ahhhhhh NOOOOOO! Apart from my aversion to front loaders, I am wondering how well a FL would work for felting ... could be a triffle hard to monitor the progress of the felting.

This is the sample I knitted/felted to check the wool would be suitable. I did a couple of others at the same time and discovered that superwash wool really is amazingly machine washable. No matter what I did to those samples they simply wouldn't felt or even shrink at ALL.