Sunday 18 January 2015

Project Woes

So here we are just past mid January and all I have to show for it is a pair of socks!  

My tale of woe started after I had cast off my January New Years Confetti socks, I had no idea what to knit next.  I knew I wanted a garment because after knitting four pairs of socks I had enough of them.  What garment to make, I knew it needed to be from stash and I knew it needed to be something kind of mindless, but not really.


So I cast on the Bonny by Tin Can Knits in my wonderful purple black lace weight merino from one of a kind yarns.  This poor project didn't even get a picture taken of it, because I realized three rounds in I had twisted the cast on, so it got ripped.  Then I sat around feeling sorry for myself as I tend to do, and decided that the Viajante by Martina Behm was what that lace needed to be, I love the shape, I love the way it's worn, it's so me.  So late on Saturday afternoon I cast on and started thinking I could do the first part during the VKN.

Well during the VKN I realized I had started to do the increases on the wrong side!  Oh well I thought it's such a dark colour no one will notice.  On Sunday when I picked it and looked at it, the change in sides of the increases was visible but I decided to live with it.  What I couldn't live with was the funny triangle shape.  Let me explain, sometime during the VKN I had managed to increase the one side so that I had 6 too many stitches on the one side so my triangle was lope sided!  I had also managed to pick up stitches where they weren't any.  Basically a mess!


It got frogged.  Now I've tried two projects with this amazing lace and failed at both, it needed to go and relax in the box for awhile.

I pulled out my Manos Serina in the "wildflowers" colourway and decided it needed to be made into the Folded pullover by Veera Valamaki.  I cast on the sleeve and started , love the way the colours didn't flash or pool and made some modifications as I wanted long sleeves, no problems.  By Friday I had finished both sleeves, now onto the body.


Cast on the body already knowing I was going to be alternating skeins.  After the ribbing and doing 20 rounds of alternating every 2 rounds it was a hot flush of flashing.  I mean it looked like the flash had decided to knit this pullover.  So I decided to give it 20 rounds more alternating every 3rd round.  This did stop the flashing in its tracks but I wasn't happy.



How do I know, I covered my sons books for school, I sorted out the pantry, I made lists of things I need to get done next week, basically did everything else I could do BUT knit on it.  So at Yarmies I ripped it out completely.  Came home, rewound the cakes and put it back in the box.  Now what....

The beautiful one of a kind yarn was screaming at me to knit it.  I wanted a long sleeve light weight pullover that I could throw over a t-shirt.  So not the Bonny, that has no sleeves.  I found another free pattern called Mohair Minimalist and have adapted this one.  So far I'm absolutely loving it.  I've just put it down because I'm ready to split for the arms and I've got Maths to do and at 23:00 that's not a good idea, well basically me and Math are not good anyway, so fingers crossed for me that I don't mess this up and this becomes my fourth failed project this month.



Why have I decided to revive my blog, well with the podcast I love talking at you, but I find myself having way more to say than I'm going to allow myself time each episode and during the week I want to share more with you, so this is going to be my new medium (well again).

Thanks for ready and I hope your projects are more successful than mine.


Tuesday 2 April 2013

Nice Yarns Container

With all good intentions I really meant to add my stash to Ravelry yesterday. But I never did, feeling rather guilty this morning I woke up and pulled one of my big tubs from my cupboard and started loading, well once you start it's actually easy to speed through it.


This morning I've sat in my comfy sweat pants and loaded 39 different yarns into my stash. Some of these are more than 1 skein but I'm not going to count the individual skeins. I'm also not going to load all the half or partial used skeins into my stash as I'm not sure I'm going to be keeping them. I'm going to put them into their own box (to be purchased) and I will decide what to do with those.

Of course the tub I pulled down was my "nice" yarns and not the tubs of acrylic. In all fairness yesterday I did pull the one tub out and sort it out as it was in a huge mess. But after that I put it back on the shelf!!

To speed things along with adding my stash I stole pictures from the Internet, one of the reasons is because the yarn manufacturers take much better pictures than me and its an autumn day here today so the lighting is not the same every time I take a picture.

Maybe on Thursday I will pull out another tub and upload it to Ravelry?






Monday 1 April 2013

Confessions

Today I've decided it's time to confess about my terrible but changing stash! My stash I would say is made up of 80% acrylic yarn.

I'm not saying that acrylic is bad, and I can't afford to be a yarn snob, most of the delicious yarns are imported and that makes it far too expensive to make most projects.

In saying this I am at the stage of my knitting and crochet life where I'm not happy to just be cranking out acrylic items, I want, no NEED yummy yarn.

I'm still on a huge stash busting kick even though I've been purchasing yarn this year, I've got projects in mind for the yarn I've purchased. Not just to fill my emptying crates.

So today I will be taking pictures and uploading to Ravelry and I'm hoping this will encourage me to use Stash first before heading to my LYS or the Internet.

Sunday 17 March 2013

Frustration

I know I've not blogged for months and it comes from school holidays, moving, back to school, serious home renovations (at two houses), and being frustrated about what I was doing with my blog.

In order to make sure I blogged I had decided to blog about certain things on certain days but as any crafter would know actually what you do on any specific day changes with the wind. So I stopped blogging.

Also I became really overwhelmed by the amount of blogs that I felt obligated to read because of some of the choices I had made. And of course not just reading them also leaving comments on them. Some days that would take up a whole morning!

I have thought long and hard about this and I miss blogging but I'm not going to dedicate a day to something specific. Although this helped me I eventually found it restrictive.

Thanks for reading and definitely expect more from me very soon

Sunday 7 October 2012

2nd Year of Projects - Week 7

I have not been on the Internet for awhile and have missed blogging but have not been able to turn my notebook on and actually write anything.  But I am back today and even though I will be posting this I am not going to be adding this post to the Ravelry group.  I feel like a traitor for not commenting on all the amazing other blogs.
 
I must also update my Million Row counter!  Will have to work that out today and update it tomorrow!
 
Teacher Year End Presents (Middle November 2012)
1. Dream Stripes (30 June - 05 July) FO Friday Post
2. Holden (04 July - 08 July) FO Friday Post
3. Shizuku (09 July - 10 July) FO Friday Post
4. Saroyan (11 July - 13 July) FO Friday Post
5. Amari (14 July - 16 July) FO Friday Post
6. Oaklet (18 July - 21 July) FO Friday Post
7. Ugly Ripple (23 July -25 July) FO Friday Post
8. Wingspan Teeny (7 August - 9 August) FO Friday Post
9-21


Blankets
1. Pudding Blanket 1 - Zig and Zag 100%
2. Monster Blanket 1 - Monster Bulleyes 100%
 
Birthday Presents
1. Stepsister 1 Birthday (December) - Bright Squares Modified Blanket

To take part in the fun of the YOP challenge and to see other bloggers lists and progress go the Come Blog-a-long group on Ravelry

Monday 13 August 2012

Plan the Week - Week 6

This week is week 33 with the dates being 12 August -  18 August 2012
7 Day Forecast
Monday          -1°C - 15°C
Tuesday         2°C - 18°C
Wednesday    5°C - 21°C
Thursday        5°C - 20°C
Friday             5°C - 20°C
Saturday         8°C - 20°C
Sunday           7°C - 21°C
This week is Pudding's 8th Birthday and I am going to be hectic organising everything.   We give our kids the option of having a big present or having a party, Pudding being who he is choose to have a big present and he really wants a Ninento DS 3D.  So that will be his main present and then I have to get some small things for him.
Today Monster starts his therapy and although he is nervous I know he will do great.  He is very comfortable talking to me about his feelings and what not but doesn't like opening up to strangers so hopefully after awhile he will get comfortable and get the full benefit.
We also decided that it's time he meets people who have the same interests as he does, so he will be joining the Scrabble club on Wednesday, Speedstacking club on Thursday and then Chess on Friday. 
Pudding will be doing Craft club on Wednesday, Speedstacking club on Thursday and Chess on Friday.  He loves Craft club and has already attended 3 sessions.  He is really a crafty boy, I wonder where he gets it from? (LOL).  He has taken to Chess so naturally maybe it's his Maths brain that loves a good puzzle.  He used to attend but when he had to go back to OT he had to stop.  I am thrilled that he wants to attend again.
I am going to be knitting Pudding's Zig and Zag blanket this week and maybe another End of Year Teacher Present.  I really want to get the blanket finished.  I am starting to get bored with it and need to finish or I just might leave it in the WIP basket and never get back to it.  I have knitted 342 rows so far and have 158 to go.  I would like to be able to knit 28 rows a day but I am not phased if this doesn't happen.
Right I am off to go and start the Birthday week shopping.  Have a wonderful week.

Sunday 12 August 2012

2nd Year of Projects - Week 6

Teacher Year End Presents (Middle November 2012)
1. Dream Stripes (30 June - 05 July) FO Friday Post
2. Holden (04 July - 08 July) FO Friday Post
3. Shizuku (09 July - 10 July) FO Friday Post
4. Saroyan (11 July - 13 July) FO Friday Post
5. Amari (14 July - 16 July) FO Friday Post
6. Oaklet (18 July - 21 July) FO Friday Post
7. Ugly Ripple (23 July -25 July) FO Friday Post
8. Wingspan Teeny (7 August - 9 August) FO Friday Post
9-21

My Ravellenic Games project was the Zig and Zag blanket for Pudding and as it is also one of my YOP projects I set out with determination to start and finish his blanket.  However life had different ideas and I am still just over half way through this project.  But I will continue with it just on a slower pace.

Blankets
1. Pudding Blanket 1 - Zig and Zag 50%

I have also joined a new group on Ravelry called the 1 Million Row Challenge.  Its just a challenge to knit 1 million rows out of stash only.  And as that is what this is what I am doing this year I thought it would be fantastic to see how I can achieve that.  Now you can start anytime and you start with your current WIP's I have only added the Zig and Zag blanket at the moment but will add my Super Wonder Blanket tomorrow when I knit some of it.  I haven't counted how many rows I have done on that one yet.  All you do is join the group register at TickerFactory.com and away you go.  My counter is posted at the top of my blog and I will be updating only once a week.  Hopefully that way it will grow quickly!

To take part in the fun of the YOP challenge and to see other bloggers lists and progress go the Come Blog-a-long group on Ravelry