Blithe Dance - Sam's Knitting Pages

Adventure in socks

I've rediscovered the blog link that led me to the Natural Dye Studio.  It was from Emma and Theresa's yarn swap, described here.  I was pretty sure it was Emma's choice of yarn but wanted to have the FACTS - thanks m'duck for being such a connoisseur and sharing it with us.  I would never have found this beautiful yarn otherwise.

Here are the socks-in-progress:

It's the Waving Lace Sock from Interweave Knits, Spring 2004, by Evelyn Clark.  It's a very pretty sock I've been wanting to knit for some time, and will be my first ever lace sock too. I'm a little concerned that the yarn is slightly thicker than the usual merino-type sock yarns.  These socks will definitely have a "woolly" feel to them.  My gauge is a little large, even on 2.25mm needles, 8sts per inch rather than 9sts. But - there's a bit of elasticity to the pattern, and room for it to be a bit bigger round the foot, so I'll press on.  The tiny bit I've knitted seems to fit my foot.

Like my gold needles? Vintage anodised aluminium seven-inch sock needles, kindly sent to me by Jill from the Rowan Forum. I like antiques that you can use.  They are beautifully smooth but have blunter points than some modern needles.

Now ATU Polly has tagged me for some random facts.  She did 8 but I've seen it elsewhere as 7, which I much prefer as a number.  This is my first ever meme, that can be a bonus fact.

• I have an irresistible urge to make things which I've had from a very early age. I find this hard to believe, now that I have a three-year-old, but a photo exists of me, aged 3 1/2, with a piece of cross-stitch work in progress. I can prove it because here's a picture of me from the same set:

 

I wasn't losing my milk teeth precociously early too, but  knocked it out falling off something. And here's the cross-stitch, which I've kept for 33 years, because, you know, it might be useful!  I should confess that the centre motif was definitely a later addition.

I'm not sure when I learnt to knit, by the way, but I think it was around the age of 6.

I'm rather clumsy (see above).  When Mike and I got engaged, my mum actually said, "Are you sure, you know she's very clumsy?" She'd have done better to warn him that I was untidy and a hoarder (see also above) but that would have been a serious risk to the relationship.

I really like traditional Scottish, Irish and English folk music. Any sort of folk music really. 

I once turned down an invitation to accompany my husband to a garden party at Buckingham palace. But as I don't really do dresses, hats or heels, that might have been a good thing.  A deserving colleague from the charity went instead.  Needless to say, the Queen did not repeat the invitation!   

I’m a qualified Geotechnical Engineer.  No idea what that is?  See here. I love it.  Gimme some soil!

I'm not at all sporty but I like climbing mountains and I've done about 20 Munros. I wish we lived nearer Scotland but we are edging further north with every house move.

(Apologies to the formatting but these lists have tested my html skills to the limit).

I've tagged Kathleen, Sue, Alison, Kate, Heather, Anmiryam, Helen.  Make sure you  go and read their fascinating blogs, now, please.

These, apparently, are the rules:

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

<Sigh>.  More to this than meets the eye, isn't there?

Stretched to the limit!

The pink cardigan is finished.  What a pleasure to knit in little-girl colours for a change!  I didn't finish it in time for the party yesterday though, due to having to do so much unravelling along the way.  It must be the most frogged garment I've ever knitted, by the end I was picking yard-long oddments from the bottom of the bag.  What an economical use of yarn.

In the end, I stole an inch from both the sleeve and body length to finish all the pieces, by unravelling the back and one front back to the armholes. The end result is quite wide though, like many Debbie Bliss patterns, so I could probably have got away with the next size down for width. Well I'm not starting again!  I also ran short of the plum-coloured yarn and had to lose a row from the collar and button bands.  And the buttons are a bit big for the buttonholes - this was really looking quite unsatisfactory all round.

So... short and wide, I was a bit dubious about the finished proportions. For some reason, the sleeve top was a little wide for the armhole and had to be eased in rather a lot.  It is NOT my tension!  It was reminding me of a sad knitted sweater I was given for baby last year, that would have only fitted a very short, wide baby with huge arms. 

Doesn't look too bad though, all pressed out?

Fortunately I had a volunteer (well, a conscript really) to try it on. Who says boys don't look good in pink?

(He's pointing at a passing aeroplane!) What a relief - if it fits him at 21 months, it should have plenty of room for a tall one year old girl.  And the cropped look is OK for little girls isn't it?  I'm very much relieved.  Hope she likes it. The mum, I mean.

I'll leave you with a glimpse of the next project, for the Rowan forum Knitting Exchange.  I want to make socks, and the pattern I've chosen would be good with a gently vareigation of colour.  I also wanted something a little bit special.  After quite a lot of deliberation over Koigu KPPPM and Lorna's Laces, I found a blog posting (sorry, forgotten where and can't find it again!) where a knitter had been sent a package of sock yarn from the UK that included hand-dyed Bluefaced Leicester from the Natural Dye Studio.  An ebay transaction later, and we have 100% Bluefaced Leicester 4-ply in Heather Plum:

I'll reveal the pattern once I know it works out.  For now, I'd better turn my attention to the housework, paperwork and sleep I've been neglecting for the last four weeks. 

 

Stretching it

I'm greatly encouraged by having knitted two sweaters in two weeks, so what to do next but another rush job?  A little friend's first birthday party next weekend, a little cardigan on the needles and still it's all from stash.

I've had extra balls of the Debbie Bliss wool/cotton since knitting the rosebud baby blanket from her very first book, four years ago.  Now I know this yarn substitutes for Baby Cashmerino, so I was hoping that three balls would make this little cardigan:

Now the 12-18 months size calls for three balls, but so do the two smaller sizes so it will probably use most of them up.  I had three balls with bands in dusky pink (600), but can't remember whether any of them has been started.  The wool/cotton yarn also has 10m less length per ball than Baby Cashmerino.  All this is adding up to an impending yarn crisis in a week's time, I fear.  For the contrast colour, I've some of the same in plum, probably not enough of that either! I've also a ball of bright red so I've given the edgings a red border to provide a bit of zing.

Knitting from stash is not without problems, is it?  I wouldn't even have these leftovers if the baby blanket had not taken five balls rather than eight as given in the pattern!  But I'm unlikely to use up pink yarn in the foreseeable future.

Here's the back, very nearly finished as of tonight.

I'm adding some yarn from an unravelled swatch as I've already finished the first of my three balls.  I'm going to look in the yarn chest now for any overlooked oddments!  I have a contingency plan - knit the sleeves last, simultaneously, until I run out.  If they are a little short, at least they won't drag in the baby's fromage frais so badly.

I've also received details this week of my Rowanette Exchange partner: I think my project this year will be socks, and I look forward to choosing some handpaint yarn in a suitable colourway for my recipient's preference.

You shall go to the ball

Oh, I could have done with a fairy godmother this week.  I've knitted my fingers off with a pressing deadline.  On Friday night, I looked again at the boys' fancy dress party invitation and thought the "6th" did look a bit like a "5th". Yes, it was a day earlier than I thought, so I found myself knitting until 2.30 a.m. on Friday night and sewing all morning on Saturday.  The result though, was very satisfying

Can you spot the difference?

I think they look wonderful - I hardly wanted to take the costumes off at bedtime.  The two little tank tops were based on this pattern (Sirdar 1709) but in the end I made the shoulders wider as they decreased right down to six stitches on the front.  The red stripy one came out with plenty of room for growth in the 3-4 years size:

The blue one was in Rowan All Seasons Cotton (aran) so I knitted the 0-3 months size to fit 18 months.  For once, I got away with it.

The buttons are just tied on for effect but they look so good I may leave them for a while.  There are so few colourful little boy's clothes around. 

Saturday morning was spent making the pinnies (aprons) and the yellow t-shirt.  How great it was to have the sewing machine out again.  All the motifs were done in felt with iron-on bonding paper.

Well, it's all gunged with birthday cake and in the washbasket now - at least they had a good time!