New Project Excuses

a little note from Future Charlotte: This post was written on my "rebound blog", when I thought I could be all fancy and have a proper website. Long story short - running a website is expensive & time consuming, and I just couldn't do it. After a little bit of grovelling, my blogger allowed me to come back - phew! So, just as a warning, this post might reference & link to said rebound blog, and you can click here to be check it out if you so desire. Now I'm going to hand back to past Charlotte...


I've been spending a lot of time lately creating content for the website (I'm blogging daily, as well as releasing podcasts & YouTube videos), so I've been spending very little time knitting. This week I'm trying to get myself more organised so that I get more knitting done!

So, this week I actually have a couple of projects to share with you! First up we have a Mitered Blanket.

As I said in last weeks podcast, I saw the wonderful Tami post a picture of her mitered blanket on Instagram. Now, this doesn't happen very often, but the moment I saw it I wanted to make one myself. I quickly logged into Ravelry, had a dig around, and managed to find myself a pattern called Knitted Patchwork Blanket by Martine Ellis. This pattern uses leftover sock yarn to create cute little diagonal squares!

Ok, so you might be think, "but Charly, you already have your Beekeeper's Quilt waiting to be finished," and you'd be right... but...(quick pause while I think of an excuse for casting on another project) ...but...I don't have any stuffing for my hexipuffs! So, I can't kit anymore until I get more stuffing (lame excuse, but hey, it works in my mind!)

So, back to the blanket, I am making it for my lovely dog, Lilo, as she loves to cuddle up in a blanket and she doesn't have one of her own yet (shocking! bad knitter). As I said, I am using sock yarns from my stash to knit it, and I am really liking how it is turning out!

I am using 2.75mm bamboo needles (which I bought in a 11 piece set for £3 - bargain!), so each square measures about 2x2 inches. This project is going to last a little while, which is great because I'm really enjoying working on it. It is great for when I'm not feeling well enough to follow a pattern!

The project I have been working on ferociously this week is my Leaf on the Wind socks (which I briefly mentioned yesterday). These are for the Sock Knitter's Anonymous May 2014 KAL, and the category I chose to knit was Flora & Fauna. I instantly fell in love with this pattern by Purrlescent, and casted it on straight away. It is a toe-up pattern, which I must admit frightened me a little bit, but it turns out knitting toe-up is really simple.

I love the leaf lace pattern that grows up the foot and eventually swirls around the leg. Knitting these has proved to be a great aid in taking my mind off of my pain, so I will definitely be knitting more lace socks in the future.

This morning I finished sock 1, and after I've published this post I'll get stuck into casting on the second one. I don't want to develop Second Sock Syndrome with these beauties.

I am using Stylecraft Life 4ply in Aqua, which is a wonderful budge yarn I have plenty of in my stash! I am knitting these for my Mum, and she doesn't know it yet, but she has been helping me with the colour choice and fit the entire time! So hopefully they will be a perfect fit for her. I won't show you what the finished sock looks like yet, you'll have to wait until I've finished the pair... (oh, the suspense), but this is what it looked like halfway up the leg!

So, that is it from me this week! If you want some more WIP Wednesday fun, why don't you check out these other posts by wonderful knitters and crocheters around the world!

Until tomorrow, then, my lovelies. Have a great day! x

Oh, Bother

Yesterday I showed you the beginning of the Seven Seas Blanket, and last night I finally started to get into it. Typically, just as I get into something, it goes wrong. I was happily knitting away, supping my wine, when I noticed the stitches weren't moving. I looked closer and realised the cable had almost snapped, just hanging on by a small piece of plastic!

 

Not really knowing what to do (only ever broken 2 straight needles), I wrapped it in sellotape, hoping that it would hold up. It did, for a little while. The moment I put weight on it though, it snapped completely...

I posted a photograph on Instagram, and here are the comments...

I'm glad I'm not the only one who was a little annoyed! I'll have to email the seller on eBay & ask for a refund, as they shouldn't be bust within a few hours of using them.

Mother is going to Launceston tomorrow so I rang up the yarn shop there to see if they have the needle I needed, unfortunately they didn't so it meant another look on the internet. I found what I wanted on Loops, but they were going to charger over £3 for delivery! Which is too expensive, so I was forced to look elsewhere. It then dawned on me that I had an Knit Pro interchangeable needle set my Nan gave me! Don't know why I didn't think of it before! 

So, I have ordered a 150cm cable from Meadow Yarn. Postage was a good price, and looking around the shop they seem to have a lot of lovely things! I've always wanted a skein of Zauberball in Coconuts, it has a big yardage and would make an awesome shawl, or a couple of pair of socks!

So, the cable will be here tomorrow (hopefully, I paid for 1st class, but it could be like my Deramores order and take a few days). Meanwhile, I think I'll work on the Cotton Candy Baby Hat for little Zarah, my friend's new baby :)

I'm using leftovers of my Yummy Worsted in Cotton Candy Swirl, by Candy Skein. It won't take me long to finish, so I might whip up a hat for my friend's daughter, Isabelle, using the same pattern as Daisy's hat.

Pop back tomorrow for WIP Wednesday, hopefully I'll be able to show you some progress on the Seven Seas Blanket :)

Setting Sail on my Seven Seas Blanket

Yesterday afternoon I opened the front door to find a squishy parcel on my wet doorstep. Seems that my Deramores order was misdelivered to one of my neighbours, and they kindly brought to its rightful home.

I've been so excited about starting this project, even though I know that it will slowly kill me. For those who haven't been following the blog the past few days, here is what I'm planning...

Mother asked for a double-sized Hit the Road Blanket, using colours from her award-winning painting that hangs in our living room.

Each stripe will be separated with a shade of Lilac, as that is the colour of the swimming costume by cousin is wearing in the painting.

The first stripe will be in Royal Blue (James C. Brett Top Value DK), then there will be a dark purple stripe (James C.Brett Top Value DK), after that there will be a stripe of Berry (Patons Wool Blend DK), followed by the Pot Pourri stripe (King Cole Big Value DK). We then move onto the blue shades, which will be: Turquoise (James C. Brett Top Value DK), followed by Ocean (King Cole Big Value DK), and finally we will have a stripe of Kingfisher (King Cole Big Value DK)! Basically, this is what it will look like...

Working from left to right! (starting with the Royal Blue, and ending on Kingfisher)

I had to buy a special 120cm 4mm circular needle from eBay. I could have done with the 150cm, but unfortunately the only 150 I could find was £14, and I wasn't paying that much for one needle. So, I shall have to squeeze all my stitches on the 120cm, it'll be tight but I'm sure I can do it :)

I was poised, and ready to go... I have my pattern, needle, yarn and a packet of wine gums ready in my knitting bag (which I want to decorate with pin buttons, as the fabric isn't one I particularly like).

I was knitting a basic baby hat before the yarn arrived, but I decided to put that to one side as I was dieing to cast this blanket on. Just before the start of the Strictly Come Dancing results, I casted on and started knitting. Casting on took a while as I kept obsessively counting the stitches, finally though I did start knitting.

I'm on row 12 row, making me exactly a 1/5 of the way through the first stripe. I've always been dreadfully slow at 1x1 rib & moss stitch, so each 358 st row is taking me about 20 minutes to knit. I can't wait until I can move onto the stocking stitch part of the blanket, unfortunately though, by my calculations that is 15 hours of knitting time away.

As you can see I'm struggling to keep
all the stitches on the needles!

If this blanket does kill me, and I'm sure it will, I hope you've all enjoyed reading the blog over these past 19 months. And you will all be happy in the knowledge that it was a slow, happy death, right up to the last.

A Letter to Faye

Dear Faye,

No, Mother doesn't knit... she knows the basics, but her knitting is so unique to the world's, she manages to do things to her knitting that I didn't even think were possible (and not in a good way). So, it is best for my mental health (having to sort out her knitting is a real exercise) if she leaves the knitting to me.

"Natalie" won two awards, the Singer & Friedlander 'Second Prize'
in the Adult Category, & also the 'Public Vote' (in 2003 on the Isle of Man)
It was also exhibited in 2004 at the 'Not the Turner Prize' exhibition
in the Mall Galleries, London

She is an artist, though, so is brilliant with colour. One of her paintings, "Natalie", inspired the colours for the blanket she has commissioned me to make for the house (using the Hit the Road pattern that she saw me sending to you, she liked it so much she wanted one herself).

The blanket will actually become a throw, and will be a mammoth project. Each stripe will be a different colour, as we're doing a sort of purple/blue ombre. We start with a Blackberry colour, and work through the different shades of purple (darkest to lightest) then onto the shades of blue ( from lightest to darkest) and I'll end on a Royal Blue stripe.

Yarn should arrive tomorrow, and needles either Saturday or Monday (I had to buy a 120cm circular needle from eBay to accommodate all the stitches, although I think it is going to be a tight squeeze). I'm really looking forward to casting on, as I love the Hit the Road pattern, I've already made two!

I've been trying to finish my current WIPs so that I can just concentrate on the blanket, as I don't want it to end up getting distracted and have it lying around for months waiting for me to finish it. Today I managed to finish Rizzle's Swirling Gauntlets, and the scent pillow I knitted for her. So, that's two WIPs out of the way. I would love to finish Sara's socks over the weekend, but I doubt very much if that will happen, I'll probably be too busy casting on and off the Scallop Lace Hat that has been hiding in my Year of Projects list.

Well, I better finish here...

All the best,

Charly

3 Shades of Purple

Abby subtly mentioned one summer day that she'd love a knitted blanket more than anything, I quickly took note of the hint and started looking for blanket patterns.

From left to right: Raspberry, Pale Rose & Plum.

Not too long before, I had finished knitting a baby blanket using the pattern 'Hit the Road' by Biggan Dups. It had been featured in the May issue of Let's Knit, and I had really enjoyed knitting it. So much so I decided to knit another one!

Abby loves purple, but I didn't want to do just one shade of purple blanket, I wanted to mix it up. I decided to use three different shades: light, medium & dark. With all these different skeins required, I didn't want the blanket to get expensive so I chose a 'cheap' yarn in the form of Special Double Knit by Stylecraft. 

For the light shade, I used 'Pale Rose', a gorgeous shade that really softens the medium & dark colours. The medium shade was a bit of a gamble, as I know Abby isn't a big fan of pink, but I really thought 'Raspberry' went perfectly with the other colours, so decided to take the risk. Finally, the dark shade. As I said before, Abby's favourite colour is purple, so I had to have a purple shade in there somewhere! I decided to use 'Plum', a very delicious shade I must say!

The pattern is dead simple, and took about.... 8 or 9 days to knit. You have a thick moss stitch border (to prevent curling and to add texture), then it is a simple case of striping! After every stripe you must do a set of fair isle rows, which took forever. I did the fair isle in Pale Rose, to break up the medium and dark shades :) I'll definitely be saving this pattern, as I can see me using it a lot in the future for baby presents! 

Abby absoloutely loved it, and I'm so pleased as I myself am quite chuffed with how it turned out. Fortunately I had left over yarn in every shade after finishing, so I was able to put that to good use and knit up my very lovely friend Molly a lace scarf & a pair of fingerless mittens (which I shall show you tomorrow!). Even after all that I still have yarn left, so am mulling over what to knit next... perhaps a pair of mittens for my adorable, pink loving friend Megan. We shall see! :D

I'm Hooked!

One of my goals this year was to learn to crochet. I've attempted to teach myself several times but I could never get the hang of it. I remember mentioning to my friend, Rae, how difficult I was finding it and she told me that she'd teach me! She told me that she wouldn't tell me which stitches I was learning until after I'd got the hang of it. I thought that was a very clever way of getting me to learn, as I'm constantly getting confused between 'treble', 'half treble' etc etc.

So on Monday night, when I was in way too much pain to sleep and I didn't feel like knitting, I decided to give crochet another go. I kept Rae's idea in mind and headed onto YouTube to find a Granny Square tutorial, as granny squares (and ripple blankets actually) were the reason I wanted to learn to crochet.

I found a series of great tutorials by Bethintx1 (click here for lesson one), she did it really slowly at first to get you started, then as the lessons go along and you get the hang of it she quickens her pace. I was doing really well, until I got to lesson three and I got extremely confused and I couldn't find where in the video I had got stuck. Now having a general idea on what to do, I tried to find a photo/written tutorial on Ravelry and came across 'Granny Square Tutorial Over Simplified'. It's brilliant, as each step is photographed so you can see how it is meant to look.

After about 15 minutes I had my first granny square....

No idea what the yarn is... It was a gift, but had no ball band!
All I do know is that it's DK weight.

It turned out big because of my loose tension. I had no idea if it looked like a granny square or not, so I asked the very lovely people on Instagram and apparently it is a granny square. So, hooray!

I then made another in 'Plum' Special DK by Stylecraft. This one turned out smaller than my first.

By now it was about 4:30am and my body was screaming at me to get to sleep. After I finished crocheting, I started to notice the pain but by then it had softened enough for me to get some sleep. I drifted off thinking, chain one, 3 double crochet in chain 1 space, chain 1, 3 double crochet in corner, chain 2, 3 double crochet in corner - one corner made! 

I woke up in a pain haze, completely forgetting about my crochet escapades. When I saw the granny squares piled up by my bed, for a split second I thought perhaps someone else had left them there. When I did finally remember that I had made them, I was over joyed and immediately grabbed my hook and started making more, just to prove that it wasn't a fluke.

Turns out it wasn't, I can make granny squares!

These ones didn't turn out great...

@blrb on instagram (who is always lovely about my crafting) said that changing the colours would help define the pattern, so I thought I would give it a go.

I found some bright yarn in my stash that I got free from a magazine, it's really crappy stuff but the colours are great, and had a go at another couple of granny squares.

I can't get the yarn to photograph properly, it is really bright in real life!

And because I am now completely obsessed, I crocheted a square while writing this post, this time in rainbow yarn!

I'm getting my room decorated soon, and it is a seaside theme. White, red and blue are the colours being used for my new duvet & curtains, so I thought I would crochet myself a matching Granny Square Blanket (since I have always wanted one). When I get some money, I'm going to get myself a few skeins of Sirdar Hayfield Bonus DK in... Classic Red (for the first round), White (for the second round) and Azur (for the final round. I can't wait to give it a go!!

What does a Blood Thirsty Vampire with a Cold, Knit?

This past week, I haven't been feeling too good. On top of the normal things, I've had inner and outer ear infections in both ears, conjunctivitis in both eyes and a heavy cold. In all honest truth, I looked like I had staggered off the set of a horror film.

When one is attired like a blood-thirsty vampire with a cold, one must knit like a blood-thirsty vampire with a cold. And what does a hungry vampire knit? 

It would probably knit this.

Near the end of September my Nan gave me two child-size skeins of Aran yarn. I decided to knit myself a big, squishy, garter stitch blanket. Something I could knit when I was having a bad day with my M.E (as when I have a bad day, I can't knit. I just mess it all up!), and also something to work at while watching TV. 

Just over 4 months later, and here we are. I've managed to knit my way through a whole child-size skein (875yds/800m) and am onto my second skein. It is measuring 90cm width wise (but I do believe it will be longer when taken off the needles, as it is all squished on there as of present) and 95cm length wise. 

I'm planning on making it big. Something to keep us toasty and warm in the winter. Hopefully I'll finish it before summer, because I don't think I'll be able to cope with knitting it, I'll get far too hot!!

Sorry about the rubbish iPod Camera shots, my normal camera is broken :( 

So, now I no longer look and feel like a blood thirsty vampire with a cold, I can move onto bigger and better knits. Perhaps Reversible Beanie Hat II may appear this time next week... who knows!

For the meantime, head on over to Tami's where she is knitting some beautiful socks!

The Bad Beginning

You know how I am with starting new projects, I just can't help myself. So when I found out about One a Day, I knew I had to join in on the fun.

Simply put One a Day (which was started by GingerbreadGirl) is "A CAL/KAL for anyone who wants to tackle a bigger project by doing one element a day!" 

I had a two parcels of yarn arrive last Wednesday (more about that on Saturday!), and inside one of those squishy parcels was two LARGE skeins of Aran. I'd seen these 400g beauties in my Local Yarn Shop many of times, but never had the courage to take a couple of skeins up to the cash register. Fortunately though, my Nan is completely like me when it comes to knitting and she popped two skeins (don't think you can really call them skeins, they're about the size of small child) of Robin Aran with Wool in the Cappuccino colourway in my box of woolly goodies. 

The moment I got back home I cuddled up on the sofa, switched on the TV and watched 'The Day After Tomorrow' (is it just me, or does the film make you feel freezing?!) as I cast on for my new project.

As my Mum is a big garter stitch fan, and we have a very cold few months ahead of us, I decided to knit a Garter Stitch blanket. I'm not knitting from a pattern, simply wingin' it. Using 5mm 80cm circular needles I cast on 160 stitches. I'm not sure how large it'll actually turn out, but when the stitches suddenly flew off the needles it was just a bit bigger than the width of my single bed. So it'll be very interesting to see how large it'll actually turn out.

Now whenever I sit and watch TV Mother's Favourite comes with me. It's great to be able to watch something without the worry of looking down to check for mistakes. As of now, I have knitted 70 rows. Which isn't bad!!

That just about wraps it up for this week, next week I'll be introducing a new project (proving the needles for it have arrived...) and giving you an update on Mother's Favourite. For now, head on over to GingerbreadGirl's for more One a Day posts, or visit the group on Ravelry!