One Sock Down

Finally finished one LL Hawaii Dublin Bay Sock.

Tried it on Dh and the conversation goes :

DH: " Hey there's holes!"

Me: "It's just lace, dear"

DH: "And it's such a girly green!" *looks into my knitting bag and takes out my hoarded ball of LL Motherlode* "Can I have one in this purply yarn instead?" *pause* "With no holes? And lots of ribbing?"

Me: "Grrrrr!"








Showed it to my sis and the conversation goes
Sis: "Hey cool!"
Me: "Do you want it? I'm working on the other pair"
Sis: "err... umm.. why don't you keep it for when you come and visit me in NZ?"
Me: *thinking haven't been to NZ in 10 years and not likely to visit in the next 10 years* "Grrrr!"

But seriously I am glad that this pair is ending up with me - I've grown to like it. I'm not too happy with the toe, and the way the striping doesn't go all the way around but otherwise I've sweated too much over it not to love it.





The next pair of socks I want to make is Marnie's toe up socks - as soon as she posts the pattern.

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I had a great time at Jackie's seaming party last Saturday. I can't remember the last time I had Sticky date pudding but I know I must have it again soon. Absolutely yummy. What have I been missing all these years?


You know after that seaming party, I went home and dreamt squares. I have to take my hat off to Jackie's discipline and endurance to be able to produce so many squares and to stick by a project for almost that long. Way to go Jackie!

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So on to my monday round up one day late
*Updates are in bold red*

Lacy Tunic from Rebecca 28
Jaeger Trinity Violet :- one back done


Green Lacy top from Japanese Magazine
Marks and Kattens Bianca :- one back done - to be frogged


Bracken Tweed Cardigan for my sis - one sleeve done


Fiddlesticks Lacy Lattice Stole
Filatura Di Crosa Kid Mohair - 30% done


Pseudo Gansey from Japanese Magazine
Filatura di Crosa Zara :- one front and one sleeve done


Pink Grapes from Japanese Magazine
Yarnart Summer Cotton :- Two sleeves done


Plaza from Rowan Classic Cafe
Cleakheaton Country 8 ply - one back done
*Almost up to the shoulder shaping on the humungous two sleeves at once. I hope to finish the sleeves by Friday*



Fiddlestick Lotus Blossom Shawl
Cherry Tree Hill Merino Laceweight Dusk- less than 12%
* Up to Row 83 - that's 166 stitches*


Crochet Flower Vest
Online Linea Sandy - 35%
*Finished off two balls - only 2.5 balls to go*



From the comments -

Jessica - there is no way to get any roving here in Malaysia - the only source is to get it online from AUS, NZ or US
MJ - My sis lugged 6.5 kg of this spinning wheel back from NZ for me.
Celia - I'll try to post the embarassing close-ups of my bad bobbins of yarn tomorrow.

Joy out of the box

Finally the Ashford Joy was unveiled and assembled last night.



Joy out of the box


Following the instructions were easy and even a klutz like me could screw the right thing at the right places - or so I thought. And learn some cool new spinning jargon as well. Such as "Flier"



"Fli-er" - the thing that goes round and winds the yarn on to the bobbin.


And here is my baby all assembled and ready to go.


The lump in the background is my husband reading "Harry Potter 6", who , after blinking several times, did not lift a finger to help. Which is understandable, it's "Harry Potter" after all.


Well it took me at least an hour to figure out why the yarn wasn't winding on to the bobbin. It was screwed in the wrong way :).

Then I was practicing pre drafting fibers and feeding it in strips the way one did with the hand spindle but that didn't work at all for me. I keep getting huge overtwisted yarn and I just knew I wasn't getting into the right rhythm.

Using the spindle it was easy to stop and start to smooth over the kinks down the draft but a moving spinning wheel was going much faster than I would have liked it to.


Bobbin full of Bad yarn.


I decided to change track and spin from the fold. And then light bulb came on and I was into the groove. Pinch! Pull! Feed ! I got the rhythm! Except the instructions said the drafting hand should come up to the pinching hand wherelse my pinching hand is coming down to the end of the draft and then back up towards the Orifice (that's the hole you feed the fiber through to the Flier).

Yarn is still overtwisted at places cos I haven't go the knack of stopping the wheel from back spinning.





But all in all 2oz of fiber spun last night and I think I am going to run through my last 4 oz of sampler fiber I got from Inspirations Yarn in the next couple of days. I haven't placed a fiber order yet and that will take another 3 weeks to arrive at least.

What am I going to do in the meantime?

I wish (Part Two)

I got a little of what I wished for last Friday


From the left to right, LL Sheperd Sport in Somerset, Georgetown and Glenwood

The Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport that Vanessa and I ordered from Little Knit's sale last month. Lorna's Laces are still on special so do rush over to get them now.

For some reason I have this terrible urge to dump everything I have on my needles now and just knit lacy lacy shawls. Probably because I've joined two yahoo groups on lace - Lace knitting and Summer of Lace. The enabling on those two groups are close to mega proportions.

But my sister came along and kept me on the straight and narrow by reminding me (several times) how cold it was in New Zealand now, how she wants a cardigan to go with her purple pants, how she lugged 8.5 kgs worth of spinning wheel through customs for me... etc etc.

I gave her my Noro Butterfly to assuage her temporarily but she wants to play with my wheel as well. It's not set up yet. I've been so busy driving the said sister around. Photos will be posted as soon as I get the chance.

* Well Don't hold your breath cos my copy of Harry Potter just arrived. There are some things (not many, but there are)that take a precedence over knitting related activities.*

I wish

I'm not going to say I beat the bad sock karma yet but I've finally turned the heel and am chugging along nicely around and around the foot.



However the bad karma maybe moving around to other areas of my life cos my home pc just gave up the ghost yesterday. Let's just say it's a combination of a thunderstorm and a window that should not have been opened being left open. And let's just say that I have house guests that opens windows in rooms they have no business opening windows in.

For those whose penny didn't drop - I am supposed to have 30 stitches on the heel (ie half the cast on stitches) not 24.

Met up with Lyn and Vanessa yesterday to have a coffee and a vent and as usual running up the lists of knits we would love to do next.
Some of the knitters are doing Orangina - which I am not convinced will be flattering to me but it was nice looking over their projects.

There just so many knits I want to do that I'm just sprouting them out of my ears. Does any else get these small panic attacks just thinking about the amount of yarn one has and the amount of knits one wants to do? Not to mention the other mountain of yarn one is lusting over and wants to buy but has yet to buy?

Sock from Hell

I missed my Monday round up cos I had an incredible busy weekend and two days at work plus I have been so pissed off my knitting.

This is the sock from hell




I didn't even have an inkling on Friday that I'll be knitting this. In fact I had settled in to finish off the two sleeves for Plaza. I'm happily knitting on Plaza on Friday night and finished the first two balls. Happily trotted along to my stash boxes to get another two balls when I remembered! This lot of stash was in my mum's house ( the other hiding place from DH ). Uh ok - let's just work on something else. Like I have a ton of projects on the needles right.

Ok so I take out the Dublin Bay opal socks I was experimenting with when DH said "Oh I didn't know you could knit socks!" which is an underhanded way to sya that he wanted a pair. He didn't like to Opal colorway I was working on so back to the stash box I went.

He liked the Lorna's Laces Hawaii Shepherd Socks. So I happily casted on 72 sittiches as per the pattern and was chugging along nicely. The stripes were perfectly in place and straight. See how it's winding its way up at the moment? I'll let you know how it got that way in a minute.

Anyway, it was now Saturday and I was going to my mum's until Monday so I carried on knitting on the Hell Hawaii sock. 6 inches were done and I placed it against my DH's foot when we both realised this is one humungous sock. checked my needles and horrors! it was 2.75 mm not 2.25mm as specified by the pattern.

By this time, we were due to go for dinner at DH's cousin's and I really did not want to bring any knitting there. I'm still not brave enough to bring knitting to family functions especially when there was a whole bunch of cousins - in law whose names I don't quite remember.

Anyway back from dinner at about 10 pm and on to rip rip rip! I was so tempted to start the sock again on another yarn (Lorna's Laces Motherlode) when I remembered I wanted to use that yarn for something else (meaning some thing lacey for me!) And at this point I am so determined to beat this Knitting Murphy's law karma if it kills me. So I casted on 60 instead.

By the end of Sunday evening I had got most of the cuff and leg done and was moving on the heel flap. That in itself was an exercise in fractional mathematics most of which I kind of gave back to my teacher at the end of secondary school. Plus it didn't really help when the pattern was describing needle 1 and 2 and I'm using circs.

Still I divided for the heel and then did about half of the heel flap before calling it a night. The next day I was going off to my mum's for dinner and to pick up more balls of yarn for Plaza. I told myself I would concetrate on the sock on Monday before carrying on with Plaza on Tuesday. I'm never going to meet Friday's deadline but if I can show my sister one back and two sleeves at least she won't think I am slacking off on her. After all she did send me the yarn about a year ago.

So on Monday night after coming back from my mum's, I carried on with the heel flap and stopped to look ahead and do some calculations on the short rowing.

I am suppose to knit 20 stitches before I SSK and turn based based on having 36 stitches on the heel needle (which is half of the 72 stitches casted on for the whole round). So since I casted on 60, I should pick up 20 / 36 x 24 stitches which is the amount of stitches I had on the heel needle.

It was several minutes before the penny dropped. I guess all you experienced sockknitters can spot the mistake.

Needless to say I've ripped the heel.

And that is why this is the Sock from Hell. Thank God I won't be working on it tonight.

Oh by the way - I think I'll skip the Monday round up for today.

Just wanted to also say I had a lot of fun last Thursday meeting up with Pauline and May. Check out May's and Lyn's blogs for the details.

MO' FOTO

In the interest of learning to take better pictures I give you two examples of the One Skein Wonder taken in the same light (by the french windows) - one with flash and one without. Which do you think looks better?
With flash

Without Flash



and here are more granny squares

From Usha


And these ones are going out to a couple of ladies in a mini granny square exchange at the Malaysian Stitchers' yahoo group.



I am also wondering if I dare to make this lovely top



*News Flash*--- As I am writing this, I am just getting the news about the explosions in the London Underground. Just today at lunch, I was reminiscing about my trip to London this time last year and how I wish I was there now. My great sympathies to all who have been affected by this. All of a sudden I don't really feel like writing any more. Till next time.

Cool pix

I've been late in updating the weekly round up cos I've been playing with my brand new camera.


Lyn and I met up on Thursday to have lunch and then to do some winding. But first I walked into a photo shop and looked at what cameras they had on offer. DH and I had always wanted to get our own camera instead of relying on my office's very old Nikon and my sister in law's very new Canon Ixus 7.0. We wanted to get something in between.


So with the expert advice of the sales man and some help from Lyn, I settled on a Nikon Cool Pix 4600.

I've been playing around with it all weekend and all I can say is I have the shaky hands syndrome. I haven't been able to catch a decent photo of my son but I did get a pic of what I've been doing in the last week.





Yep! refreshed a little of my crochet skills and even got Lyn to try out her crochet skill on a simple square. In fact I am inspired to slowly but surely crochet a blanket or throw a'la Jackie . Of course, she knitted all her squares, but I really like the idea of a hodge podge blanket of colourful squares.

So for the Monday round up - well nothing has changed from last week's list except - add some granny squares and *ahem* a crochet top and a decision to frog the Green lacy top for a crocheted project someday.

More on the crochet top tomorrow.

So the weekly round up is as follows:-
Lacy Tunic from Rebecca 28
Jaeger Trinity Violet :- one back done

Green Lacy top from Japanese Magazine
Marks and Kattens Bianca :- one back done - to be frogged

Bracken Tweed Cardigan for my sis - one sleeve done

Fiddlesticks Lacy Lattice Stole
Filatura Di Crosa Kid Mohair - 30% done

Pseudo Gansey from Japanese Magazine
Filatura di Crosa Zara :- one front and one sleeve done

Pink Grapes from Japanese Magazine
Yarnart Summer Cotton :- Two sleeves done

Plaza from Rowan Classic Cafe
Cleakheaton Country 8 ply - one back done

Fiddlestick Lotus Blossom Shawl
Cherry Tree Hill Merino Laceweight Dusk- less than 10%

Crochet Flower Vest
Online Linea Sandy - 20%