Waddya Mean 'Not Knitting'?

I expect this post is sort of that 'tree falling in the forest' type of post -- we'll answer that age old question if a blogger suddenly blogs after a long and unexplained absence does anyone read?

When last I blogged I was on a bit of a strange scarf in summer thing. I had just completed the very colourful drop knit scarf (good news - there is now an errata on the Vogue site!). A couple of other scarf projects were waiting in the wings (until today) for blogdom and since then -- I haven't knit a stitch.

Not a stitch. None. Zero.

Crazy.

The new job and learning the vagaries of HMRC (taxes!) has kept me occupied I guess....but I'm keen to start something soon. It was my best friend's birthday today and I took her out on Thursday for some yummy cocktails (cocktail bar near London Bridge called The Old School Yard)(comfy sofas, nice staff and amazing drinks - heaven!) and dinner and she turned up wearing some skinny white jeans, a black t-shirt and the wrap I made for gorgeous goddaughter Genevieve at Christmas. (We won't depress ourselves too much by dwelling on a woman who can fit into her 15 year old daughter's clothes.) The point was that she looked fabulous and it inspired me to make something for Gen's birthday.

But I'm still in inspired rather than 'doing' mode so I'll finish up this post with a bit more about last month's scarf mania.

Around the time I finished the colourful scarf I also tackled Victorian Ruby from Victorian Lace Today in a pale peach linen yarn. I decided to take the lazy approach to blocking this scarf, I just washed it and then laid it out flat to dry - no wires, no pins. I shaped it so that the ends flare out which I quite like.

It's a useful summer scarf - the linen means it's light and mostly decorative.

I also tackled a wrap in the most luscious sea foam Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend yarn - a single 100 gr skein was enough for this project. I decided it was time to tackle a mobius wrap and discovered that like most things in knitting it's pretty straightforward.

There are a few methods out there (Google is your friend) here's what I did.

I cast on 130 stitches using backward loop method onto some very long and very flexible circular needles. To get the famous 'half twist' on the first row you don't knit into the stitches. Put a marker on your right needles and then you turn all the stitches upside down and knit into the little piece of yarn between the stitches. (This is muchharder to describe than do!)(Probably easier if you have knitting in front of you.) You knit all these 'between stitches' loops until you are back at the beginning -- and NOW you start to knit the stitches you cast on originally. When you are back at your marker you have completed your first round.

I alternated 5 rounds knitting, 5 rounds purling to get the wide bands of stocking and reverse stocking stitch. I just knit until I was almost out of yarn. I cast off and heh presto - there it was.

It's modelled here by gorgeous goddaughter Genevieve, worn fetchingly over her school shirt.

My final scarf project (and perhaps it was this one that caused my mini knitting hiatus) was an attempt to make my mother a pink Ene's Scarf from Scarf Style. My mom likes pink and I found some mystery pink yarn in my stash (unknown brand) and decided it was about the right amount for a scarf.

My mistake was choosing a scarf design that started at the long edge. Scarves that start at the long edge do not give you the option of deciding that the scarf is big enough if you run out of yarn. You can't just decide to do the border in another colour.

Nope - when you run out of yarn on a scarf that starts at the long edge the scarf just taunts you with the gaping hole in the centre of your scarf. It mocks you for deciding to make a scarf that starts at the long edge with a yarn with unknown yardage that you can't even identify a brand, colour or (ha!) a dye lot for.

You can almost hear the scarf laughing in this picture.

It sits on the needles still - waiting for some knitting miracle to deliver another skein of the mystery unbranded yarn. A knitter can dream.

The Last of 2007

Happy New Year! I hope you have all enjoyed the holidays as much as I did. I can't believe how quickly they've come and gone though.

After the successful completion of my gift knitting (yippeee!) I celebrated by casting on for what would be come my final knit of 2007. It is Ene's Scarf from Scarf Style and proved to be perfect knitting for the season.

The scarf is knit from the long edge (cast on 375 stitches) and decreases 4 stitches every second row. The advantage of this method is that it keeps your motivation up as the rows get shorter and shorter the closer you get to the end.

The disadvantage is that you have to cast on 375 stitches. And because I managed to mess up the first few rows 3 times before I FINALLY got it right - I got to cast on those 375 stitches 4 times. I was in fact convinced that there was a problem with the pattern and searched frantically for an errata to support me. Alas, there was none. I was just incapable of maintaing my focus on the scarf while David Tennant was saving the earth from destruction (in a tux) (gadzooks that man looks fine in a tux) in the Christmas episode of Dr Who. (The champagne with Christmas lunch probably didn't help either.)

But without the distraction of David Tennant the scarf is pretty straightforward, and once you are in the body of the scarf the pattern is very easy to remember. Perfect knitting to keep my mind occupied while I continued to gorge on Christmas TV. (The finale of Extras and The Old Curiousity Shop were particular favourites.) (Although I think The Old Curiousity Shop was over-abridged as the grandfather character had no redeeming qualities that I could see - but I felt I was supposed to like him. I am going to read the book now to find out what they cut out.)


I used Lucy Neatby Celestial Merino sock weight yarn which feels gorgeous. My only complaint with the yarn was that the dye came off on my hands throughout the knitting -- I had blue fingers for much of the holiday!

The finished scarf is warm and cosy and I expect it will get a lot of wear.

As it is the beginning of a new year I've been doing the usual evaluating of 2007 and planning for 2008.

2007 was a great year for me knitting-wise. Kicked off by finishing (after 18 years) the Kaffe Fasset Chinese Rose Coat. Completing the coat in itself was quite an event, but it was also the thing that led to my discovering the vast www knitting world. A simple search for Kaffe Fasett in google one day led to my discovering the UK knitting forum, Knitty board, the amazing world of knitting blogs, Ravelry and more patterns than I had ever imagined.


I went from total scepticism on the topic of socks to always having a pair of socks on the needles and am the happy owner of over 10 books on the glory of socks!! I've made 17 pairs of socks and demand for them seems to be growing.

Herbert Niebling joined Kaffe Fasset as a knitting god in my eyes. I became obsessed with lace knitting and completed 8 scarves/shawls/stoles and 2 lace table covers.

And for a bit of variety I made a few tea cozies, a couple of felted bags, a comfy throw and a lot of Innocent Smoothy hats. (Oh! and some mittens, hats and a cardigan.)

As for 2008 - well, I won't be surprised if I'm a little less prolific. Surely this mad enthusiasm has to wane at some point! Having said that I have a mountain of yarn and a list of patterns I want to make a mile long -- and every day I seem to find another must have yarn to add to the mountain or another gorgeous/challenging pattern to to add to the list.

Hope your 2008 is everything you want it to be!