Hat, hat, hooray!

What did I tell you about hats? I told you I could finish them, and I did. My brambles beret is done. Has been for a few days actually, however, when I blocked it first, I didn't cinch the brim tight enough, so it needs to be done again. I'll block it tonight and see if I can get Rebekah to model it next time I see her.

No pictures, and nothing really interesting to say, but I thought this blog needed a bit more in the way of FO news.

Zero Displacement

This last week has resulted in absolutely no progress. I've knitted a lot, that's for sure, but I've also jumped from project to project, ripping back behind me.

I realised last night that my problem may be that it's been so long since I finished something (not all my fault, did I mention my dog sat on and broke some of my needles?) that I feel like I can't. So I looked at the last thing I did finish, which was a hat. Hats are easy. There's only one of them, no casting off to speak of, and your stitch count decreases as you continue. Makes the home stretch much more manageable.

I cast on a hat. The Brambles Beret to be exact. It's designed for worsted weight yarns, but, being in NZ, I have none of those about. I do, however, have some magenta 4ply merino that I'm going to try doubled. It doesn't work, well, I'll deal with that then.

So I cast on the hat. I've cast on a fair few hats, and a lot of socks. I'm no expert but I'm pretty familiar with casting on in the round, which means there really isn't a reason why I didn't notice until seven rows of 1x1 ribbing later that I was knitting a mobius strip.

I ripped. I swore. I fondled some delicious silk-merino to soothe my soul, drank coffee to steel myself, and I'm casting on again.

Wish me luck?

From Not Quite Sunday

I have an image for you. An image I like to call 'joy'

Why 'joy'? Because that is an image of the stitch count matching the pattern at the end of a stockingette section, that is an image of the first row of lace falling into place perfectly. 

After two day of fighting with patterns and stitch counts, this is definitely joy.

Add to that the fact that it's an hour early than I thought, and yeah, things are looking good.

ETA: I may have spoken to soon. Things went awry. But it's okay, I did some quick mental maths and got myself back on my track. It'll mean that the first few lace rows will be a bit skew-if, but it's my first shawl. I can cope. It can be quirky.

Just a little touch of fate

Sometimes, life takes you it. It comes at you full force and sideways and sends you flying and all you can do is hold on for dear life and hope that when you land you'll be some semblance of okay. Sometimes it happens.

Truth is though, it's much easier for life to knock you down when you're standing on one foot with your arms full of homework, unfinished knitting and dirty washing.

I have five days at work starting tomorrow, which is more than I've done in a long time, and I have decided to make sure that my feet are firmly on the ground and that I have done everything I can to stop things going wrong. I have clean clothes, put in their own special drawer to stop that awful early morning rush for pants. I know where my shoes are. I'm going to make a stirfry to take for lunch. Most stunningly, my room is tidy. Spotless.

With all that sorted, I can happily potter about with my yarn and show off my recent additions. I warn you now, they are numerous.

Some of this arrived in the mail, but most of it's from the yarn sale I fell into.

These two have buddied up and decided to be a shawl. I'm quite happy with that plan.

This is a truly delicious yarn from AppleTreeKnits. Merino/Silk fingering in 'New Growth'.

Rebekah and I also found a hank of Merino/Cashmere that we plan to dye.

There's also some blue-green scrummyness that you can see is already on it's way to being a shawl, but I can't seem to upload the closeup of that, so more when I've made some progress.