A bit of everything

I took this sock downstairs to my neighbour's flat to finish it off today as Hecate has been hyperactive to say the least! This sock is intended for a friend so I will cast on the other one straight away!
I've learnt that I have to have trousers, socks and shoes on early or she runs up my legs and leaves horrendous scratches behind, and she is certain that my toes need killing regularly.

When she isn't bouncing around the flat and trying to type emails she is to be found collapsed on my lap preventing any knitting at all, after all, how can you disturb a kitten as relaxed as this?

Or this?
Spring has run so late this year I stil have daffodils in full flower, which really prevents me from planting out the seedlings that are ready and waiting.
I am however pleased with the progress of my small acer, it has definitely decided to come into leaf nicely. Hecate is currently swinging from the bottom button of my jacket, I suspect she is after food and/or attention in any order.

Some words from Hecate

Hecate says not to blame her for the slow knitting progress, that just because she spends her time attacking my left arm I should still be able to knit! I'd forgotten what it's like to have a kitten apparently on springs bounding through your home! I have found a useful bonus of hand knitted socks, they protect your feet from kitten fangs when she attacks them! Lucky for me she's a light weight - I weighed her approximately today and she is around 810g.
Steady progress on this sock for my friend, it feels lovely and should - I hope be finished this week.
The sock in Regia, I haven't got very far with this one but at least the heel flap is quick. Once I reach the heel I always feel better, even with ankle socks it feels good to get the leg finished!

Knitting and reasons for not knitting

First, my knitting content, this is the first sock of a pair that I am making for a friend, it's knitting up well and feels really nice - I promise as soon as I finish teh first sock I'll cast on the second one - in fact I may even cast on the second sock next!




This, is the fifth pair finished for this month, I did in fact only make 6 socks, but I was making pairs for orphans. There may well be a slow down on the knitting front in the short term. Please see below for the reason!






Please meet 9 week old Hecate cat, she loves knitting needles and yarn, thinks her new mum is meant for chewing on and/or climbing over and is cute beyond anything. Cat lovers will understand that to me this seems perfectly reasonable!

Mostly patterns

The second sock progresses, I've been lucky enough to get quality knitting time on both bus journeys today. I started and finished the heel flap and turned the heel as well. I do liek this colourway, although I think of it as spring rather than 'key lime pie'











I got this on eBay, it will be next after the Learn to Knit Afghan I think, just a quick glance has made me want to experiment!














This, this is gorgeous, I'm drooling over several patterns in here, it's so nice to see garments designed to flatter big sizes rather than just scaled up from small sizes.













And another pretty little dish to add to my shamrock collection. I don't expect to get chance to blog tomorrow, but I expect to be back on Friday and am hoping for something special to show you, it all depends ona friend bringing it round though so I won't promise you!

Missing presumed reading!

Life has many small compensations even when major parts of your life are going rapidly round the U bend of life, the Yarn Harlot's latest book arrived today, together with 3 DVD's, Red Dwarf 8, Narnia and Broke Back Mountain - expect the knitting to slow down until I've read the book then it will speed up while I knit and watch DVD's!
The next sock was progressing reasonably well, but as above I have distractions! In addition I've been offered a kitten and am trying to figure out kitten proofing part of my flat!

Pair 4 finished!

My second pair of Koigu socks, and my fourth pair of socks finished for the month, granted I've only actually finished 5 socks this month but that is the advantage of having lots of orphan socks pre made!
My Regia sock is growing nicely, I had half an hour to kill at the bus station this afternooon which has given it a good start.










This vase came as an 'extra' with a dish I wanted, to be honest, I like the vase better than the dish! I think this is really rather lovely.

SIP's again

Here we have pictures of some of my SIP's I spent a happy evening yesterday knitting a few rounds on each of them just to get them all moving. The middle two are yarns from the Natural Dye Studio and the outside two are Cherry Tree Hill.
None of these have made much progress recently, the front one is Regia which I haven't used before, the rest are all sorts of assorted hand painted mostly merino sock yarns, I'm trying a number of different makes to see which I like best.
The most nearly completed sock is this one, if i can finish this one I'll have achieved finishing 4 pairs of socks this month, that was my target and I should make it. There is no picture of the current square for the afghan as I seem to have misred the pattern and have to frog about 6 rows, but I want to re read the pattern tomorrow and see if I've realy misread it or if I'm currently misreading it!

Small contest and part of another sock

The latest sock, another mate for an orphan, I am being noble at the moment! I'm only casting on partners for orphans at the moment as I think it's time for a break from socks and I want to finish my outstanding pairs. The sheep came from eBay and needs a name - any suggestions gratefully received, in fact - I'll leave it a week and the suggestion I like best will get a ball of Opal Magic sock yarn.
Another little souvenir plate to add to my collection of pots. I've spent the day mostly planting up troughs and tubs for the garden, hence the lack of much knitting, I'm definitely putting my feet up tonight and knitting, once I've got the soil from under my fingernails.

Been busy!

Not had much time for sock knitting, my mum's not been too well and work has been busy, but the mail has got through. More Koigu, I confess to being addicted, I love the colours.


A gift for my mum, a book by her favourite author and even better, a first edition with autograph, I was going to save it for her birthday but I favour 'unbirthday gifts - speaking of which - thank you ambermoggie for the thimble, I have a collection given to me by my mum so it has company!
More cups by my favourite factory - I think these are rather sweet, espresso size again and safely in my display cabinet.
More of the shamrock design, there isn't much of this around in the UK, there seems to be more available in America, but I'm wary about things travelling that far safely when fragile.
My third pair of socks for the month - I said I'd never turn these into anything remotely matching and I was right, I seem to have managed to almost totally reverse the patterning!

Sock and bus fares

The sock progresses, I got a full journey to work this morning to knit in, coming home the bus got crowded and I had to abandon knitting. I've been somewhat peeved today as my bus fares went up yet again. When I moved to my flat just under two years ago my weekly ticket was £8.50, it allowed me to travel in one of the 2 travel zones, the only one I want to travel in and the only one I have time to travel in. They then scrapped my single zone ticket so I had to buy a two zone ticket, that was £10 per week (reduced from £11 to try and make it look like a bargain, last year it went up to £11 and today it had gone up to £12 a week. Whilst I realise that it isn't a huge sum, and many people pay much more to travel to work it is still a 30% increase.

SIP and finished square

My current sock, the second of a pair although non identical twins. I've been busy sorting through old boxes of stuff that have accumulated in my 'office'
Followed by square 6, twisted and crossed ribbing, twisted ribbing is fins, but I didn't like the crossed ribbing and overall I'm not impressed by this square as it's 2 and 13/20ths of a pattern repeat.To me it looks odd like that, but I suspect by the time I wade through another 55 squares it will worry me less.

A sock and a second sock started

Not only a finished sock, but please note that the second sock has been cast straight on, I like this colourway and fancy getting the pair finished, it seems very springlike to me.











Spring Vogue Knitting, I've never made anything out of Vogue, but there are a couple of lace patterns I fancy trying.












Because I can't get VK easily here it always acts as an excuse to buy yarn from Get Knitted as well. 2 more skeins of Koigu and 2 of Lorna's laces in the Bitter Sweet colourway.
Reduced price Opal magic - yes, I know I have a gazillion balls of sock yarn but so what - sticks fingers in ears and starts to hum to drown out voices talking about excessive stashes of sock yarn.
Finally a picture of a shrub in the garden - any ideas what it is???

Poor postman!

Packages arrived from eBay today, this mug is Arklow pottery but not from the factory, it's very different to anything else I have.
A pair of matching mini vases, I love the shape of the vases from this factory, very simple and lovely curves.
Nothing special this, just a nice littel dish, this factory made lots of 'hunting scenes' that I won't buy but this is just a straight forward country scene.
Another pretty shape, this milk jug is such a nice shape - I couldn't resist it.
My current sock, key lime pie and progressing very slowly while I wrestle with afghan sqaures.
The pale green square is doing fine, the two shades of lilac one is proving to be a complete pain, I'm suspecting that there is an error on one line of the pattern, but I'm not quite sure yet.

I'm in the process of setting up a separate blog to record the afghan progress as it's such a huge project I wanty to keep a record of it all together, it isn't organsied yet, but it will be soon!

Socks - pair 2

I finally finished a second pair of socks for April, thi sis seascape bought way back from Fyberspates, I just need to sew in the ends and I'll have 16 pairs of socks, taking the opportunity to catch up with my washing this weekend and go bare foot this means that next week I can gloat over a small drawer full of over 2 weeks worth of hand knit socks!
I'm still sleeping for England, I sat down to watch repeats of Michael Palin's sahara this afternoon, saw day 3 of his travels and then woke up at day 50! Nowadays I always set the video for things I really want to see as I never seem to stay awake long enough anymore.
Square 6 of the teach yourself to knit afghan, this is diagonal rib, fun but I'm not sure when I'd use it, I'd think it woudl work well on what I always called a skinny rib tank top, I don't have the figure for that sort of thing anymore! I'd planned on one or two squares a week, so now the first excesses of enthusiasm have settled down (I did 7 in a week) I intend returning to my original knitting plans for this month although I just heard an old friend at work had a baby girl recently so I need to produce something soon - baby was born over 9lbs so the one girlie thing I have nearly finished is too small as it's first size.

eBay goodies and some yarn p*rn

Who needs more sock yarn - I do! Well, I know I don't but that has absolutely nothing to do with anything! More sock yarn from Amanda, some English sock yarn and some alpaca/merino at the back.
Square 8 of the Learn to Knit afghan, Barbara Walker calls this 'Rose Fabric'. I can't see it as roses, but I do quite like the pattern, my first one where you knit into the stitch below. There is a slight snag, it's much smaller than the garter stitch square which is meant to be the definitive size for the afghan, in fact, that garter stitch square weighs in at 17g where all the others are 14 or less, I haven't tried blocking them yet! I haven't used the continental knitting style espoused by Barbara Walker but I can't think that is the cause of the discrepancy as I knit to a very even tension whatever I knit normally and that variation is huge.
A baby vase, small but perfectly formed!
A very handy box for my short single pointed nedles that I use for scarves and baby clothes, it should hold my meagre collection of circular needles too.

Finally a pretty little enamelled pill box that took my fancy, it may turn into a gift yet, I'm undecided. This week I also received several snails for my big sister's snail ornament collection but I can't put pictures here as she hasn't seen them yet!