knitobsession

The musings of an obsessive knitter and stash collector

Saturday, June 30, 2007

I've been busy

I've spent a fair bit of time in queues at Dr's and hospitals this week, however this is what happens when you knit mindlessly while waiting, you do a lot of frogging, I seem to have done more frogging than knitting on this project this week. It may be something to do with a change in medication, I'm waiting to see if my brain starts coping with more than one thought at a time next week.

This shawl is only ever worked on at home and at the moment I don't risk working on it while I watch TV. I've reached round 196, less than 2% of the knitting to go now, I don't think I'll quite make it by the end of this weekend as I'm looking after my neighbour while her family are on holiday, she likes me to sit and chat and I can't do this shawl while I do it. I'd like to thank Rosie and Lilith for the kind comments on this shawl, I must admit I'm very proud of it, it's definitely the most ambitious project I've ever done!

Sunday, June 24, 2007

75 rows to go


I managed to solve my last mistake and reached round 150, this felt like a mile stone so I spread it out as far as I could and took a few pictures, clicking on them will show you a larger version.

I still can't make up my mind if the panels with the fern leaves are worth the effort, I think I'll have to reserve judgement until the shawl is finished. I do know that I just ground to a halt again as I've spotted a mistake that I need to fix and I'm too tired to fix it right now. Hecate woke me just before 6am today by climbing onto the top of the fourposter, trying to catch her own tail and falling off, crash landing on me.

I'm liking the way that the corner turns out even though you don't knit any extra fullness into the border it seems to be stretchy enough to go round.

This isn't terribly clear as a black cat on a dark brown background doesn't work well, but Hecate came to inspect my work!

Friday, June 22, 2007

90 rounds and counting - and weeping


I thought I was doing ever so well until I tried to do the next round and found that the second quarter doesn't match the first and stupidly I got over confident and didn't indulge in the frantic stitch counting that I normally do on the plain knit rounds. I've put it back in it's bag and told it to sort itself out! I'm really not feeling any sort of love for the pesky thing at the moment and I've decided that any repeat knitting of this will exclude these panels of fern pattern, they are OK but not THAT pretty and are putting my blood pressure up something atrocious.
Thank you for your comments Annie - I can't claim to be a great knitter of lace shawls but I'm learning to not panic when things go wrong although I still persist in knitting without a lifeline and it appears without counting stitches when I should! It would also help if Mrs Nosey paws wouldn't keep leaping on and off my lap and running across my shoulders while I knit - somethings annoying her this week, possibly me and she's being a thorough attention seeking pest!

Sunday, June 17, 2007

100 rounds to go - and counting!


Despite the sore wrists I've plodded along gently with the shawl, I'm feeling as if I'm really on the home stretch, but I'm hating the fern panel as I have no idea what it's supposed to be looking like, for all I know I may end up having to frog back to the stocking stitch band even now.
The bruises have appeared (I'm sparing you from pictures) and I do feel as if I've just wasted a break from work by spending much of it mostly imobile but I have enjoyed drooling over the Victorian Lace book. Thank you for the good wishes that came in comments and by email - don't worry, Hecate is fine, I didn't either land on her or murder her later!

I'm definitely not doing this fern pattern next time around, I think I'll just do the smal leaf pattern at the very centre, it's effective, a swine to get started but once the pattern is established ir's simple to do and easy to follow.

This will be for me (or end up being given away) I bought this when I was away with Skipnorth, it's acrylic, Spanish so I can't get more of it and although the first feel of it is quite rough it softens as I knit with it, it is easy to tink back when I make mistakes as it doesn't split and the stitc definition is amazing. I've learnt the edge pattern off by heart so it's ideal bus knitting and is just chugging along gently in the moments when the white shawl has defeated me. I've had several despairing patches lately where I've muddles the pattern and had to put it away over night until I could face the endless counting and recounting that is needed to sort it out!

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Gloating!


I've been waiting absolutely ages for this to arrive, I ordered it aound 4 months ago and it seemed as if it was never going to get here. It's perfect timing as I have 2 days leave from work and can spend my time trying to decide what to make first (after the baby shawl is finished of course)

This has only grown a little, it's the thing I pick up when my had is too muddled for lace knitting, I enjoy it and as it's taken me 2 years to collect the yarn together for it i don't mins how slowly it grows.

I've just under 30% of the middle of the shawl to do, tomorrow I should start the fern pattern that is inserted into the smal leaves as a background, at least in the absence of a picture I think that is what happens, I'm just doing round 109 and the new pattern starts at round 113. As soon as the rounds shring a little more I should be able to get a picture of the shawl sperad out as I have a second 3mm circular needle somewhere, at the moment I feel as if I'm in danger of boring you all with pictures of almost identical white lacey stuff - hence the reduced amount of blogging lately.
This may all be hypothetical for a few days as Hecate tripped me up as I went downstairs this morning, fortunately I was carrying an empty plastic planter on my way to fill it and that stopped me crashing head first into the front door. I don't think I've done myself any major damage but I'm stiffening up badly and have sore wrists and shoulders so I may just be daydreaming about knitting this weekend.

Saturday, June 09, 2007

Where the shawl is


I'm about to start the next pattern, a complicated combinatoin of the miniature leaf pattern combined with a fern pattern, I confess that I'm not looking forward to wrestling with it, especially in the absence of a photograph to show me what the end result should be! Round 93 is complete and according to my complicated spreadsheet I've knitted 67% of the centre stitches!

Somehow this has found it's way to my flat, I need to see what replacement parts it needs and get hold of them, but I'm assured that it has worked in the not too distant past. Hectate thinks that it is intended as a toy for her but hopefully she'll get bored fairly soon. If any of my readers knows anything much about this type of wheel I'd be grateful for their input.

Today has been very warm, really far too warm for knitting acres of shawl but Hecate was happily dozing, I could have done with sleeping myself.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Progress


I'm still struggling with the shawl, I've reached the 85th round now, and hopefully I'll have a picture to show you of the horse shoes finished, then I have to go back to the leaves again. I do wish that the pattern showed me a proper picture of the centre as reading ahead I see that I then have to insert ferns into a background of leaves but I don't yet have the skill to read a pattern and visualise what it will look like. Hopefully it will turn out OK but I really will put a life line in I think! I thought you'd rather have a picture of Hecate instead of a picture of the shawl looking very little different from last time!

Monday, June 04, 2007

Horseshoe lace


I had a rotten time getting this pattern to work right, mostly because somehow I'd got the wrong number of stitches at the end of the first pattern repeat and the pattern doesn't show a picture of what the middle of the shawl should loook like. I did a search online and found a picture that helped enormously and now I have two of the four repeats done, then I have to go back to the miniatuer leaf pattern and add ferns to it - still with no idea of what it should look like!
I don't expect to get much done tomorrow as my morning is going to be spent queuing at the ENT department of our local hospital. I don't find large acres of shawl a practical proposition for taking out in public so I'll probably tak emy mitred squares.

Saturday, June 02, 2007

In memoriam


A dear friend of mine had to have his beloved dog put to sleep today - Jimmy was a lovely German Shepherd who was a dearly loved companion and will be badly missed.
The shawl continues to grow, but only slowly, I've started the horse shoe pattern which is going fairly well so far, I just finished row 68 this evening.