Pfffftttt.

That's a raspberry.
And here is some raspberry yarn which used to be beige:
Yarn: Cleckheaton Country 8ply.




Again blogger thinks this is the right way up.


This is going to be a Forest Canopy Cowl.

Time Wasters

My current time wasters:
You move your cursor around on the black area below and to change colours just click the mouse button.







First seen here: not sure what the done thing is when you stumble across little gems like this but am acknowledging where I found it.


Also this little addictive game: Boomshine

Bag Adventures...

I have my knitting mojo back in felted bags at the moment. There have been lots of discoveries during this Research and Development phase. I am trying to find a 'goto' bag pattern. So far my experiments have ended up too big, too thin, and almost perfect.

Some tips for felting:

• Don't use towels, the lint will mute the colour of your bag, when I used jeans, the colours were much brighter and obviously no lint was on the bag when it came out of the machine.
  

• For a first attempt, stick to the pattern, I wanted a big bag - not a huge bag that is not good for anything. (see previous post)

• Maybe putting the item in a zippered pillow case is not a good idea, I never ran into any problems when I just threw it in the machine. (see below)
  

• Check the handles, when I used the pillow case the handles must have rolled in on themselves and felted that way therefore they ended up waaaay narrow.

• Check the bag, when I used the pillow case the bag felted in on itself where it was folded in half and put into said pillow case. Was difficult to pull apart and still has creases where it melded to itself.

To summarise: pictures later as blogger is not playing nice today, oh here we are...

First Bag: French Market Bag 256 sts around is waay too biig.
See last post for pics.

Second Bag: French Market Bag with 164 sts is still a little on the big side but not too bad, handles are a bit too short.






Third bag: Ann's Petite Felted Bag, this is the one where I mucked it up by putting it in the pillow case for felting, apart from that it is a good size and I am making a second one that will be perfect :)





See the difference in handle with? I assure you they are both 9 sts wide.


Fourth Bag: Petite Felted Carrier, decreasing the handles at a rate of 9 rows to make up for the mod to change to two handles. No pics - but a WIP none the less.

All of these are knitted with Vintage Hues and 5.5mm needles.

Cat Content:



They line up for food in our house. Always in this order though.

Bag? What Bag?

I should have listened to that inner voice. I sort of did when I ripped back 10 rows but I should have gone further. I thought it was huge but was kinda sure that it would lose inches in the felting process. It shrank heaps length wise and not much widthwise.
Dimensions before were:
14inches across bottom square base
14 inches tall
(Blogger insists this is the right way up for this picture)


After felting it was:
12 inches square across bottom base and
8 inches tall

It felted really nicely, lost lots of colour variation though as it all melded together.
Miss A saw it and instantly said "I'll have it", after a fit of laughter at it's size, so it has gone to her as planned. I still think it would make a better cat bed. Gee, looking at those pictures though I can see that it did shrink a fair bit. It is still huuuge.

I am now going to raid all the pure wool from my stash, I know I have cat bed yarn in there somewhere. And I want to make another smaller bag for myself in the same colour. At least I know it will take a shorter amount of time as it will be way smaller than this one. I am planning 10 inches square base and 14-16 inches for the sides - I still want it taller.

Please knitting goddess, don't let me accidentally make something out of non-feltable yarn. Cos we all know that's where I am headed next.

The best superglue ever...a cautionary tale

Standing in Bunnings debating the merits of cheap superglue with one that cost a few dollars more.I really neded this to hold well so I bought the more expensive superglue, the 'Loctite' brand, sounds good doesn't it? Mr Ex used Loctite lots so I knew it was going to be good. You put that on bolts and stuff that you want to stay put.

So when I got home I knew that I needed a strong bond between glue, plastic and metal. So I slathered the glue all over the end of the plastic cable and then put a dob in the metal hole just to be sure. This is where I became unstuck hahaha.

I tried to take a photo, but the camera will not focus on something so small.

I think the glue dried too fast - it set in about 2 seconds!!! - making the plastic now slightly larger than it should be for correct insertion. I pushed and pushed but I could not push the plastic cable all the way into the metal :( (operative word here, all )

Now the join is super bonded albeit about 4 mm is left sticking out that shouldn't be ( I have pulled and tugged and cannot yank the cable out ) At first I chucked it in the bin, but on second thoughts it is thicker yarn and with such superior bonding there is no way that it'll come unstuck now so I tried it out and yes, it'll pass. The yarn doesn't get caught much at all, really, I hardly notice it.

A new cable has been ordered, however. And if you need to stick something I highly reccommend the 'Loctite' brand superglue it's fantastic!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone!

Miss A arrived home last night, she is pale, pastey, grumpy (as predicted...she wasn't home 5 minutes before yelling at me?!) and looks just terrible, needless to say we stayed in last night.
This had something to do with the cat throwing up though. It is not right to just watch the cat throw up, you have to move her so she will not puke on anything not easily cleanable. Watching her hawk up while she is under a table, is not ok with me, if you are near the cat then dammit! Grab Her! Don't sit there, in the way, 2 feet from the cat and watch and yell at me. I just said to grab the cat and was met with a verbal attack.

Sometimes I think these visits do more harm, it takes days to get her back to her happy self. Don't get me wrong, she loves and wants to go I am just not sure about the care she gets while there, the other children are older and have a later bedtime, I think they let her stay up until she is ready for bed (10-11pm) and then the excitement of 3 other kids gets her up at 6am.

Got some photos to share.....
This is how far along the bag is:


I am enjoying this knit and did actually rip back 10 rows to bring the stitch count from 296 which looked huge even before felting to a still big 256 stitches. Even if it felts to half the size it will be big enough. Slight problem Miss A saw it and asked why I used that horrible colour. Doh. I quite liked it and was thinking about how I could snatch it for myself.

I thought I was going to run out of yarn as the base sucked up nearly 3 balls before the frogging and I wanted 2-4 in the sides (estimated) plus 2 for the handles (I know that is an overestimation there but I want to be on the safe side). So off I went back to Spotlight and got some more blue/orange Vintage Hues. While I was there the orange colourway looked very yellowy, yellow is Miss A's fave colour, I kicked myself - Why didn't I choose her favourite colour? Needless to say I got some of that to make another bag for her, I quite like that colour, looks a bit like tiger stripes and I just love tigers.


See anything wrong with this picture:



A Knit Picks needle is not meant to come apart there is it?

Right up until 11:48 was happily knitting along on the bag when this disaster struck. No stitches were lost, I hunted for the superglue and couldn't find it, ( I am sure I put it in an easily findable place last time I used it) luckily Bunnings opens at 9 today.