What I've been up to lately.

While in the city today, a last minute visit to Lincraft netted me this....

don't bother going there, I bought the lot 22 balls! overkill? ya reckon??

I have been wanting this ever since I saw Donna's finished garment here , scroll down 2/3 page. Beautiful. This colour of Zhivago has been discontinued and I never thought I'd find it anywhere now. ( Snoopy happy dance) Now I can make this cardi. 'When' is the next question though.

Currently on the needles are:

1. Umm, a chunky/slubby scarf using Spotlight's newest yarn and 12mm needles. Nearly finished.

2. A hat from same yarn above. Currently swatching - no picture. This yarn is my favourite at the moment.

3. A scarf from the 'Stress Relief Scarf' kit using Velveteen. I cast this on years ago, needs to be finished.

4. A scarf using some sparkly yarn from Lincraft. My knit at work project - easy garter stitch throughout.

5. Opal socks for Miss A. Yes there has been progress on these too.

6. This is some mohair, another newy from Spotlight. Haven't quite decided what to do with this but I've swatched a few patterns ( feather and fan, open lacy pattern, plain garter) so if you know what a good pattern for this might be, let me know. Don't know if it's a scarf or a shawl yet either, but I have 3 balls of the stuff.

I haven't done much else except my assignment, which is mostly done and needs a bit of fine-tuning to make it presentable, it has to be handed in this Wednesday. So far so good.

Looky...

This is from angelyarns! The correct Kiddy Print, yay!
They also said they would send a little something extra: their Angora sock kit.
Beautiful angora yarn, a set of needles, a pattern and in the little pouch are some lovely stitchmarkers.

Not a very good picture but they are beautiful!

Thank you angelyarns.

Not much time for knitting lately as my next assignment is due soon. This time it is creating complex spreadsheets. Anyone out there an excel expert? I should have opened it when it arrived last week so I'm going to have to get stuck into it.

Oh, did I mention that I passed the first part of the Certificate?? Phew. Only 8 more units to go.

Blog additions

PictureTrail and tigerknits have formed a partnership (Anyone can actually, just sign up at the website)
Yep, I've seen these albums on others' blogs and liked 'em, now I have my own (aint the internet grand)

I want to keep the Flickr badge, cos I like the little scrolling pictures in the sidebar. Must remember to add more so they are not appearing so often.

I've added a PictureTrail link because I can store all the knitting related stuff (like that word 'stuff' - stuff, stuff, stuff - covers so many things I can't put into words. The word 'things' works just as well)
anyway the knitting related stuff can be (what's the word?... 'stuff' won't work here) umm ...divided, no, sorted into different albums and with the thumbnail thingy on the side you get to choose what you look at.

Must knit more cos the albums are a tad on the empty side at the moment. I'll have to take photos of all the scarves I've done in the past. Everyone likes looking at pictures of feathery, floofy, novelty scarves! (remember - look or not it's up to you and if you go and look now you'll be disappointed cos there's not much in there at all )
Might add a dyeing album where I can put all the pics of the yarn I've coloured.

Shhh - yes, I've been online all this time!

Finished socks

I finished the socks at last!
Here's a picture of them, please forgive the stubbly legs. If I hadn't have mentioned them you'd never have noticed, I know.




The cuff is a right twist rib. I especially like the backward loop cast off. Except that I didn't do a backward loop, I just used a yarn over, the tiny holes are barely noticeable. I love the finished look so I think that will be my standard cast off in future.



Here's another shot of the cast off edge. A bit blurry but you can still see the cute stitches.


So I have casted on (?) another pair straight away. This time in Opal magic yellow colourway. I had been saving the Opal for when I improved in my sock knitting. Whoo Hoo I've graduated to Opal!! These socks are for Miss A, a long overdue request for yellow and black socks.

And guess what!!

Last night Miss A and I sat down again to teach her how to knit. We are knitting a scarf for Camel - one of her soft toys who really needs a scarf. After a couple of rows together she was keen to try on her own. A few wobbly rows later and she produced a few even rows of knitting. She squealed 'I'm knitting!' I am so proud of her.

I am making sure that this is a positive time for her as most people recall fondly the person who taught them to knit. I want her to have a good experience, she can get so easily frustrated when things don't turn out the way she plans. Add to that the fact that we live with someone who thinks knitting is a complete waste of time, she won't show her dad as she knows he'll only rubbish her efforts and make fun of it. Makes me sad.

I have to stop here or I'm going to end up recalling every depressing detail of the breakup. Knitting is the one thing to keep my mind off it and stop me from going completely downhill.

Besides this is 'sposed to be a happy, cheery, friendly, little knit blog. So I'll pull myself together and go and knit socks. (after browsing the internet for a few hours) Miss A has gone out with her dad for the afternoon, yeah the stress-free weekend did not eventuate, but that's a whole 'nother story :)

Aaw she found me!! :)

I am sitting here giggling!
I had been dropping little hints to my Secret Pal as to my real identity (I feel like a superhero, "noone must find out my true identity hahahaha") for the duration of Secret Pal 7.
She found me, giggle.
I was at the zoo a few weeks ago and while browsing in the souvenir shop I came across a bookmark of a tiger, a real close up of it's eyes. Love tiger's eyes! So I couldn't resist adding it to the parcel and letting her know that there was a clue in there. Tiger bookmark = tigerknits.
I have had a great time with SP, I am glad I decided to participate, I have met a really nice person in my spoilee and what a coincidence it was to find out that although she now lives in the US she lived in my town for awhile. That was freaky. I hope we continue to keep in touch, I know I'll visit her blog. Yay, now I can add it to my links section.

On the flip side, I can't wait to find out who is SP for me. She is spoiling me so good!

So this SP thing is more than just sending/receiving gifts, it's about new friendships being made and I suspect that the people who volunteer their time to organise it knew about this all along!

Normal blogging returns...yay!

Finally have a few things I can blog about. (and the time too)

Firstly, and I'm going to get this out, I know you don't want to here anymore about the AngelYarns saga. But it is only fair if I blog the bad then I blog the good:
Angelyarns has finally contacted me and are very apologetic and sympathise with my plight.
They have had email and staff issues and are working hard to put things right.
I had a lovely email from the owner and she has looked into the problem and has organised for the correct Kiddy Print to be sent to me asap. They have even let me keep the incorrect yarns! So I will definitely put them to good use. Thank you Angelyarns.com!


Ok back to normal blogging as promised earlier.

I have been bitten by the sock bug again and have really enjoyed kniting these socks. The best part was when I tried them on and the heel fits really well. Ok, I think I short rowed down too far but I'll remember that for the next pair (12 sts instead of 9)

I use the Crazy Heels and Toes method of 2 socks on 2 circulars. She works her heels differently, there are no stitches to pick up in the gusset, you knit that at the same time. It took me hours to knit the heels and I do mean hours. I have to set a side a day for it. The first heel took 4 hours and the second went quicker at 3.5 hours. I must admit I was getting really shitty whilst doing the heels, so frustrating taking so long. BUT all was forgiven when I found I had great fitting heels at the end of it.

I have tried dpns and a shorter circular, but this is the method that's working for me. So I am going to stick with this.

For the cuffs I am knitting the Baby Cable Rib from Sensational Knitted Socks. Must say I hate find ribbing tedious and to have to do the whole cuff in rib is awful slow going.

The yarn used is Patonyle that I dyed myself using Ashford Acid Dyes. I skeined the yarn and dyed it in quarters: pink,blue,pink,blue. Where the colours mixed are varying shades of purple.

Spotlight has 20% off all yarns until Sunday. These came home with me:

Some more mohair. This is Moda Vera 'Sentiments'. Couldn't resist the colour. Now I just have to find a nice, easy shawl pattern. Still thinkin' 'bout what to do with the Knitting Olympics effort that's sitting there. So if you know of a nice triangular shawl pattern that's really easy to knit let me know.

This is some cheapo acrylic that Spotlight seem to be overflowing with that I liked the colour of (good thing I'm not buying a car, cos we all know I buy things by colour!) I haven't used 100% acylic for socks so not sure how they'll work out.

This one is the same as above, el cheapo acrylic, and yep this reminded me of the ocean so I thought it'd be good for the Shoalwater Shawl. I was hoping to get the Magnum Prints in the bluey/green colourway but the girls at Spotlight say it's been discontinued!! As you can see I am by no means a yarn snob, if it's a pretty colour doesn't matter if it's cheap sh*t, I'll buy it.

Lesson learnt: Just because your yarn is expensive doesn't mean your project'll turn out better. See the KO shawl from previous posts.

On a more private note:

I would love to be able to blog like Crazy Aunt Purl. I can totally relate to the whole finding out who you are thing after a relationship bust up. She puts into words how I feel about my marriage breaking up. You wonder where you went for 12 years and you come to the realisation that you don't want him back, you want you back, but the future is so scary now. Knitting has helped calm my mind and it's easy to concentrate on just forming neat stitches when everything else seems to be chaotic. It's the one thing I can control and it's not turning out so bad, it's something good in a fog of yuck.

Another good thing is that Mr Ex has gone away for the weekend and I can relax and not worry about that stuff for a bit. I guess he could've said 'seeya' or am I expecting too much? I find it, not sentimental, but sad when he can't even give me the time of day after 13 years!

Oh Dear

Guess what was waiting for me to collect today?

A parcel from angelyarns. Yep, really.

They still cannot get it right!
3 balls of Kiddy Print 600 is not the same as Opaline 600. (the colour is similar though I must add)
One magazine does not equal two magazines.
However this will have to do.

There was no message in the parcel, no - sorry, here's your stuff, can't find the Kiddy Print hope this yarn will do.

I don't know about you but I expect more from a company, I expect them to answer my emails, I expect them to send me exactly what I order and pay for. I expect an email or a note in the parcel if they can't send what I have ordered.

And they obviously got my emails, cos they wouldn't have known they sent me the wrong yarn in the first place!! Sheesh. One word: "communication" - hit the reply button.

I give up, I'm going to have a nice cold Iced Coffee, a custard tart, and a bit of a lay down.


And that's all I have to say about that.

Normal blogging will return shortly, I promise -(I do, honest)

Congratulations Olympians

Congratulations to all the Olympians whether you finished or like me, you did not.
I can't believe jumpers were knit in 16 days (I think it ws 16 days) and not just plain jumpers either, intricate designs! And pomatomus socks! I'm happy to complete stocking stich socks!!
Well done everyone!!



On another note, the person who commented regarding my angelyarns order...
As you didn't leave me an email address to contact you on I have submitted another contact form through the website. I also 'googled' your name and found an address for you that I hope is correct.
I am keen to get this sorted out asap.

If emailing this time fails, I have added an 'email me' link so that you can contact me easily (you know where I am, I on the other hand cannot contact you) So I am crossing my fingers.