Smooshy shawl

This is my latest wheeze made from Smooshy Dream in Colour sock yarn. It's a complex tale as the yarn was bought to match a top to be worn at Number 1 son's wedding. However, I've ditched that idea and decided to make it into a lace shawl which featured in Winter 2007 / 08 Vogue Knitting ( pattern number 5 ). Yes folks, I'm following someone else's pattern again!

This pattern is a Lily Chin one classed as intermediate. It's described as an allover lace shawl with mitered corners and worked from the neck down. If you are a lace knitter it's not remotely difficult but what does take a little work is fitting the pattern in to the increases.Only 16 rows of the pattern are charted and then it says to work all increase stitches into the pattern ( there are 8 increases on every right side row. I feel this is letting the knitter down in the worst way as there are no further specific instructions until the last 2 rows of the shawl. Yes, I can knit this pattern, but then I'm a confident lace knitter who has designed her own patterns. I'm sure there will be many knitters who might like to make this, purchase the yarn, start knitting and then realise they can't cope with the project. NAUGHTY! - anyway rant 1 over.

Rant 2 : why do executives of major companies lie? Viz : BA chaos at Terminal 5 but "no long haul flights have been affected." I beg to differ - Number 2 son due to return from Calgary to Terminal 4 yesterday but there was no plane! The plane was in the wrong place! So he is flying, as I blog , via Houston in Texas ( don't ask! ) and hopefully arriving today but of course not on BA ( thanks, Continental ). His companions are flying via other North American airports - chaos on the ground and in the skies. Do you wonder why I am not planning to fly anywhere this year?

Is it any wonder that we knit to avoid stress?

Argosy finito!

I am very pleased with this. Readers who saw my earlier postings will know this pattern is from the In a Happy Camper site ( link left ). It's warm, which is very necessary at the moment and I will probably make another in a lighter weight yarn. I will make the next one a little wider, but had this one been wider, and therefore heavier, I think it would have been too much.

The pattern quotes 8 balls of Noro Kureyon with very little left over, but I was into the 9th by the time I'd finished. This is no hardship as I can use the remaining yarn in freeform projects. I blocked the wrap by steaming it over a dry cloth and it has worked a treat. There is no bed in the house long enough to take this without folding and I could not block it on the carpet in case furry friends decided to take up residence on it.

Back to work tmrw after the Easter break - a busy week with a follow up visit to hospital and the return of the prodigal son from Canada. Happy days!

Noro fest

These gloves were made last weekend using a pattern from the book above - Noro designer mini knits. It contains small achievable items such as mittens, gloves, scarves, hats, socks and shrugs made from various Noro yarns. Just the sort of things I like to make! The gloves took 1 ball of Cashmere Island which I can recommend for softness. Clearly, if you wanted matching gloves you would need 2 balls; this doesn't worry me as I like the quirkiness of toning, but not matching, items. The gloves are made on 2 needles and sewn up the side. I have never done this before but they worked out fine.I bought the book from Get Knitted and the yarn from John Lewis who have now broadened their scope from the usual Rowan / Jaeger axis. I also got 2 balls of the same yarn to make elbow length gloves - woo hoo! Pattern is in the book.

To knitting group last night where Dani showed us a Cash Iroha shrug cape she has just finished - very lovely in a fab purple shade. Most people are still doing socks - is there a more useful travel project out there?

I'm grateful to Tracey for the tip off for another website http://www.astridsdutchobsessions.com/ ; this sounded vaguely obscene until I realised it was a yarn website with lots of lovely lace and sock yarns. Tracey knows my taste very well!

Happy Easter to all my readers.

Resurrected in time for Easter!

Apologies to those who are offended by my play on words above. I've been missing because my laptop died but it has been repaired courtesy of John Lewis and is now working. Something to do with the motherboard ( Motherf...... - I called it ).
It made me aware how reliant I am on my computer. I can use my work one for lots of things but not for blogging or Facebook ( understandable! )
Anyway - back soon with more knitting related stuff!

Yarn Harlot visit

Yarn Harlot a.k.a. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is visiting the IKnit show in London in September. Tickets are available online from www.iknit.org.uk for £14 incl. lecture from Yarn Harlot or £9 for the show only. Tickets went on sale yesterday and I was happy to get one. Although I only live 20 miles from London, I rarely venture there as I find it a grubby and stressful experience most of the time. However, this should be worth the trip.

Yarn Harlot's blog ( see link left ) is one of the better ones out there ( says she whose own blog is so good! ) She hails from Toronto, Canada and has a lot of humorous things to say about the world of knitting. Her books are a good read too.

Meanwhile, on the knitting front, Argosy is progressing well although I'm a little annoyed at the number of knots in some of the balls of Kureyon! At group,Dani showed us photos of her "hommage" to Vivienne Westwood - a felted top with applied leaves. Get the girl a blog I say!

There were 13 of us this week which made for a jolly party.

My first week back at work was OK though a little tiring. Good to get back in the routine though!