Getting busy

Until we get past exchanging contracts I’m not getting busy packing boxes, so I’m making the most of these last few days to sit down as much as possible, and also to knit as much as I have time for. I get the impression that February might be a bit of a write off, craft wise, and I’ve got a cardigan which I’m making for myself that I’d like to be able to wear this winter. I’m nearly up to the armpits now, so I’m reasonably confident I will finish it before the weather warms up significantly. Hopefully I’ll have a picture of where I’m up to by the end of the week. Hopefully, also by the end of the week, I should have photos of a pile of boxes!

Bonus Baby, judging by the size of me, is growing well (23 weeks tomorrow!). I’m getting regular internal gymnastics displays, which are really reassuring, and I’m starting to let myself plan more. I’ve got a line of jumpers and cardigans queued up, both in my mind and on Ravelry.com to make before May! My sister-in-law is hoping that I’ll be making a couple of matching jumpers for Bonus Baby and my niece – could be good, even if only for the photos we’ll be able to show them when they’ve grown up!

Next week will be all about planning for the move some more. I’ve worked out a couple more places that I could stack a pile of boxes in the flat, so I’m not quite so concerned that I’ll need to pile boxes up on the front lawn now! I’m also going to have to clear out some more rubbish, which on the plus side means I’ll have less to pack!

My three boys (I include my husband in that!) are treating me like a princess. Regular drinks and food are provided by one or the other, together with unlimited cuddles and back rubs. And when GG and Cheeky went out for bread and milk a couple of evenings ago, they came back with red roses for me. I could get used to this! It makes the stiff joints and the slowing down completely worth it!

Rediscovering the yarnie mojo

I’ve just spent two hours or more shopping online for yarn. Not fun. I want to make a Velvet Morning cardigan for myself but the recommended yarn is 1. from America (which would take aaaaaaages to be delivered) and 2. far too expensive for a cardigan for me. Even though I absolutely love the blue yarn they use. So I needed to find a substitute. I was hoping to go for a Rowan or Debbie Bliss merino or pure wool blend and I even went wool smooshing (which is squishing and judging general yumminess, NOT stealing as my lovely husband suggested!) in John Lewis yesterday to get some inspiration. But when I went to find a good deal online today, the best deal I could find still involved me paying upwards of £120 to get enough yarn for just one cardigan! Needless to say that was way out of my budget, and I’ve not found a cardigan in existence which I would value at that. So I found a cheaper alternative, a James C Brett Aran with Wool. I’ve used James C Brett yarns before and they were nice so I’m hoping this one will be too. I’m still spending about £45 on the yarn, but it comes in big 400g balls, and so I will have about 300g of each of the three contrast colours left with which I can knit lots of lovely things for our niece, little M.

My knitting mojo definitely abandoned me last year. I did one large project, a baby blanket for little M, two little cardigans also for her and a handful of scarves and other small items. I’m hoping to really get back into the swing of things in this coming year, including getting back into dyeing again. Luckily I’d built up a decent collection of hand dyed yarns because I’ve not done any more dyeing since last spring. But my stocks are running a little low, so I’ll have to sit myself down and think of some good colourways shortly.

With regard to what I want to knit this year, I’d like to do my cardigan as soon as possible, so that I can get plenty of wear and enjoyment out of it before the weather warms up. I’ve been wanting to make GG a jumper for years and have never got round to it, so hopefully this will be the year for that too. I have plans for gloves or mittens for each of my three boys (GG is counted as one of my boys, obviously!) and something nice for my friend M for her birthday in September (I won’t say what on the off chance she comes and has a look!). I’m going to make a few things for little M, at least one jumpery/cardigany thing in each age range, which means at least three with the first one due in February when she hits six months old. Plus I’m planning some general non-specific items which can go on the stall once I go back to the market or can be put aside for next year’s Christmas presents. So, there’s enough to keep me busy for a while!

Reading that back, it sounds a bit optimistic. But I know that if I knuckle down, and don’t waste time in front of the TV in the evenings by having idle hands, I can get an awful lot done in a year. It will be interesting to look back in a year and see what I did achieve in 2012. Here’s to a good year!

Socks

I’ve been knitting and crocheting regularly and consistently for some time now, but the next project I plan to take on is a pair of socks for myself. I’ve never made a pair of socks before, and so I’d love some advice please! I’ve looked on Ravelry, and there are so many patterns to choose from that I’m quite lost!

So, to all sock knitters, what thickness of yarn should I use? Indeed, what sort of yarn should I choose? DPNs, or circular needles? And can anyone recommend an easy pattern for me to try out the first time? Please help!

I’ll be very grateful for any and all advice!

Easter Weekend, part three – was I supposed to resist the wool?

On our way to our holiday house in Dolau, I saw this sign;

Of course, my yarn-shop starved brain screamed to GG to make an emergency stop as soon as I saw the sign, and of course he refused! However, my brilliant best friend Maria took pity on me and we called in there on our way back from a trip to Llandrindod Wells to buy milk.

 This was the view of the back of the shop, and the entrance (sort of in between the ex-tree trunk pillars, bottom left-ish of the photo). The shop itself seemed to focus a little more on made up goods rather than materials, but there was a decent selection of specialist yarns in a corner upstairs, as well as some wool for felting which was very tempting but I managed to resist! However, Maria is a bad influence on me, and on finding some skeins of hand dyed laceweight kid mohair, neither of us could resist. We’re planning a weekend away later in the year, and we both have visions of wearing light and pretty shawls while wandering around our chosen destination! So, to our choice of yarn.

 As I’ve said, the yarn is a laceweight kid mohair (and soooooo gorgeous to handle), and we spent ages agonising over the different shades available. In the end, Maria chose this pale green with hints of peach, and I chose the marbled blues below. Neither picture (taken in the evening in our farmhouse) really does credit to the glory of the colours, but I was determined to have these wound into balls before coming home, and so this was the last chance I had to photograph them before they looked like colourful tennis balls! I’ll be sure to photograph the finished articles one I get through them (definitely a May or June project!), and hopefully in the right light you will be able to see how lovely the yarn is.