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“I’m not buying any yarn”, I said. Repeatedly, in fact. I was merely going accompany my visitor to Loop and not buy any yarn. “I’m stashbusting”, I said. “I don’t need any more yarn”, I said. “I’m really not going to buy any more yarn”, I claimed.
I am weak.
We walked in and the next thing I knew, I was petting two skeins of Louise Harding Alpaca like they were kittens. Somehow, I found myself in the queue with three skeins clutched in my sticky paws. But it was only a minor aberration, I said. I certainly wasn’t going to buy any more yarn.
I mentioned my weakness, right?
After lunch, I ended up back in the store. It was all perfectly justifiable. I was going to design my first pattern. We were going to sit in a cafe and knit. I needed needles to knit with! I was just going to buy the needles! Honest!
Best laid plans of mice and men…
Somehow, and I’m really not sure how, I walked out of there with not only the needles but also three skeins of GGH Mystik in a beautiful sea green. Completely baffled as to how this happened. I swear!
But it’s okay. I have plans for these skeins. They’ll be my first patterns. There are beads involved. Possible a set of patterns! Definitely not an entirely random purchase, I say, back-pedalling madly and attempting to track down my wallet, which has scuttled off to hide in self-defence.
I’m serious about the patterns though.
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Sssh, I’ve managed to get internet access in my flat by dint of an unsecured wifi somewhere in the vicinity. Sky are apparently coming this weekend but I’ve given up holding my breath. Instead, here have some of the things I’ve made recently(ish) and can now post photos of.
First up, a necklace. It’s double-stranded and the beads are a mix of artificial pearls and some vintage jet beads. There’s a set of earrings to match.
I’m very pleased with this necklace, I needed something to go with my work Christmas party outfit and ended up making the set in one night, after poking about in my bead boxes and experimenting with the stranding.
I also did some stitchmarker commissions and now that both sets have been received, I can post pictures. Hooray! Set #1 was a set of eight using some lovely navy (the flash makes them look purple) scrunchy beads and some beautiful yellow-blue glass beads and set #2 was a set of six, made using Czech glass beads in shades of blue.
Knitting wise, I’m doing some stash busting at the moment, so my current on-the-needles project is the single cable scarf from One Skein. It’s an easy cable pattern (eight lines, so easy to memorise!) and it’s using up two skeins of a worsted weight purple wool I picked up from the bargain bin at Stash. It’s very pretty and I shall take photos soon.
Once that’s done, I need to get a couple baby knits done for impending cousin and some more stash busting in the shape of a One Skein Wonder in some grey DK that’s been lurking in my stash for awhile.
And hopefully, there won’t be such a gap between posts in the future!
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I am still alive. I swear I am. I’m just sans internet due to an ongoing battle with Sky and BT in regards to internet in my flat. I do have internet at work (which is going fabulously) but lacks such marvels as the ability to use a usb pen and thus all my photos of recent knits are still living on my laptop.
But I have defeated socks! My first pair are finally finished and my second pair took all of a week. The third pair have hit a small slump but I think that was mostly due to a cold weather increase of commuters on my train which means I don’t always get a seat and thus can not commute knit as easily. Bah.
I’m starting on Christmas knitting and my cousin and his wife have announced that we have an incoming relative, so there is more baby knits (and i-cord, eeek.) in my future. And hopefully soon – some photos.
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So, a while back I submitted a pattern to magknits, which was accepted for the October issue. The pattern itself was the result of one of those “Oh, shiny! Oh, soft!” purchases, leading to the, “Mmm, soft. Mmm, shiny. Mmm… what the hell do I do with this now?” aftermath. In this case, the trigger was the Debbie Bliss pure silk that had just come out.
Here it is, and months later, I’m still pleased with the patterns (though not so much with the pictures).
On a vaguely related note, Purlescence are running a series of competitions. I’m debating putting the shrug I made for Madam A up for the “Cindarella” one, since it was designed to go over a pretty dress, and is both sparkly and soft. I did finish it, by the way, but didn’t get around to taking any pictures before handing it over. Fingers crossed I’ll get some pics from Madam A later.
It did work out rather well, in the end– it fit, the sleeves looked good. I did end up doing (and then redoing looser) some single-chain crochet around the edge in the frosty wool, which worked well as an accent, but wasn’t so much it irritated.
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Instead of packing, I have been busy experimenting with necklaces and so far, so good!
The one to the left is the most recent one. Silver chain and some lovely blue and white acrylic beads that I picked up on a whim at my local shiny crack dealer bead stall. I’ve got a bunch more in other colours and I’m really quite taken by them. It’s hard to describe and didn’t show up in the photo but they look fairly solid colourwise and then you get one spot that realy catches the light and looks quite pearlesque. The wire cages were also an impulse buy (hell, most of my bead haul this weekend was impulsive…) and I really like them. I’m considering matching earrings but they’ll have to wait till the Saturday market rolls around again.
This necklace was my first attempt and I really like how it turned out. It’s longer than most of my necklaces are but I’ve decided I like this length. It came about after I went rooting through the pick and mix beads (always my downfall!) and found the first heart. After some poking and sifting, I found a bunch more and the rest was history.
Plus, it’ll go lovely with my camisole, if I ever finish it. The decreases always seem to take longer than the increases but it’s slow and steady and getting there. I got bits of it done today inbeween baking steak and kidney pies for the freezer and brownies from the Green and Black’s Chocolate cookbook (aka: yet another impulse buy from the half-price bookstore of doom.). I have the baking willpower of something very…lacking in willpower.
:resolutely ignores the Brownies lurking in the kichen:
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Look what the postman brought me this morning! A parcel full of shiny things from the lovely Katie.
Four packets of shiny seed beads in reds and pinks, which have been carefully added to my bead box of doom. Plus some soap and a lovely knitted washcloth, which is somewhat obscured and then lurking at the very back because I didn’t want to put it in the sun, a bar of Divine milk chocolate. Mmmmmm!
This is what the washcloth looks like when it’s not obscured by other shiny things.
Thank you, Katie! This has really made my day! :squishes you:
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I’m about to dash down to London again, this time for flathunting (aieeee!) and and Jam is currently bound for Sweden for a week, so there will be silence here for a wee bit.
But I leave you with something I found while sorting boxes: a blast from my crafty past.
Carefully sewn together – complete with terrible hand sewing after stuffing – at Primary school in South Africa, in Arts and Crafts. There’s a small treasure trove of this sort of stuff in boxes somewhere, from another cusion that was much beloved of my first cat to a skirt that I repeatedly sewed to myself (don’t ask) in Home Ec in Ireland.
I like this cushion still, the pattern on the material is lovely (the back is the solid sunflower material) and I have added it to the cushions on my bed.
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I’m back from my heady week of travelling – London and Manchester in the space of one week! It was an enjoyable and successful week. I spent a lot of time at Jam’s where we knitted, cooked and demonstrated our amazing lack of willpower. I may have spent mumblemumble on beads but you can’t prove anything!
I also returned home as a graduate with a conditional job offer to boot! Yes, my BSc (web content management, if you were wondering) is completely and totally done and in September, I start down the road to becoming a Librarian when I grow up, with a year in a very awesome London library before I do my Masters.
But far more important than that! While I was down at Casa Jam, she taught me how to knit socks!
I’m a big fan of circs and magic loop, so she taught me the invisible toe cast on from Knitty and off I went. It’s a toe-up in self-patterning yarn and I ♥ it. The actual sock is almost done now but my camera needs new batteries so it’ll have to wait. I’m all kinds of giddy! There’s one or two flaws but nothing that some darning won’t fix and all in all, it’s looking damn good for a first sock attempt.
Aside from socks, my copy of the Wee Wonderfuls 3-1 put together bear, bunny and kitty book arrived in the post while I was gone and I look forward to trying them out once my needle holder and shoulder bag are brought out of hiatus.
And on the beady side of things, there’s been two birthdays in my circle of family and friends and both of them enjoy earrings, so as part of the year of ‘crafty presents’, I made these.
The green and pearl set were a birthday present for my cousin Jen, who kindly put me up when I wasn’t lurking at Jam’s and the red and clear set went to my flatmate Becky, whose birthday we celebrated along side my graduation this weekend. Both went down a treat.
I have some more plans up my sleeve now, including my first necklace. :rubs hands:
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So, my cousin had her baby which meant we could give her this:
Nothing terribly interesting. It’s the basic SnB baby-blanket knitted on nice, artesano alpaca (two strands held together). The only modifications were the addition of edge stitching. It was nice, actually, knitting something with my mum, partly for the sense of continuity, partly because she has very nice, even stitches, but also for the sense of power and authority I got from explaining little bits to her.
The blanket was designed to go with the modified leafy convertible- knit so that my cousin could get something and it wasn’t all for the baby, knit in the same yarn, but single-stranded.
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I’ve been on a slight craft hiatus this week. Family have been visiting so all my crafty things have mostly been packed up to make space for them. The most I’ve managed to do is a couple rounds on my Ravenclaw scarf while travelling to Whitby (rather appropriate as we also went to Goathland, which is better known as being Hogsmeade Station) and finishing off the left front piece to Baby’s First Tattoo.
I did however teach my youngest cousin to knit and she left this morning clutching a somewhat holey swatch with some interesting increases but she knitted it all herself so she’s happy.
She also made cooing noises over The Bead Box of Doom, so I made her these earrings:
Mostly Czech glass that I brought home from Prague, so definately one of a kind earrings. (at least, till I go back and hope that the shop is still there/still sells them. :g:)
I’m off down to London on Sunday for job interviews and while I’m down, I am meeting up with Jam for knitting and bead shopping, so no doubt there will be a few posts next week revolving around the shininess of the beads and how weak our willpower is.
Although, that said – I went round Bobbins (website seems to be down, boo) in Whitby and did not buy a thing. Not even the tinniest hank of the shiny shiny yarn. This was partly due to the fact that I’d left my wallet in the car, though. :cough:
Lost: Ability to not spend money, answers to the name ‘Argh’