Cardigardening

I realised that despite all my knitting over the last year and a half I had a distinct lack of cardigans. Jumpers overflowing, but very few cardies.

Well, that's not too hard to rectify...

February...

April...

And I also got around to buying and sewing in the zip for my hoodie jacket - I bought the yarn for this from a spinner/dyer on Lewis many many years ago (I guess the 1990s) when visiting my cousin Margaret and her husband Donald. Knitted the jacket last year. Zip only waited 9 months...

And possibly late April, more likely May:

Just finished blocking the body, first sleeve on the needles. I have no idea how this will turn out. I had 4.25 skeins left of this gorgeous Jaeger 4-ply silk that I got as an absolute bargain in 2011 and couldn't find a pattern I liked to use it. So I am making up my own...

I have also been busy in the garden. I finished weeding the LBE a couple of days ago - see April photo. And yesterday I started on the veggie patch. After my first abortive attempt when the weather gods sent down an onslaught of hail the moment my hands were covered in dirt I got back out an hour later and got in a good session.

This gives a good indication of the state it was in after a year of neglect due to last year's weather and my frozen shoulder. I actually got the next bed cleared as well by end of play yesterday evening.

Oh, and I have also bought some more yarn. 700g of organic merino aran. That was my allowed reward for knitting an extra mile over my 12 mile target of last year...

Same Old Same Old

So I haven't blogged in a while. Time moves on but nothing really new happens.

I am still playing scrabble. After doing very little study last year I had my most successful run of results ever. Winning the King's Cup and the Romanian Open, third place in Prague and second in Vienna. My scrabble budget is looking very healthy. Off to Marbella in a week's time with a couple of spare days for R&R. And I've started revising again. Hmm... maybe I should stick to a winning formula, but I guess my luck will run out at some point.

I have managed one short stint in the garden to do a bit of a tidy up. We have been promised that temperatures will pick up just about the time I go away...

But I have been knitting.... and knitting...

I reached my goal of a mile a month last year, and a mile+ more:

That's most but not all of my year's labour.

So far this year I have completed another pair of glittens, two lace-weight scarfs, one mohair wrap, two pairs of socks, one cardigan, two cushion covers to finish off some old chenille and one replacement right-hand glove for the one I lost in Vienna. Another 2.2 miles of yarn. And I am well on my on another cardigan - body done and about a third of the first sleeve.

And I haven't bought any yarn for over 15 months!!!

And this is what I have left...

Main stash:

Partials/Scraps:

Twelfth Sweater of the Year

I finished my twelfth pair of socks of the year a week ago - another of my own design to use up leftovers with a simple colourwork design:

And now I am working on my twelfth sweater of the year... Okay, I am including a sleeveless top in the category but even so...

I am making use of my new knitting books that I got for my birthday. MIL asked me what I wanted and then said to get them and she would pay for them. So three bargain second hand Harmony Guides including Aran stitches. And then from myself, to make up for Paul's complete fail on my birthday front, I sent off for Ann Budd's new handy book of top-down sweaters and a second hand copy of Barbara Walker's Second Treasury of Knitting Stitches from the USA, which seemed to be most people's choice when the topic came up in Ravelry discussions.

So I decided the time had come to make my own design cabled jumper. I sat down with my stitch dictionaries and chose which cable patterns I would like.

And then I made another spreadsheet... I have to say I have found that a colour chart for the cables is soooo much easier to read than all the standard chart abbreviations for C4B, C5F, RT, LT etc! I have laid it out so that the colour key is aligned with the use of it in the chart and I just have to glance at it to know what I am supposed to be doing.

Although I decided to make this in the round, bottom up I have also been making use of the sweater book for reverse engineering as far as possible my neck and for the sleeve cap shaping. My head has been spinning on the subject of sleeve caps as I decided I wanted saddle shoulders and my chosen cable panel for the saddle was wider than the examples. So the sleeves are being done top down. I am halfway down the first one, and having tried it on this morning I think my adjustments are okay...

Two Twit Twoo

I was very kindly gifted the knitting pattern by a fellow ravelry member to make the popular Owls sweater by Kate Davies a couple of month back. I was originally planning to knit it using Debbie Bliss Merino chunky that I bought on ebay last year, but the pattern said it suited more rustic yarns.

So I broke into a knitting kit of Alafoss Lopi that I bought in Iceland in 1996 - there were 700g of a nice charcoal black which should be more than enough. As it was, being short in arm and body, I completed the sweater in four and a half days using just 550 grammes!

I have ordered buttons from Ebay - cheaper to buy 600 buttons from China than the 38 required for the Owl's eyes in the UK. They should arrive in a couple of weeks time...

And then I decided to go straight ahead and make another one...

I have a cunning plan.

Janet gave me some Icelandic Soft Spun yarn earlier this year - not enough to make a sweater on its own but it is an almost perfect match for the remaining Alafoss Lopi from the kit. It should be enough to make the body and sleeves up to the owls. And then I will finish off the black for the owls which should mean that any slight variation in colour on the top of the yoke/neck will not be noticeable.

Using Up The Scraps

I finished knitting  my Interlock Socks and am really happy with them.

And posted them on Ravelry.

And someone sent me a message saying they would love to test knit them. So I wrote up the pattern and posted it in the Free Pattern Testers forum. I now have half a dozen people testing my pattern and so far the feedback has been good :)

I went straight on to playing with my next idea. Colourwork socks with no stranding to use up those gorgeous scraps of sock yarn. I had great fun making up colour charts and decided to start with a relatively simple one as a test run to prove whether the technique works. And it does!

I wrote up the pattern after sock 1 and proof read/tested it on sock 2, incorporating the comments from my testers above where relevant.

I used Wollmeise Sockenwolle 80/20 Twin as my main colour for these, which is a relatively thick sock yarn and gave me a woman's M width (8") sock with the chosen test chart and needle size.

I am having another test run using thinner sock yarn and a different colourwork design to make a narrower sock.

I have just turned the heel on sock 1. I think I should have gone down a needle size too as I am a slightly loose knitter! These are coming out at about 7.5" width, which is fine for me but half an inch over size small. Once I have finished I will be able to work out the formula for the contrast colours yarn requirements fairly accurately and slot these in to my patterns.

My only problem now is that I am being tempted to break in to full skeins to get 'oddments' for the contrast colours :)

Must...Keep...Knitting...

So as I may or may not have mentioned previously I have been trying to knit a mile a month - I did get rather carried away with restocking my yarn mountain last year. Probably why the blog is looking sad and neglected. Not every month has been successful, but my average is slightly over the target.

I have also got quite in to designing more patterns for myself and am really enjoying letting my more artistic side out. Although I still prefer ordered, geometric artistic rather than chaotic, random, abstract artistic, when it comes to making a knitting pattern. I may no longer design computer programs but I still need to apply rules and symmetry - it is in my nature. Colours, however, can range free within the limitations of the yarns I possess...

And it does have a purpose - to use up those pesky oddments, partial and single skeins. Yeah, I could keep knitting scarfs but there really is a limit. Unlike socks and sweaters...

2000 Triangles Jacket

Patchwork Fields Sweater

Interlock Socks

These are my current project. I have just reached the heel on sock number 2.

The thing with socks is that they are knitted in the round. To use colours you need to either knit it all the way round or carry it along the inside until it is needed again. And that can be a pain in the a**e. Especially when switching from one needle to the next - too loose and you get ladders, too tight and you may not be able to get the sock on over your heel.

This pattern is actually very simple. On the rounds with two colours I am only ever knitting two consecutive stitches in the same colour so I don't have long floats and no need to catch the alternating colour down - switching needles is not a problem. And each round slips the colours across by one stitch so no need to twist the yarns. And I am carrying the pattern all the way around the foot and leg.


But for patterns where colour work is only wanted on the front/top of foot... I have been contemplating this for quite a while now... And think I may have come up with something that could be quite interesting and fun... well, if you are a sock knitter.

King's Cup 2012 Part 2

What can I say? I am shocked and so happy!

I went in to day 4 lying in 6th place, with Thacha almost assured a place barring meltdown on 19 wins, Goutham on 17, Taewan and Pakorn on 16, and Alastair on 15 and slightly better spread than me. And another 4 players also on 15 with worse spread...
I knew that I probably needed to win 5 out of 6 and for Thacha to keep winning to stand a chance of making the final in second place, but didn't really think I stood a hope. Four would probably guarantee I was in the prizes. Okay, just take it a game at a time.

Taewan first, one win ahead of me but inferior spread. A good win, helped by a couple of attempts at a non-existent bingo early in the game by Taewan, but I am still in 6th but have made up some ground, being now only one win behind second place. Pakorn had beaten Thacha - bad for me, Gautham lost to Alastair - good for me, Jakkrit had a large win and thus overtook me on spread.

Pakorn next - MUST WIN game. Pakorn opened with GALAX for 42, but I had YODLING sitting on my rack. And I came through, suddenly finding myself in second place when Thacha beat Alastair and Gautham and Jakkrit also both lost. And suddenly Vannitha had leapt up to third place. Five of us now on 17 wins and Thacha out in front on 20.

I had Goutham next, and after having lost to him twice already in the tourney I at last got to show him that I can play. A big win - spread was very likely to decide the second place and another 211 points did me no harm whatsoever.

A very short lunch break - I had time for a ciggie, pee, and grab a coffee - as we had started slightly late (a knock-on affect from playing Pakorn the round before) and had run our clocks right down. Luckily I still had a small muffin and bananas in my bag.

Thacha next. Hmm. He started with WIREMAN for 82. I had ELOOOOT... Not quite what I had wanted but I dumped (M)OOLOO for 9. He bingoed with CLAWERS for another 87. I would like to say I performed a miracle, but did manage to get the losing spread down to double figures. Back to third place, Pakorn now a win ahead again.

Thacha was now Gibsonised so pairings were king-of-the-hill from second place, so Pakorn again. I started with a bonus and never looked back.


Game 29. The winner between myself and Jakkrit would make the final. Pakorn needed to win and us to draw...


Jakkrit started with HOG. I dumped DANIO below it, holding another AN. This apparently blocked Jakkrit's bonus so he started a farmyard theme, playing off PIG. I bingoed on move 4 to take a healthy lead on a semi blocked board, and maintained control. With a 60+ lead and holding a blank I declined playing a face-value bonus in the only bonus line, that opened a 9-x, but dumped off DE for a mere 13, keeping EIST?. Jakkrit played onto a triple, giving me a floater for a safe bingo of lAMITE(R)S. A pick of AEINSZ? meant I was home and dry.


I had 27/58 blanks, but much more importantly only a few games where a had prolonged runs of unbalanced racks.

My nicest bonuses were J(I)HADEEN and B(A)RnEYI(N)G, both against Nigel in a game I lost.

For those of you who are interested details of the whole event, including the final, can be found here.