Cold Feet in Summer

January 2015 seems to have been a month of odd urges for instant knitting gratification for me. So, when I was cleaning up the massive magazine collection and found these, I knew I had to make slippers in the height of Summer! (Actually really Summer has been a bit of failure this year - a bit heavy on the rain and cool temperatures - not enough sunshine. Slippers in the middle of summer is not really that weird this year).

I have to admit it was partially the colour combination that attracted me to this pattern so I went stash diving for blue and brown. The brown tweed is leftovers from the boy's Graeme Street Slouch and the blue is my last two balls from my pi shawl Smoked Camp pi. They look cool together (more than cool in fact) and are on the thin side for DK so not too hard to work double.

I had a major issue when I got to inserting the waste yarn for the opening for the cuff. It seemed to be in the wrong place. A little voice in my head said, if you put the hole there, it stuffs up how the toe lies. Did I listen to the little voice? Not really! (I never do and always regret it later!) I did check my working from the pattern and was happy I’d followed it correctly. So I did the hat heel (Cool idea that) and completed the cuff and tried the slipper on and it fits and it’s gorgeous and the toe is all screwed up and twisted around and my knitter OCD is engaged big time. I had to frog it (or partially frog it) once I figured out where the stuff up was.

The best way to figure it out? Knit the second one! So I cast on for the tab for the toe, and followed the pattern, increasing around according to the pattern. And then it hit me. I KNEW WHERE I HAD MADE MY MISTAKE on the first slipper. Yes, right at the beginning! I was a silly, over-confident, I’m an experienced knitter and I don’t need to use a stitch marker kind of mistake! In the first knit round without shaping, I’d assumed the yarn tail was the beginning of the round (AND IT WASN’T). So all the shaping from that point was out of alignment and we all know where that little error ended up… So Slipper one got  frogged and reknit…

Slipper two was a walk in the park except for some yarn chicken at the end of the cuff. I ended up with about 1 m of the blue left at the end.

The re-knit of slipper one also went smoothly. (Except I had to use that little bit of blue yarn to complete the heel). The cast off is perhaps a little tight due to a spot of yarn chicken again but I’m really happy with the finished product. This was in fact  a fun enough pattern to knit three times. (No second sock syndrome here!)

Toasting my toes in front of the heater. this is not even a posed shot. It was cold enough to have the heater on.

Pattern: Selfoss Slippers by Rosee Woodland
Needles: 3.25 mm and 4 mm dpns
Yarn: Blue grey wool blend and reddish brown tweed upcycled from op shop.


Even after all that I was still feeling some socks but am easing into it by working them at DK weight on big needles. These could also double as slipper socks. This is another pattern that called out to me as I was attempting to tidy, catalogue and potentially cull the magazine collection.... I love Scandinavian type colourwork and the star is such an iconic motif.

These socks had a false start. I did the measuring and dithered between the medium and large sizes. I initially cast on the large size, knitted the band and nearly 30 rows of the colourwork and then tried the leg on. It was WAYYYY too large. (Part of this was probably due to the fact that I was using 3.75mm rather than 3.5mm needles - we don’t have 3.5 mm as a standard size in Australia.). So I frogged it and cast on a medium size instead. This is an addictive colourwork pattern of the" Just one more row" type thing….. (Made redoing the leg again a relatively fun process).

Day one saw the leg colourwork finished. Day two I turned the heel (with tea and breakfast) and finished off the foot (31 rows of colourwork) and the toe. The heel shaping is somewhat different to the Dutch heel I’m used to but fits nicely. The pattern called for decreasing down to eight stitches for the toe and running a gathering thread through similar to fastening off a hat. I decreased down to the eight stitches as suggested but used Kitchener stitch instead (Once I found some instructions to refresh my memory on the sequence). This is tidier but these socks still suffer from pointy toe syndrome.

These are quite a good fit on me. The leg deals nicely with my solid calves and puffy ankle. (Why is it when you are recovering from a damaged ankle, you twist it again just as it is nearly better?) So two days = 1 sock…

I decided I'd better cast on sock two straight away… (Avoid second sock syndrome at all cost). Second socks are always better. You’ve ironed the kinks out on the first one. The only hiccup on the second sock was running out of the cream yarn and having to stash dive scraps to finish the sock.

Pattern: Nordic Star by Eline Oftedal
Needles: 3.75 mm dpns
Yarn:  Panda machinewash 8 ply crepe in cream and blue grey machinewash upcycled from the op shop.

A little bit Chanel

I want to let you in on a little secret of mine. I actually like sewing in ends and sewing up garments. I find it sort of meditative. There's something so satisfying about taking separate pieces and producing a wearable garment.

I often work in cars. If I'm not driving, I tend to need distraction so that I am not the world's worst back seat driver. (I hate other people driving my car but seeing as all my children are old enough to drive, I occasionally have to grit my teeth especially when playing in their neck of the woods. Apparently I drive too country to be allowed to play in the city).

So this is a sunny Saturday afternoon heading for a lovely lunch in down town Mornington. I had my camera with me and the boy decided to capture my delight with my handiwork.

"But what are you sewing up?" I hear you ask. Well this is Graphic Grays, another of my stash to sweater efforts in 2015.

Pattern: #12 Graphic Jacket by Jacqueline van Dillen from Designer Knitting Early Winter 2013.
Needles: 4.5 mm
Yarn: 8 ply Blue grey machinewash bought from op-shop (8.5 balls) and Moda Vera Pure Wool 8ply shade 44 Dark Gray (10 skeins). 

My daughter Melissa went on a giant trip through Europe at the end of 2013. This was part of the Christmas present she bought home for me - Italian and European knitting magazines.  (Best present ever!) This pattern just sang to me - classic, elegant, a little Chanel-like and could double as a jacket / blazer. As a University lecturer, I do have a job that often calls for corporate suiting but I loathe actually wearing a conventional blazer. It feels too restrictive across my back, shoulders and upper arms. To me wearing a blazer / suit jacket is like wearing a straight jacket. I have the same sort of aversion to traditional shirts. This is a nice compromise. I have the world's largest collection of cardigans but this one will take the style formality up that little notch.

Now I don't really have worsted weight yarn in the stash. I wanted to knit this in DK (Australian 8 ply) so swatching was absolutely necessary. Strangely enough, I got gauge first time with the suggested needles (4.5 mm).

Isn't it a pretty swatch? You can really see the pattern properly here.

This was gorgeously addictive colour work. Proper traditional fairisle with only two colours per row, short colour repeats so no long floats to weave in and a easily memorised pattern.

The piece at the front shows the pattern 'in the knitting stage' so to speak. The underneath piece is blocked

Even though this was quick to knit, it was slow to finish. I swatched in January, cast on the sleeves in February, knitted the backs and fronts through the Aussie winter, sewed it up in August and officially finished in October (sewing on the buttons) but didn't get shots of me wearing it till a ridiculously hot day in December!

Let's blame it on the buttons shall we? They were a saga in themselves. The pattern called for self cover knitted buttons. Our local haberdashery has moved to a town a half an hour away so things like this require a planned shopping trip. I couldn't get the size of self cover button I wanted and so compromised on the next size up. Then I got them home and tried to assemble the first button and they were defective. They were missing the little gripped / spiked edge to hold the fabric and the fronts and backs didn't clip together and hold. So it took me a month to make the trip to return them and I couldn't get any self cover buttons that time. (They had been recalled because they were defective - strange that?). So I left with a  refund but no buttons. Finally about 6 weeks later, I had to get a poster printed for an academic conference and had an hour to kill and finally bought some appropriate buttons. It was late September by this time). I did sew the buttons on as soon as I got back from the conference though!

I'd actually worn the jacket without buttons a few times. I'm now looking forward to getting a lot of chances to wear this next winter.

This is the photo that made me realise I really needed a haircut as it's all flyaway again.

Thanks once again to my boy. He may not wash dishes or do housework without a running commentary on the unfairness of life but he has peculiar knack of (a) taking a good photo of me and (b) making the knitwear shine. (I love you Mark!)

Butterfly Kisses for the Doctor

It comes as no great surprise to those who know me that I'm a Dr Who fan. My favorite doctor is the tenth Doctor - David Tennant. I could write an essay on why he's the coolest, sexiest, most interesting Doctor with the best story arcs but this is a knitting blog after all. I'll just post a photo of the most awesome Doctor for you to contemplate (There is a point to this, I promise you).

After last year and all the shawl stuff I still hadn't quite got it all out of the system. I may have wanted to make yet another lace shawl and after much deliberation and hours of time spent squirreling through the Ravelry pattern database, I decided that Nymphadelia was the next lace shawl for the needles. Blue tweed and brown variegated sock yarn together should be cool. (This has the added benefit of using up the stash as is my goal for 2015).

I was right. It is cool!

I was a little dubious about these two yarns together in the ball - variegated yarns often knit up so much differently to how they present as a ball and so I was hopeful it would work like I pictured it in my head. Why this colour combination? I love blue and brown together. It quite frequently features in my wardrobe. This particular blue and brown colour combination is my tribute to the 10th Doctor.  These colours evoke his costume: blue and brown pinstripe suits, a long brown overcoat and converse sneakers (See photo above).

I may have temporarily yarn bombed another statue. It was just the right shade of blue. How could I resist?

And that is part of the inspiration for the name too. The shawl pattern (a free one from Knitty magazine) is called Nymphalidea (the Latin name for one of the largest butterfly families). The colours are 10th doctor inspired. Hence Butterfly Kisses for The Doctor.

I cast on as Day 1 project for Feburary COM over in Village Hopelessly Overcommitted (VHOC). Must say I love the simplicity of the lace and purl ridges and the effect of the variegated yarn. Easy to remember pattern and it’s flying along. I managed 18 repeats of the Wedge D and welt combination in the first day.

The next day I got to 21 repeats and then 24 repeats on Day 3. Day 4 was a day of long train journeys. Prime knitting time. So I finished all 27 repeats. (And I ended up with the correct stitch count as given in pattern! Bonus). The shawl was now in need of aggressive blocking to show off in its full glory! Lace is so messy just off the needles before blocking works its magic.

Pattern: Nymphalidea by Melinda Vermeer - a free pattern from Knitty Deep Fall, 2013
Needles: 4mm
Yarn: Bendigo Woolen Mills 5 ply Colonial in Berry twist - donated stash from my Aunty and Moda Vera Noir sock yarn in Coffee Mix. (I have enough yarn left over to make another one...)

Dealing with Knitting ADHD

I suffer a little bit from Knitter ADHD - also know as the Ooh, Shinny new thing! Syndrome. Now I know this about myself and so I know I need to restrain my impulses or I end up with no needles left to use, a million new cast-ons, piles of WIPs and UFOs cluttering up the house and nothing actually ever getting finished. For me, I find I need to periodically drop the needles, back off from the actual knitting and stock-take and plan. The beginning of a new year is a great time for this.

I did make some New Years Resolutions for 2015. (But they are mostly about my knitting and they are more in the light of challenges I have set myself. On a more personal reinvention to a healthier me note, I also gave up sugar in my tea. That's a real challenge!) I'm sharing them here with you as a form of self motivation and type of self shaming.... If I proclaim it to the world, I'm more likely to follow through aren't I?

All good efforts start with good planning…. I want 2015 to be as awesome a knitting year as 2014 was!

1. Knit up the four jumper lots of yarn that are yelling to be done this year.
2. Find and queue patterns for said jumper lots - One cable for me, one classic cardigan for the boy, a self designed kimono with an asymmetric front, and a self designed garter stitch jumper in a chunky boucle.
3. Apply my free forming skills to the swatch collection - I’m thinking they become a basket.
4. At least one pair of socks this year.
5. Charity knitting that actually gets donated to charity - I tend to need to knit toys on a regular basis - also hats but hoard them.
6. Put the practical bits of the stash on Ravelry - garment and accessory sized batches that are labelled.
7. Buy and knit at least one dream pattern from the queue.
8. Seriously cull the magazine collection - this is my current January summer holiday project… (I also like idea of a long term plan to knit a project from each book/ magazine I own!) Once done stick more of the library on Ravelry.
9. Play along in the useful Rav activities that make me knit productively - COM (Cast on Month in Village Hopelessly Overcommitted) and regular WIP wrestling bouts as well as NaKniSweMo.
10. Try to keep the ratio of Cast ons to WIPs completed at less than 1:1. Finish at least three long term WIPs in 2015.

This looks like a lot but I knit every day so a need a decently ambitious plan.

And I signed up to Cold Sheep (go a whole year without buying any yarn) after a small final fling in early January -  8 mixed balls of browns and greys to have enough to finish Granny wants a latte macchiato and one ball of variegated red for a charity project. And I walked past my favorite op-shop and a sweater weight quantity of delicious dark blue grey sport weight just asked me for a new home at a ridiculous price.

I really, really do have enough yarn to knit from for a whole year and not run out. I do!

I gave myself the following loopholes:

1. Yarn to finish already started projects.
2. Yarn for commissioned projects. (Though the other person can supply this).
3. A free pass for Craft Shows and road trip yarns - but a serious budget limit to be applied here.
4. Shopping my mother’s stash is always allowed.

I seriously did a list of the current UFOs and WIPs. Lists are good. I like lists:

I'm only including the stuff on Ravelry - There are a couple of very old UFOs that haven’t made it to Ravelry yet but they are not on the radar this year.

UFOs (I have to really go digging to unearth these. They are in deep storage. There are only eight though).
AK Traditions Doll
Dead Fox
Dickensian Mouse
Domino Shawl - has a chance at life soon - I know where it is at least….
Gentlemans sampler afghan - next long term knit afghan project - plan devised as part of January 2015 stocktake process.
Longitudinal - damn second sock syndrome.
Of mice and mushrooms - self designed cardigan suffering for a lack of yarn to completely execute plan. A lovely fellow Raveller is sending me 4 balls of yarn so I can execute the original plan….
Order of the Garter - what project? - this is yarn with a plan.

Welcome to the UFO cave

WIPs (Have received recent love. Not in the rotation at the moment though. Only five of these).
A headless bear - needs clothes
Fungus among us - Want to make more fungi and lichen. Have patterns ready.
Monochrome - freeform exploration piece. Being added too as inspiration strikes.
Pallina di natale - one down - lots more to make. Christmas baubles for my daughter’s tree. Little diversions that only take a day or so. The Christmas goat is next.
To tag an owl - Little crocheted owl tags /ornaments - want to make a few more out of the oddments. Planned small diversions.

Current WIPs (I’m not a monongamous knitter. Four at a time is pretty standard).
Anyone got Cable! - the scarf afghan - one scarf to go. Pattern and yarn picked - will be next new project on the needles this month.
Granny wants a latte macchiato - long term granny rug that has just been assembled so far and the crochet hook is out and I am making new squares. About 1/3 finished. It will be queen bed sized….
Pitted Olive - the current knitting project
Swatch buster - free form C/KAL for Jan / Feb 2015. Theme: Polar opposites. Aim: To cover my work tub with all those pesky swatches.

Queue (Burning a hole in my knitting basket waiting its turn)
Sunrise / sunset - We hand dyed the yarn, we have a plan. Next to the needles.

This is typical me. It's nearly the end of January and we're only just letting the plans out in public. The good thing about the delay is that I can report on the progress as well!

So far, I have:

1. Added all the magazines and knitting books that I located to my Ravelry library. (And earmarked about 6 or 7 magazines for sale / trade) (Serious Progress on Resolution #8).
2. Logged all the identifiable stash into Ravelry. (I took lots of photos of yarn...) (Resolution #6 done and dusted!!!)
3. Joined a couple of new Stash busting / Finish a thing and Cold sheep groups on Ravelry. You need your support mechanisms and these types of groups are wonderful.
4. Tried to fit plans to yarn - queued a few patterns, swatched a bit, etc... (This is the subject of next blogpost). (Resolution #2 seriously underway).
5. Decided on a hastag for the year #Stashtosweater.
6. Began wrestling those swatches into a recognizable project form. (Resolution #3 is source of great current enjoyment and knitting challenge).

Oh, and of course I have picked up the needles again I've been knitting up a storm.... (I love holidays)...

2014: A Year in Review

It's 2015! (Or #20swifteen as my cheer-leading future doctor daughter has taken to calling it). New Years Day is about taking stock of the old year and making resolutions for the new year. (Let's leave the resolutions for later, shall we? If you don't make them, you can't break them, right?...)

So here is my stock take of the 2014 knitting. My needles were exceptionally productive this year with 27 separate finished projects in 2014.The year started with cowls and scarves. In the heat of an Australian summer I turned to crochet and made Tweed ruffles. In February, I KALed along with some lovely ladies and I can Cowl if I want to! fairly flew off the needles.

I knitted my life into a cowl - Knitographical. I wrote it's story and exhibited it and the Flat Fox picture in a art exhibition. (And people actually treated it as real art!)

In February in solidarity with knitters all over the world, I plied my needles for the Ravellenics as I watched the Winter Olympics from Sochi in Russia.  Two pairs of mittens had their birth as competitors in both Mitten Moguls and Lace Luge. (That's Steampunk on Toast on the left and Oyster Shell on the right)

I made toys... Lots of toys. I spent my lazy January holiday assembling long neglected toys. (See The Great Sew-up-a-thon). I KALed along throughout the year and bent the rules of COM (Cast On Month) to cast on a new toy piece a day. (Clockwise from top left, Nativity camel, Intrepid Fox, A headless bear - clearly he's not headless anymore, Fit to scare children, Christmas sheep, Jean Greenhowe Teddy, Mike the Monkey, Tropical bird and Rabbitty in the middle).

Unlike 2013, I made only two hats. These were little whimseys diverting me from the main game for a weekend here and there.(Divergent and Mum, I need this!).

I discovered shawls. I planned to make my first lace shawl but along the way made two more. I think this is the start of a new addiction. The last new project on the needles for 2014 was a shawl too.

(From left to right: Curly wurly, Lacewing and Brown as).

And there was freeform. I got enticed to play along with the lovely ladies in the International Free Form Forum on Ravelry. With their enthusiastic encouragement I made my first freeform shawl and then went  on to design my first patterns and have people successfully make mould from them (Mould is Fun). In honour of the future mycologist daughter, I made little knitted mushrooms too (Fungus among us).

2014 was the year of the jumper; One for Mel (Funky Chunky), one for the boy (Not so little boy blue) and one for me (Recycled Rhodium in just 27 days in November).

The long term project of the year was a scarf- afghan (Anyone got cable!). This is a construction idea I'll be exploring further in future.Everyone in the family wants one.

And then there was the inevitable Christmas knitting. (Clockwise from top left: Angel in a box, Sunburnt reindeer and Pallina di Natale).

What will 2015 bring? The needles are primed for anything again.

(Note: All the links in this post go to the blogpost about that project. All photo-collages made using picmonkey).

Curating Ravelry: Free Stash Busting Patterns

Well, it's a New Year. May 2014 be all you need it to be. I'm praying for some peace and tranquility for me for this year. Last year was hectic to say the least.

A New Year means taking stock of lots of things. In my case this year it's my knitting goals and aspirations. My first knitting related action of the 2014 (apart from actually knitting) was to join two stash buster groups on Ravelry. My stash is not enormous but I need to make a conscious effort to think about just what's there and try to search out things that I can knit with it before I go and buy more yarn. A lot of what I have in the stash is small bits and pieces of acrylic mainly with a few larger amounts suitable for acessories such as hats and cowls or possibly shawls.

[Now I realise that a lot of you who are reading along with me have already discovered the wonderful online fiber community that is Ravelry. But some of you haven't. My thumbnail sketch of Ravelry for the uninitiated is that it is like Facebook for fibre artists. But it is so much more than that. It's place to join groups of like minded crafters as varied as Harry Potter fanatics who yarncraft, fans of particular knitting magazines, the small but eloquently vocal subset of university level maths professors who knit or simply people who want ideas on how to tame and use an out of control stash.  It has the most comprehensive free pattern database in the known universe (125,374 free patterns as of today (11th January 2014)). You can create pages for your projects, upload photos and share them with people and congratulate each other on your amazing ninja crafting skills. Or you can use it as a tool to manage the stash, Interested? Sign up here: www.ravelry.com]

I thought for 2014, I have a go a curating these 125,000+ free patterns into small bite size digestible chunks for people to use. As it's a year of Stash Busting for me lets start with a  list of patterns for using up little bits of left over yarn using both knitting and crochet. The criteria I used to put this together is that all the patterns be free and readily available on Ravelry (without needing a Ravelry account necessarily to access and download). In most cases they are also patterns that would work with a range of yarn weights. Most of my little bits of stash are DK weight or 5ply. The final criteria was that they had to have that little bit of WOW factor that made me want to make them.

My Favorite Things Infinity Scarf - a recipe for a personalized design your own colour-work cowl by Jill McGee. My version of this became the first cast on object for 2014. So far, I have a steaming tea cup, a row of European style houses, a Tardis and some foxes.

© POF

Owl Key Chain Pattern by Yarn Artists.
Owls are just so cool right now. This pattern is an awesomely detailed photo tutorial on just how to make these little guys.  I'm planning to make a whole heap of these over the next year to use as tags for Christmas presents.

© Yarn Artists

Have lots of quite little bits of yarn? The general advice is knit a muli-coloured stripey scarf. Why not try the Mini Mania Scarf  and Manic Panic Cowl by Sarah Core. These are just a little bit out of the ordinary using linen stitch to create a woven look fabric.

by LadyDanio

by LadyDanio

Most people think of the stash busting granny rug. (I'm doing the crochet version of this idea myself at the moment very slowly (see my blog post Granny wants a Latte Macchiato). However, I really love this knitted take on a traditional log cabin quilt. Learn to knit a log cabin blanket by Staci Perry.

© Staci Perry

Modular knitting is also a great technique for stash busting. Modular knitting is the idea of constructing a knitted garment from smaller shaped pieces of knitting. The shapes chosen are usually geometric such as squares rectangles, hexagons, circles, etc... These can either be seamed together or more traditionally the garment is built from successively knitting small pieces of knitting onto an existing piece. One of the classic modular shapes is the mitered square. And that's the sahpe used in the Modern Quilt Wrap This one comes from Knitting Daily's free ebook  Knitting Accessories: 7 free Patterns for Knitted Accessories. You will need to sign up with an email address to access this.

by FluffyK Flickr

There are literally hundreds of more patterns out there but I thought I keep these lists short. I'll try to post another one every month or so.

So what sort of free patterns do you want to make? Any suggestions for topics for the next lists?

Jo-ann