Pansies

A quick mid-week post this evening, as I shall be unable to blog on Sunday. Mr JK and I are escaping the wedding frenzy and heading off to Germany after work tomorrow, to stay with Mr JK's uncle and aunt. I quite like these 3 day weeks!

I've done a little more spinning over Easter. I spun up some superwash sparkly BFL from FeltStudioUK. It was lovely to spin. I haven't got enough yardage for socks, but hopefully some fingerless mittens! We shall see.

The colours are so pretty - they remind me of pansies. Our winter hanging baskets are still full of blooms, as you can see.

I'd love to be able to tell you that my Spriteling shawl is coming along nicely, but alas, all is not well! I was two rows from completing clue 1 when I discovered an extra stitch. So I frogged it back to row 50. I managed to make the same mistake a second time (I've checked for errata and there aren't any for this row, so it must be me!), and frogged back to row 40! So I'm making very s l o w progress. Clue 3 comes out tomorrow, but I'm not going to really be able to get stuck into it until half term. I've found that I need complete silence to knit lace. I talk to myself, chanting the stitch patterns out loud, and must look completely mad to onlookers!! To cheer myself up, I've cast on for another Ishbel using my own handspun yarn. The colour changes look lovely, and I should be able to knit the stocking stitch part at the very least without major mishaps! Photos on my return. So, I must leave you now, and get my bags packed for my getaway. Fingers crossed the cases arrive safely this time! See you next week! xxx

Easy Peasy!

Happy Easter to you! Hope you are enjoying the holiday weekend. We've had some unseasonably warm spring weather, and have been making the most of it, getting out and about. It was 25 degrees yesterday, although it's cooler today, and a sea mist keeps drifting in off the North Sea. It was lovely outside first thing - we could hear the local Salvation Army band playing in the distance. They always hold outdoor services once the holidaymakers start arriving. We don't make a huge thing about Easter in the josiekitten household. But I took the opportunity of being home for Easter to dig out our decorations, bought mostly in Germany and Poland. Our family in Germany always put up decorations, and as you walk around, you see lots of houses with painted wooden eggs hanging from the branches of trees. It's very pretty!

I love these wooden eggs - they came from one of our trips to Lodz in Poland, where Mr JK's family lived for many years. Egg decorating or pysanky is an Eastern European tradition, still very much in evidence today. We saw some amazingly intricate patterns created using hot wax and dyes. You can read more about how it's done here, if you're interested.

I finally finished my Peasy cardigan yesterday, and blocked it today. I do love it - so simple but beautiful too! I know that I'm going to get lots of wear out of it. I found some shell buttons from the Natural Dye Studio that go well with it, I think. I had to steam the bottom edge quite hard to stop it from curling, so I hope that isn't going to be a problem. Time will tell. I ended up making full length sleeves, as I had enough yarn, and am glad that I did.

Remember my spinning disaster that I blogged about recently? The single very nearly ended up in the bin after I'd over-spun it so spectacularly! There was so much twist in it, I don't quite know what went wrong! I ended up with pinky/purple fingers too!

Anyhow, common sense prevailed, and I wound the single into a skein (with many breakages en route!) and soaked it for a couple of hours, before hanging it up to dry with a heavy weight on it. I then wound that single into a yarn cake, and plied it from both ends, to create a 2-ply yarn. All things considered, it's turned out pretty well. The colours are very soft and delicate, reminiscent of lavender fields on a summer's day. It's about 18 wpi, so I think that's about a 2-ply laceweight, and I have approximately 250 metres to play around with.

I'm planning on spending time this afternoon working on Spriteling. I'd like to try and finish clue 1 today, if at all possible. So I shall love you and leave you, with one more picture of Easter in my little bloggy corner. My Easter Day breakfast - hot cross buns and English strawberries - deeeeeeelish! See you soon! xxx

My little haven

Hello there, hope you have been enjoying the sunshine where you are. It's been a gorgeous day here on the Norfolk coast. Mr JK and I spent most of it outside. I cleaned the decking (quite a big job as you can see from the photo) - luckily we have a power washer which certainly makes it easier, and then cleaned all the garden furniture. The umbrella was brought out from its winter hibernation in the shed, and hey presto, we're all ready for summer here in the josiekitten household!

Mr JK was busy working away in his vegetable plot. So far, the broad beans, mangetout and potatoes are in, and there's loads more ready - hopefully the onions, shallots and cabbages will go out tomorrow. He's bought a cage with butterfly netting this year, so with a bit of luck the wretched cabbage whites will be kept out!

We sat on the bench drinking a cuppa, watching the local birdlife. There's Mr Blackbird, who has a bad foot. He's very friendly, and comes quite close now. There's also a robin who's a frequent visitor. We have a bird feeder in the garden, and it's always busy. We ended the day with our first barbeque of 2011. Baked potatoes, freshly picked salad leaves from the garden and this little lot - yummy!

I think that it has been third time lucky with my Spriteling (knitting needles crossed, although that's probably a bad move!) I am working my way through clue 1, and have got to row 30, my best yet! Here's how it's looking - I hope that I have all of the right holes in all of the right places!

I'll be back soon to report on its progress! See you! xx

Sworn enemies

Today I have decided that I am not a natural lace knitter. Lace and I are not best friends, not in the slightest! I finally cast on for the Spriteling pre-Knit Nation KAL yesterday. I did a crochet provisional cast on (something new-ish for me, but I was determined to be able to do it so that the stitches unzipped themselves this time instead of stubbornly refusing to co-operate), completed the cast on and set up sections, and all was going marvellously (or so I thought!) I learned how to do a standard lace cast off, put in a lifeline at row 10, and got to row 15 of clue 1, when on stretching out my knitting, thought that it didn't look 'quite right'. I went to the Spriteling project page on Ravelry so that I could compare my knitting with other projects. Closer inspection confirmed my worst fears - I'd gone wrong back at the start! Oh well, I thought. It could have been worse. At least I hadn't knitted too much. I pulled the knitting off the needles, rewound the yarn, and started again. This time the setting up was perfect, and I could see where I'd gone wrong before. Easy popsy! I worked my way through clue 1, stopping after row 25 for some lunch. 'Let's just take a look to see how it's looking,' I thought to myself. 'Hang on a minute - that doesn't look quite right!' I'd done a ssk in the wrong place, and in doing so, had a wobble in the border that was not acceptable to me. And of course, the error was between row 10 (where the first lifeline had been) and row 20 (where the new lifeline now resided!) I shall leave ALL lifelines in next time, just in case! I wish that I wasn't such a perfectionist, but if I spot a mistake, I have to correct it, otherwise I always know that it's there! So I'm back to square one again - yarn rewound and ready for try number 3! Let's hope it's 3rd time lucky. If not, I think that it might just get put in the naughty corner for a while. I will not be beaten! Now excuse me while I go and seek out some chocolate! xx

Hat update

Just a quick post this evening to bring you an update on my Innocent Smoothie hats. I was a bit behind with my 'hat a week' knitting, so had a blitz this week. Since Royal wedding fever is rampant across the UK, I thought that I'd show a bit of patriotism with a red, white and blue collection. So here are the hats of the week for weeks 21-26. I bet we won't see any of these at Westminster Abbey!

Other updates on the yarn front -

• 
  
  my Peasy was finished, but since I have a spare ball of yarn (I bought an extra ball a couple of weeks ago because I was worried about running out) I'm unpicking the sleeve cast offs and making the sleeves longer! So it's not finished, but hopefully will be in the next couple of days!


• 
  
  I still haven't cast on my Spriteling, but will do so this evening, or else I can see myself getting so far behind that it won't get done!


• 
  
  I've almost finished the first of my Cinder Block socks. A couple more pattern repeats before the toe should just about do it!


• 
  
  I spun some fibre really badly this afternoon. There is sooooooooooo much twist in it it looks like super noodles!! I'm going to skein up and soak the single, and weight it while it dries to see if there is anything I can do to salvage it!

Hope you manage some knitting time this week! See you soon. xxx

A Thursday Tah-Dah!!

Hello there, me again! I don't often get the chance to chat to you in the week, so I'm making the most of my Easter holiday 'free' time! I've just finished knitting the sweetest little cardigan. It's from Never Not Knitting. I wanted a pattern to use up my handspun, and a Ravelry search lead me to this pretty cardigan. My yarn was slightly thinner than the recommended yarn, but I swatched, and decided to stick with the original needle size, as the knitted fabric, although a little looser than it should have been, draped really nicely. Having read what other Ravelers said, I decided to knit a 3 stitch garter border at either end of the cardigan, to stop the edges from curling in. I also knit more stripes to make it longer. I teamed my handspun with some dark bluey-purple Debbie Bliss Cashmerino DK, to alternate with the stripes of handspun. I really like the rainbow effect of the stripes, don't you?

It's knitted all in one, from the top, and the sleeves are put onto spare yarn to carry on knitting down the body, so there's no seaming, and very little finishing off! Perfect! It's fastened with two buttons and loops. Snoopydog and I had a good rummage through my button tin on Tuesday and picked out a few possibles. Eventually I settled on one green and one yellow to pick out the colours of the stripes at the top.

The back is pretty too, with its frilled edge. I can see me knitting this again, it's such a lovely design.

I'm going to go and dig out the pattern for the Spriteling KAL now. I've changed my mind about the yarn I'm using, and haven't even started clue 1 yet. Clue 2 is released tomorrow, so I've got some serious catching up to do! Bye for now! xx

A new spinner is born!

Hello again. Thanks for calling in. I've had a lovely day today with my great knitting pal, Snoopydog. We caught up with each other's news, admired our somewhat impressive collection of knitting bags from Three Bags Full (I blame Anne Hanson for that!!!), swapped mini skeins of sock yarn for our sock yarn blankies, drank tea, ate Danish pastries, planned our summer visit to KnitNation and, oh yes .......... Snoopydog learned the basics of spinning! I'd laid out a timeline of my handspun, starting off with the very first yarn I spun, all underspun, overspun, thick and thin, and ending up with my most recent yarn. It's amazing to see the progress I've made. Anyway, I showed Snoops how to draft the fibre, gave her some BFL, and off she went!

Fairly quickly, she'd produced two bobbins of yarn ....

....that she then plied together to produce her first ever skein of handspun yarn! Tah dah!!

I can see a new, addictive hobby developing here! Another stash for Snoops to acquire! It was great fun and I look forward to days spent spinning together!

I received another squishy parcel too - this time from Rosie's Moments. The parcel arrived beautifully wrapped, it was just like opening a present!

As well as the collection of mini skeins for my sock yarn blankie, I bought two braids of BFL, dyed with natural dyes. I loved the colour combinations she used, and want to spin it up to knit myself a Citron shawl. Don't you just love these colours?

Rosie included a lovely sheep button in the parcel, what a nice touch!

I shall definitely be popping back to her Etsy shop again!

Before I go, I must just tell you about a wonderful giveaway on my Ravelry friend, Melissa's blog. If you make a donation to help fight cancer, you'll be entered into a draw to win not one, not two, but three skeins of Malabrigo yarn! How fantastic is that? Not only are you doing something worthwhile, but you might win some yarn too! See you soon! xxx