Raffle knitting

I think I’m going to make it! There are still nearly three weeks left until the raffle and my scarf currently looks like this.

There is (of course) one slight issue; this is the end of the pattern and I’m supposed to be binding off right now, but I feel it’s way too small for a fancy raffle prize and I don’t like that it’s mostly one colour with a quick flash through some different shades at the top. So I’m going to continue my streak of not quite following patterns and carry on knitting. It’s quite formulaic, which should make it easy enough to size up by adding in a repeat or two to each row, but we shall see if it actually works out that way.


If I’m being honest, this is also about using up as much of the yarn cake as possible because I want it done and out of my stash. I’ve been good at not buying in new yarn this year, so now I need to focus on the other side of the coin and use up some of what I have. I will beat Stash Mountain!

Hannah

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Just keep knitting, just keep knitting

I’ve been working on the raffle prize scarf for about a week now and I don’t know how monogamous crafters do this all the time. The pattern has alternating sections, one of which requires concentration and counting, so it’s not mindlessly boring like the body of a jumper, but my brain is still desperate to work on something different. I need variety! I’ve just reached the first strand of the colour change so maybe that will keep me a little more engaged.

I made the mistake of trying to work on it at choir rehearsal this week. I knew it was a bad idea but I really want this to be ready on time so I gave it a go, and sure enough I spent the whole time tinking and re-knitting the same four rows. Then I got home and had to do it again because I’d repeated a row instead of moving on to the next one. Lesson learned – choir is for sock knitting and only sock knitting.

At least it’s turning out pretty. I can’t wait to see how the leafy bits look when it’s blocked.

Hannah

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WIP Wednesday 25.10.23

Current WIP count: 6

I had one false start with my child-sized selbu mittens when I forgot to include the thumb stitches, but the second attempt is going smoothly so far. I have no idea whether they’ll fit the intended recipient. I love giving surprise gifts and there’s just no way to surreptitiously measure someone’s hand.

My choir is celebrating its 21st anniversary this year with a big concert in November. We will be holding a raffle to raise some funds and I offered to make a scarf or shawl for one of the prizes, which I promptly forgot all about until this week. Argh!

I’m going to use this yarn cake from Hobbii because the colourway is gorgeous and will hopefully not be too much for people who don’t share my love of all the bright colours all the time.

Wendy’s Fern Shawl (Rav link) looks pretty straightforward so I’ve gone for that, and this is what it looks like so far.

I’m really going to have to focus to get it done on time, just when I was planning to work on my Christmas crafting as well. One day I will be an organised, grown-up adult person, but today is not that day.

Hannah

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More free time

I’m about a hair’s breadth from changing this blog’s title to The Unemployment Diaries. I am once again without job, and believe me when I say if covid were a person I would punch them in the face while holding a kettlebell.

So now I have time once again to think about my advent yarns. A preliminary footer about with them gave me this:

The colours aren’t quite accurate to real life, but I think you can see how that one yellow skein stands out like a sore thumb:

Better. But I still don’t know what to do with them.

On the one hand it would be nice to use them all in one thing so I could go “this was my first yarn advent calendar” every time I use it, but on the other hand I don’t use scarves very often (and shawls even less) and it would be sad to make something just for it to sit on the coat rack. And it is sock yarn after all.  But that all-in-one-item idea is so appealing, so I just don’t know.

At least I’ve got some time to think about it.

Hannah

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The 5th day of advent calendaring

As promised, here are the first five mini skeins from my yarn advent calendar:

They’re so gorgeous!

I’m still not sure what I’m going to make with them yet. If the colours continue like this I might go for some blue/green socks with pink/purple contrast cuffs and toes, or if the right skeins come out I could make some sort of fade scarf. We shall see.

I’m still loving the little surprise each day!

Hannah

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WIP Wednesday 10.11.21

Current WIP count: 8 (plus a lot of ends)

So far I’ve cranked out five charity hats in various sizes and one matching scarf, finishing up one ball of mystery rainbow yarn and taking a chunk out of the cream yarn.

Then I did a bit of a stash dive and pulled out these odds and ends.

The blue-green-yellow one was pretty much a whole skein so I decided it could be a hat all by itself, and for the rest I’ll probably stick with the original plan of mixing them with the cream until it runs out.

I have told myself that once I get to ten hats I will sew all the ends in before starting any new ones – who thinks I’ll actually stick to that?

Hannah

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To arms!

I have received the yarnery call-to-arms! My workplace is collecting donations for a homeless charity for Christmas and the wish list includes hats, gloves, scarves, and socks to fit all ages, shapes, and genders. Time to get stash-busting.

I’ve already picked out this mahoosive skein to be used up first, probably with different pops of colour because that’s my jam.

This 400g baby ended up in my stash because I wildly over-estimated how much yarn I would need to finish off my Roses for Grandma blanket, so it’s perfect for quick charity makes. Plus I think Grandma would be pleased that something made for her will lead to other people being kept nice and warm during the Scottish winter.

I’m actually really excited about this – I love making for charity. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to start the first of many hats.

Hannah

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October Review – where did it go?

What on earth happened to October? Seriously, I must have lost a fortnight somewhere. I’d blame the new job, but I’m enjoying it too much to start laying blame on it already. It’s so nice to discover that existential dread isn’t actually a standard part of Sunday afternoon/evenings…

Anyway, I want to say “on to craft talk”, but there really isn’t much to talk about for this month. I did finish Changing Staircases and it’s kept me warm a few times.

And I made some progress with my baby Flax Light, but then stalled with re-doing the same 10 rounds over and over to fix mistakes.

And that’s it. I’ve no idea what I’ve been doing for the last 31 days, but apparently it wasn’t making things!

Things never slow down in the run up to Christmas, so I’m setting more of a process goal for November rather than a results goal: I will do some form of crafting every day for the next 30 days. Even if it’s just one stitch or sticking a peel-off on one card, I will do something.

Today’s crafting was some knitting on the way to and from work so that’s day one – done!

Hannah

xXx

Monday make

Despite having to tink and redo the final section THREE TIMES, I finished my Changing Staircases at the weekend and it’s now looking beautiful on my blocking mat.

Also slightly weird because I ran out of pins, but never mind.

I’m looking forward to wearing this baby soon. Although with it being scarf weather in Scotland right now, it might take a while to dry out.

This project taught me that I still have no concept of how knitting uses up yarn. I was sad because I thought it would have to end on a lacy section, which I didn’t want because I can just see it catching on everything. But then I got to the end of that section and still seemed to have a bit of yarn left.

I figured it was better to have a row or two of stockinette than nothing so I skipped the ‘cast off stitches’ step and knit across. Then purled. Then knit. Then purled. I was 6 rows in before realising that the yarn was going much further than I expected and I could get a-whole-nother plain section out of it. So I tinked back, cast off the stitches and did the section again.

And after all that I still had enough left to cast off, with this long a tail to sew in.

I never would have called that in a million years! It seems I need to do a LOT more knitting so I can start to get a feel for these things.

 

ETA: this is Changing Staircases, a free pattern by Dragon Hoard Designs on Ravelry.

Hannah

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WIP Wednesday 24.01.18

Current WIP count: 6

I told you there would be some Tunisian WIPs coming up! I’m starting off simple, just a skinny scarf in this pretty blue-green colourway.

The yarn is 60% cotton and 40% acrylic from Hobbycraft.

I don’t know if it’s the slightly stonewashed quality of the colours, but to me it feels like that favourite pair of jeans you wear until they’re moulded to your body and soft as butter. Whenever I’m not working on it, I just end up stroking it.

Still loving the texture, and the fact that it looks a bit like knitting on one side.

For some regular crochet, I’ve also dragged my chevron blanket from the UFO pile. It will be finished this year!

That’s my WIP list for the week. What’s everyone else working on? Having a good week so far? Let me know in the comments!

Hannah

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FO Friday 06.10.17 (nearly)

As soon as you think you’ve got this scheduling thing figured out, along comes WordPress to prove you wrong!

Better late than never, here is my FO Friday post.

Only one FO this week, and you’ll have to excuse the photos as I’m both model and photographer and my arms are not quite long enough!

I finally finished up my scoodie and I’m loving it.

Blocking did straighten out the scarf part a very little, but in future I think I’ll just avoid the granny joining stitch and go for something straighter.

I particularly like the fit of the hood

Usually they barely fit over my head and keep sliding back so my ears are exposed (I must have a big noggin!) but this one has more than enough room.

I’d want something a bit brighter for myself, so this is going into the shop just as soon as my mannequin head arrives so I can get some decent photos. This thing does not look good flat.

Not quite as productive as last week, but then I have been taking my iron tablets and feeling quite a bit better.

What do you think of the scoodie? Anyone else got some FOs to share? Let me know in the comments!

Hannah

xXx

WIP Wednesday 04.10.17

Current WIP count: 6

Progress so far on my commissioned doily:

I’m still suuuper unsure about the colours, but my hope is it’ll look better the more I add in.

This is the current state of the chevron doggy blanket:

Yeah.

I was absolutely positive I had some more of that blue yarn lying around somewhere, but having gone through my entire stash I can’t find one bit of it.

So my plan was to frog back to the first blue section and remove a couple of rows, then the rows removed from each section could be used for the shorter sections later on.

But (of course there’s a but) I got nearly to the end, the final blue section with one short white section either side, and it all went pear-shaped. I made the mistake of putting the thing down, and when I picked it up again I didn’t check which end I was frogging from. I spent half an hour frantically picking at the white row, wondering why it wasn’t just undoing like the rest of the blanket, why this particular row was so sticky and unwilling to frog.

Then I realised I was undoing the foundation row. Face. palm.

I confess, for a couple of hours I seriously considered just throwing every last bit of this nasty, cheap acrylic into the bin. But there is something inside me that just cannot do that to yarn, no matter how awful it is, as well as a mile-wide stubborn streak. So I frogged it all and off I go again.

It’s a good job I like chevrons…

I got a massive ball of Marble Chunky for my birthday in April, and it’s been staring at me since then, begging to be made into something warm and snuggly. So I had a dig round Ravelry for a pattern and found the waffle knit cowl by Cate Carter-Evans.

It’s a really simple repeating pattern so I can work away while watching something on my laptop, it’s chunky so of course it’s growing really quickly, and OH THE SQUISH!! I keep stopping just to squidge it for a bit. I also love the stripes that are forming with the gradual colour changes in the yarn. I think I might struggle to give this one away.

And I’m re-blocking the scarf part of my scoodie in the hope that it’ll straighten out and I won’t have to undo and re-attach every square. Fingers crossed.

That’s my WIPs for this week. What’s everyone else working on? Let me know in the comments!

Hannah

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