Knitting & Crochet Blog Week - Late to the party - Days 1 & 2

As you can see from the above banner its Knitting blog week - you are suppose to blog about a given topic on a given day.  I've been procrastinating about this, but having read some of the entries its looks like everyone is having a good time, getting lots of visitors to their blogs, so I've decided to pull my finger out and get on, especially as its raining and I can't get out on the garden.

Day One - Tale of Two Yarns - choose two yarns and tell what you like or dislike about them. 

Well I'm not a yarn snob so you won't be hearing about some fantastic yarn I've bought which I needed to take out a 2nd mortgage for.  I like yarn that has acrylic as part of its makeup.  I can hear the gasps of disapproval from here.  I like to be able to throw my knitted items into the washing machine and for them to come out as they went in.  Having experienced knitting with 100% wool yarn and then seeing the end result after my daughter washed in the machine, its an awful waste of time and effort.  Having said that I think the nicest yarn I used was for a little cardigan for a friend daughter's christening, knitted in Sublime Yarns Baby Cashmere Merino Silk 4ply

With regards to a yarn I'm not keen on, that would have to be Paton's Smoothie, whilst the end result looks good it splits terribly

So on to Day 2 - Skill + 1Up - Look back over the year to see how you have improved knitwise.

For me this was lace knitting, I went right out of my comfort zone when I joined a KAL on the Grandmas Hand Forum its was for the Travelling Woman Shawl,  I learnt that its not easy to unpick lace, I learnt about installing lifelines and making sure my stitch markers were in the right place. I was pleased with the result.  I now have all the necessary blocking equipment so future lace projects will hopefully have a crisper finish.

I still need to push myself into sock knitting, its my goal for 2011

Travelling Woman

Travelling Woman , originally uploaded by sspeechley.

used my time off yesterday to good use even if I was feeling rubbish, got this finished last night.

Now on to my list of items for Rufus

All systems go......

on the knitting front.  Ethereal with 3/4 sleeves is finally finished, I think I'm pleased with it, it still could have been a bit longer but never mind.

Today is the start of the Grandma's Hand Group on Ravelry's, KAL - Travelling Woman Shawl.  I have spent a pleasant afternoon casting on and knitting the easy bit of the shawl.  I'm thinking that the lacy bit might be better done inside incase there are swear words, would hate to shock the neighbours!!!

I have been very good with this project, using yarn from my stash rather than buy more.  The yarn has a silvery fleck in it so looks very pretty, but you can't really get the true effect in this picture.  Watch this space for regular pictorial updates.

Knitting update

It’s been a bit quiet on the knitting front lately, not sure why, I just seem to constantly run out of time. I guess being away twice over the last 6 weeks hasn’t helped. Anyway I’m back on track and busy finishing off some WIP’s (works in progress), in preparation for a couple of KALs (knit alongs) that I’m doing on Ravelry. We are going to be knitting the Travelling Woman shawl on the Grandmas Hand forum. This will be my first attempt at anything really lacy so I’ll let you know how it goes. And the Salute Hat on the Knitting for Boys Forum. I have the yarn for both projects so won’t be tempted into any shops just now.

So currently on my needles is the 2nd Ethereal waistcoat that I'm knitting for myself, which I started weeks ago, I'm about half way up the back, so still a way to go.

I'm meeting with one of the Monday night girls for some one to one knitting this afternoon.  I'm hoping that she will get something out of my visit apart from a hot chocolate and sticky bun at the local garden centre