Things I realised this week: why I like knitting

Ah spring. There you are all green and springy, making things start to grow and inspiring me to start All. The. Projects. 

This week I realised just why I like knitting so much. Sure, it takes a relatively long time to get from a ball of string yarn to a finished sweater - but: 

1.  it's pretty portable. You can do it on the bus, on the sofa, in bed and standing up (and in most other places and positions, although please don't knit whilst driving or operating heavy machinery obvs).  

2. it's also highly pick up and put downable: you can do it for a few hours or a few minutes at a time. Just pick up the needles and knit a row, or two. 

3. Knitting is quiet - you can do it on your own, or in company.   

4. knitting is easy. If you go wrong, you can tink back (or frog) and put it right. 

Sewing on the other hand. Well, it's not quite the same. I want to sew, and to make all of the things, and I have lots of fabric. But:

1. Sewing requires quite a lot of preparation - getting the machine, scissors, rotary cutter, cutting mat, thread and fabric all together. 

2. Sewing has lots of stages: pattern tracing, cutting the fabric, making a toile, adjusting the toile, adjusting the pattern, cutting out the real fabric, sewing it up, adjusting it, finishing it off. 

3. Sewing often involves multiple gadgets (sewing machine, overlocker, iron, ironing board, tailors ham, tailors dummy)

4. Sometimes sewing requires all of those gadgets at almost the same time. 

5. Using the sewing machine and/or overlocker is not compatible with watching TV. 

6. Cutting fabric is final - although mistakes in stitching can usually be retrieved. 

Note to self: if you want to finish that quilt you actually have to do some sewing. Just thinking about it does not appear to be having any actual effect on the number of blocks which have been trimmed to size and stitched together.

Sigh. 

Pass my knitting bag. 

Edinburgh Yarn Festival 2016

I had the briefest, fleetingest, shortest imagineable encounter with the Edinburgh Yarn Festival 2016 on Friday, and I was utterly charmed. 

I wandered around the yarn market for an hour or so, with a stop for tea and most delicious cake part way through. It wasn't really long enough to do the place justice, or really have a good rummage and browse for the things I wanted.

I spied a few well-known faces from knitterati: Tom, but no Kate, from Kate Davies Designs, Ysolda, Stephen West - who was impossible to miss in his extraordinary outfit. I was trying to describe it to the jelly bean (age 6). She didn't believe me!

I stayed mostly on-message - with some rich blue DK yarn from Wollmeise to make myself a hat. That was definitely part of the plan. 

I also picked up some gorgeous DK weight yarn from Skein Queen - also part of my me-made plans. Stupidly I convinced myself that 2 skeins would be enough! It might be close, but I doubt I'll manage either of the two patterns I have at the top of my queue.  And, as you can see in this photo, the two skeins I picked seem to be subtly different in tone/colour. That is probably the fault of the 'show' lighting in the Corn Exchange - I did have 4 skeins to choose from! But it's not insurmountable. 

The extra thing I brought home was this little haul from Ysolda - two patterns and some of her kitten-soft silvery grey undyed yarn. 

The other pattern is her blank slate sweater. I had to pet the yarn a little bit yesterday, and hand wound it whilst drinking tea and chatting to the little bean. It's seriously nice. Silky and soft, and a lovely pale grey. I'll be casting on for that hat as soon as I can find the right needle, and, I can see a blue version coming along just behind it. 

Mending Monday 2016: #3 it's a holey-holeyday

Way back in the mists of time, before the internet and Taylor Swift were invented, I knitted myself a cardigan. It's from Rowan magazine 21, shown on the front cover. 

I have always rebelled it seems, and I knitted it in a nice wool based yarn (Jaeger wool DK I think), not the cotton yarn the pattern was written for. Anywayz. I have worn it a lot - for a long time it was the sort of thing I wore to work. Then the elbows started to develop holes and I patched them up and it became a cosy old friend to wear around the house. Gradually more and more bits of it are wearing thin or coming apart, but I'm not quite ready to say goodbye to it yet. 

Before Christmas I started knitting something for the bean, and realised that the yarn was pretty much the same colour as this cardigan of mine. Last week, I sat down to do some mending and spent a little bit of time patching up the holes and frayed cuffs.

Five or ten minutes, sitting in the light and stitching away. I was talking to my daughter at the same time - you can see her feet in the bottom picture - she is wearing handknitted socks that I made for her older brother a year or two back. That's the sort of housework I like!

Cowlowlowl (FO)

Howsyoudoing today, people?

The sun is shining here, putting a spring into my step (ha, ha). It's still cold and windy though, so I'm hoping I'll get a bit of use from my newest neck adornment, this plain and simple cowl.

I knitted it on a circular needle, using 100g of sock yarn - Regia Highland Tweed. I used a provisional cast on, then knitted until almost the end of the yarn before grafting the two ends together.  

You can see that it has some subtle colour gradations from purple through to pink. I have a lot of blue in my wardrobe, and some pink too, so it should go well with lots of things. It was one of the projects I identified in my New Year list of things to do, so I consider that to be my first me-made wardrobe filler!

It has been for a quick wash to help even up the tension of the grafting, and now it's ready to wear.

plain and simple cowl (no pattern)

cast on Jan 2016

completed Feb 2016

yarn: Regia Highland Tweed