Knitting - June and July 2003   back to knitting blog

08-07-03

I'm off for 10 weeks - check out my travels at www.adamandjen.blogspot.com if you feel like it - should be active within a week.

02-07-03

The lovely Regia wool for my flatmates' fingerless gloves has arrived - it took a couple of weeks cos they were out of stock of one of the colours.  It's really gorgeous, I've stuck pictures of the wool up in current projects and I've begun one of the pairs of gloves as well.  I'm using the pattern in Knitty for Broad Street Mittens, but only making one pair as full mittens.  You can see that they are fingerless gloves that turn into mittens, so I'm just using the basic glove for the other two pairs.  These are basically my holiday projects, but I hope they fit in my backpack.  Which is already overflowing with "essentials".  Oh well!  I'm far too excited at the prospect of riding elephants to be too worried!!

30-06-03

Thank you all for being sweet about the bag, I am back in love with it again now.  I've decided that it is definitely getting a new trim - a mohair one.  I'm going to use Colinette mohair in a shade called Fruit Coulis, which is dark purple with bits of bright pink, but I'm going to leave it til I get back from my travels.  Adam and me spent all weekend going through travel guides and planning our trip, which was very exciting.  We're going to Thailand, Laos and Vietnam for 10 weeks (!) leaving next wednesday, so I'm moving this blog so I can update it while I'm abroad, but it's for both of us so there will be more travel than knitting content.  I'll stick a link to it on here when it's set up.  I'm doing the blue Opal socks now (just finished the first one), and I will be taking wool to make fingerless gloves for my flatmates on holiday with me - it should arrive any day.  I've also been very creative in a non-knitting way!  I made mango and ginger chutney at the weekend, and a denim skirt as well!  I might make a sewing page on here when I get round to it.

26-06-03

Ahem.  After all the melodramatic ruined bag tales of yesterday please don't think I'm weird if I now go back on it all..... Now the bag is properly dry, and it looks several hundred times better.  Plus I'm in a much happier mood today which is probably something to do with it!  The zebra is still not what I had hoped, but I'm much happier with it now.  I am thinking of doing what Carolyn said, and maybe hiding the border with a mohair one or something fluffy.  You see, the straps (which are zebra) are fine, it's just the border which is a bit messy.  Anyway, even though I still have to sew on the straps and maybe make a new border I have done a page for the bag in finished projects, complete with tons of pictures so you can tell what I was on about.  I don't pretend to be an expert on anything, but I've learnt things from making this bag so I thought I'd share them.  Judith said maybe the dyes weren't fast, and I'm not sure about this.  When you felt things you are washing them in conditions not recommended for the wool, so I can't really complain about dye running!  I would think that it probably is colourfast under normal washing conditions, but I'm not sure.

Also, I have added pictures of SEVEN projects I finished before I did this page!  Mum took them all for me a couple of days ago when I got here, isn't that nice?  Apart from a few things that I haven't finished (and some that I gave away) I now have pretty much everything I've knit on here now, which is satisfying.

25-06-03

I haven't updated this in a week for 2 reasons - firstly I just got back from Oxford to my parents house and had a bit of a hard time setting up internet stuff on my computer, and secondly I finished the felted bag and I am REALLY disappointed with it!  Like an idiot I forgot to take a picture before I felted it, which is a shame because it was beautiful (although enormous), but when I felted it the dye all mixed and I got a mess.  The main colours are all the same, but now instead of being an amazing pink, the main colour is darker and has lost some of the subtle shades, and worst of all - the zebra stripes, which were SO gorgeous when knitted, are all mixed and kinda grey now.  I may be over-dramatising it - the colours are all still there and the felted fabric is really lovely, plus I got the shape and size perfect, but I'm all sad about the colours.  Feels like a waste of money.  My parents have moved to Birmingham, I'm going to go into town and buy something to cheer myself up and then I'm going to eat a massive flapjack, so there. 

On a happier note I have taken lots of pictures of jumpers I finished before I had this website, and I will stick them up for your viewing pleasure (!) later or tomorrow.  Also I am knitting a little purse with the remains of the colinette for the bag, and I'm NOT going to felt it!

18-06-03

The term finishes on friday, so I'm leaving Oxford this weekend.  Me and Adam are going travelling this summer - for 10 whole weeks, which is quite scary and exciting all at once, so yesterday I ordered knitting supplies for when we go!  I wanted little things to make, so I've ordered wool for Sop and Alison (my flatmates next year) and Jen (my flatmate now) for their birthday presents.  For some reason they all want me to make them fingerless gloves, so I am, and I also got wool to make myself knee-highs like Carolyn's!  It's all Regia wool of various types - I ordered it from Germany, and I hope it comes before we leave.

The felted bag is doing very well, I'll probably finish it this week, and felt it when I can use mum's washing machine!  The one's here at the flat's take tokens, so I'd have to pay more money every time I checked its progress, such a pain.  Well, I'm off into town now to meet a new knitting friend!

16-06-03

I've been too busy enjoying the GORGEOUS weather to do much this last week.  That and working hard at my chemistry studies of course.   I've been taking advantage of the sun to knit in public!!  And what fun it was.  Knitting out in the gardens under a tree, knitting outside the pub with a Pimms!  I went punting too, but didn't like to risk it, which was probably a good idea since certain people thought it was funny to splash me with icky river water.

So I've made quite a bit of progress on the bag.  The zebra wool actually looks quite a lot like zebra stripes - I didn't think it would work so well.  I must be at least halfway there on the knitting, and the bag is worryingly enormous, but I'm sure it will shrink when I felt it.  I hope it will be ok. 

Ick - now I have to go and answer questions on magneto chemistry.

09-06-03

Lots of knitting news!  I started to do one of the fronts of Bonbon on Friday, but I wasn't feeling too inspired, so I've left it for a little bit.  I really enjoyed doing the back, so I'm sure I'll get back to it very soon.  For a quick fix I started making a sock with yarn I already had - it's Opal yarn, you can see the colours on the Current Projects page.  I bought it just because I wanted to see what it would come out like - and it's quite cute I reckon.  Very kiddie and 80s, but who says that's a bad thing?!  It was a complete fluke, but the stripe sequence came in right on the heel, so I have a yellow heel!  God knows how to achieve this on the second sock......

And I've begun the felted bag!  I'm knitting it on a circular needle (first time I've used one), and I'm going to decide what to do at the bottom of the bag later on.  I'm making it in Colinette Skye, in alizarine (outrageous pink) with a zebra border and handles!  I like the feel of the yarn a lot.  Check it out if you feel like it!

I think my comments are misbehaving - if they aren't there and you want to say something, they seem to come back if you refresh?  I hope so anyway!

05-06-03

It is complete!  Smooch is all seamed up and raring to go (or I am, or something).  I just rushed out into the garden (not my own garden, the communal one for the flats, I don't have one sadly) and Jen snapped pics while I strutted about.  I realised after we took the photos that I was in full view of every flat in the place, and felt a fool!

Smooch is probably my Most Favourite-ist Top that I have made since Adam's jumper.  Over on Alison's blog people have been talking about whether the lacey border should be done differently - I just did it as it says, you can see the pictures over in Finished Projects and see what you think.  It may not be perfect, but I like it how it is.  Certainly not worth ripping the entire thing to pieces and starting again! 

Hope you like it, I am very pleased with it!

04-06-03

Having said I was a slow knitter, I have now actually finished the knitting for Smooch!  I'm not sure what came over me, I went a bit mad.  I was just enjoying making it a lot, and it seemed to finish itself!  I'm going to sew it all together tonight perhaps, and stick come pictures up soon after that.  I have decided that I will need to have a knitting project at the same time as finishing Bonbon, just because it's such a huge project (4 ply cotton, not done much crocheting before), and I don't want to get bored.  I really want to make knee high socks, like Carolyn's, which I'm really taken with - but I'm off travelling this summer for 10 weeks so I might want to have them to do then.  Then also they would be ready to wear in the Autumn when I get back.

So I reckon I'm going to try felting a bag - never done this before either so it should be interesting!

02-06-03

Smooch is racing along - I've finished the back, and the front is halfway done already!  I didn't have any work that had to be done at the weekend, so I just knitted like a maniac - my arm aches slightly today.  But it's all looking good, I haven't noticed any glaring errors yet, fingers crossed. 

It might even be finished by tomorrow, so I'm going to get back to it!