Saturday, April 21, 2012

Beginning to see a pattern...

So as a nice little treat to self after a rough week, today I aquired me a nice little bit of laceweight (yes, I know I'm supposed to be on a stashdown. Shut up).


Isn't it pretty? Nice Malabrigo baby silkpaca, and the colours are gorgeous. I'm not quite sure what I'm doing with it yet, but I do have ideas.

So I was very happy with myself, and came home all nice and happy and contented. New yarn to play with, and of course there was also the fun of photographing it and putting it up on my stash page. Which is what I was doing when I began to notice a pattern...


Hedgehog Fibres silk lace, purchased in June of last year. I has a plan. I just haven't knitted it yet.

Oh, and then there's this...


Angeljay's 100% merino. Purchased May 2009. Also with a plan. Also not knitted yet.

Anyone else starting to see a pattern? Or just me?


Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Productivity is overrated...

...at least that's what I'm telling myself today, been out of bed for hours and very little done! Well okay, I've made it as far as the shops (nothing like a brand spanking new copy of The Knitter being released to get my arse out the door), and even picked up the buttermilk required for the fresh brown bread I was kinda supposed to make on, urm, Sunday, so a step in the right direction I suppose. Kinda. Shut up.

Washing was hung out on the basis of what was REALLY wet (two items) versus everything that was in the bucket (about 15 items), as by my thinking, there'd be no point in hanging out almost-dry stuff when it could possibly rain on them when I'm not paying attention (which is most of the time), and what if I didn't get to them on time? I think radiators were invented for just this reason.

So in my ultimate quest for supreme procrastination, here's another blog post! Though fear not, there are actual items to be displayed today!

First up, items that had been mentioned in previous posts... the Miss Potter Mittens I mentioned in my last post have, finally, been finished. Pretty as always, the colourway of the yarn turned out as spectacularly as I hoped it would, and crappy-ass weather here means I might actually get a wear or two out of these before the Irish 'summer' hits...


Almost finished is the Lava Flow cowl I'd procured yarn for last month. This baby is just awaiting its ends being grafted, and then I'll have pictures for you, I promise.

The nightmare that was my Crazy Zauberball Jaywalkers was finally allowed to die a dignified death (well okay, that's a slight over-exaggeration. My five-year-old neice and I had great fun tearing it to shreds. Which felt DAMN good).

Don't get me wrong, this is a pretty, pretty yarn. However, the colour repeats are FAR too long for socks, you'd never get a matching pair knitting as is, and I was needing a brainless knit. I had been aiming for stripey zig-zag socks. Instead, I'd gotten a two-coloured body which didn't really showcase the zig-zag as I'd have liked. So they had to die.

Not in vain though, as of course the yarn was re-purposed (having been frogged, then wound, then re-wound several times for fun. My niece is fascinated by the ball-winder, thinks it's the best invention EVER, especially when I do it really really fast so it looks like all the colours are blurring together. She wants one. She wants to play with yarn. I'm going to save all variegated yarn for winding when she's here, so that I can sucker her in gently, and will keep the laceweight the hell out of her way in case it scares her off/makes her cry. I has a plan).

So what does self-striping sock-yarn get turned into here in Insanity Central?


Yup. I'm nothing if not predictable. Yet another Holden, but such a pretty, easy, effective little pattern that I just can't let it go. Slight panic on this one when I ran out of yarn 13 stitches from the end of the picot bind-off, (yes, I may have done an extra pattern repeat), but I rooted around in my (rather large) sock-yarn oddments bag and found an approprately-coloured scrap that finished it off just fine. No, not perfect. But neither is it noticeable. So fine by me!

I have another FO to showcase as well, but I'm thinking that'll take a whole other post, so I'll park that for the moment. On the needles at the mo is pretty much a lot of the stuff that I had on the needles in January, with one or two additions. One or two approaching completion, so again, stay tuned, more updates to come!

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Dairbhre

Well, finally, I did me up a pattern! Yay! (yes, I know it's simple simple SIMPLE, but it's MINE, so I don't care).

The dreamy smooshiness that was the Debbie Bliss Paloma I procured some time back has been transformed into Dairbhre, a nice smooshy cowl...



As you know, the yarn was an impulse buy that I just could not resist (one of those yarns that you pick up in the shop and just want to smoosh your face into. I didn’t though. Honest. Well, not in the shop). It is squooshy and warm and light and dreamy. It had to be a cowl, as it feels like a wearable hug. Smooshy smooshy squooshiness! 

(Yes, I know, I need new words).

The colour I chose is one of my absolute favourites, and, with the slightly-less-than-solid appearance of this particular colourway, evoked beautifully the textures and shades of a mountain pass sweeping down to the sea on a beautiful clear-blue-skied summer’s day. And hence the name.

Dairbhre (pronounced Darv-re) is the ‘as Gaeilge’ name for an island down the neck of the woods that I would consider to be home. I recently, eventually, returned home for my first visit in many years, and it felt like I’d finally gotten my soul back. The weather, to be honest, kinda sucked (turns out that February is completely the wrong time of year if you’re looking for those clear-blue-skies kind of days), but it still brought back full force my feelings for the place, its spectacular, awe-inspiring beauty, and the grace of the big-ass ocean crashing around the island (that would be the Atlantic, for those not of a geography bent).

So this pattern, to me, evokes the colours of the ocean, the textures of the moss and heather of the mountains, and the finished article the same kind of snuggle-y security you can only get when you’re truly home! :o)

There's a link to the pattern on Ravelry here, but it's not quite there yet. For the moment, the only place you can get it is in This Is Knit. Go to shop, get the yarn, get pattern for free. (They also have the above knitted sample for you to man-handle and model, and will have it for the next few months).

After a time (as yet vague and ill-defined - but hey, that helps with the anticipation, right? RIGHT?) I will be uploading the pattern onto Ravelry, available free of charge to one and all.

It's a lovely quick, easy knit, and used pretty much every last bit of the two skeins...


That's a biro for scale, some itty bitty scraps, and the FO looking WAY darker than it does in real life because that was an indoor photo. Fear not about the small leftovers. Pattern is fully adjustable to your own gauge (i.e. "knit til you run out of yarn". Heh.).

I hope you like it...
:o)

ETA: Pattern can now be downloaded free from Ravelry. You're welcome!