A Bit More Progress

At the moment I am still struggling to focus on one thing at a time.  Last Saturday I went to Birmingham to talk about my Memorial Quilt to the local branch of the Knitting and Crochet Guild.  I think the general consensus was that the filing cabinet was the favourite block.

I like the filing cabinet.  It is very simple but effective as a design.  It is good to see other people’s reaction to the various blocks as I know them too well to see them properly.

During August I have knitted more tea cosies for All the Fun of the Fair.

I have also made some progress on the shawl for my aunt. 

I had better get on with it this week as it is her birthday very soon.

I gave up on the black cardigan that I had started and unravelled it.  It’s not that I don’t want to knit a black cardigan but I can’t find the right pattern yet.  I will come back to that.

I have made better progress with my portable project – the multi-coloured scarf.  This is because I have been travelling around a lot.

I will try to finish this scarf this week as well – so that in September I can make a start on some new projects.

Limited Progress

I have been working on various knitting projects all week but have made limited progress.  On Saturday I attended the Oxford Branch meeting of the Knitting and Crochet Guild – where the topic was beaded knitting and crochet.  I produced a small sample by threading beads onto the yarn before knitting.  I have done this before – many years ago – but I had forgotten how to do it.

There are other methods you can use – including using a very fine crochet hook, and my usual method - when I am making crown tea cosies – of sewing the beads on afterwards.

I have made some progress on my other projects.  I finished the sleeve to pin onto the Memorial Quilt – so it could be photographed again on Tuesday.  The photographs will be printed in various publications in October and November. 

I have knitted 2 tea cosies and am working on a third for All the Fun of the Fair.

I have unravelled the shawl I started knitting for my aunt and started reknitting it again using the same yarn (Debbie Bliss Rialto Sock Yarn) as a main colour and blue, mauve and burgundy from Oxford Yarn Store’s range of Isager yarn.

I am happier with it now – it looks more interesting.

What else have I done?  I haven’t done any more on the cable throw or the black cardigan.  I hope the weather will get warmer again – so I won’t think – why didn’t I knit that cardigan while it was hot - I want to wear it now?  But I have started something else.

This is the beginnings of a scarf to use up some of my stash.  This is King Cole Riot.   It is 30% and 70% Acrylic.  It is quite soft and fluffy and is available in lovely bright colours.  Ideal for when the weather is cold and miserable. 

Casting On

Last time I said that I was going to cast on 3 projects and see which one I fancied concentrating on – since then I have acquired some more.

Firstly we are still trying to get a decent photograph of my memorial quilt - so last week I made a sleeve for the top of it so it could be hung on a pole like a curtain.  However the bottom still looks uneven so I am going to re-block it and make another sleeve for the bottom of the quilt.

I have started it!

Actually – it wont take long to finish the knitting – I just need to get on with it.  I may do it today.

The second unforeseen thing was that my friend Buzz from All the Fun of the Fair wants some more tea cosies knitted.  As I was travelling around at the weekend – I started knitting these as they are very portable projects.

The first of the 3 projects that I had intended to start is a short-sleeved cardigan to wear to work when it is a bit chilly.  I don’t need it at the moment but it would be good to have it finished by September.  

The second is another project that I need to finish in August.  It is a shawl for my aunt’s birthday.

I am not entirely happy with it and may take it out again yet.

The third project is so far even less successful.  I have knitted 2 of the afghans from Martin Storey’s Afghan Knits book and I decided I could use up some yarn by knitting another one.  However I have only done one row and then got stuck.

I think the pattern is wrong – but it may be me – I am not good with charts.  Often patterns have both but this one doesn’t.  I will come back to this!  I have enough to be getting on with.

Simply Stripes Blanket – Finished Version

I have finished this throw – and taken some terrible photos of it.  It is so sunny here – that I had to take the photos with the curtains closed. 

Although the photos are not great  - at least you can tell what it looks like in a general way.   Last time I said that the throw is quite small and it is – but despite going down 2 needle sizes – the sample is still larger than it is supposed to be.

This week I have also been knitting a sleeve to sew to the top of my memorial quilt so it can be hung up.  The only problem is that I haven’t got the quilt here – so I have had to knit roughly the same number of stitches I did for the edge of the quilt and hope it will fit.  I could be taking it out yet.

Karen Draisey from Oxford Yarn Store has become the quilt’s publicity agent.  Which is a good thing because if it were left to me I would just put it in the spare room and move on to the next project.  

I am in a funny mood at the moment.  I can’t decide what to knit next.  I think I may start 3 projects and see which one I want to concentrate on.  Normally it is best for me to work on a project until I have finished it – otherwise if I stop – I don’t start it again.  Perhaps if I can do a bit of each project most days I will get them all done – or alternatively I will have 3 more half-finished projects!

Simply Stripes Blanket

I haven’t done much knitting recently – hence the long gaps between blog posts.  This week I have been knitting a few tea cosies for All the Fun of the Fair and I have also been working on a sample for the Oxford Yarn Store. 

This work in progress is a Martin Storey design from the book Afghan Knits.  This book has several interesting patterns in it – but this one is particularly good for using up odd bits of Rowan Felted Tweed.  After knitting my Memorial Quilt I have got quite a lot of odd bits!

You are supposed to knit 63 separate squares and then sew them together.  I have decided to knit 7 strips and sew them together.

I did try to knit the strips together as I went along but could not get the join to look very neat.  Now I am glad I didn’t manage that – I do not want a lap full of blanket in this heat.  Thin strips are ideal for knitting when it is hot. 

I like the design and I like the effect – the only criticism I have is that although it is described as a blanket – it is very small.  If I was knitting this for me I would knit more squares and make it bigger.  This would mean that if I had bought the yarn for this project I would use up more of it.  I would also need more of the main colour but I think it would be worth it to make a larger blanket.

While I have been knitting these strips I have been thinking about another mad project that I might try next year when it will be the 40 year anniversary of me taking a serious interest in knitting as opposed to knitting dolls’ blankets as a child.  I have started scribbling on a piece of lined paper – that is how the quilt started.  Anyway – there will be more about this in the future.  I think the next project I work on had better be a shawl for my aunt’s 80 birthday.

Bits and Pieces

Now that I have finished the WW1 Memorial Quilt – I seem to be in a reflective mood.  Over the last fortnight I have been trying to finish a jumper that I started earlier in the year.  It is in Noro Shinryoku Colour 2.  It is a mixture of 70% wool and 30% silk.  It is like thick aran or thin chunky.

In order to try to keep the sleeves a similar colour.  I knitted them at the same time.  This does work but means that they seem to take ages to knit.  I used a very simple pattern that I have used before for Noro yarn.  I let the yarn do the talking.

For several months now I have been knitting one thing while thinking about what to knit for my next piece of the quilt – and this week I caught myself doing it – even though it is finished.  The jumper is finished as well now and I can move on to something else.  

On Tuesday I took the quilt to Oxford and left it in the Oxford Yarn Store.  The owner, Karen is going to take charge of it’s promotion.  If it was left to me – you are the only people who would know about it.   Now it is finished I do feel drained.  I had realised that it had affected me so much.

Now I am starting to feel a bit more relaxed and  I am watching the football, tennis or listening to the cricket and have started knitting a sample throw for OYS.  I will try to take a photo of it before I hand it over.  

Otherwise I have been thinking about how many other unfinished items are lurking in bags.  I know that at least 2 of them are very nearly finished.  Why don’t I just get them out and finish them?  Perhaps I will this summer. 

WW1 Memorial Quilt – Finished Version

I spent more than a week finishing this quilt. I decided to pick up a dark brown edge on each piece and so each piece has a border around it rather than being directly joined to the next piece.  I had thought of just doing mattress stitch joins but because the pieces are not all the same size I would have had to make some of them wider somehow.  I could have been more efficient and knitted a border on them as I went along and I could have included a seam allowance on the pieces which needed one.  However, my method of adding edges afterwards seems to have worked.  It has used quite a lot of wool – more than another whole ball of the Treacle shade of Rowan Felted Tweed DK.

I sewed the quilt together by sewing a few pieces to each other.   I was a bit worried that they wouldn’t fit together but they have.  I sewed all the top pieces to each other and sewed the bottom pieces together into 2 large pieces -  a left side and a right side. I then sewed the 2 bottom pieces together.  When I had finished I decided that they didn’t line up very well – so I had to take out my stitches and redo it.  Lastly I sewed the top to the bottom.

When the quilt was in one piece I picked up stitches along each edge – about 350 of them.  I did not count them exactly.  I worked 5 rows of garter stitch in Treacle and then cast of loosely.  I then pick up stitches along the top and the bottom including across the ends of the side edges.  I picked up what looked right and then decreased on the first row by working garter stitch as K1, K2tog.  I then worked 4 more rows of garter stitch and cast off. 

I am now blocking the quilt again in sections.  I have done all the corners and I am now doing the edges.  It is so large I can only do a bit at a time.

The only way I can photograph the whole quilt is by putting it on my bed. As you can see I have taken some photos of it – but the sun is too bright for them to be very good and you can’t see the whole quilt.  On Saturday I took the quilt to Oxford to talk about it at the Knitting and Crochet Guild meeting.  We laid it out on the floor so that everyone could see it.   I should have taken my camera!

I now have several other projects that I have planned it my head – much simpler than this one.  But first I decided to get back to a Noro jumper that I had started knitting – it is far to hot to wear it but when it is finished I can put it in a drawer ready for next winter.

I may do another quilt with meaning.  I do quite like designing from ideas rather than copying something visual.  Perhaps I should start on one for World War 2 but not this year!