Slytherin!!

Reset my Circular Sock Machine last month, and cranked up a long tube of some hand-dyed sport weight yarn. These socks seem to knit up quickly; there are only 54 stitches to deal with. I did dye up some extra bits, though, to make sure they were long enough. Of course, they ended up a bit too long. Hehe.

I did finish a couple of them in November, to hand in to the HPKCHC game for imaginary points (Slytherin won the Quidditch and House Cups, by the way.)

And then, when I was running out of time, spun up this quick spin in about a day

Lovely stuff, that merino/silk.


This December I'm having a month off from the game. There's a month off every 4th month, but if you do a NEWT, you fill that month with work. So next month I'll start an OWL, and in the meantime I've been finishing socks.


The red sport weight ones.

These fingering weight ones for the Box O Sox

And these

I now have 12 socks in my Box O Sox (which was the goal), though there's another nearly-finished pair. I'm filling up December with unfinished WIPs... and then I can start the year with lots of new stuff. :)

More things from November:

Two pairs of socks finished for "detention" and the Box O Sox

This NEWT jumper: Catherine by Glenna C

It was So Much Work, and now it's packed away in my "out of season" box for the Summer :)


So many pretty cables, front and back.

Although I'm not completely happy with the neck. It was way too big (after the pieces were blocked) so I had to frog some rows of the front shoulders, and now it's a bit uneven (front to back). Plus my seaming leaves a lot to be desired... but it is warm!




Speaking of warm, this!!

120x170cm and 1400y (held tripled) of my handspun. My handspun boxes are much neater, now.

And, of course, I found time for a bit of spinning...

Bond in "Dot"

"Closer to Home" and "Starman" BFL (2 skeins for socks and heels)

Next project, apart from WIPs, is going to be a strange double-knit one that should be both fun and infuriating :) called "Null Hypothesis".

Catch up

I’m trying not to forget about my poor knitting blog, which I’ve had for so long, but I keep putting it off “until I’ve finished one more thing” or “until my next days off”. LOL. So, here are some of the things I made back in September and October.

Another little Milo (from one of the Wren & Ollie yarns I got in Bendigo)

An N4ply mix of Faulkland and Cheviot (hehe)

A 3ply mix of BFL and mohair

A fat skein of Spelsau

Some finished socks

A bit of a set, using the Inolvidable bulky Malabrigo from Bendigo that looked much better in the skein :S

A mash-up spin of several different bits and leftovers

This little spin (love this colorway: Primordial)

Doctor Who scarf.

This is my latest large project: a season 18 Doctor Who scarf! To my surprise, I quite like the colors (although the whole time I was knitting them, I thought they didn't really work so well together) and the yarn is softer, after a wash, than I thought it would be.

It's almost 800g, and, as per instructions, touches the ground both ends with a loop that also reaches the ground. Of course, it's not practical to wear it like that.

This is how I'm mostly wearing it (and I've worn it a lot since finishing it). Basically, it just wraps around lots, so I can walk. I normally fold it in half (so the right sides are out) and wrap it around my neck twice and tuck the ends through the fold (a la Sherlock). It still hangs down to my knees :) and feels like I've got a blanket wrapped around my shoulders.

Kept track of all those stripes (over 1200 rows) in my bullet journal. Very helpful!

Blocked it by soaking it, and hanging it over the garden shed. It went from about 4.5m to about 6m :)

Love it. It's so long!

Current NEWT is going along very slowly. I decided to choose a subject I'd avoided in all my 8 OWLs and 11 NEWTs so far: Herbology. This one involves cables, and I know that, although I can do them, they're very slow and tedious for me. So I set myself a jumper with lots of cables :) just to prove to myself that I can.

The NEWT committee volunteers didn't think one cabled jumper was big enough for a NEWT (although I did) and requested just a little more... so I first made a cowl for Nathan and spun up about 650y of merino/rose 3ply. As for the top, I have the sleeves done and about 80 rows of the back.

I'm only just keeping up! Cables! 

Acquisitions

 July was for spinning, and I ended up spinning over 5.5km of singles, which is my PB, I think :)

The one on the left is "Wonder Woman" yarn that David from SCF dyed up, just to show us how he used pictures as inspiration. It matched my Ravatar at the time (which someone made me) and was also a prize :)

Hehe. Of course, right in the middle of the TdF was the Bendigo Wool Festival. After last year, I decided I wasn't going back. There were too many non-yarn stalls and already-knitted things, and not enough different fibres (ie all merino and alpaca), hardly any interesting fibres, and frankly, things were cheaper on the internet. Also, I felt a bit sick, and that my stash was out of control.

This year, though, Jacki (another knitter from work) persuaded me to give it another go. I went, on a sunny Saturday, just after doing the tax return (ie with money in my pocket) and a determination to buy just whatever I felt like.

Had a great day!  Ended up coming home by about 5; took this picture in Creswick on the way past. I got lots of sock yarn, some Soak, some needles, a bit of fibre, and some DK and chunky yarn. :)

(More pictures on Instagram; I'm alr1scha on there)

I've already spun up one of the fibres (the one on the right, above) and knit up the green speckley DK yarn. It turned out to be perfect for the project Jasmine asked for for her 9th birthday. Very scaley. :)

Hehe. It's called "Dugite" or something. Only the head is stuffed; the rest is stockinette stitch that just rolls in on itself sideways (which makes it very floppy and bendy, more snakelike than a stuffed one) and she's surprisingly proud of me for making it. LOL.

And now I'll sign off (because Blogger is being annoyingly iPad-incompatible and jumping to the top of the screen every second letter I type (very flashy and irritating), and my computer is being too slow). I've been slack with my blog because, frankly, everything's on Ravelry :) but I'm on holidays from work, and so I'll add a smaller post more often :)

Next time: my latest OWL and my current NEWT...

June

More spinning accidentally happened this month. Hehe.

This one was for Quidditch: a colorway I thought was very Gryffindor. It's actually Finn/Rose by Kathy's Fibres, and the colorway is called Nomad. Loved it.

And then a bit of plain grey (SCF "Cast Iron"), which was surprisingly enjoyable to spin

Just as well, because I may have bought a kilo of grey fibre from SCF on sale ;)

Whipped up a cowl and some hats on my Addi King Express (a little finishing required)

Then I used my sock machine to crank up some socks for the Box O Sox. Looking forward to this Christmas present :)

Handspun

Matchy opposite socks

Then I thought I'd try some Felici Worsted sock yarn (which is fairly new) and made some fat Jaywalker socks with it.

My Mission took lots of my hours this month, but I'm not getting any closer to the end. It's a laceweight garter stitch black hole! I think I'll finish it one day... but probably not in July.

July is for Spinning!

May

May (which was a little while ago, now) was all about handspun. As planned, I did make a dent in my handspun stash. As well as destashing a bit :) I used handspun for 3 classes, Quidditch, and the Headmistress Challenge.

Two other classes were for family birthday presents, and not handspun.Socks for Kelly and earflap hats for Byron (that's what he wanted!)

Then there was a bit of detention, a bit of dyeing for Q, and about 2m/400g of this Doctor Who scarf for my OWL

Surprisingly fun, just going backwards and forwards. I'm not looking forward to weaving in Ends, but I'm looking forward to wet-blocking it nice and long!

And then, well, I may have spun a little... It's hard to resist :)