Byron 6.9

He's not quite seven yet, but here is his Seventh Birthday Jumper.

It's "Little Spare Time" and I made it with the Madelinetosh MCN Worsted that I overdyed earlier this year. The colorway is Wicked, but since I dyed it brown, I'm calling it Wicked Chocolate. Hehe. For once, I stuck to the pattern completely, and it turned out great. I also made him some matching accessories

The "Donner Pass Cowl" and a hat to match in Malabrigo chunky. He says that it's all "very snugly" ...and then whipped off the wool and ran around in just shorts again. it's not nearly as cool as the clouds and wool would lead you to believe!

The jumper is only 99% finished, according to the boy, because I promised to replace those two buttons with pirate buttons, only they haven't arrived in the mailbox quite yet. :) Should do by his birthday, though, which is still 2 months away.

Anyway, that's my Order of the Phoenix mission done, and now I have to get on with the socks...

Oh, the blog...

I forgot about it for a while. I'm blaming it on night-shift brain, and the fact that I haven't got much to report for Feb. I did manage to do 6 classes of assignments, Quidditch, and some of the Mission, but there were a lot of quick projects in there, like dyeing.

I put most of my time into the inch of socks. This NEWT project is really dragging along, I must say. Socks take me a long time to knit as it is, and these are taking more than 7 times longer than a normal pair. I can't easily throw them in a bag and take them with me. I can't do 5 minutes-worth unless I'm prepared to leave it in the middle of a row. BUT... the heels are all done! Now I'm just doing the simple round-and-round of legs.

The classes this month consisted of 4 dyeing projects and two hats. Pretty bludgey, really. The yarn one was dyed to represent the Australian flag. It should knit up with stripes of red, blue and white (for the Union Jack in the corner) and then have a section of blue with white dots on it for the starry part. We'll see how the socks turn out later. 

The yellow Wurm I started back in December is done. I put it on for a photo, but it's gone overseas in a swap. Swaps are a bit of fun. I sent her this hat, the Garden yarn from the last post, and the green handspun from January.

 For Quidditch this month you could make three projects. If the total yardage was over 750, maximum points of 105 could be obtained. So I spun up this lovely Polwarth/silk/cashmere (about 60g of each) from Southern Cross Fibres. Ended up with 500y or so of 2ply.

I'm not at all a lover of pink, so I don't know what possessed me to choose these colors. But I love them, despite their pinkness, and I will have to find a project to use them all together in :)

And now, back to the Mission. I have the hem of the body remaining, then the sleeves, pockets and collar. And I have to procure a perfect button. Byron wants something Star Wars or Pirate. We'll see...

Quick stuff

It's a new month, and time to start new things! But first, some finished stuff.

After taking two weeks to do the last handspun, I tried a quick version, and spun up this one as fast as I could

I timed it, from fibre to single to the sink (I felted it by dipping it into hot and cold water, back and forth a few times) to the line, and deducted 12 minutes (for throwing on veges, chicken and an apple pie) and it took 1 hour 21 minutes. Hehehe.

I also did a speed-game for Quidditch; there were a few patterns to choose from, and you had to knit or crochet one of them, using at least 150 yards. I used up a 167y skein, and made this twisted rib cowl. It's very warm and cozy... far too warm for this time of year!

Then, at the end of the month, I decided to do more quick things, so the dye pots came out.

This one is a dark green version of the GlowSticks one I'm knitting socks with now. This one is heading overseas, though, in a swap. To be honest, it wasn't as quick of a project as I'd planned; it took all evening! lol.

Speaking of the socks, here's where I am on the NEWT

62 rounds past the toe (where the toe increases stopped), and this is the one with a Sweet Tomato Heel. It's a kind of short-row heel made of three shallow wedges, and a neat trick to close the holes. It made weird wedges with the short stripes, and I had to chop the yarn a few times to get the colors right on the front. But they both match. So two pairs have heels, and the rest are simply getting longer.

I don't think I'll do a NEWT next term. I think I'll do as I did last year, and take April off, and then do another OWL. April is for cables, and darning. I have a lot of darning to do! :)

Zachary 4

Unbelievable, that this kid

has suddenly grown into this one

His birthday top ended up taking me until midnight on his birthday (at the end of his birthday) and I had to block it overnight and dry it in the sun in the morning. At least he's happy with it...

Though perhaps not as happy to model it as I'd hoped

hehehe. This is him, pouting, because I'd callously asked him to smile when his knee was sore!! (He had a tiny graze from about 2 hours before.)


The pocket turned out a bit too thin, I think, but it doesn't really matter, as long as it will hold a rock or two. The pattern is "childHood", with lots of modifications. hehe. This Summer baby doesn't really need a warm birthday jumper, especially when he inherits Byron's ones. But he still loves them.


I guess, when he's older and wants 'shop clothes', I'll knit him birthday socks.

FAAT

Fourteen-At-A-Time socks are up to 50% now. At least, I said I'd do the toes and 50 rounds of foot for my NEWT project and call it half-way. For February, my goal is heels, and March is for legs. But I plan to do more than 60 rounds for the legs, which is at least 2 rounds a day, and a round is still taking me most of an hour. Hmm. Need to get ahead a bit.

I also finished some spinning today, half the fibre I got from Sunshine Yarns called "Dark Mark". It mixed up nice, I think.

And I've discovered that taking pictures of yarn in the bottom of my white bath tub is as good as a light box. LOL.

And I overdyed this atrocity-to-Madelinetosh-Worsted-MCN. I thought it was variegated brown, from the photo, but in real life it's purple, brown and green. It is called "Wicked", so I suppose the colors make sense when you think of the Wicked Witch of the West in that musical, but... bleurgh!

Now I have 6 browns and one purple.

Better. Hard to be worse. :)

I've only made one New Year's Resolution this year, and that's to knit 20 hats for the hat box at the chemo ward. One of my patients last year was wearing this horrible furry hat that she got from the hat box (and loved) and I thought I'd add some hats in nice yarn.

Number one is not very nice yarn after all, though. The dark red is Shelter, held double, very warm, and the shiny stuff is firestar 100% that I spun. (You're supposed to add a pinch of it to your fibre as you card it, if you want it to be sparkly. 100% looks like fluffy metal!) The Shelter is yukky; if you pull it a bit firmly as you knit, it just snaps! It's like it's made of a heap of short fibres, held together with felting. But it's warm, and someone might like the shiny...

Zachary's 4th birthday is next week, and his birthday top is coming along well. I'm loving the combo of colors, though they're hard to catch properly with my phone camera :)

I'm doing a sleeveless hooded pullover with a kangaroo pocket, loosely based on ChildHood. Just need to finish the hood, knit on a pocket and edge the sleeves.

Coming up: Winter Ravellenics (knitting Olympics), Nerd Wars X, and the Order Missions and more Quidditch! Also, luckily, the start of school and kindergarten, where I get three days a week with no kids for a few hours!

Toes toes toes toes toes...

I have been a slack little blogger this month, but I haven't been slack. My current socks were up to here last week

and are now up to here

They are about a quarter done, I think, and are up to 37 rounds past the end of the toe increases. After spending a few minutes on the calculator, I found this last pic to contain 61,664 stitches :) My old Time Trial socks had 21,000 stitches, so I've almost knit the equivalent of 3 pairs. I'm ahead of schedule... or I would be, if I didn't plan to make them longer. And tomorrow I start some other projects for January 'classes' in the House Cup game.

I finished the green hat, which Zac pinched straight away :)

And I made this one into a welted cowl (5 rounds of knit, 5 rounds of purl) until I ran out, so I could use up all the handspun I spun from Shadawyn's "Severus Snape".

I then started this one, being in a welty mood: another Wurm in Madelinetosh vintage. Decided to use a light yellow (Winter Wheat) for the main part, and a dark yellow (Candlewick) for the knit rounds that bend inwards.

It's easier to walk and knit with this than a chain of toes! lol.


Next month I have spinning plans and weaving plans, but I have to make sure to do my socks first. I have this pretty fibre called "Dark Mark" that I'm sure I can fit into this Harry Potter game somewhere!

And lastly, for the end of the year, my knitmeter read

And my tally for the "113 in 2013" group said

Knitting - 55
Weaving - 3
Spinning - 42
Dyeing - 16

= 116

Happy New Year!

Summertime

It's been a soggy sort of start to Summer. I miss the sun, and then I console myself with warm stuff. :)

Pattern: Hedgerow Socks. Yarn: String Theory Bluestocking in "Firecracker"

Pattern: own. Yarn: Madelinetosh Vintage in "Duchess". (The cello is Nathan's, not mine, but I made them to copy the fliptop mitts of  this guy, who is quite the cellist.)

Pattern: Cool Logic. Yarn: Madtosh Vintage in "Moorland". Not quite a whole hat yet :)

I have purple spinning to report

This is the Llama/silk I got from Bendigo this year. Must acquire some more some time!

Texel. Knew it was a bit rough, but I wanted to try some new things.

Apart from that, I've been going ahead with NEWT #4: Seven Simultaneous Stripey Socks on two very long circular 2.5mm needles. Here's where I am up to tonight

It started off awkwardly, to say the least! But now that the toes are done it's a bit easier to keep them straight, and they're big enough to hold their own little yarn balls. I'd had them in little bags, one for each pair, but they were annoying :)

This is all self-striping, hand-dyed yarn. I like watching the color changes... you don't get bored. It does take me about 40 minutes to do half a round, though!

"Unity" (so named because it's stripes of the Hogwarts House colors)... although I've been thinking of it as "One Sock to Rule Them All!" :)

"Mountain". Love how the variegation and stripes of dark brown are turning out. Behind that one is "Shadows" which is a gradient sort of stripe, going from dark to light grey. Shadows will be one of the Jaywalker socks.

"Glow Sticks" on the left and "Curcurbitas" on the right. Both plain vanilla socks, as are "Mountain" and "Unity".

"Rowena" will be a Jaywalker sock, too, and "Sunleaf" is getting a 3x2 ribbing.

These two last are a thinner yarn, and BFL. All the others are merino/nylon sock yarn.The "Shadows" one is thinner, or maybe I should just say that the four which are all "Bendigo Woolen Mills Superfine Sock Yarn" are fatter than your average sock yarn. lol. Anyway, I cast on more stitches for the Jaywalkers (Shadows and Rowena) so that the toes would be finished at the same time, and the Sunleaf rib socks have a few more stitches. The plain ones have 64 each. The Jaywalkers have 76 (the pattern pulls it in a lot) and the ribbed socks have 68.

And now it's quarter to 3am again, so I'd better kick myself off to bed.