Belize Wrap

I can now post photos of the Belize Wrap that I made for my friend Vicky's birthday. She has now seen it so I can let you view it. The pattern is a free pattern from NaturallyCaron.com and I made this one from double knitting. 200 grams main and 100 each of the contrast colours. The pattern does involve a lot of colour swapping but was quite easy to do once I got the hang of the swirls. If you click on the title of this post (Belize Wrap) it will take you to the pattern.

It was the monthly Knit Out of the Knitting Noras today and we had a good knit out in the sunshine. We were a little depleted today as a couple of Noras were at a craft fair, others had family commitments and I think some are away on holiday.

I did some work on the crochet squares I am making for my Breast cancer shawl. I still haven't finished the shawl off for Vicky and here I am starting another one! I don't think I will make it to the Kings Arms Knit Out tomorrow so I will have plenty time to finish it before I see them again.

My man's sock knitting has come to a halt as I am a bit unsure of the pattern I chose. It has calf shaping which I am not happy with as I am shortening the socks anyway and I don't think I will have enough wool (or cotton mix in this case) to finish the pair if I continue with this pattern so I think I will have to bite the bullet and unravel. I will have another look for a different pattern. I have not knitted a pair of man sized socks before so am not sure what size they should be. I have a couple of sock books but they all have patterned socks and I really only want a plain pair.

The holly tree branches are still languishing on the lawn as my son had to work this weekend and so could not come with his trailer to transport the branches to the tip. Caroline ( who gave me a lift to the Knit Out) bravely ventured into the branches wearing only flip flops to cover up the logs. The weather forecast is for rain tomorrow and these logs are destined for a friend of my son who has a log burning stove.

Woodman spare that tree!

Oops - too late. At last the massive holly tree has been chopped down. My son still had to argue with the landlord from next door about chopping it down. He still only allowed my son to chop it to the height of 6 feet and it looks a bit ridiculous now but of course it will bush up again next year.

I cannot believe how much light has now flooded into this room and the kitchen. I had been trying every trick in the book to try to lighten this dark room and it was the tree blocking the light all the time. My lawn is flooded with sunshine today but I can't sit out for obvious reasons. The tree is so huge it will have to be chopped into pieces to even get it on the trailer to take it to the "green" recycling tip. The tree looks a lot larger spread all over the lawn. I really hadn't realised just how big it really was whilst it was in the sky.

My son had to enlist help with it and both he and his friend got prickled to death with a bad case of tree rash from the prickly holly leaves. There was a lot of ouching and grouching going on from the depths of the tree! I bet my ears will be burning tonight when he gets in the shower and sees the extent of the scratches. The next project is my Sumac tree at the bottom of the garden. I love the colour of the leaves in the autumn but it has got too top heavy and is rather taking over the garden. I want to get it trimmed down before it falls down and I lose it altogether. I am sure that my neighbours will be relieved when the height comes down in the same way that I was with the holly. They must be losing sunlight from their garden because of my tree although they haven't complained.

Buster is apparently in disgrace. He had a huge wee all over the place whilst they were at work so I think he has outstayed his welcome at my son's house. I said to bring him back home again but Ian said not just yet. I am just worried he has another water infection as he is prone to getting and when he has one he needs to wee a lot.

I went to the Kings Arms last night and although Sylvia and Kath were really kind to me, met me at the tram stop and took me back to the tram stop after the Knit Out I was still very nervy walking back home from my local tram stop. There was no one around and it was really eerie even though it wasn't late. I didn't see a soul whilst walking from the tram stop to home which made me very nervous. I think I will only go to the Knit Out if I can get a lift or a taxi home in future.

I am half way through the last 10 squares of the granny square shawl and will hopefully finish those off tonight. I started a pair of men's socks last night at the Knit Out for someones Christmas present. I will take the sock with me when I go to the hospital for my post op appointment tomorrow in case I have a long wait.

Two bits of progress today

Today I passed a couple of milestones. I decided to stop the strong painkillers as I no longer felt the need to numb the pain. The pain is more of a constant ache now but bearable. I have stepped down to paracetamol. The second milestone was that I managed a little walk up the road. I was a bit wobbly not quite Bambi on Ice but you get the general idea. I had no more pain on walking that I have sitting down so I am taking that as a good sign. I did plan on walking a little further up the street but it started to rain - oh what a surprise. I am not sure what the neighbours thought of my attire (if they were looking) as I was wearing what I think Asda would describe as lounging attire. A Barbie pink fleece top with pale grey fleece joggers. I think they would be most likely to be used as winter pj's rather than walking up the street attire! I don't care anymore. I wasn't about the get changed just for a 5 minute walk

The huge ball of wool that I started crocheting the car coat from the Everyday crochet book has suddenly started to collapse and I am rapidly running out of wool. I had already foreseen that I would have to do the collar, belt and bands in a different wool as you can see from the cuff but I am unsure now whether I will have enough to make the coat body without using some contrast in it somewhere. I will finish off the other sleeve and take stock of what I have left and then I will make a decision on how to utilise the other colour in the design.

The Diploma aran is a lovely heather colour as you can see from the photo. Charlie gave me 2 packs so I will have plenty of yarn to make myself either an aran sweater or jacket. I am still not back to my knitting as I can't get a comfy position for that from my armchair.

I have made one of each of the proposed squares for Vicky's shawl but I have a feeling that the colourways may change once she sees them up close. The way that they have crocheted up together looks so different from the way they looked side by side in the balls when she planned the colour sequences.

Back to the crochet, the ever diminishing ball and the TV. I don't know if you do this but I seem to crochet or knit twice as fast if I think I am running out of wool. Do I think I can outrun the ball? That it will make a difference if I crochet/knit faster? I will let you know where I ran out and how I compromised tomorrow.

The toe up sock bites the dust

As you have probably gathered I was not happy with knitting the toe up socks. I would have continued with them but when I go to the Knitting Noras Knit Out today I discovered that there was something drastically wrong with the heel and I had the wrong number of stitches on the needles. I was counting and reading the pattern and could not find out exactly where I had gone wrong and Vicky said why not undo it and start again because you are not really happy with it. I bit the bullet there and then before I changed my mind and unravelled it. The sock is now a half inch long and the wool is rather ravelly as it has been undone twice now. I should hank and steam it but I really can't be bothered. It will unkink when it is washed.

The second granny square shawl is finished but I am not sure whether I like it now it is finished. It is rather bright bu maybe it will grow on me. I ran out of the purple and had to use a similar shade for part of the fringing but it is not too noticeable as I spaced it in and between the original colour and not in one block of fringe. I bought most of the purple and green so once again I haven't used up much of my stashed yarns. I still haven't made up my mind what I want to make next so tonight I will knit some on the socks.

It sounds like the ladies had a good time at Woolfest although the general opinion was that it was rather crowded and I would have struggled to walk through the people which was exactly what I was afraid would happen. It would have been nice to go and see the different wools and knitting paraphernalia. Maybe next year. I will check on Ambermoggie and Vicky's Blog later to see if they have posted photos of their trip. Vicky took her daughter Perran and Lisa took her daughter Storm so it looks like there will be the next generation of budding Knitting Noras blossoming sometime soon.

When Vicky kindly came to give me a lift to what might be my last Knit Out for a few months she brought with her some Knitting Books that she had read for me to look through. If I get bored with my sock knitting tonight I will browse through those. Maybe I will be inspired to start something from one of the books for my next project.

My shawl is finished

The shawl is finally finished. The tails though will I fear be always with me. No matter how well I think I have darned them in little ends keep poking through her and there to haunt me! What surprises me the most is that I can make a shawl this large and not make even a hole in my stash. The main part of the of the shawl and fringing was made from 200 grams of Patons Symphony and 200 grams of James C Brett Marble that I bought from the charity shop for the massive sum of £2.50 for the 4 balls. The rest of the colours are odd 50 gram balls of Robin Diamante, Sirdar Silky look and Patons Classic cotton left over from past finished projects. The whole shawl is a mix of thicknesses and textures.

It is quite large and very warm when I tried it on last night. I have decided to leave the fringe uncut as I can never get it level anyway. I can;t even cut my fringe straight! My shawl has a distinct wrong and right side as you can see from the third photo showing where I have crocheted the squares together. I just cannot face sewing squares together. The tails are enough for me!

I have returned to the toe up socks and got as far as turning the heel. I don't think that I am as enamoured of the toe up as I am of the conventional top down. The shapings are certainly neat but because I am not au fait with the technique I feel like I am wrangling with the pointy sticks again just like I did when I first started knitting in the round on 5 needles.

My internet has been down all of the morning and I felt quite deprived. I could not check my e mails etc or have my daily browse of the blogs. I will have to go now and clear the 100 or so e mails from Freecycle and Realcycle although at the moment I have stopped reading them properly as I have no car to collect anything that I might want. I will browse the blogs when I come back from taking Buster for his afternoon walk.

I am off to the Kings Arms tonight for my couple of hours knitting. I keep thinking that I will buy one of those stick on lights as the lighting in the snug is very low and it's difficult to see stitches especially if my work is dark. I will take the socks and hope that I can see them. I still haven't decided whether to finish off the partially completed crochet cardigan or start another project as yet.

Bury Market - officially the best market in the UK

I braved the rain and armed only with my purse and trusty steed Ivy I went to Bury market. There are placards and streamers everywhere declaring that Bury market has been judged the best open market in the UK. It was thronging with people despite the rain.
I went to my stall called appropriately The Wool Stall to search out bargains. I am a cheap and cheerful kinda girl these days and whilst I do love the quality yarns my purse veers towards the other.

The ones I bought today were not the ones I went for. The thing about a market stall is that if you don't buy when you see the wool is gone the week after. I am happy with my purchases even if they are a substitution. The two packs were £5.99 each. The top pack yarn colours can be seen in more detail in the separate balls photo. I also bought 3 more balls of the lilac random James.C Brett that I had bought last week plus some balls of purple, lilac and olive green to incorporate into another shawl. 80p a ball for 100 grams. Of course it's acrylic and probably not good quality but it will be fine for a shawl. My total outlay was less than £20 so I am very happy.

The granny square shawl has now been crocheted together and is awaiting a border and fringe. The third picture is the nightmare one. I love making granny squares but it takes forever to darn in all of the tails! The first picture shows it pinned together without its half squares. The second shows close up of some of the squares plus the pins. For my next shawl I will try using circular plastic stitch markers or big paper clips as the safety pins entwined themselves into the wool and were a bit of a bugger to get out again.

I hope to get it finished off tonight if I don't get too bored with all the darning. To try and go back to do some more rows on the toe up socks - if the lure of my new wool doesn't grab me. I have decided no more trips to the market until after my op. The fish and meat market is another lure but I shall resist. Yeah right - Ha Ha - watch this space.

Smell of the sea and sun oil

I love this shawl. It is probably about 20yrs old. Even then my love of purples and aubergines is evident. It accompanied me on many of my holidays abroad a long time ago and despite many washings it still smells of the sea and sun oil. I thought that you might like to see what I am trying to achieve with my new selection of granny squares. This next one will be subtler colourings but I do have quite a lot of purple and lilac bits so I can see another one hovering in the near future.

Around the same time as the shawl I also had a granny square waistcoat in black, purple, emerald and gold. I have never really been a shrinking violet when it comes to colour!

I did have to pass a wool stall on my way to the fruit and veg stall in Bury market but more of that tomorrow. I have a dog to walk and washing to hang on the line.