Progress Report

At the start of the year, back in this post, I set myself five goals.

Now at half way though the year I've managed to meet one of these goals! Yay! Ticking off goal number two on the list is my first ever fair isle project. Admittedly it was a pretty easy one, but I'm still quite happy with it. Presenting Tam C of the Three Tams fame.


The yarn is Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran in Beige (102) for the background and Noro Silk Garden in no. 239 for the pattern work. I ran out of the Cashmerino at just the right point in the pattern and finished up with the Noro. There's one mistake in my fair isle (can you see it?) but I was on the home stretch and couldn't make myself go back to fix it. I absolutely love working with Noro yarns. Love, love, love it! I love the way the colours seem to change organically, blending from one to the next. I even love those unexpected colours that seem to have no business being there. Can you see the almost fluorescent yellow that has popped up on my beret amongst all the muted browns and blues. Love it! I know Noro yarns are not the most buttery smooth of yarns and this is where the Cashmerino comes to it's rescue. It's a great combination. I have plans to make more of these, so hands up, who wants one?

As for the rest of my goals, well I think I will have to get a wriggle on. Still no socks and no lace. I'm completely failing number five, with my project based obsession continuing. I guess there are some things in your nature that you just can't fight.

Something else that just flew off the needles were two Brea Bags. Unfortunately, after they flew off the needles they then sat around waiting to be seamed and lined. I have finally finished one of the bags. Here it is in all it's fully lined, handle attached, button on glory....


I like the way that the lining peeks through, although I can see why other people have decided to add a zip closure to this bag. I'm not sure how secure the items it is holding will be in its current state. Does anyone have any suggestions to rectify this (that don't involve lots of unpicking of lining to sew in a zip)? Here's a closeup.....


The yarn is four balls of Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in Hollyberry held double on 5.50mm needles. One of these days I'll around to lining the second one. One day....

I have a few things on the in the WIP pile at the moment, but I'll leave those for next time. So until then, here's a photo of me sporting the my beret in 38oC heat!

P.S.....

I have noticed that my weather pixie has changed into her bikini. Poor thing, I don't think she will get to wear clothes now for quite a while!

What happened?

It's been six weeks since my last post and people have started to wonder what's going on! I even had a concerned comment from the lovely Yasmin worried that something might have happened to me. I thought that was really sweet, so thank you Yasmin, you have given me the motivation to write this post.

I don't really know what was going on, but I was having a bit of a "downer" about my blog. It started with the blocking of Ravelry. For those who are not living in the Arab world, our internet service here passes through a Government run proxy which can block access to particular websites if they feel they are "inconsistent with the religious, cultural, political and moral values of the United Arab Emirates". I've been using Ravelry for less than a year and when they blocked it it was like a close friend has passed away! I was devastated. Chi Wai, my darling husband was on to it straight away, and filed a request to have the site unblocked. Here was the response we got just yesterday....

Dear Etisalat Customer,

Thank you for contacting us, we are extremely sorry for the fact that the site you have requested ( www.ravelry.com ) can not be unblocked.

Reason: Dating and Relationships.

Can you believe it? It's a knitting site people! What really irks me is that Facebook, the most perverted "Dating and Relationships" site there is, has not been subjected to the same fate. Grrr! Facebook was previously blocked but has for some time been accessable. I will have to live in hope that they will see reason for Ravelry also.

So you would think that the loss of Ravely would have spurred me on to madly write more blog posts, being the only outlet to share my knitting stories, but it didn't. It probably had something to do with the other major component of my life over here, work!

I have never talked about work on my blog before, and don't worry, I'm not about to start now, but let's just say, things have been really hotting up! For those of you who don't know, I'm here managing a project to build a factory. I'm not going to say any more than that because I know it's soooo boring for anyone who is not involved. We are now just a few months away (hopefully, fingers crossed, things keep coming up to delay us!) from commissioning the factory and it is consuming all of my brain power! When I come home from work, it's like I'm in some kind of vegetative state. The three of us, Chi Wai (hubby) and Brian (housemate) are working on the project too, just sit there and stare at the TV barely moving until it's time for bed. So sad really.

But fear not readers! This does not mean that I have not been knitting! Of course I have been knitting, I just haven't been writing about it. Phew! I can hear the collective sigh of relief from here! I even have a few FO's to discuss, but I will leave that for another post. I promise I won't leave it so long this time.

Thanks again to Yasmin and Zena (bf) for giving me the nudge that I needed.

EZ Delight!

I finished my first ever Elizabeth Zimmerman project!

Here it is in progress....


Actually I finished it a few weeks ago. It's taken me until now to post about it. Here it is, my first February Cardigan.


The yarn is a hand dyed mystery yarn given to me for Christmas by Zena. It feels to me like merino because of it's bounciness. I think it works really well with this pattern. The lace pattern softens any colour pooling that might be going on. The cardigan is is shown here with a pair of "Magic Slippers". These were really fun and quick to knit, great for leftover yarn. Don't ask me who these are for. Surely someone will have a girl one of these days!

Before buying this book I had never read an EZ pattern before and boy was I missing out! She's a hoot, mad in a perfectly good way. I was sitting on the lounge reading the book like it was a novel, occasionally having a chuckle to myself. Chi Wai and Brian were having a hard time understanding how I could find a knitting book so amusing. I tried reading bits out to them, but they didn't get it. Non-knitters, humph!

I loved knitting the cardigan and love the finished result. I'm going to try a second one but modify it to make it more boyish, maybe with some cabling or something. A big thanks to the February Cardigans of Knitabulous and RandomKnits for inspiring this knit.

In other knitting news, I am nearing completion on a Phiaro Scarf. My main motivation for knitting this scarf was to try out the yarn. It's called Oasis by the Southwest Trading Company and it is 100% Soysilk. In ball form it didn't live up to my expectations, but now that it has been knitted up, I can see why people gush over it. The drape is just gorgeous. This is knitted in a big tube before you cast off and drop the stitches. Really, really mindless knitting, so much that I manage to get up quite a bit of speed whilst knitting it. I think I have delevolped a RSI in my left hand and it has been sore even when I'm not knitting. Everyday I say to myself "I won't knit tonight to give my hand a break" and every night, there I am knitting. Pretty sad really.

Here's the culprit!


Last night I finished the tube of pain and now I can start casting off and dropping stitches. All of those stitches that have caused me such pain! I'll get my revenge yet. Heh heh heh!

And it goes a little somthing like this....

Last weekend we went to the beach. Let me paint the scene for you, paint by numbers style.

There was....

• 980 men, frolicking on the sand or in the water, in all their hairy backed glory
• 10 men playing the most serious game of beach soccer you have ever seen
• 6 women dressed in full Abaya and head scarf not swimming
  
• 3 women in bikinis brave enough to endure the stares to make it to the water
  
• 1 man swimming in white underpants!

Guess which one I was was.

Needless to say, once I had retreated to the safety of my beach towel with my dress back on, the people watching was quite interesting indeed!

Finally!

Here's some photos of me in my Puff Sleeved Cardigan, finally!

These were taken today, while it was about 35 degrees Celsius outside! It might be a while before I actually get to wear it, at least until the next trip to the movies. The air-con is always arctic in the cinema!

Collar up!


Collar down!


A bit of a closer look.


This cardigan has taught me a few things. I think the high neck makes me look a bit more busty than I like. I think, for me anyway, cardigans with a v-neck or scoop neck are more versatile. Secondly I really should have realised, anything with a raglan sleeve, really isn't going to have much of a puff even if the name of the pattern says so! Lastly, the yarn (Knit Picks Swish DK in Maple) for a Merino yarn, has quite a bit of drape, so much so that the Mandarin collar doesn't really want to stand up by itself. That bit is bugging me about this cardigan. Apart from that, I'm pretty happy with it. I'm especially happy with the fit.

Speaking of people wearing their handknits, check out Sam and Archie sporting my handy work.


Such smiley babies!

Knit-Knack Paddy Whack!

Since we got back from Australia (four weeks ago) I have been a bit of a knitting zombie, blindly plugging away at the familiar and boring. I just haven't been able to make a decision on what to knit next. Well, what to knit next that is interesting anyway. I think part of the problem is that I can't choose something and then just pop down to the shops and buy some yarn for it. Instead I need to choose yarn online and sometimes the results of this can be interesting to say the least. Then I have to wait for it to arrive. The whole process has been sapping my motivation!

Strangely enough, the result of all this has meant that I have been somewhat productive, even if the items are a bit boring.

I've had my eye on the Brea Bag by Norah Gaughan for a while now. I think it's really cute. I had a bit of a space out when I bought the yarn for this and then didn't realise my mistake until after I had finished knitting it. The pattern specifies to hold the yarn double to give a denser fabric which is good for a bag. Instead I just bought yarn which matched the guage and knitted it single (der!). No matter, I just need to find a dark sturdy fabric to line it with that will give the bag some structure and won't show through the knitting.



The yarn is Knit Picks Andean Silk in Chocolate and I have to say, that for a alpaca and silk blend, this yarn is not as luxurious as you would expect, but I guess at $4.29 a ball I shouldn't complain. I have bought a handle for this, but it just arrived this week, so I have not yet sewn it on. I think I will wait until I have sewn in the lining anyway.

So while this project wasn't exactly boring, I've now cast on for another one in my desperation to not stop knitting! Here's the first side completed, knitted in one session!


After I completed knitting the first Brea Bag I was at a complete loss as to what to knit. I searched through my stash and this is what I came up with. The twin baby shrugs!


The pattern is by Debbie Bliss and is from "Simply Baby". It's very similar in construction to the Ribbed Baby Jacket (also by Debbie Bliss) which I recently completed for baby Thomas, so by the time I was on the second one I was knitting with my eyes closed, well almost. The second one took me less than a week of night time knitting to complete. Yay! The yarn is Knit Picks (surprise surprise!) Shine Worsted, in Snapdragon and Wave. It really is a great pattern and I think I would make it again, just not for a while. These are for the girl baby twins in my life, Carlie and Sophie. The flower was knitted from memory from the "Head Huggers" pattern that I made years ago. I have just tied these on so that they can be removed for washing and/or if Mum and Dad decided that such frippery is not suitable for babies!

So as I said, I am now plugging away blindly on the second Brea Bag with plans for a third, but there is light at the end of the tunnel of zombie-ness. Yesterday I finally sat down and bought some project specific yarn. I spent a lot of money and it's not from Knit Picks! Now I just have to wait for it to arrive......

Speaking of stash enhancement, here are some pics of the fixings for the Brea bags which arrived this week from M&J Trimmings. How I love the Internet!


Yes, I know I went a bit overboard with the buttons, but you just don't know for sure if they will look any good in real life. So it's better to get a few different ones, don't you think? Needless to say, my button stash is getting quite large. Heh heh heh!