on and off the needles

Firstly, thank you all for your kind comments and emails regarding my internet fiasco! I really appreciated each and every one of them. Yesterday, I spent over an hour (knitting and) watching a fourteen minute video from my course. I watched two minutes of the second video in half an hour – time to give up when it gets that slow!

I have been knitting and sewing as well as spending a lot of time on the computer. Today the knitted objects have the limelight.

I have continued to knit cowls and mitts for the charities I support.

I indulged my interest in stranded colour-work to use up some of the left-overs from previous cowls.

As winter approaches I appreciate having a roof over my head and a warm bed to sleep in and I really feel for the homeless and less fortunate at this time of year.

I also couldn’t restrain myself from seeing how this yarn knitted up. DD won a ball of novelty yarn, Carmen by Mondial (Italian), at the Knitters’ Guild meeting last month. I didn’t take a photo of the ball but here is a snippet of the yarn – it’s basically variegated blue tape with little dangling yellow pieces every couple of inches. The second picture is the detail of the knitted yarn.

DD gave the ball to me because she doesn’t have the patience to knit novelty yarns. The vendor at the meeting claimed that a scarf could be knitted from one ball.
As you can see, it’s a very small scarf even knitted on needles one size larger than recommended (6.5mm - 10.5 US). This one is approximately 10cm (4”) wide and (90cm) 36” long. Ah well, some young girl will probably like it.

Mothers’ Day is approaching and I found myself wondering about a gift for my mother. I have already knitted a pair of striped socks which she knows about but have added a second pair. I hope she likes them because they are fraternal not identical!

On Tuesday evening, I foolishly thought I could get another pair finished before Sunday. A cuff-down pair with baby cable rib and a gusset heel (instead of my usual hourglass heel).I am using Cleckheaton Cocoon (70% wool – 30% polyamide). This is the first sock at the time of writing.

Do you think I can get them finished given that WM and I are leaving for northern NSW this afternoon and will be at mum's late morning tomorrow?

Knitting it easy!

After the pain from my first 24 hours of over-knitting, I'm taking it easy. The pain followed a 'long' [according to WM and DD; I don't agree but my arm apparently does!] session of knitting with 3.75mm Knitpicks dpns and 8ply/DK acrylic yarn that I dyed myself. Nice mitten [my first ever] but an, oh-so-sore, arm!

Yesterday, I knit on size 6mm plastic needles with eyelash/novelty yarn [not my favourite choice of yarn but one of the few yarns I had to hand that could be knitted on large needles] - soft on the hands and easy on the arms; the needles are flexible, light in weight and easy to grip. Of course, it also helps that I only knitted every three hours for 10 minutes at a time [we used the kitchen timer to manage my progress]!

Today I upped it to 15 minutes for the novelty yarn and alternated it with casting on the second mitten on 2.75mm Knitpicks dpns. I've done a total of 900 stitches [45 rows over three sessions] of the novelty yarn scarf and 600 stitches [20 rounds over two sessions]. My arm is a little sore but not in pain like it was on Saturday. The smaller sized needles are definitely harder to work with - the metal is inflexible, the needles are actually heavier than the larger [in gauge and length] plastic needles and the short length [especially of the 2.75mm dpns] makes it hard to grip.

So, for my rehabilitation, I need to knit on large plastic needles; I will therefore probably knit a few beanies or maybe a Tomten jacket with two strands of 8ply/DK.

Thanks to all who have left comments or emailed me with suggestions for using my hand dyed 50g skeins of 8ply/DK acrylic. All suggestions will be thoughtfully considered, so keep them coming. I thought I'd just do a Noro/Vintage Hues look - knit until I run out of that yarn then change to another skein with similar colours - I've already grouped the skeins for that very purpose. And if I use two skeins together, I'll get more interesting effects, won't I?

novelty yarn scarf

Edited on 31 May 2011: If you are looking at this page today or sometime after this date, could you please leave a comment and tell me why? I am curious as to the reason why people visit this page so often. Please, please, please tell me why you're here!

I bought this yarn in an end-of-season sale at the local supermarket for the bargain price of 50c. Because I knit for charity, I'm always on the lookout for bargain yarns. Or I was, until I signed up for Stashalong.

Saleutions, the supplier of this yarn, describes it as:

Composition:100% Polyester
Gramage:50g
Meterage:51m
Tension (10cm x10cm): 22sts, 26rows, Needle Size:4.5mm
Number of colours available:10

It is similar in construction to Feathers (Patons) or Lashes (Panda), from the Australian Country Spinners range, but the 'lashes' are much longer. It is soft to the touch and knits up softly, but, like Feathers and Lashes, it is difficult to work with in the sense that dropped stitches are almost impossible to find.

Because I had only one ball, I mixed it with Panda Carnival acrylic, knitting six rows Carnival, two rows Knitwise in a garter stitch pattern over 19 stitches. The resulting scarf is a little over 2 metres long but quite narrow (about 15cm). Due to the larger-than-usual needle size for 8ply acrylic and my loose tension, the acrylic knitted up more softly than it otherwise would.

All in all, I am happy with the finished scarf and am sure the recipient will be too!