Done

Hang on a minute! That's three boxes. I thought there were only two shawls?

Everything was finished (it's amazing where you can find knitting time when you really need it!) and the wedding was gorgeous.

I'll have photos as soon as I get back from holidays.

Thanks for all the blog-love people, every time I needed a bit of moral support I would just read the comments!

Knitting on the road

Shawl number one's getting there. Ten repeats are done. It all comes down to how much knitting I can get done in the car. Oh, and silk dries really quickly doesn't it?

Cursed

The Good.

Shawl number 2 is off the needles and blocking.

The Fetchings are off the needles, ends sewn in, wrapped and ready to be gifted (Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran #611. I ran out of yarn with one thumb left to do, but I had an extra).

And eight repeats are done on shawl number 1.

Must be beer o'clock.

The Bad.

Most of this was done in the Emergency department of the hospital. My mum hasn't been well and she crashed pretty badly on Saturday morning. They admitted her and kept her over night and she's much better now (and at home). Given that Dad and MrBP are very squeamish around blood and needles I sent them home and stayed with her. There's not much to do in hospitals if you're not working or sick, so while she slept I knit. We nearly ended up back there on Sunday when I took a stack trying to photograph the shawl for this blog! You can laugh, it's hilarious really.

I have decided these shawls are cursed.

Bugger.

Everything seems to be going along OK now, but things did not start so well. It would take too long to explain in full-detail, and I don't think you'd believe me anyway, but by way of a brief summary: it took forever for the yarn to arrive. When the yarn arrived the pattern went missing. When the pattern went missing I couldn't download another copy as my access had timed out. When I eventually got a copy of the pattern (thanks so much for that Susan) the printer died while I was running out the door late for a plane. When I got to the airport, having satisfied myself that since the one page that had printed was the graph pattern I would just teach myself how to read that, I wasn't allowed to take my knitting on the plane. I tried to explain that knitters were philosophically opposed to terrorism, but I still had to check it.

(Shawl 2: 6 repeats done)

By this stage I was totally expecting the bag to be lost in transit somewhere. My boss thought this was all very amusing ("This would only happen to you" isn't a statement that helps in such times of crisis). However, having been on the receiving end of some knitted gifts, she was very sympathetic. She called the office and had them fax the pattern to us and then let me slip out of the last (very boring) session to knit. Take note knitters, get your boss on side!

(Shawl 1: 6 repeats done)

I thought I would start with my shawl, because I'd already cast that on with half a skein I had left from another project. But it just didn't look right. Check it out:

They're almost completely different! Who would have thought dye lot would make that much difference. What's Gold/Purple/Green on one is Yellow/Brown/Blue on the other. The second one looks like a totally washed-out version of the first. I was really unhappy about this to start with, but as I knitted up the new yarn I realised that I still liked it, it was only really a problem when I compared it to the other. I haven't quite figured out what I'm going to do with the little bit of the darker colour I have, I suspect i'm going to need it to finish off the project. Does anyone have any advice for how I can work it in, other than alternating between the balls towards the end?

I've got the weekend set aside for knitting, so hopefully will have some progress by Monday. I think it was the good vibes ya'll sent that battled off the forces of evil so keep'em coming!

Oh, and I just remembered I have a pair of fetchings to knit by Monday for a work mate that's moving back to Italy. I'm shaking my head at me too.

Oh dear.

A friend of mine is getting married towards the end of the month. No, not a friend. A person I have shared a significant part of my life with. The type of friend that over a lifetime you can usually count on one hand and that you are thankful for every day. The type of friend you would do anything for, even if there was only a slim chance you'd pull it off. Especially if you're the designated assistant for her wedding and head of the A-List (otherwise known as a bridesmaid) and the said task involved knitting.

My challenge is this: There are now 11 days (including what is left of today) until the wedding (is that a gasp I hear, V?) In the next 11 days I need to knit and block two lace shawls. Yes, two. One for me and one for the extremely talented (and now bald) friend who is making our dresses.

Now we could get in to an endless quagmire of discussion about why exactly I have 11 days to make 2 shawls (left it to the last minute), there may even be a sob story in there (yarn took twice as long to arrive as it should have) but I suspect it was self-sabotage. Thing is I like a bit of deadline pressure. I realise that this is possibly slightly masochistic in this instance, but i'm secretly a little excited by the challenge.


But i'm also realistic. Being ridiculously stubborn may not be enough in this case. So please, if you have any to spare, send your good knitting vibes my way. I suspect i'm going to need them.

Working Out

So my knitting projects don't always work out. Some become unfinished objects, some fail spectacularly, and some, like this cardigan, just never really get there.

It's not that I dislike it. It's too inoffensive to dislike. It's just, well, intangibly unconvincing. I think it's mainly that the edge is a different yarn (wool) to the main part (cotton with a little wool). It just looks wrong. The lovely smooth stitch definition of the cotton fights with the fluffy, almost felted looking edge. Does that sound too pedantic? Am I being obsessive about it?


Thing is I need big (time-consuming, expensive, and/or complex) projects to convince me. I need to believe in the finished product, in this case I need to believe that I would wear this cardigan. But I wouldn't. I know I wouldn't, everytime I look at it I feel a bit of a cringe. So the answer should be self-evident: frog it. But this seems so drastic. Look at how much I've done . And it seems so silly. And I feel guilty.

But this is knitting! It's meant to be fricking relaxing and enjoyable! I shouldn't feel guilty! I should feel calm and creative, dammit! If I'm not going to wear it why should I make it.


So it will be frogged. And I feel like an idiot that there was even a blog post in that little debate. But sometimes things fail. And that's OK. Right?

Fetching Albert

I was trying to take a picture of the gloves but my fetching photo shoot was gatecrashed! This is Albert (AKA Alby or Boo.) I've mostly avoided 'real life' stuff in this blog , but I thought I might share a bit about Alby. (I apologise to those people not keen on cats. You can feel free to tune out now or skip to the end! I understand.)

For a year or so Mr BP and I took in homeless kittens and willingly let them destroy our house and all of my stockings (seriously, you may be small and they may be large, but my legs are not trees, kittens! We don't climb legs!) We would basically have them anywhere from the time they were born (in the case of Buzz, she was a hairly slug with an umbilical cord when we got her) to a couple of weeks old, until they weighed 1kg. Then we would return them, they would be desexed, and (i like to think) go to loving families and cared for them as much as we did. This process generally worked well. Until it came to Albert.


We already had two cats (OK, so maybe the giving back part didn't happen so easily all the time) when we got Alby and his two brothers. They had been dumped in a sack at the door of the shelter, caked in a healthy layer of brown sludge. We had them for 3 months and they were hilarious! The middle brother loved cornflakes. When MrBP would have his cornflakes in the morning we would have to lock him in another room. One time he managed to get though the door and came tearing straight into the dining room, took a leap onto the table and then leapt smack-bang into the bowl of cornflakes. It still makes me laugh thinking about it! Alby was sick as a kitten, so we spent lots of time with the Vet and doing different things for him. Having no mother around he thought MrBP was his mum and would follow him all over the place (kittens don't understand 'bathroom time'. Or any other adult time for that matter). There wasn't a lap (kneecap rather) he didn't occupy within 3 second of it becoming available. He was, and is, the most ridiculously affectionate being I know.


Needless to say when it came time to return him I was devastated. A wreck. Couldn't work. Wouldn't eat. Didn't sleep. I was ridiculously and illogically upset. I kept calling the shelter to see if he was OK. Eventually they told me to just come and get him. I suspect they gave him to me because it was cheaper than taking out a restraining order.

He's been my ("our", sorry Mr BP) boy ever since.

Gosh, sorry for all the soppy stories! It musy be happy-ending week or something! I'll try and stick to craft now people.


Pattern: Fetching by Cheryl Niamath from Knitty.

Yarn: This was a destasher! Less than 1 ball of Filatura di Crosa Zara in a #1666 Fuchsia (the colour of the devil? Ha!) I got this on sale at the Woolshack a while ago.

Needles: 3.75mm bamboo DPNs. I didn't have 4mm. Oooooh, breakin' the rules!

This is significant because: I know fetchings are all over blogland (i'm a bit behind the times...) but this is my first, yes, FIRST, project on double points. I was a double point virgin. They scared the bejeezes out of me. It wasn't so bad though. I only poked myself in the face once. No permanent damage. Pretty good really.

I've been supervising a student on placement at work and these are being gifted to her. She's on her way to Europe for (our) Summer holidays, so i'm hoping they'll be handy! Ha! Get it! Handy...

*sigh*

Um, and thanks everyone that left a comment about Clap v2.o. I was shocked, SHOCKED, at the response. You made me feel all warm and fuzzy :)