More slipper and a turtle

Presenting... my clown foot! I just hope it felts down to the size of a normal slipper...



And as he's arrived at his new home, I shall put up the details of last week's knitting.

Pattern: Sheldon by Ruth Homrighaus
Yarn: UKAlpaca Fine DK, in natural and jade (used less than 50g of each) and some brown DK for the eyes.
Needles: 3mm dpns, 3.25mm straights and 3mm crochet hook.

He was a lot of fun to make, not as complicated as the pattern might make him seem and I would definitely make more of these in different colour combinations. Some of the green/purple and green/orange combinations on the Sheldon flickr gallery are really cool.

Slippery

The first slipper is done. It is HUGE! I hope that the Lambs Pride felts as well as people assure me that it will, because this baby needs shrinking by a hell of a lot. Knitting the sole on was interesting, with three 9mm needles on the go at once. I used my Denises and one straight needle and managed ok, although it made my hand ache so quite slow going.


This is the Lambgora. It isn't at all like how I would expect lambswool and angora to be... stretchy. Also very soft and so pretty, I think this colour is called Ocean Swirl.


And this, of course, is Cadbury, who was worrying the strap on my camera while I was taking the other photo so I snapped him too.

Butt!

Blog? What blog? I have a blog? Oh yes. Oops.

My apologies for the distinct lack of posting of late. I have been knitting away but on a gift for someone that I know visits here so I didn't want to put up any spoilers, and my last post was a waffler without any progress pictures or wonderful new yarn aquisitions and I always think that there is something a bit lacking in a knitting blog post without any, well, knitting.
So, in between the knitting I won't tell you about, I have been mostly breaking cars, buying new, visiting family, remembering birthdays and installing my new water butt. It does have a lid, I was just enjoying standing in the rain watching it fill up.

Yay!

And, before I forget, a big Thank You to everyone who made contributions to the comments on my stash post; it was really interesting to get all your points of view.

I began a Molly's Headband in Lambgora (lovely, lovely stuff & thanks to Badger who gave it to me for my birthday) during my lunch breaks last week, and it is still at work so no pics yet. I will try and remedy that next week as the yarn is really worth a picture. Very elastic too, which surprised me.

And this the start of one of my (to be felted) slippers. I am loving the clog pattern, there is just something very satisfying about making something so shaped in one piece. I suspect this is why I enjoy making socks too, the turning of the heel has the same feel to it. The Lambs Pride Worsted yarn is super soft and lovely to knit with.

Lambs Pride Worsted:85% wool, 15% mohair

Stash

Lately I have been contemplating stash. Not so much uses for my stash, but the essence of stash itself. Stash seems to mean different things to different people and attitudes towards it vary; there are those who are proud of their stash and display it openly, those who hide theirs away and those that hide but delight in revealing their cunning hiding places or recounting tales of when a despairing (but ultimately indulgent) family member stumbles upon some of it. The Yarn Harlot has some great ideas for stash stashes, some really quite ingenious, although I would add (rather sanctimoniously) for anyone considering using their freezer for this purpose that even the most energy efficient freezer uses around 300kWh/year to run and filling it with wool isn't the greenest of ideas. A few people have even been known to declare themselves free of stash, buying yarn only for their next project. I don't know many of these.

Most knitters collect, and most seem to reach a point where they feel some guilt at the size of their stashes, and there are many support groups around to help. Stashalonging is always popular, where people declare that they will not buy yarn (apart from on days off, of course, and when there is a real bargain, and and ... I've done one of these and it's hard not to think of yarn all the time when you tell yourself that you're not allowed any) for a self inflicted period of time - sometimes up to years!

But there are those to whom the idea of using yarn from the stash is abhorrent. It is there to treasure. This yarn is special, like their own yarn museum. I read of a yarn the other day that was 'rare' - this is something that had never occured to me before. A rare sock yarn. If there was a fire, which yarn would you save first? Would you ever dare knit it up? Would you sell it for a profit? Do people store stash incase of a great yarn shortage? I don't know. I have no answers. And what becomes of yarn that isn't used? These knitters who declare that they have more yarn than they could ever knit up, are they depriving the yarn somehow of it's purpose?

I myself have a smallish stash, some bought, some that arrived as generous gifts or acquired though swaps and some odds and ends in different colours which are useful for toys, etc, but most of it is earmarked for projects, or at least a vague idea of a project.

I actually seem to have more finished things that I don't use and I'm not sure what to do with but can't bear to part with. I wonder how many other people there are with a shawl stash? :)

Forest Canopy

Am finished! You are probably bored of looking at these shawls by now, I must be like the last person in blogdom to get around to making one. Still, at least the yarn is pretty enough to make it worth showing!

Pattern: Forest Canopy Shawl by Susan Pierce Lawrence
Yarn: Jojoland Melody in Dust Red Light Brown
Needles: 4,5mm inox circs
Size: pre-blocking 95cm x 50cm and after blocking 145cm x 65cm.

I would have liked it to be a bit bigger but I only managed an extra couple of repeats; the long rows on the last few really start eating up the yarn. I do so want a blanket sized shawl that I can wrap myself up in. There are a few in Victorian Lace Today that are huge and impressive, so if I get started soon I might have one finished by winter... with no commitment to which winter....

To give an idea of size, here is me out in the garden with it. Please excuse the scruffy hair.

Busy morning

I went to the post office and collected my parcels this morning. Yay for shopping! I also visited the hardware store and two garden centres so I feel like I've done a full day already.

I got some yarn to make some felted slippers, I got the Fibre Trends pattern for clogs a while back. This is Lambs Pride worsted in Seafoam (the pale one) and Turkish Olive (darker). I'm very pleased that they match as well in real life as they did on the colour swatch on the Get Knitted website. You get a free Fair Isle handwarmer pattern with this as well, which is very pretty and I shall most certainly be making at some point so I bought a little extra to make sure I'd have enough for the handwarmers and the slippers.


I also got some Interweave magazines, the Summer 2007 Knitting and the last Crochet magazine (Fall 2006), which I have never seen before but heard good things about so I was curious to have a read of it.


My Posh Yarns Lace Club yarn arrived today, in all it's blueness.


I also got some rather interesting chocolate, some of which has already mysteriously disappeared.

It is a lovely day here, really warm and sunny with a nice breeze so I thought I would take the pictures outside in the backgarden. Some people are a bit embarrassed about being seen knitting in public, but I can assure you that you'll get more strange looks from your neighbours being spotted taking photographs of wool than you will actually knitting the stuff. Ah well. They'll get over it.

Meanwhile, Mr C was enjoying himself playing with a piece of grass around the legs of our rather tatty looking picnic table.