Autumn Colour

Conversations on weekend mornings in our house tend to run something along the lines of: Was there anything you wanted to do today? No, not really. Shall we go out? Yes. What shall we do? Don't mind. Where shall we go? Don't know. So we stay in. But yesterday, we made a decision! And we went out! To Hardcastle Crags, just north of Hebden Bridge, to see the trees in all their Autumn glory.

A walk in the woods

We got away without paying!

Hebden Water

Plenty of water in the streams after the rain last night

In knitting type stuff news, I have been mostly huffing and grumbling under my breath. I decided to make something for a friend and the 'pattern' if it can be called that, is a nightmare. I am subbing a yarn, which I am quite familiar with the pitfalls of, but even including for that, it is the most, erm, *grumbles under breath* piece of *grumble grumble* ever. I eventually abandoned trying to follow it and started making it up as I go along. When I'm finished I shall post my version of the pattern, that will be as much use. It will be a picture of the thing with 'make something that looks like this' written underneath. *Grumble*

Stripe-nicity

I had forgotten how much fun self-striping yarns are to knit and am loving the stocking stitch - at the moment, I'm sure the novelty will have worn off long before I've finished the jacket.


I had some good news today. The vets called to say that Mr C's latest test results have come back and all is well, so there should be no need for any more tests or treatment for 6 months. Huzzah! Crack open the catnip!

Nothing to see here...

I remember once reading a forum thread about the sort of things people like / do not like to see on knitting blogs where someone had commented that they didn't like blogs where only finished blocked projects were shown and there was no detail on things that had happened along the way, no trial and errors, mistakes, minor panics or progress reports. Well, whoever you were, this post is for you.

Before I start with any of my new yarn, I want to finish the shawl from VLT that's been on the needles for a while now, so on Sunday I managed to drag myself away from Ravelry and the computer and finished off the main body section with it's pretty picot cast off.

Yesterday, I rummaged around for some 3.5mm dpns to knit on the border. Do I have any 3.5mm dpns? no, I do not. Bit of a shame that I didn't realise this before spending the whole day on Friday in and around knitting shops, but hey ho. I have some 3.75mm dpns, so I thought I'd try with them as after all, there isn't much difference between 3.5mm and 3.75mm diameter needles is there.... well, actually, once I'd thought about it a bit more carefully, there is. There is a 0.8mm difference in circumference between these two sizes, which is over 20%. This is going to add up, and yes, 20 rows later this experiment was frogged as the lace pattern was looking decidedly floppier than it ought. My 3.5mm Addi lace needles are a little on the small size, so this difference will be even more. Ah well, the postal strikes are over, so my order for a selection of small dpns (and some sock yarn that was on sale) has been duly placed with Get Knitted.

While I wait for my needles, I thought I'd make a start on Devan for Lily-Rose's birthday. The pattern calls for 2.5mm and 3mm needles. Another look in the needle box turned up no 2.5mm straight needles other than dpns, which are too short. Could I use 2.75 and 3.25mm pairs instead? A tension swatch proved no. Then I remembered that in my knitting bag there are my 2.5mm circs for sock knitting. Perfect. I started with them. In the wrong colour. I went to bed.

Ally Pally

I did go to Ally Pally yesterday!

London is a big, strange place, but I was accompanied by Super Monkey, Badger and Northern Monkey so was quite safe. However, things did get off to a slightly shaky start when a random man on the train declared, totally unprovoked, that my Bayerische socks were 'hideous' and he 'wouldn't be seen dead in them'. Well. Quite apart from the fact I'd be surprised if any greying, middle-aged chap wearing a dull suit would like a pair of fancy cabled purple socks -I most certainly won't be giving them to anyone to be buried in, no matter how much they liked them. So sod you, sock hater.

Anyway, on to more pleasant things. Like yarn! And shopping! And lots of it.

I can has stash?

Ally Pally was very exciting. I took this picture on the way in and then forgot to take any inside as I got a bit distracted. There were lots of knitting and yarn stalls, and some others with strange papery stuff that we ignored. And a tiny button stall where I got some lovely (fully washable) handmade buttons.

So, we have, silk laceweight from Knitwitches

Bronze Earth

Very Black

Just the thing, as the evenings are drawing in and the nights are getting longer, for making big black lace shawls with - I may have read too many Victorian novels, but I have in mind something that would be suited to dying of consumption in. While dragging yourself up to expire on your dead lover's grave. In the snow.

The ladies at the Jamiesons stall were very reassuring about black shawl making and offered good advice on how it might be achieved while minimising the risk of blindness and insanity - they were very nice, even if I did almost have to wrestle one of them to get the yarn back.

Colinette Jitterbug in Castagne and Copperbeech

Fyberspates DK - I cannot remember if the colourway had a name. I shall call it Beautiful.

I possibly didn't give as much thought as I should have done to my shopping list before going to Ally Pally, although a list that is made up of things like 'nice laceweight in black' and 'grey sock yarn' and 'nice yarn' was fine by me. I plan to make Devan from Knitty for a friend's kiddy, as I made an Opal cardy for Lily-Rose when she was born and (how brilliant is this!) it became her favouritest cardy ever! So now she's bigger, I want to make her another one. I got this yarn at the Knit' n' Caboodle stand as they had non varigated sock yarn and they turned out to be very helpful and friendly.


Admiral R Druck sock yarn and contrast colour in Opal.



And an ugly duckling of the sock yarn world, Garnstudios Fabel sock wool in grey. I solemnly pledge to this yarn that I will make it beautiful.


So, as if that wasn't enough yarn for anyone, after lunch we went yarn shopping. In shops. First we went to Stash, where I did bump into Kai and where Northern Monkey and Badger got me some petrol yarn for driving them Down South, and more importantly, back Up North afterwards.

Koigu KPPPM sock yarn

Malabrigo lace weight in Violetas.

Then we went to visit the lovely Mr Craig in his lovely shop I Knit London where we got some of the softest cashmere ever for our Mystery Snoodalong and some ace badges. Badges, not badgers. We had to take her away with us, even though she did take her shoes off and get very settled in on their sofa.

Softest cashmere ever

So, a fab time was had by all (apart from the sock hater) and big thanks to Super Monkey and Devious for putting us up and looking after us, Idoru for her pancake restaurant knowledge and Badger and Northern Monkey for singing themselves hoarse in the car with me. Hurrah!

Ravelry

This is my 200th blog post. Woo.
I thought I should save it for an important announcement which is that I got into Ravelry today! Woo again.
I am on there as HellBelle so if you're there too, look me up :)