Other knitting blogs

I spent some time at the weekend looking at other UK knitting blogs. There is clearly a link between knitting and gardening. In fact a surprisingly large number of the ones I looked at had far more gardening posts than knitting posts. Little mention of outdoor knitting which you would expect might follow on there.

Then there are the people who knit on during their daily commute on public transport apparently. They have never travelled on any of the buses in my neck of the woods. I have to fold up my arms in a corpse-like pose to fit on the seat half the time. If I tried knitting there would be fellow passengers with perforations! And then where would I put my bag? And how would I keep the yarn? The only possible option here is knitting socks on dpns the size of cocktail sticks. Aah. Maybe I could knit socks for action figures!

Knitting for warmth

Thought I might manage a quick post before bed! I just found the photos I took of my last project. Last year I made the lofty mittens on the Straw.com web site. Well they were green and had cables if you will excuse the predictability of my project! They turned out pretty well - they are big enough to fit magic gloves under to keep my hands warm, although my fingers still go numb - it's a good job I don't live anywhere that's actually cold.

Anyway, I needed a matching hat and scarf. I knit the hat on the circular needle I used for the gloves. I used the same cable pattern as the mittens and worked out the number of repeats to get the size of my head. I think my tension was a bit tight though - no surprise there - so it is quite snug now it is finished. Here is the beginning of the hat...

It finished now. I do find that it doesn't keep my ears warm though. It is only single thickness round the band so the wind blows through. Hence I have hardly worn it. I think I will make an extra band to go inside so that it keeps the breeze out. And here is the start of my hat avec mittens. Ta dah!

I seem not to have taken pictures of the scarf. That could be the dark winter days we had around that time. Not good for photos. I had great fun trying to get the scarf right. I think I unpicked the last shaping of the hat three times before I got it to go right. On the other hand I think I knit about a foot of scarf three or four times and a whole ball of yarn once and frogged it before I got the needle size and right number of stitches to make the scarf narrow/wide enough and soft enough to wear. Good job I like knitting cables.

In case you were wondering the blue fluffy thing was my sister's Christmas present. Hideous eyelash yarn - hideous to knit that is. Well actually it is not hideous to knit, more hideous if you make a mistake or drop a stitch as you can't see the stitches to sort it out. I followed the pattern to the letter. One size fits all it said. One size that is very small! I got there in the end but I don't have pictures as it wasn't very photogenic. It looks like a blob. I tried to lay it out but it was having none of it. It made a nice background though.....

Mind the gap....

Should I worry about a 6 month gap in posts? Probably not. Over Christmas I did sew in the ends on the baby cardigan, then I lost the new buttons that I had bought (in the summer) so it still isn't finished.

I have found the buttons!! Original intended recipient is now over a year old. Last baby in the line is not tiny and I heard a rumour of a parental aversion to handknits. We'll see whether it makes it onto said baby.

This week I have free time so I should be able to get something done. I will sort out photos for blogging. I may sew on buttons. I may finish the top I started here. I may start on the muslin for Newlook 6808. Nah.

I may sit and gaze at the new telly. I know. I shouldn't. But I am digital. I have new channels, a shiny LED screen and the coathanger taped to the TV stand instead of a real aerial still works. Yay.