Chained to the wheel

Yes, bad blogger, I missed posting last week, I do have a fairly reasonable excuse in that it was my daughters birthday on valentines day and my lovely mum as ever held a joint party for her and my nephew so was out all day and then it didn't seem right to post Monday, cause that would be just weird, partly it's guilt too, well not guilt but I hadn't worked on any old projects, as I'd been going hell for leather on my easy knits spin club stuff, which I'm pleased to say I did finish, yeay!
200g of fibre and the task set was be creative, so I went and created! I spent almost a week, spinning, every evening after baby had gone to bed (as no way can I spin with her around,) and this is what happened!

The one on the left is called ancient artefact and the right archaeologists dig. The ancient artefact was actually dyed in short colour bursts along its length, but I split it all in to individual colour groups, then blended them back together with my very handy blending hackle I got from ambermoggie at wonderwool last year, then spun the fibre in to a gradient yarn, left it as a single and knitting a little shawl with it!

Was most pleased with how that turned out I must say!

So that was me at my most creative lol For the archaeologists dig I decided to just split it along it's length multiple times until it was the width I'd normally spin with and then just went for it and chained plyed the result, decent bulky yarn! Used it to knit a zomg cowl which was a pattern specially for hands spun yarn.

As I was knitting that, the colours reminded me of an owl, and seen as they are all the rage of late, I found a cute crochet baby owl pattern, grabbed my needle felting stuff for his details and success! Even if his eyes are slightly odd. Managed to nail the first one, but the second.. Well he's slightly crazy, can live with that!

So will this be enough to show I was creative? Will I win the comp? Knowing me, even if I was the only entrant, my chances are slim! Optimistic as ever I know!

After I'd done all this, was feeling so burned out and uninspired with all my projects, it took a few days off knitting an odd row of my pooling stole, before I cast on some socks, well technically not true as I started a clapochet shawl off ravelry, using my colour block yarn from knitting goddess, I was going to alternate between the two 50g balls to give a graduated mini stripes kind of effect, but wasn't liking it 7 rows in so gave up, and then I thought socks with some wollmeise, picked some twin out, wound it in to two balls (as I'm determined to do two at a time using the needles I bought specially to do this, over a year ago..) then spent another evening finding just the right pattern, then it took nearly another 24hrs to cast on, then nearly hurled it across the room as it was so fiddley and was struggling with doing magic loop despite the fact I'd done it many times before, but not with socks until it finally settled down and I made it past the cuff and to the pattern.
Phew! I chose Sunday swing socks from knotty, and my wollmeise chose was a we're different libelle, which looks no different to actual libelle, so can't complain!

So that was my week, might not be project busting, but I'm happy, must count for some thing! Now to avoid the temptation to cast on a scarf version of wingspan, just because...

Wee Cluster hat!

 

This hat fits my 7mth old daughter with room to grow, so 6-12mths is the size I'm writing for, but more crown increases, and more rows for depth would obviously result in a larger hat, I did 3 increase rounds and 5 normal rows for a hat big enough for my 8 year old daughter.

Download PDF version here

You will need:

50g of DK yarn

3mm hook

Darning needle for weaving in

Dtr = Double Treble (US treble)

Dc = Double crochet (US single)

Pattern uses UK terminology

Chain 4 and join with a slip stitch to the first chain.

Round One:

Chain 4, and 2dtr in to the centre of the chain 4 ring, chain 2, (3dtr, chain 2) 5 times, join to first chain 4 with a slip stitch

Round Two:

Chain 6, ((3dtr chain 2) twice in the space left by the chain 2 on the previous round) 5 times, in the last space, 3dtr, chain 2, 2dtr and join with a slip stitch in to the 4th chain space from the starting chain. 

Round Three:

Chain 4, 2dtr, chain 2, 3 dtr in to the chain 2 space of the previous round, chain two (3dtr, chain 2 in to next space, (3dtr chain 2) twice in the next space) repeat until end, slip stitch to first chain 4 with slip stich

Round Four to Eight

(3dtr, chain 2) in all the chain 2 spaces from previous round, alternating between chain 4 and chain 6 at the start of the round (eg round four is chain 6, round five) is chain 4) and joining to the first chain at the end of the round.

Round Nine-Ten

Chain two and Dc in all the dtr spaces, 2 dc in the chain 2 spaces round, slip stitch in to starting chain and at the end of round Ten fasten off yarn.

I added a flower to finish off, but can't for the life of me find the pattern I used! If I can remember what I used then I'll provide a link, but otherwise ravelry has lots of lovely flower patterns, or leave it blank!

Now I'm pretty sure I've probably messed up some where with this pattern, if you spot an error, or have trouble understanding the pattern, please get in touch!

As always, please do not copy my pattern and repost else where or otherwise distribute without my permission. You are free to use the finished item as you wish, but would appreciate being asked if you plan on making to sell. Thank you!

That road paved with good intentions..

Well technically its not all that bad, but not much work went in to my wip, but on the bright side I haven't added to it!
Started the week by finishing Immy's Knubbelchen, the skirt was very fiddly I thought, but more in a wrestling stitches kind of way rather than hard to do, but ever so cute, so not complaining, much!
Next I did a super cute owl hat, in just one evening!

Yes it really only did take me an evening to make, gotta love bulky yarn! But the idea was so simple, just a crochet tube, bound of at one end, two triangles for the ear flaps, add embellishments and voila, cute hat!

But that has been about it on the making front, but all bets where off when I got my spin love fibre club instalment from easy knits, who is having a little comp this time for most creative use of this instalments fibre,  prize being more fibre and a spindle, yes I'm playing along! Not that I do uber creative, but I'm trying!
I spent an entire day just prepping one of the 100g braids, splitting it up so all the colours went together and then used my blending hackle to blend the bits together, to make a gradient type yarn, I've finished spinning that up and its looking good, think I can show it off best as a cake tho, its still a single so a little twisty in a hank! The other 100g braid I'm just going to spin and chain ply, as I can't really do much else with it, unless I spin a contrast fibre, but think showing it off as is is for me! I actually hope I can knit some thing up from them both before the end of the month, so I think most of my knitting time is going to be taken up by that, once I've finished spinning!  No pictures of that yet tho, don't want to show off my work until its time ;)

I may get chance to do my pattern this week, don't really know whats stopping me, apart from being bogged down in terminology! I'm so preoccupied trying to make sure I stick to one set of terms (US/UK) that I'm getting mixed up. Who's idea was it to change it all? Grrr! I will get it nailed down tho, some time!

Less of a productive week

Well no, thats not strictly true, its been a less of a productive week when it comes to finishing off my wip, I've been working steadily on my another pooling stole which btw I love how its turning out, the colours are amazing (Easy Knits deeply wicked in carnival), and it just looks good. But that apathy thing is creeping in. I'm only very early in to the project with a long way to go, so getting distracted very easily!

But I'm not technically adding to my wip list as I'm doing small things, very quickly! Last week I mentioned I was backwards engineering a hat, based on one my mum crocheted for Immy, well I did that and it came out well!

 

I've yet to write the pattern up properly, thats my next job, but I did experiment with it slightly and it will nicely upscale to different sizes, so Neala got one in the same yarn (which I'm sorry to say I've no idea on the brand of said yarn as it was given to me by a friend with no label, its wonderfully soft tho, so will be keeping an eye out for some thing similar!) so both my girls really do match up! Its kinda sweet, I think! 

Next came a shawl, no not for me! I had been thinking that Immy's coat left her neck really exposed, esp if she was in her carrier, but didn't quite know what to do, no to a scarf and a cowl seemed a bit odd to do for a baby. I was browsing looking for inspiration for a stole pattern for the yarn I frogged a couple of weeks back when a cute little pattern caught my eye, Scallo-pie, a little shawl pattern for little madams! Oh well that was it then!

 

 

 

Really like it, and even had me doing some thing new in the form of the scalloped edging, which is actually functional as you can use the end scallop and feed it thru the eyelet of another to hold it together, so its practical when using it too. I def feel a second one coming on thats for sure!

To round off the week I've been doing the girl version of knubbelchen which hands down is one of the cutest little snuggies ever, I did the boy version a few months back and picked out yarn to do a girl version, but its been sat waiting ever since, I did the head body and one leg all in one go, but its taken me another two days to do the other leg and an arm, but to be fair Immy isn't well, and have been out and about, but it should be done in the next day or so! 

 

So all in all, bad for wip this week, but busy on new projects, not really the point but I have gotten alot done since the start of the year, and I will have a new pattern to show for it too. Can be that bad!