Stash stuff

I realised I hadn't got round to updating my totals of stash used up last year. I'm pleased with how I did, although being pregnant and knitting small baby garments definitely helped! I kept track each  month using an Excel spreadsheet, and last blogged about it in October.

I think I will total up October - December together, as I had the baby then, so there was less knitting taking place. I looked back at my Ravelry projects page to work out what I finished knitting each month.

Total in: 0 metres
Total used: 2045.2 metres

That means, over 2015, I acquired 4726.5 metres of yarn, but used up 8793.8 metres, leaving me with a grand total of 4067.3 metres of yarn less than at the start of the year. I'm pretty pleased with this, as I started the year intending to reduce the size of the stash, and it looks like I've succeeded. I'm planning to do more of the same in 2016, not least because I'll be on maternity leave for over eleven months of the year so won't have much spare cash to spend on yarn.

My current projects are going well. I'm mostly knitting the garter rib socks at knitting group, which means that not a lot gets done as I usually spend at least half the meeting feeding LO!

I've been working on a Playdate Hoodie for my Godson's birthday in June, when he'll be two. I've made the largest size and am using John Lewis Heritage aran which I had in my stash. This pattern knits up quickly, and is fairly simple but a satisfying knit.

Zooming along

Probably because I haven't done a knitting update for a while, I seem to have a lot of FOs to show off. I'm particularly pleased with my Harvest Moon cardigan, which is really comfy to wear (I love the pockets, even if they were a bit fiddly to knit) and which I really enjoyed knitting. The pattern is Harvest Moon by Heidi Mirrmaier, and I used 11.4 balls (570g) of Rowan Amy Butler Belle Organic Aran on 4mm needles. The yarn is 50% wool and 50% cotton and lovely to knit.

This is it prior to blocking!

I've also finished a couple of baby cardigans for friend's babies' birthdays. These are the Baby Vertebrae pattern by Kelly Brooker (whose Puerperium cardigan I also love). The yarn I've used is Patons Fab DK, an acrylic which doesn't feel acrylicy, and you can get a 12 - 18 month size out of one 100g ball! This colourway is Violet Print, and I got it from John Lewis at Nottingham. It's come out a lot more purple/brown than I thought it would from the ball.

This colourway is called "Fruity", although I think "Neon" would be a better description. This one was from Love Knitting using a discount code.

Remember this Beyond Puerperium I knitted back in November? Here's a picture of the recipient wearing it!

And, of course, after all that knitting, I needed a new project. I'd just seen Tabitha's Heart Design's Samwise Gamgee socks pattern, so decided to make a start on a pair of those, combined with some Katia Olé sock yarn from my stash. 

So, I haven't done a stash in/out update for a while, and I've got through a lot this month (I only count totals for yarn used in a finished item in the month it's finished). There is another secret project which I also got done this month which is included in the totals.  So far this year:

January: In 0m Out 820.7m

February: In 388m Out 406m
March: In 274.3 Out 1703.7m
April:  In 424.3 Out 1644.2m

So, I have acquired some yarn so far this year, but for projects that are presents. That is 1086.6m acquired, but I have knitted/destashed a total of 4574.6m, and every month has seen more used up than acquired! So, so far this year, I have used up 3488m more than I acquired. Which is good as I have trips to Iknit and Iknit Fandango planned during May, so my totals may not look quite so good soon!

Finished items

I've been on a bit of a knitting roll recently. I took the socks that I was knitting in Swansea in August away with me to Yorkshire and Yarndale, as a straightforward portable project. And they were perfect for this. The pattern is Basic Ribbed Socks by Kate Atherley, and they fit really well. The yarn is Bergère de France Opal, which is lovely and thick knitted on 2.5mm needles.

Then last week I finished my not nautical or striped, but now with stripes, nautical striped sweater. This used almost all of the 15 balls of the Debbie Bliss Cotton Denim Aran yarn I had in my stash. I'm really pleased with this. Despite not getting gauge and deciding to wing it a bit (I knitted the smallest size, and made the body longer than in the pattern), this fits really well. The "design feature" of stripes on the upper body when I realised I had two slightly different colourways in my stash, rather than 15 balls of one, also seems to have worked. There is also one sleeve each in the different colourways.

 This means I'm doing really well on my four-garments-in-different-yarn-weights-in-a-year challenge. That's chunky, 4ply and aran all completed. The DK one, the Garter Yoke Cardigan is coming along well, and I just have one sleeve now to finish on this.

As the number of projects I've got on the go was getting worryingly low(!), I thought it wise to cast on for something else. I always like to have a smaller, more portable, project on the go for things like taking to knitting group or travelling by train. I couldn't resist winding up the set of Knitting Goddess mini skeins I bought at Yarndale, and casting on for a hat for the OH. I decided on the Mini Roni hat, which comes in all sizes from premature baby to absolutely huge adult. It turns out the OH has an absolutely huge head so I hope it's going to fit.

I love the colour of these mini skeins

And don't they look cute wound into little balls?!

Of course, those projects aren't going to keep me busy for long, so I'd better get deciding what to make next.

Knitting gifts

A friend is expecting a baby in early February and several of us at knitting group had made things for the baby, so we had an evening of handing over presents. They don't know the sex of the baby, so I played safe and went with purple yarn. This is another Beyond Puerperium, as I love the pattern, it's very clearly written with multiple sizes and yarn weights possible. The yarn used is Rico Baby Classic DK, which I've used before for this pattern. It has nice colours and it machine washable, plus very soft and doesn't feel like acrylic, even though it is. According to my notes I only used 70g of yarn, although that doesn't seem like enough?!

I found these immensely cute ladybird buttons at the local haberdashery. They had red ones too, but that didn't look quite right with the purple. I also found this style of button much easier to sew on.

We had a great evening admiring the ingenious things that had been knitted by the group.

And, last week, I received some yarn in the post. This was from Mostly Knitting, who had come joint first of the Sock Sniper competition, and so had won loads and loads of skeins of sock yarn. She offered to post a skein of it to someone who wrote a comment on her blog about why they deserved a skein of sock yarn. I pointed out that I was the one who got her into knitting in the first place, and this gorgeous skein was posted to me:

Especially good timing as I was having one of those weeks, and this cheered me up no end! It is Butterfly Moon by Alina Shea Creations and the colours are amazing. I may already have a plan for it, but more in another post...

Giant custard creams, Cambridge and another Puerperium

Well, I'm not quite sure where January disappeared off to, but it whizzed past. I have done various Very Exciting Things, including meeting up with 17 other knitting (or crocheting) librarians in London for a day of coffee, giant custard creams, yarn shopping, librarianly chitchat and then to the pub. We had all "met" via Twitter, and it was great to meet them all for real too.

There were also giant chocolate bourbons, but I decided to stick with the custard cream. Yes, that is a normal sized plate and knife.

We went yarn shopping at Loop (in three batches as there were too many of us to fit in the shop all in one go). It was looovvveeely. I hadn't been there for several years and it seemed a lot more friendly than last time, with more space for gorgeous yarns. I indulged in a skein of Madeleine Tosh sock yarn, to make a shawl with. It is gorgeously squishy, very soft and comes in beautiful colours.

One of the others brought along the knitted archbishop she'd made last year. I hope he likes tea. I think the pattern is from the Knit your own royal wedding book. Amusingly one of the comments on Ravelry about the pattern says that he's not wearing any pants under his cassock!! Another one of the comments said that everyone kept looking up his cassock so she'd knitted him some gold disco pants!!

I have also made two trips to Cambridge. One was just for the day, to do a masterclass at the University Library. I was surprised how much more snow there was out the other side of London. I also had lunch with Caughtknitting, whom I hadn't seen for ages.

Remains of a giant snowman outside the library.

The other trip was for a conference at Gonville and Caius College, so I stayed overnight with KnittingontheGreen, where we stayed up late chatting and drinking wine. It was lovely to see her and she cooked me the most amazing meal of spelt risotto with goats' cheese, followed by homemade ice cream. Of course, I forgot to take any photos whilst I was with her, but here are some nice shots of Gonville and Caius:

I got a bit of knitting done on the trains to Cambridge, although I'm currently reading a book I need to review for a journal by the end of February so that's taking priority at the moment.

I did get my third Beyond Puerperium completed in the nick of time, as the Mum-To-Be appears to be about to go into labour any second now. This took exactly 2 balls of yarn.

And, having got frustrated with the lace shawl (no, I haven't made any progress, as I haven't had any quiet-knitting-time-at-home-when-there-are-no-distractions), someone at the librarian knitting extravaganza pointed me towards the Mini Mania Scarf as a good way of using up odds and ends of sock yarn. So I started one of those. It took me an entire episode of Call the midwife to cast on 500 stitches, but now I'm well away, and enjoying deciding which colour to use next.

I'm aware that I haven't taken any garden pictures yet this year, mainly because the weather seems to be alternating between rain and snow.

Cheltenham holiday yarn shops & purchases

As I mentioned in my last post, the number of yarn shops we found on holiday in the Cotswolds became slightly ridiculous.

These are the purchases we came home with. I've added the yarn shops to Knit Map, and my stash is on Ravelry which should link to the yarn shops too, as not all of them have websites.

That's:

A skein of Clicky Needles merino silk lace, from Miju Wools in Gloucester.
2 balls of Katia Olé sock yarn, from Budget Wools in Cheltenham.
1 ball of King Cole ZigZag sock yarn, from Blanshards Fabrics in Wantage.
1 ball of Opal Show Your Colours sock yarn, and a skein of undyed Bluefaced Leicester 4ply from the Bourton Basket, in Bourton-on-the-Water.
1 ball of Lang Yarns Jawoll Magic Dégradé sock yarn, from Ashley's in Cirencester.

We also found several other shops, including another one in Cheltenham and one in Broadway, where I didn't get anything (although I'd have quite happily lived in a town with any of those shops!).

Zoom

I've done a fair bit of zooming around in the last 10 days or so, plus had a throat infection for a few days, so haven't done much knitting (or blogging)!

I worked one Saturday at Who Do You Think You Are Live - promoting family history resources, which was fun, if a bit intense. It was something like 8 hours on my feet, with a short break for lunch when I sat on the floor as it was so busy I couldn't find any spare seats. It took place in one of the halls at Olympia. I was very hoarse by the end of the day, I thought from so much talking, but it turned out to be a throat infection!

Then the next week I went off to Cambridge for a conference, spending the night before at a friend's house. On trotting off to get something to eat I was delighted to discover how close they live to the new(ish) Sheep Shop! I'll be back. It looks lovely inside.

And, no sooner did I get back from Cambridge, but I was off again to the theatre this time, to see someone from work appearing in their local dramatic society production - which was very good but a bit of a late night on a work night.
I received this cute picture of my friend's baby wearing the jumper I knitted last year, which she has just grown into. Cute or what?!

A parcel all the way from Wisconsin, containing the three balls of Grignasco Gold merino DK I need to finish my cardigan. My generous swop partner (I sent her some sock yarn and British yarn) had also enclosed a Wisconsin Badgers mug, and postcards of the wildlife where she lives.

And another squishy parcel from Celticove, after I discovered a 50% off sale, including Araucania Toconao yarn. I wanted three contrasting skeins to go with the purple skeins I bought at Norfolk yarns a while ago, so I can make the Velvet Morning cardigan from Knitty, and I'd been keeping an eye open for a yarn sale for this. I love Celticove, I've been ordering from them every now and again for years, and they always have good sales, and speedy delivery.

And finally, some knitting, or rather crochet. I finished all the squares for the (2011) KAL blanket so have been crocheting them together. It was slow progress at first as I haven't crocheted in a while, but I got faster towards the end. Now I just have loads of ends to sew in and then I need to block it.

I've also been knitting another tea cosy for a friend of a friend, but have been mainly doing the blanket whilst I waited for the yarn for my cardigan to arrive.

Knitting plans 2012

I got quite a lot of knitting done over Christmas. So my list of WIPs isn't too horrendous, only four projects currently on the go - two of which are blankets (one of which is a long-term project, on the go since August 2006!). I've nearly finished the Isabella jumper, this has been the background project for much of the year, in between working on things for all the babies born last year, and other presents. Isabella now has one sleeve attached, and the other sleeve is almost knitted. I like having a project like this on the go in the background, as it's easy to pick up and put down again, depending on other projects, and is also small enough (the yarn is 4ply, so it's quite a small project, despite being an adult jumper) to take on the train.

 We watched quite a lot of films and TV over Christmas, including the newest Harry Potter, Tamara Drewe, the adaptation of Great Expectations on BBC1 and Downton Abbey. I found the 4ply quite hard going for that much knitting time, so cast on the Essential Cardigan, from Interweave Knits summer 2010 issue, as well. The yarn is Grignasco Merino Gold DK, which I bought on honeymoon, and is gorgeous to knit with. It seems to grow so much quicker after you've been working with 4ply for a while.

For the first time ever I went into work between Christmas and New Year. Only for two days, and it was quite fun, as we only had to work short days, and the trains were blissfully quiet, and I think I only received about 5 emails at work both days! One day I popped to John Lewis on Oxford St after work and found a lovely selection of  yarn on sale. I bought 14 balls of Rowan Amy Butler Belle organic aran, intended for the Briar Rose tunic in Interweave Knits Winter 2011.

I have a few plans for knitting projects in 2012 to get on with, and I want to do more knitting from my stash - although it helps that I now try to buy yarn with a project in mind rather than just randomly buying yarn in sales. One of the girls from knitting group put together a chart of how much yarn in different weights you need for different jumper sizes, I think if I keep that in my handbag it'll be really useful next time I just happen to come across a yarn sale. Ahem.

Cambridge, and some knitting

It probably seems like we've been zooming around the country a bit. We haven't really, it's more that it's taking me a while to update the blog so it looks like we're travelling around in a short space of time!
Last weekend we went to Cambridge to visit some friends of the OH's. It's somewhere I've visited many many times before, but we went to two places I hadn't been to before.

The first was the Sedgewick Museum of Earth Sciences. We dropped in here on the way to somewhere else, but had enough time to have a look at some very groovy dinosaurs, including an Ichthysaur found in Lyme Regis, as I read about in that novel earlier in the year! There was also a display about Mary Anning, as featured in the same novel.
This is a model of the skeleton of an Iguanodon.

The icythyosaur on display.

A display case about Mary Anning.

 And a giant deer, which became extinct about 10000 years ago and is presumably a friend of the one we saw at Warwick Museum in June?

After that we ventured on to wander round the University Botanic Gardens. We bumped into Caught Knitting en route to the Botanic Gardens, who looked very surprised to see me wandering around in Cambridge!

I think I liked the glasshouses best, especially the bananas!

 I started up a craft group at work this week, which seems to have gone well - 17 people interested, which meant we didn't fit in the room I'd planned to hold it in! I've also done some knitting that I can actually blog about. I started off a pair of slipper socks for my nephew's birthday in December. I'm using the blue variegated King Cole superwash DK 100% wool I got in York, on 3mm needles, so had to do a tension swatch.

 I'm pleased with the way the fabric worked out - nice and thick and squooshy, which should be good for slipper socks. So I cast on a pair of garter rib socks for him last night. The pattern is from Sensational Knitted Socks, which I've used before and enjoyed as it goes quite quickly and is extremely easy to remember.

Birthday!

Coincidentally I've taken the week off work, and it just happened to have my birthday in it! The OH has had a week off too, and we have been catching up on stuff at home, having a new wall built and things like that.

My birthday itself was cool, we went out for a meal the night before, as I had knitting group the evening of my birthday (you know, priorities).

We had a trip to the garden centre to buy spiky plants to plant along a boundary wall. This is me with the spikiest holly I have ever seen, it's called "Ilex Ferox" for good reason. Although it's English name is the rather cute "Silver Hedgehog Holly". It's to go with the (female) holly we've already got as this one is male.

And birthday presents! The OH bought me the slow cooking recipe book as I've had it out of the library for about 3 months now. And I asked for the other recipe book, the Dairy book of home cookery (as delivered by the milkman), as I used to use the previous edition of it, which belonged to my Mum, all the time.

My great aunts sent me the Archers Addicts map of Ambridge, which used to belong to my Gran, so it's come full circle now. I'm finding it very useful for the back story for some of the characters as I've been listening for about six years.

And a skein of Manos Wool Clasica and some homemade bath teabags from my brother and SIL (although I suspect she made them as I can't imagine my brother doing that!).

And, of course, lots of cards from friends around the world - thank you!

I've spent some time this week sorting out photos and catching up with blog reading. So there might be some more posts from me fairly soon.

Garden at the beginning of August

I'm a week late this time, which is what comes of 1st August being a Monday and then going out several nights last week. I didn't go online much last week as I was out three evenings so am now frantically trying to get caught up with emails, blogs etc.

In the big picture I don't think the garden has changed that much. I've pulled up the sweet peas as I didn't keep on top of dead-heading them so they went to seed, plus looked rather manky! But the sunflowers are now in flower.

They're not huge ones, but it's probably the rocky start they had in life with very hot temperatures early on in the year. We've also had some beautiful gladioli come up - these were from a free offer in the paper.

And a bit of a squirrel problem. There is a huge walnut tree in the garden that backs onto ours and the squirrels have been assaulting it much earlier this year than last. If you go outside all you can hear is loud chomping noises from high up in the tree.

 And, as squirrels have no table manners whatsoever, bits of half-eaten walnut come raining down and end up all over the lawn, where they have to be raked up, else they clog up the lawn mower. Of course, the squirrels are also too thick to realise that they've now eaten most of next winter's food supply...

One of my evenings out last week was a trip over to ShinyNewThing who wanted to swop some of her sock yarn. I was keen on it as it's solid or semi-solid which should show up some stitch patterns nicely, so swopped it for a couple of balls of variegated sock yarn in my stash.

This is a skein of I knit or dye superwash merino sock and a skein of Natural Dye Studio Nymph (70% British Blue faced Leicester, 20% silk, 10% cashmere).

I had a great evening looking at her dollshouses (which were really cool, I should have taken some photos!) and she also gave me some windfall apples from her garden.

Combined with some rhubarb and raspberries from our garden, I made some of them into a crumble:

That's all for now. I've only got 2 evenings out next week so might get more time to catch up on blog reading soon...