You're Doing it Wrong:Stranded Colourwork

I like to think of myself as an experienced knitter; in that, most patterns don't faze me, and I do have some practice of test knitting patterns for a few designers. However, when it comes to stranded colourwork I feel I'm more of an intermediate-level knitter.  I don't work with this technique very often as I find it very frustrating and time-consuming; I have to keep unravelling my yarn as it becomes twisted and wrapped around each other. I also find,  more often than not my knitting looks tight, misshapen and a bit grotesque (and as a perfectionist this is a major bug bear for me).   So, being an Aries I tend to enjoy the thrill of the hunt, I will strive to find a solution; I'm not one for backing away from trial or risk.  Cue lots of video watching,  researching online and pattern reading, after ten minutes I found a new tip; two hand stranding, and then I looked over Erica Heusser's hat pattern again and a bold, underlined sentence jumped out at me "remember to keep floats loose!"  For years, I've been strangling my stranded colourwork by pulling my floats so tight their practically pleading for air.  You see, I don't want holes, holes in my kniting would pretty much mean failure; my knitting would end up on the naughty step for sure.
Armed with this new information I set about trying them in my knitting. I was a bit cautious at first but as the rounds of stranded knitting started appearing and mutiplying I became more confident. So confident that I couldn't put the piece down...can you believe... I finished the hat in one night! This never happens to me!

Excited by my new mastered skill, yes I have been a very busy squirrel,  I decided to finish my mittens too!  I then celebrated my achievement with a hot orange (fighting a chest infection at the moment) and an episode of:

I'm totally addicted to not only the series but the theme tune...and, oh what the heck,  maybe  the lead actors too.

Have a lovely weekend. xoxoxo

How to use unicorns to stand out in the crowd!

This week I decided to go on an expedition; not anywhere fancy, just into the deep dark cave that is my yarn stash cupboard. Yes, a whole walk in cupboard dedicated to my favourite craft, I like to think of it as my piece of Narnia.  I could disappear in there for hours on end; squidging and stroking all the  treasure I have accumulated over the years. However,  I don't venture in there very often for fear of never returning, but yesterday I had to rummage as my fingers and hands felt restless.  This perpetual agitation seems to happen to me quite alot and when I experience this urgency to make, I do tend to listen and act on it straight away.  Sometimes I find the pattern first, then I look for the materials, however, yesterday was different;  I decided to enter the cave and on doing so I stumbled across a red shiny postal packet, and anyone who is familiar with this will know I'm talking about Knit Crate.  I've been subscribing to this company on and off  for about a year.  I usually go for a three month subscription and then have a rest, I more often than not  miss out on some cool stuff during this time and have to subscribe all over again.  I just wish I could afford an ongoing subscription but with only one wage coming in since Paul was paid off two years ago,  this isn't going to happen anytime soon, sigh!  Anyway, going back to the red shiny packet; I found some yarn I've never used before: Madelintosh Unicorn Tails in antique lace.  So, with my new found treasure tucked neatly under my arm and with much excitment building in my hands that I was about to start something new, I skipped  off to my laptop. An hour later I appeared with a new pattern, yarn and needles tucked under my arm, stitch markers in one hand and a hot chocolate in the other.  "What are you making?" I hear you ask. The pattern is passerine hat by Erica Heusser.  The contrast yarn which is similar to the Unicorn tails in weight and  texture is Schoppel wolle zauberballe-100 in colourwave Blaukraut Bleibt Blaukraut.  I will post more pictures of my progress next week.

Just off the needles and blocking is my manic panic cowl, made from samples and scraps of yarn found in my stash.  I'm looking to join this in a Mobius Twist* this week.  Not sure why I knit it in the straight rather than in the round, but hey hoo!  My mind and the decisons it make are a curious thing in deed.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mobius Twist

 * Discovered independently by the German mathematicians August Ferdinand Mobius and Johann Benedict Listing in 1858. Mathematicians refer to the closed Möbius band as any surface that is homeomorphic (space that is continous) to this strip. Its boundary is a simple closed curve, i.e., homeomorphic to a circle. (Wikipedia: 2016)

Möbius strip: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B6bius_strip

My New Trends for the Year

February has been quite an eventful month, so far; I've been rope swinging, pitching tents, lazing in hammocks, fire starting (sounds quite dubious, doesn't it?) pancake and popcorn making on an open fire at the local university, as part of my in-service training with the company Grounds for Learning. Oh! To be five again.  I could have sploshed, squelched and trudged through mud all day. I reeked of smoke, and I looked like I had been dragged through a hedge backwards, but I was grinning from ear to ear and talking so much about my experience that Paul had to ask me to stop, take a breath and talk slower.  I know from experience that little ones don't go out as much as I did as a child. Heck, I just have to look at my own neighbourhood and listen to my nephews to see how much things have changed.  And I know there are different theories for this (I studied this topic for my research piece) and I know I'm not going to alter children's play overnight, but I am hoping to take my training back to work and put it to good use; get the little one's out and about in the local area, even, if it is just for an hour at a time. That's my plan, anyway.

This year (this is not a new years resolution....honest) I also intend to make more time for me; so that I can enjoy the little things that make me happy.  A few things I have in mind, one is to block my knitting Pebble Beach Shawl  as soon as possible (not leave it for six months on the back of a chair). And, the second is to make a conscious effort to read more blogs; new and old, and also pluck up the courage to leave comments, if I so wish.  I know in the past I have lurked; I've enjoyed looking at peoples beautiful crafts, and I feel I've had an incite into to their little corner of the world, all of this just by simply reading their blog. Some blogs have made me laugh out loud, others have inspired me to try something new, and one or two have reduced me to tears, in a good way, though, I may add.
So far, I have left comments on three blogs, one I've been following for a while Ozzy Blackbeard, and two new blogs that I have never left comments on before (I know, how brave am I?) Susan B. Anderson. On Susan's blog, she has a beautiful new hat pattern fairytale winter. Now I'm not pretending I'm a follower of fashion or that I'm trendy, but I'm loving the whole faux-fur pompom thing that is going on with hats just now, and if I crane my neck one more time trying to stare at someone's pompom hat I'm going to go insane.  So, when I happened upon this pattern, I knew I had to make a purchase. I have finally found my pompom hat, and I think it's safe to say, that my days of staring and searching are now over. Yipee!
The other blog I have commented on this week is Knit and Tonic. I've been following this blog for some time now, and I usually read and then go, but today I thought I would leave a comment. Why? Well, the subject matter brought back a memory of something I had forgotten about. As some of you may know, from reading my blog I have suffered from PTSD and was successfully treated with EMDR about four years ago now. I'm going to explain crudely the treatment as;  putting traumatic memories into the filing cabinets in your brain so you can't relive them over and over again. Anyway, this has also affected other aspects of my memory, and sometimes I find myself remembering things from my past that were not traumatic at all.  This either sends me into fits of laughter or a smile as I remember something really good, but this morning this memory hit me like a light bulb moment.  You see, I was a part of an online knitting group called Phoenix Knitting Forums and during my time as a member I participated in a blanket swap;  I sent and received two squares a month for a year and at the end I was supposed to make a blanket, but I never did.  The squares have been sitting upstairs in a bedroom cupboard just waiting on me rediscovering them again.  So Wendy, from Knit and Tonic,  I thank you for helping me remember. I'm now off to look for the other bag of squares I have stashed somewhere, and hopefully I can finish this blanket once and for all.

Oh! I nearly forgot I also made a purchase at Ikea; fabric pens, which were reduced to something silly.  I don't know why I bought them or why I even needed them, but I came home and then remembered I had bought fabric crayons at Christmas Time.  Hopefully, soon I will remember what I bought them for. Lol!

Shocking week

It's been a manic couple of weeks since my last post in that I succumbed to excruciating back pain that steadily got worse over the course of last weekend.  A pain, that had me practically hobbling and holding my back in agony.   By Sunday, I was taking dizzy spells and coughing fits, nevertheless, I decided to brave my work on Monday but ended up coming home at lunch time.  At first, I thought I had a kidney infection, but my GP soon ruled that out and concluded that  I may have a virus working on me.  I didn't see the rest of Monday night or any of Tuesday; in fact, I only started feeling like myself again late Wednesday afternoon.  Well, as normal as expected, I did feel clammy, snotty with a wheezy chest and a now gnawing back ache.  Ever the martyr, I decided to venture into work on Thursday; as we had parent evenings.  I must have been mad doing a 12-hour shift for my first day back, I did manage it, but,  I came out exhausted and hoarse from all the talking and later passed out when I got home.  So this weekend has been spent recuperating and trying to sleep through coughing fits which last for an hour.  I have managed to finish 'Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children' which I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend.  I have also started to make quite a dent in Mark Haddon's book 'A Spot of Bother', I only started it on Friday night, and I'm already three-quarters of the way through. Paul's been giving me strange looks as I've been reading it.  It's kind of a snigger out loud book, about a 57- year old hypochondriac, his adulteress wife and his daughter and son who seem to move from one disaster to the next.

I've also nealy finished my manic-panic-cowl by Sarah Core.  The look of the piece is very similar to a woven linen fabric.  I've been making it by using little bits of left -over yarn that I've had squirrelled away in the corners of my stash.   I'm saying I'm nearly finished it.  I would have completed it tonight if it wasn't for watching a very gripping movie called 'Prisoners' featuring two of my favourite actors; Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal.  I won't give the plot away incase any of you wish to watch it, let's just say Paul and I had to rewind and forward the Sky box a few times to try and suss out who the culprit was, and who was innocent.  I found it a very intense viewing experience, which had me on the edge of my seat more than once. If you get the chance to see it, please do, you won't be disappointed.  The only draw back is the muffled sound quality in bits of the film, you really need to keep your ears open.