What you got?

So, I currently have 4 Christmas projects underway.  Current security level is 'Sorta Secret'.  I've decided that if you knit something and you just don't draw attention to it by saying 'Look at what I'm knitting, it's your Christmas present,' then it will still come as a surprise when X opens their present on Christmas day.  And in retrospect, all those hours when you were seen knitting on the present will be appreciated.  Well, this is the theory and the only way to deal with the total lack of privacy in this household.

Anyway, I draw the line at blogging about what I'm making and for whom, but I don't mind sharing a link to a really good knitting stich library! (By 'good', I mean helpful and free.)  Thank you very much, Craft Cookie, may all your Christmases be white.

Lace and Soup

The BMC, after blocking.

Somehow the rain made the garden even more perfect for showing off the colours of this yarn.

But I also took some shots of the detail indoors.  This really is as soft as it looks.

And because it's perfect soup weather, here is my recipe for a simple carrot, butternut squash and ginger soup:

Ingredients:

1 large white onion
sunflower oil
knob of butter/margerine
3 carrots
1 large butternut squash
ginger (powder or fresh grated)
salt
black pepper
white pepper
water

1. Finely chop the onion and place in a large pan with sunflower oil and a drop of water.  Cover and sweat over lowest heat, shaking occassionally to prevent burning.
2. Peel & cube the butternut squash (scooping out and discarding the seeds and core).  Take pan off heat and add squash as you go.  Replace lid.
3. Peel & cube carrot.  Add to pan and stir.
4. Pour over enough water to cover all the veg.  Add a little salt, knob of butter, level teaspoon of ground ginger and plently of freshly ground black pepper.  Replace lid and return to heat.  Allow to simmer over lowest heat for about an hour, hour and a half.
5. Take off heat, mash veg and taste - adding extra salt, ginger, black and white pepper to taste.
6. Blend thoroughly to a velvety texture.
7. Reheat if necessary and serve with crusty rolls.

Run BMC

I've just finished my second lace project - the Betty Mouat Cowl by Kate Davis.

This project is actually  not that tricky, once you familiarise yourself with the pattern and because it's a game of two halves, grafted around the middle, it seems to knit up fast.  When you by the pattern you also get Kate's magazine, Textisles, which contains a truly interesting article about the patterns namesake and the pattern for the Betty Mouat Sweater.

I have a couple of tips which are fresh in my mind, so I thought I'd share them with you while I wait for the FI to dry.

1.  I knit this in Elvincraft's hand-dyed Blue-Faced Leicester 4ply.  It's ridiculously soft, it has a beautiful halo and a very short colour repeat, so that the colours sort of mingle and occassionally pop out at you.  For this reason, I didn't follow any of the instructions for knitting the no-purl garter stitch - I just knit/purled alternately in the round with only one skein of yarn to worry about.

2.  Be prepared with your needles.  I know, duh!  Who wouldn't have the needles ready before starting a project?
Me, that's who.
The pattern calls for two sets of circular knitting needles.  I had one, but I jolly-well got stuck in anyway.
The instructions suggest casting on over both needle tips, but to make life easier I just doubled up with some  3mm x 120cm HiyaHiya's and then slipped the HiyaHiyas out after joining the round.
All went swimmingly with only one set of circular needles, until I read the instruction: 'Set first piece aside.'  At which point I thought, 'Oh.'
I should have read the pattern before getting that far into it, but I transfered the first piece onto 6" dpn's (I needed to use all five, otherwise they wouldn't fit) and finished as I started.  Easy peasy.
Before grafting, I transferred the second piece onto dpn's as well, which made it much easier to handle and to graft in chunks.

An example of  Joni Coniglio's illustrations

3.  Just thinking about grafting the two halves of the piece together made my brain perform an emergency shut down.  I took out my trusty Stitch n Bitch and opened it on the Kitchener Stitch chapter, but somehow it just didn't cover all bases.  I wanted something specific.
I googled grafting in the round, and amongst the advice about finishing the toes of socks (not applicable here) I found something so clear and concise, so tailored to my needs and with such amazing illustrations that I swear Joni Coniglio is a goddess, or a genius.  Or both.

 

4.  Grafting done, I decided that I had the time and space to really block this lace.  I don't have blocking wires, so I used this guide to blocking lace without wires, by Yarn Harlot, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee.  I used children's playmat tile to pin the cowl out on, which saves getting the matress or carpet damp and makes it portable.  I'll  definitely heed the Yarn Harlot's advice about using pins with plastic heads in future, because normal dressmakers pins can cut into your fingers after a while.

  More pictures of the finished, blocked cowl to follow.

A year

I cannot believe it's been almost a year since I last blogged!  There's something about autumn that absolutely makes me sit down and write, but the rest of the year I lack discipline.
Anyway, you and I have a lot of catching up to do - let's begin with the trip to Hong Kong last year.

This is view from outside the Dim Sum restaurant we went to on a sunny Sunday.  You can see Lion Rock in the distance and a classic 70's skyway in the foreground.

I seem to remember this was as good as the weather got, so it was wise of me to take a light outer layer...  Cough-cough.

But I couldn't wear it.  It's just too big, although I hoped the humidity might work some magic on it.  I'm still trawling Ravelry and trying to find something suitable to make with this yarn, because it does make an incredibly beautiful fabric.  (I'm toying with the idea of a cardigan knit widthways, because if it grows widthways it will only increase the length rather than turn into something shaped for Arnold Schwarzenegger.)

We spent most of the time we had there planning a Hong Kong-style wedding.  Which is unbelievably difficult for me to get my head around, for some reason.  Part of the reason I haven't blogged is because I'm well aware that this subject is unimaginably boring unless it is your wedding.  And even then it stretches the definition of amusing.

Christmas Knitting
I fully intended to blog about this.  I was pretty darn impressed with what I managed to pull off last December.

My first ever lace knitting, for my mum.  I managed to keep it a secret from her, although I think she might've begun to wonder what she had done to turn me into such an angry hermit.  (No actually, there probably wasn't enough of a change in my behaviour.) 

The pattern is Morning Surf Scarf, it's free and it uses one ball of Noro sock yarn - I used Kureyon in purple/yellow S185.

I blocked it using pins and playmats so I could do it in the night and still catch a couple of hours sleep - something you can't do if you block on your bed. 

The reason I had to block it overnight had everything to do with secrecy and nothing to do with a last minute panic.  Of course.

Christmas New Year Easter Birthday Someday Knitting
I started a second pair of socks, which I vaguely remember thinking could be a Christmas present for YY.  Then I started the scarf.  After finishing the scarf and suffering with The Claw for a couple of weeks, the socks got a little bit of attention.  Then I got bored of them.  Then work picked up and I had no time for them.  And now there are one and a half socks.

The truth is...I don't want to finish them.  They are clearly too small for YY, but I promised them to him.  I don't want to unpick the grafting and redo the toe, because I really didn't intend to have run stitches in this design.  I quite like them for myself, but I have two more pairs planned that really will be for me and YY only has one pair of warm socks. It's a dilemma.


If your other pastimes include watching paint dry, you might like to follow my (slow) progress on Ravelry, as Redhotbutton.

I Know It's Only Sock and Sole

But I like it.

Let me introduce you to the first pair of socks I have ever knit - made in Regia 4ply Kaffe Fassett Design Line yarn, and using Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's Basic Sock Recipe.  What makes sock knitting a little bit amazing is that you are working in 3d.  It's like sculpting with wool.  And of course, it took a lot of time, so I guess I was really working in four dimensions.  Preeetty cool.

So maybe working in four dimensions implies manipulating time as well as wool, but there were moments when time really did stand still.  I think.  Or maybe it stretched.  Anyway, it was like Groundhog Day.

But YY loves them because no one has ever made something so personal for him before.  And that just makes me swell with pride for my little, woolly, misshapen experiments.