My shopping "spree"

In March I signed onto Stashalong Option #1, which means I get one day a month to buy yarn. Today was my shopping "spree"!

First I visited Anita at The Wool Inn and bought one skein - I can't say any more than that because it is to be a gift for someone who regularly reads my blog. By the way, thanks for all your help, Anita, I really appreciated it. The skein will be used for the Blue Mountains Knitters' Group one-skein challenge before the gift is given to someone very special. (See Kate, no noun used as a verb! Just what one would expect from an English teacher!! LOL)

After a lovely time in The Wool Inn (I tried not to look around too much!), I went to the local Spotlight (a large fabric, craft, haberdashery outlet) and bought five skeins of acrylic - for my mother! She lives in a country town called Bingara (600km from Sydney), and is knitting jumpers for the AIDS orphans in Malawi. I also bought one pair of 25mm long (10in) 4.5mm (US 7) needles because that is a popular size in our household of two knitters and the one pair we have is often in use. Strangely enough, the 30mm (12in) long 4.5mm needles hardly ever get used!

As I happened to be in Big W for other purchases, I had a quick look in the knitting section. Big W carries a wide range of acrylic and some wool but nothing was on special and I didn't need anything, so I didn't buy anything!

So, not much to report - and no additions to my stash because I will cast on the secret item this afternoon. I have so much in my stash that I cannot justify buying anymore yarn! :-(

When will I learn to prepare properly**?

If I had knitted a swatch I could have weighed it and used that to work out how much yarn I needed, since the pattern didn't give any indication of how much yarn is needed to complete the shrug.

It was coming along well - although I notice that I have slightly uneven tension on 3mm needles using 4ply (fingering) yarn for garter stitch. Anyway, I was almost halfway when I realised I didn't have anywhere near enough yarn to finish it! Having knitted about 17cm of the 40cm body, I was reluctant to frog! What to do? Use another colour - what else? My baby shrug now has yellow stripes and is certainly different! And I should use up most, if not all, of the blue yarn and about half of my yellow yarn - knitting from my stash is what stashalong is all about! :-)

I will post photos of my stripey shrug as soon as it is finished. I am using it as my Lint for Lent project so I am knitting at least 30 minutes every day - hopefully it will be finished before Easter. LOL

On a more positive note: I did a swatch for my summer cardigan, and carefully divided my yarn, with slightly more for the fronts than for the back. I am knitting it from the top down with the sleeves as part of the body, that way I can make it as long as possible with the yarn I have, rather than making it a certain length and then realising I haven't enough yarn to finish; or, worse still, that I have a silly little bit left over. I'm knitting a simple lace pattern (K1 *sl 1, K1, psso*, repeat from * to * to end of row, K1) on size 8mm (US 13) needles so it's knitting up quite quickly (much faster than the shrug!)

**Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance!

Knitting progress?

I think it's progress, sometimes it just doesn't feel like it!

I completed the knitting for another wrap on Wednesday, but I still have to sew most of the 112 squares (5 x 5inches) together and sew all the ends in - goal date: 31 March.

Since finishing the 5x5 inch squares for the wrap (afghan), I have knitted three larger squares (10x10 inches) for another wrap. This morning I woke up at 5.50am and couldn't get back to sleep (it's Saturday, for goodness sake!) so I got up and intended to do some knitting. I couldn't face sewing squares at that time of day and I was not in the mood for another diagonal 10x10inch square, so I decided to knit a baby shrug from the Knitters' Guild of NSW Friendship Crochet and Knitting book. Blow me down, it will take longer to knit than a square for the afghan. The body is 80 stitches per row for 200 rows and the cuffs are 40 stitches per row for 16 rows each. It doesn't sound like much but using baby yarn on 3.25mm (US 3) needles, it doesn't grow very much. Ah well, we live and learn and hopefully many babies will be warmed by the finished project as I am intending to give it to the local Tresillian Care Centre.

I found a couple of wraps/stoles that I liked on Knitty.com but since I want to use only one skein and these need multiple skeins I will have to modify a lot! So, in preparation, I have knitted a couple of swatches in my preferred lace pattern - one in 5ply (fingering) wool, one in 4ply (fingering) cotton. The wool, which knits up quite softly in the form of "that" cardigan, is very hard in a lace pattern, even when knitted on 5mm (US 8) needles! Perhaps because I was using the crinkled yarn I pulled out of one sleeve? The cotton looked good but I will not be able to knit a stole from a 50g ball of cotton! I'm going to have to use my March free day to buy the appropriate yarn as I haven't got anything in my stash (which is mostly 8ply - double knit - wool).

Now I'm going to try the yarn from the summer top in the lace pattern - I want to knit a short sleeved cardigan to put on when the airconditioning gets a little too chilly! If there's not enough yarn for that I will stick to the idea of a lapghan!

I'm off to colour my hair and do some knitting (and washing/laundry and shopping and voting ...)

I've changed my Stashalong participation

I realised today that I had met my Stashalong goal on 2 March. Option 3 was "don't cast on for any new project while WIPs are on the needles". I signed on in January to complete 5 projects, the fifth of which was done on 2 March. Here is the list copied for my sidebar:

1. Diamond Wrap #1
2. Diamond Wrap #2
3. Striped Squares Wrap
5. Diagonal Diamond Wrap
6. teddy**
7. jumper with cables
**to be finished in February 2007

So I have signed on for Option 1 for two months - to knit only from my stash and not to buy any yarn in that time. However, I do have one free day per month so that allows me to buy yarn next Saturday at our knitters' group meeting if anything takes my fancy! Woo-hoo!

I still have to complete two WIPs before I will allow myself to cast on for a new project. The first of these is the Diagonal Diamond Wrap because I joined Lint for Lent on 2 March, and because I want to get that laundry basket full of acrylic yarn used up! The projected finish date for this project is 17 March. Then I'll knit the back of that jumper and finally get to start a new project! :-)

edited: 12 March 5.40pm
Am I insane? Less than a week to finish that wrap! I don't think so. I still have about 50 squares to go. At 40 minutes a square, there is no way I can finish by this Saturday! What was I thinking? Finishing date, including sewing up and sewing ends in - 31 March.

Still knitting - still finishing!

After a southerly change last weekend, the weather has cooled slightly but the temperature is slowly increasing again. The humidity - yuk! We had some much needed rain on Monday; so much that my class was cancelled because the women wouldn't be able to move between the classroom and the creche! It was the most torrential rain I have seen in many months. Come to think of it, it is one of the rare occasions of any rain I have seen in months!

The cancelled class gave me some "free" time which I used on my Patches Wrap for February is for Finishing. So far I have sewn in over 1600 ends - 100 for every day of February plus some extras because of my 'free' time! This picture shows just a small part of the wrap/afghan, multiply by 100 and you get the idea! To give you some idea of scale, the picture shows a section about 6 inches x 4.5 inches.

On the knitting front, I have been working on Diamond Wrap #2 and Small Diamond Wrap. Diamond Wrap #2 is about 70% finished and so is becoming very heavy and too hot to sit under in the hottest month of the year. Small Diamond Wrap is made up of 5 inch squares knit on the diagonal - much easier to manage in the heat and humidity. So far I have succeeded in sewing groups of four squares together as I finish them rather than have 112 squares to sew together at the end! Happily, I can report that I have now have 20 squares sewn together.

I have also been listening to podcasts. I particularly enjoy Australian knitter David Reidy of Sticks and Strings; in the past few weeks I have listened to all his podcasts. David attends meetings of the knitting group to which I belong - the Blue Mountains Group of the Knitters Guild NSW. I am slowly working my way through the archives of American knitter living in Wales, Brenda Dayne of Cast-On. In Episode #44 she mentioned the KAL I joined at the beginning of the year - Stashalong.

Speaking of Stashalong, so far I have managed to buy only yarn that I need to complete current projects. I went to my local department store on Monday, and found that 100g acrylic had gone up from $2.98 a skein to $3.12; it seemed like a big increase but it's less than 5% so I guess we can't really complain! Still, I'm glad I've decided to stop knitting with acrylic. My hands feel so dry and rough. It's funny, the variegated yarns always seem softer than the plain colours - I wonder why?

I need to get all my current WIPs (see sidebar) finished before 17 March because my lys is attending the Blue Mountains Knitters' Group meeting that day and will be bringing yarn for a "one skein challenge". I won't be able to participate if I can't buy yarn and I can't buy yarn if all my projects are not finished (self imposed rules).

So I guess I'd better stop blogging and knit/finish! :-)

PS Does anyone know if any hospitals in Sydney are taking donations for Chemo Caps?