Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

After the inevitable embarrassment of dealing with money, I found the courage to charge £10 the commissioned bunnies below. Sadly, I suspect I wasn't clear and have been paid as a job lot rather than by individual piece.

Pants.

Still, nice to have some money in my wallet and it's a lesson for the future.

Finished the left front

God, this is the slowest cardigan in history.

Absolutely and utterly FINISHED

Here are the last two rabbits I will do for some time.

What do you think? I think they're kind of sweet actually. I got the faces on this evening which is my most hated part of the rabbit making procedure. It's the bit where all the effort can be ruined by a miserable or scary expression and it's also the bit I find the hardest. I don't like embroidery. It's not knitting and generally doesn't do what I want it to. Too tough for me.

Ella, I used this post for guidance since the first expression was distinctly unhappy. Not that either of these looks particularly happy but that is a vast improvement on unhappy, no?

The four stages of building a bunny

Stage 1. All knitted and no where to go.

Stage 2. Feeling a little bit discombobulated.

Stage 3. In one piece but without a fig leaf.

Stage 4. Reading to hit the town!


(And if you wonder how these bunnies breed so fast...: Stage 5: Brief bunny love.
)

blogger didn't lose it, I did!

!

Has the mojo returned (second attempt)

the short version (blogger lost the first)

finished back, hooray. fronts decrease rapidly - A Good Thing. Row counter very handy.

Has the mojo returned? (first attempt)

maybe ... have finished the back which is always the biggest hurdle I think. Plus because it is a wraparound cardigan, the fronts start big but that you do a lot of quick decreasing so it feels like it is going quicker. Plus plus I have deciphered the pattern into a list of what to do on each row, which, along with my trusty row counter, is making making the job a lot more straightforward. All good then!

Uh oh

I have just accidentally spent a silly amount of money in a wool shop.

It all started so innocently. I just popped into Bunty's Wool Shop in West Ealing, after buying fruit and veg in the Saturday market and getting caught in the rain. It was both an excuse to get out of the rain and a chance to pick the Jaegar caramel wool I needed to finish Rabbit No.1 (which ran out after two floppy ears). I was pleased to find a good muddy pink wool which would be ideal for a pig for Maggie as well as the Jaegar wool - which means I don't have to trek to John Lewis in Oxford Street, where I bought the original ball.

Flushed with this success, and the surprise beauty treatments I'd afforded myself as both a treat and a way out of the bucketing rain, I decided to consider a new me-centric project. Perhaps, I reasoned, this was why I had recently been dishearted with all knitting recently. Simple it sounds. Simple it was not.

So three hours later (I kid you not) I have come out with TWO jumper patterns (actually one book of patterns which I want one jumper patter from and one sheet pattern) which I plan to merge into one bastardized sweater and three balls of mock-kid wool, two other balls for alternative projects and a mighty dent in my visa bill. (Which would have been significantly bigger if I'd bought the real kid wool.)

It was still raining when I came out.

Proof it's over

One of out two is done. Well, it will be when I put some features on it. STILL need to bloody buy some wool to finish the first but then it's over over over and I can draw a line under the Rabbit Period of my life.

Give some to me then!

Worked has ceased on the cardigan. The back is finally done (hooray) and the first ten rows of the left front, but nada since. Dear oh dear.

Stacey's knitted a pink rabbit though (and needs to sew it together!)

And I'm back again, said Nora (with a monumental crash)

Ah ha. The mojo has returned.

Whether this was finishes the knitting of Rabbit No. 2, eating pizza in the park last night or some hormonal change, I don't care.

Rabbit No. 2 needs stuffing then I can start the pig.

One very slow stitch at a time

Nothing is progressing very fast at all and, if I've even more honest, I'm not really feeling the love of /for knitting at the moment. But I think I'm in a funk and not terribly feeling for the love for much.

The rabbit is becoming in drips and drabs and I'm sick to the back teeth of it. It doesn't help that I'm not making it for love or fun or even that egotistical kick you get from seeing the face of the person you give it to. Having not arranged a price in advance, I'm not even sure I'm making it for money - certainly not for profit!

The sock has been put on the back burner. And that's about all folks!

Hmph. Once the two bloody rabbits are done, I will try and get my teeth into a new and exciting project. And learn my lesson about how to say no.

World Wide Knit in Public Day

was yesterday.

And although I didn't go on the London Stitch n Bitch organised tour, I made sure I got out and knitted in public, which ended up me doing a few extra lines of an ear while on a tube journey. So not really any different from any other day then!

Sadly there is no photographic evidence since I was knitting alone and with two hands needed to hold the needles, it's hard to find the extra limb to focus the camera. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

Other breaking news!

I am now the proud owner of a pack of interchangeable knitting needles. Pink ones, at that. Now I just need to find a project to make them proud...

It's difficult to knit

when you aren't feeling well.

The back of this cardigan is going to take forever. But the fronts look like they will be quite quick to knit as they decrease so quickly. And I am looking forward to doing the edging, it will be nice to have something different than ribbing or moss stich on the edge of a cardigan for a change. I bought some gorgeous ribbons from http://www.londonbeadco.co.uk/ which is bead shop near school with a tiny knitting section, which may spur me on to get this done!

The Joy of the Row Counter

It is good. I have to do 52 rows and now I don't have to count or remember. Which is a Good Thing.

Six inches to spare

Phew!

I had two sweaters to do for the two Small Rabbit in Sweater which I had promised to the boss. However I wasn't even sure that the cream used in the S design would last for the first sweater, let alone the second. However I have just finished the N - which I changed to a cream letter on a pink background to try and eke out the last of the cream wool - and in spite of my dire predictions I managed to finish the letter. With just six inches of wool left.

Yay!

I think I have also found the type of wool it is, because being a plonker I took off the labels a while ago and bought them at a fair. I think they are Freedom Wools.

The excitement of the letter S

Another day, another rabbit, another sweater

This one is for a boy called S.... (While trying to protect his anonymity, I've also forgotten his name. But it does begin with S. Sam's my guess.)

Using blue for boys and pink for girls goes expressly against my beliefs but since these toys aren't for me but I suppose I should respect the tastes. (Hmph.)

This is my first attempt at a S graph. I quite like it.

She's right

I was not happy.

I arrived in Vauxhall flustered and tired after a cycle across town. I was on time but only just owing to having to leave my office three times (first as a practise, second to get my mobile that was actually in my pocket all the time and finally to get my building pass that I had left on my desk when I returned to collect my not-forgotten phone). The small shop was filled to the bursting with people for the course. Someone walking in just before me and got the last chair, then someone walked in moments after me and it was obvious we would not fit all in the shop. I just felt deflated. (Not helped by the fact that I'd only half changed into my cycle clothes and felt like a complete prat in my yellow reflective jacket, bright red trackpants, turquoise cycle helpmet, sedate green t-shirt and nasty pink glow from all exertion.)

They did say I could stay but I'd lost the inclination. I thought I could justify the trip by doing some wool shopping but with nine sitting eager crochet students dominating the already small space there wasn't really the atmosphere - or indeed physical possibility - for browsing. I was even more embarrassed that I needed to borrow an A-Z off the manager to work out how to get home and he was obviously more concerned with getting tea for his paying customers. I left in shame.

Then spent about 20 minutes trying to work out how to join the one-way system around Vauxhall station in order to go back north. That wasn't as bad as the hour I spent cycling lost around Belgravia. I finally trudged through Hyde Park and caught the train home.

The day got worse before it got better, but not related to knitting. And, anyway, it's OVER!!!

She's Not Happy

and nor should she be, they overbooked her crochet course and now she is cycling back from deepest darkest South Lahndon. Grrrr.

On a another note, we shall be converging somewhere in a bar on the South Bank to knit and probably not bitch tomorrow night. And Stacey's coming as well!

I was too tired to knit either way on the train today which is a first. But that's what you get for having weirdy early morning insomnia and getting up at five.

I'm booked and ready to go

Owing to my failure to read the pattern before starting, it turns out that I need to crochet the final part of these fingerless gloves from Alpaca Select. Problem is that not only do I not own a crochet hook, I haven't got the foggiest how to use one. So after a few months of procrastinating I'm off to a crochet class! I'm booked on tonight's session at I Knit London which will be a sneaky excuse to go to a wool-no-yarn shop.

But now I've got the pre-match nerves. Who else is going to be there? Will it be fun? Or horrendous? Do I really need to pay to learn something I can get off the internet? Do I have enough money to justify paying for crochet classes, when I don't even have an overwhelming desire to crochet? How am I going to get my bike from Vauxhall home?

And, most importantly, what kind of choccie biscuits will they provide?

Today is...

The Fifth of the Sixth of the Seventh.

I just wanted to share that.

Kxx

Sublime yarn

is gorgeous to knit with. Even though I had to unravel the first fifteen rows because I had managed to change direction halfway through row five. I have no idea how I don't notice that I do that.

On the rabbit front, the pattern is being used a lot. Lisa has requested it and so has Stacey!

Did you read the latest post in AngelKnits?

Ella

Which stitch n bitch were you thinking of going to this week? You may want to read what will be happening at AngelKnits tomorrow?


Still fancy going???

On going projects

There's nothing new or exciting starting or even going on with my knitting at the moment.

• The stripy socks
  
  My love for sock knitting has been severely hamped by the reality of using 5 x 2.5 m needles. It's progressing pretty consistantly but it's so bloody slow! Also, the self-patterning wool is cool but in reality there is only one pattern and that has already repeated itself three times. I suppose it didn't help that I read a fantastic soul food cook book recently that had a graphic recipe for chitterlins (pig intestines) and now as I knit this pink tube my imagination has been hijacked by inappropriate porcine anatomical images.
  
  




• The blue and green cardigan
  
  Yeah, well this one has been on the back burner for weeks. I can't work out how to join the stitches to knit the button band on the side and the frustration is too offputting on continue. I did even try on Sunday morning but ended up pulling out all the ribbing and joined on stitches because it looked so shoddy. I'm not a perfectionist by any stretch of the imagination but this is my best piece so far and I'd like to end as well as it started.



• The alpaca fingerless mitts
  
  
  
  They are both mostly finished but the second one still needs to be sewed up. Oh, and I have yet to knit on the thumb bit. The pattern also had a crocheted flower on the end which I didn't pay attention to because I have no idea how to crochet - or indeed don't own the right needle. So they are unfinished. And it's summer so I guess there's a good six months before I might need them (either for myself or a handy gift) and I'm not panicking.



• More bloody bunnies
  
  I accidentally agreed to make my boss two rabbits for his grandchildren (I assume). However he wants them the same as Isobel which means I have to go out and get some wool. Sure the pattern was cute to begin with but now I am seriously bored! (Oh, I found the reference: it comes from Toy Knits by Debbie Bliss. Ella says you can justify buying a pattern book if you can see at least three patterns you plan to make. Is it still economical/justifiable if you only use one pattern but use it more than three times? )

Bloody counter

Now it's working but only seems to be able to identify me and my mum. Which is probably all who are reading it, so perhaps not such a worry.

Is it working or is there a dropped html stitch somewhere?

Right. It's Friday evening and I am determined to sort out this bloody blog before the weekend. First off, the tracker. Why isn't it work? Firstly, where on earth, in the source, do I put the html code??? And secondly, why is it only showing my computer? Of course the obvious answer to the second question is that I am the only one looking at the site but I have spies out there (hi Mum) who have been helping me and they are not coming up. Hmmmm... this one is going to take some working.

Then I got thinking about adding some buttons, and images, and thingamebobbins. You know, the normal 'nesting' behaviour of any blogger when he/she finds themselves in a new, empty space. Or perhaps that's just me. Anyway, this of course led to reading some knitting blogs which led to a complete collapse in productivity.

And now I'm hungry and the bike's outside still with a flat tyre and my movie is calling (mostly so I can knit although I'm not so sure how well that will work since it's subtitled) and the tracker is still not fixed and most upsettingly this post has absolutely no point. Shame.

This is what I was hoping to attach to my sidebar but mostly because I think it looks cool:

One day, my friend...

you will be a sock.

This is a big moment for me as a knitter. I am attempting the Dreaded Sock. Whether this is dreaded because the wool is extra-fine, the pattern is more complex than anything I've done or the five needles are sending me insane I am yet to decide.

The wool came via a colleague who picked it up at Heath's Country Store in Nottinghamshire or thereabouts. I am seriously considering a wool-expedition but seeing as I've yet to make it to Vauxhall to check out I Knit London it's unlikely I will make it across the county line. But I can dream. Just like my sock.

Where's your blue and green cardi then?

Well?

My very first rabbit, as yet, unnamed.

Isabel the Rabbit

Made for my pregnant colleague using the pattern from ... ooh, no idea. I'll reference it when I get home tonight. Bloody brilliant though, as it's mucho cuteo, quick to make and looking at this site they appear to have bred like rabbits!

And then there were two...

...albeit entirely unwearable booties.

My first tension square: proof!

It's in some self-striping sock wool and transfered from my phone by the ever reliable card reader (which all self-reliant girls should carry around with them, next to their stitch carrier and puncture repair kit. Althouh that might just be me.)

Tension Square

So it is 10 cm long and the are 2.8 rows to 1 cm, which to my mind equals 28 rows to 10 cm so I'm happy!

(It's cheating, but does it matter? Really?)

New Project

Right. I think I will start the wrapover cardigan for Lauren. It is in Sublime baby cashmere merino silk dk (which feels gooooooorgeous) and I do believe that would be my first ever tension square I have just cast on. Blimey.

Now I am used to Debbie Bliss patterns, it is odd to use a pattern that gives you loads of info - at first I thought it was really complicated but it's just it says everything in longhand.

Blanket!

I finally finally finally finished the (boring but beautiful) blanket!

Which means: I currently do not have a knitting project on the go!