Saturday, September 23, 2006

uh oh, Sock Wars has begun!

I'll be assassinated in no time I'm sure, as I've not managed to start knitting yet!

At least the killer sock pattern is for DK yarn, but it's a lot of ribbing - I've been doing too much ribbing lately, both current commissions are rib-tastic & it's beginning to get a little bit tedious.

But, as far as the commissions are concerned, the money I get from them means that I can knit something for ME!
I'll be spending my loot at Ally Pally.

I managed to get cheap train tickets & a cheap room share = more cash to spend on stash - yeay!

I am v.v. excited as I've not been to the Knitting & Stitching shows before, but some of the ladies on my course assure me that I'll love it. DH is a tad concerned about the credit card bill, but I have earnt some money over the summer, so I reckon I'm justified in having a little stash-enhancement & a little me-time. I've also managed to get a place on Ruth Lee's Learning Curve workshop, I'd have liked to do one or two more, but those tutored by Di Gilpin & Sasha Kagan must have sold out really quickly.

Friday, September 22, 2006


Before I go back to college next week (eek! still haven't quite got the summer homework done...), I thought I'd do a bit of show and tell from last year's work:

This is my stitch "resolved" piece - that middle section is an awful lot of french knots ...






Below is my mixed media piece - shibori dyed muslin & velvet, nuno felt & knitted lace. The fused glass panel in front of the fabric contains knitted silver wire.

The lace pattern was random-ish in that I charted the shape I vaguely wanted & just made sure my stitch count was something like right across the row - SKPO's, k2togs, k3togs, YO's and WYRN twice/3times were made up as I went along! The lace is knitted from Infinity Soysilk, which dyes really nicely too - it'll dye with either acid or procion-type dyes equally well, but being so fine, it's a pain to skein & then re-wind (oh, for a swift & a ball winder! - I really ought to check out Ebay).



This year's work is likely to be less fabric-y, as we're looking at non-conventional materials (wax, latex, etc.) and have units on painting, sculpture, site-specific work and some more printing.

I'll still be knitting (I always am!) but maybe it'll end up being even more twisted!

Knitting with the silver wire was interesting & I've made some lovely fused glass buttons with knitted wire lace held inside - it's hard on the hands though.

I do fancy the idea of somehow adding light to some knitting - maybe using fibre-optics or something along those lines, at some point, but I'm clueless as to how I'll actually achieve that, yet!

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Knitting content!

Not mine though - haven't got the camera out (blush).

performance knitting

kind-of Freddie Robins in action - without seeing Freddie or the needles!

Elsewhere - the new knitty
sigh, to be able to afford enough Noro to knit Lizard Ridge - what a beautiful blankie.

I have finished a commission - yeay! - I was asked to knit Chicago from Rowan 37 after someone saw mine (it's one of my favourite summer evening garments) - ALL those flowers later (53 of them!) and I packed it up this morning - forget to take photo's though. D'oh! I'm a bad blogger.

2 more commissions on the needles - one a Debbie Bliss child's jumper & a "sensible waistcoat with pockets" for an 80-ish y.o. who's worn out his last one. This is the waistcoat using Mackenzie Tweed (silk/wool) from Texere yarns.

Other than that I've got 2nd sock syndrome and it's stunning Cherry Tree Hill sockyarn too, so I really shouldn't be stalling it and Sock Wars is looming!

Sunday, September 10, 2006

I'm getting there.

s....l.....o....w....l....y

but I have manged to get the an avatar thingy into the side bar - wahey! and suss out where to paste the rowanette blog ring links so that they stick!
(Only took me 20 minutes or so to sort that out!)

There will be knitting/textiley things soon.
promise!

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Yahoo! Avatars

Monday, September 04, 2006



Well, I've finally done it. joined the blogging community that is!
Once I've worked out how this works I might be able to get some pictures posted and blog "proper"!