Pictures of Progress

Before I get on with my post, I'd just like to make a comment about the picture at the top of my blog. Some of you may have seen a new knitting magazine this month called Let's Knit and you may have noticed that the picture they use for their feature 'Ask Maggie' is the same picture on my blog. I'd just like you to know that I have not stolen this picture from them and that I bought it from istockphoto just so you know!

Anyway, moving on, I have just taken some pictures like I promised. So, let's begin...

First of all, my birthday. Like I have said before, my mum owns her own knitting shop in the UK, so I was bound to get some lovely knitting goodies, and that I did! My mum bought me two balls of Regia bamboo sock yarn, one skein of Collinette sock yarn and one skein of Artesano Jitterbug DK sock yarn. I cannot wait to try them, especially the Jitterbug, I love the autumnal colours and have never knitted DK socks before. I have also never knitted with bamboo yarn before, so that's another thing that I am really looking forward to. Unfortunately, I have barely made any progress on the socks that I promised my hubby, so will not allow myself to knit another pair until they are finished, unless I am knitting them as a gift.

My mum also came through for me on the Debbie Bliss bolero from Rialto that I have been so desperate to knit. She gave me the Rialto book, and a pack of Rialto yarn in red, I was delighted! if you have read my earlier post from last week, you will know that I have already started knitting this (also evident in the photo), despite promising myself that I would finish off all my current WIPs, but you know how it is, plus, I really needed a break from my circular cardigan, and I only have the sleeves left to do (as you will see later).

I also got some lovely books from my mum: Stitch 'n' Bitch Nation; Naughty Needles: Sexy, saucy knits for the bedroom & beyond by Nikol Lohr; It's my Party and I'll Knit if I Want to by Sharon Aris and Louisa Harding'sVenezia.

I think that was everything from her. So, all in all, I think I was a very lucky girl! It's so great to have a mother who owns her own yarn store!

S0, enough about my birthday and how spoiled I am!

My knitting is coming on fairly well at the moment, although I have hardly done any over the weekend as I just haven't really felt like it, although I'm sure that I will be doing some later in the day...

As mentioned earlier, my Debbie Bliss circular cardigan is almost finished, with just the sleeves left to do, but I am putting that off at the moment as I just got a bit bored of knitting it and wanted to do something new.

That edging really took me a long time to do, I think that's another reason why I feel that I need a break from it before getting on with the sleeves, but I am hoping that they wont take too long to do as it's all just knit stitch until I get down to the cuffs, when I have to do that pointy edge again, but at least it won't be over 544 stitches!

I'm pretty pleased with it, but I'm just not sure of how good it looks on me. I might have said this before, but I'm a little concerned that it makes be look a little bit like a snail when I put it on because of the way that it hangs! It doesn't sit too well on my rather ample bottom! I'm just hoping that with a little pressing it will hang better, fingers crossed after all that work, otherwise I may have to find someone with a smaller bum than mine to give it to as a Christmas present!

I never did get around to knitting that pumpkin hat for my friend who has her birthday on Halloween, oops, but I did get her carrot knitted, although I still haven't posted it to her, so I guess she won't be getting it in time for her birthday, double oops. I hope she will forgive me when she does finally receive it, along with a little Smurf sitting at a computer, which I said I was going to buy her last year, but never did (gosh, I'm starting to sound like a complete flake). The carrot looks a little pregnant in this picture, but I think I just need to prod the stuffing about a bit to get it more even. Apart from that, I think it's a very good knitted carrot!

Moving away from knitting a little. I got my partners for my Swap-Bot swaps early yesterday and then went straight into town to get my supplies and managed to get them all sent off yesterday afternoon (hopefully I'm not sounding like such a flake now!). I won't go into detail about what I sent just in case my partner reads this, I don't want to spoil the surprise for her, I just hope that she likes what I sent. I had a look at her profile and blog and tried to send things that I thought she would like. The other swap was an autumn post card swap, where we send autumn themed postcards to 5 different people and write an autumn memory on the back, which was quite sweet. Hopefully I will be able to get my rating up so I can take part in some of the knitting and yarn swaps and maybe even host my own knitting themed swap.

One last photo for you, and of course, Trinny had to get into the picture, she is such a photo hogger! I don't know if it's just because she's so curious or if it's because she genuinely loves having her picture taken! It took me quite a while to be able to get a picture of the circular cardigan as she plonked herself on it and looked at me expectantly as soon as I had laid it on the floor ready for the camera!

Anyway, I bought this yarn at one of the yarn shops in Carouge (not my favourite, but the other one,which I'm not really so keen on). It was only 5CHF (about £2.00) per ball. I have no idea what I am going to do with it, I'm not even sure how much I like the Plassard! I think that it might make a nice cushion and was thinking about making a drop-stitch scarf with the Gedifra, but nothing is set in stone.

I really need to get on and knit some Christmas presents, there are only 58 days left until the day, pretty scary. I finally started one gift today, but I'm not going to say anything about it, just in case the friend who it's for happens to read this. She is coming over to stay for a few days, arriving on Thursday this week, I am so excited. I have the feeling she may have some repairs for me to make to her knitting, I think I need to teach her how to do these things for herself so she doesn't have to stop every time something bad happens so she doesn't have to wait until she sees me or my mum to get it fixed again!

Secret Knitting Pal

I just discovered Secret Knitting Pals yesterday, and I really want one! The problem is, I seem to have missed the boat on all the latest ones. Knitty do one through their forum, but you have to have at least 100 posts before you can join a swap. I only joined yesterday, so I think it will take me a while to get there, I don't want to post one word answers to other posts, and they don't like you to do that you get your numbers up.

There is also the Secret Knitting Pal on Blogspot, they are up to number SP11 now, but that is just coming to an end, so I will have to keep an eye out for SP12. In the meantime, I have signed up to Swap Bot, although I can't join any of the knitting related swaps yet as some swaps require you to have a certain rating, I have joined some other swaps, like a Christmas card swap, to get my rating up and also it's fun to send and receive things from complete strangers in the post! Some of the send dates are coming up soon, so I will let you know what I get!

I signed up to Ravelry on October 20, so am eagerly awaiting my invitation to join.

You signed up on October 20, 2007
You are #46481 on the list.
11716 people are ahead of you in line.
2102 people are behind you in line.
69% of the list has been invited so far

I think it could be a while before they get to me. My friend from my SnB group said it took about a month before she got her invitation, I just hope I can wait that long as everyone says it is fantastic!

I'm afraid I still have no photos for you as I am writing this at work (it's very quiet in the office as it's 6pm and I'm covering reception), but I will try my best to get snapping over the weekend and get some pictures up so you can see how I've been getting along with things.

Aren't I Awful?!

I know, I can't believe it's been a month since my last post, it hasn't been intentional, I promise. It is for two reasons, although neither are very good! 1. Because my circular cardigan is knitted in the round, it was hard to take a picture that shows how much progress I'd made and 2. I didn't want to post without any pictures, but hadn't gotten around to taking any of anything else (and I still haven't). I know, poor excuses!

So, I finished my carrot, but am yet to send it to my friend (I wanted to take a photo first, go figure!). It's quite cute, but very small.

I have almost finished my baby cardigan, I just need to sew it up and do the embroidery, which could very well mean it's another month before I finish it! I think it's a good job that I did the size 3-6 months as it could be that long before poor baby Nola gets it! It is looking very cute though! I really love the colour and I promise to post photos soon.

I have almost finished the circular cardigan! Yay!! Just have to knit the sleeves. I finally finished casting off last night, it took me days to do that as there were 544 stitches and had a pointed edge, which means each stitch had to be knitted up to 9 times in short rows, phew! I am waiting to do the sleeves for a bit as I really need a rest from it, I got very bored of knitting it towards the end. I'm also not sure if I have enough yarn to finish both sleeves, so may have to wait for my mum to ship some over for me. After all that knitting, I hate to say it, but I'm not sure that I like it, I think it makes me look like a snail because of the way it hangs! I'm hoping that once it's pressed it will look better. It also needs a shave as the "Grace" seems to pill really badly, which is really irritating.

So, when I finally finished casting off last night, I cast on my next project, which I have really been itching to knit, which is a red bolero from Debbie Bliss' "Rialto" book. I only managed to cast on and knit two rows last night, but I already think I'm going to love knitting with the "Rialto", it's 100% merino and is really soft. Hopefully this won't take me as long to knit as the cardigan!

I guess another reason why I have been slack with my posts is that I got a job! It's only temporary for now, but I'm hoping they will keep me on, just need to work hard and to try to stop getting confused!

I never even posted what knitting goodies I got for my birthday. The Debbie Bliss book & yarn for my bolero was one part, I also got some beautiful sock yarn & some more books. When I next do a photo shoot I will include some pics in my next blog!

I promise the next blog will have photos and I'm sorry that this one is so lacking in colour!