I am Sarena. I live in Geneva. I like to knit.

Tuesday 29 July 2008

I need to knit more socks

If I am knitting a blanket out of left over sock yarn, I need to have knit lots of socks so I have lots of left over yarn, right? That is where my plan fails, I haven't actually knit that many pairs of socks so now I have run out of left over yarn. I really didn't think this one through too clearly. I must knit more socks.

Yesterday I cast on some Froot Loop socks from Knitty.com using Regia Bamboo Color. They are knitting up fairly quickly (as I type, they are twice as long as in the photo which I took about three hours ago). I have been doing a lot of knitting today though in place of anything else as I've been in pain for the past couple of days so it's always good to be doing something when I'm feeling otherwise useless. I'm not a huge fan on the colour of this yarn knitted up, although it looks great on the ball. It does seem to have the perfect colours for a Froot Loop project though. I also think the colours will look great on my blanket (still no pictures yet) and will really brighten it up, there's way too much blue going on with it at the moment. I am eagerly awaiting a package from my mum containing some of her left over yarn.

Unfortunately, since casting the socks on, I have been neglecting my February Lady Sweater, actually, I've been neglecting that for a few days now, which is just typical of me when I'm so close to finishing it. All I need to do is knit one sleeve and finish the bottom. I ripped back the bottom of the sweater to add a few more inches on and am leaving it on the needles until I've finished the other sleeve in case I have enough yarn left over to add a bit more length onto the bottom. I vow I will pick it up tomorrow to carry on at Stitch 'n' Bitch tomorrow night, I'm just putting off picking up the sleeves which is ridiculous as it's one of the easiest things ever.

I'm actually impressed I'm still managing to knit in this heat, it's horrible, especially the humidity. We keep having storms but they don't seem to clear the air. I'm not good with heat, copious amounts of iced tea and coffee for me!

Thursday 24 July 2008

J'arrête encore

I haven't smoked in 4 weeks, 5 days. Good huh? Just a thought.

Wednesday 23 July 2008

The World's stupidest needles

Progress on the sleeves of my February Lady Sweater has been rather slow as I was knitting them on stupidly long double pointed needles. I mean, who even needs 30cm (12inch) DPNs? I only had them because I bought them from a charity shop. Surely if you need DPNs that long you just use a circular needle instead? I finally managed to find myself some short circulars to get on with the sleeves today and progress has suddenly increased tenfold so now I just have one and a half sleeves to knit and I'm done, yay! I can't wait! I love the needles too, their Lang needles but are made by Addi, making them a little cheaper than standard Addi needles but they are exactly the same. I've never really knit with Addi needles before until the past couple of days and I have really fallen in love with them, they are so smooth and comfortable to work with, definitely worth the extra money over any other brands, especially since I really can't get on with bamboo circulars, I always find that they snag where the needles join the cable.

Yesterday I cast on a leftover sock yarn blanket. I'm knitting it in a logcabin style, making it up as I go along. I'm thinking this will be a very long-term project with no visible end date. Unfortunately I made the initial piece rather small, so I'm hoping it won't look strange but it is meant to be all higgeldy-piggeldy and kind of like a scrap patchwork blanket. I will post pictures when I have made a little more progress.

Monday 14 July 2008

Progress Update

My February Lady Sweater is coming along nicely. I have gotten used to the gull lace stitch pattern and have managed to get on without making any mistake, which is a relief as I had to do the first repeat twice due to mistakes and figured it was going to be a very long project if I had to do each repeat twice.

I'm really enjoying knitting this, now that I've got the hang of the lace pattern I'm finding it a breeze but the kind of breeze that I still have to think about, which I haven't had in a knitting project for a long time. I needed something a little more challenging, which this is but not so much it hurts. Hopefully this will prepare me for a bit more lace knitting that I have planned, although I'm not sure how much knitting time I'm going to have over the next few months for reasons I can't go into at the moment.

There are more socks I want to knit now, Opal have a new range of their Hundertwasser sock yarn and I love it. I will try to restrain myself for a bit but I'm sure it won't be long before I'm over at Tricolaine raiding Annelis' stock!

Sunday 13 July 2008

Ravelry group for Interknit Cafe

So, I just set up a group on Ravelry for the Interknit Cafe, so feel free to join if you're a member of Ravelry, the more the merrier! The group can be found here: http://www.ravelry.com/groups/interknit-cafe-farnham-2