This time I was the test knitter!

 

Frontenac wears my cowl with style!

 

The chaos version will have basic instructions, give guidelines for finishing the design, but will allow you make creative design decisions as you go.

From Kim’s group on Ravelry.

I like chaos. I’m pretty creative. I like a challenge. Plus I needed some portable to knit on my vacation. I jumped at the opportunity. I used a skein of her Merino Nylon Sock Yarn, that I had in my stash (gifted to me by my lovely friend Lillian). The colour name is Groverkill (Kim and Ron have the best names for their yarn. They always make me laugh and they are BEAUTIFUL!). I did a stash dive and found some other random sock yarns (with no labels) that looked awesome with Groverkill.

The cowl was REALLY fun to knit. I enjoyed every minute of it. My mum loved it too! I have a feeling I know where this cowl is going to end up!

Run, run, run and buy Spatial Distortion: Loop! It’s $6, it was really fun to knit, and it is available here on Ravelry! There are 2 versions and a few sizes. I am planning on making more of these! I can’t believe how quick and fun it was to work with.

button detail.

Here are the points my dears:

Accessory: 1pt

Yardage = 200yds: 2pts

Stash yarn: 1pt

Never knit this pattern before: 1pt

TOTAL: 5 points!

I know that this summer the Rumblers have been pretty quiet, but I promise that we will be back in full swing soon!

STRIPES

Hello Crafty People!

Wow! The Rumblers sure have been quiet this summer! I know that I’ve been busy! I’m juggling two jobs, not much time off, the hottest summer ever, and super dry weather. I know that I haven’t been in a knitting mood…

… so I assume Amy and Julianna aren’t in the knitting mood either… Oh well, that just means that I can strengthen my lead over them! Muhahahaha!

I will admit that I’ve finally stepped into the darkness of ordering yarn online. It’s a scary, fun, terrifying world… and I love it. I went in on a Knit Picks order with some of my local knitting girls. It was awesome! I ordered some Wool of the Andes and Worsted weight Chroma. Addictive and beautiful (and cheap too)! I knew the minute that I saw Chroma it was meant to be stripes within stripes! And what is a better summer project than a hat?

Never enough stripes

I love it so much!

The decreases are the best part!

Here’s the point break down:

Hat = 1pt

150 yards = 1.5pts

Design (out of my own little head) = 1pt

TOTAL: 3.5pts

Not a huge amount, but I will take it!

And what’s an Emily post without a head shot?

Stay cool kids!

 

42 Degrees Celcius With The Humidex…

… yup. That’s the temperature. It’s hot. And it’s tough for a knitter. Wool + sweaty hands = felting. It’s horrible.

Despite this fact and the horrible weather, I have still be knitting — not as much mind you, and not as often. I have finished something though.

Feather and fan!

Amy inspired me with her Multnomah Shawl . I’ve knit this pattern before and really enjoyed it. Kate Ray is a great designer. Her designs are clear and very fun to knit. I had a skein of Indigodragonfly’s 2-ply Organic Merino (named Goodbye Kitty) kicking around from her Smart-Ass Knitters Yarn Club. I can’t find the base on her site — I wonder if it was a base just for the club. It is awesome stuff and it bloomed like crazy when I blocked it! Kim and Ron are really cool people — I’ve met them. I totally recommend their yarns! And the club is super fun. They are sarcastic, silly and pop culture junkies… what isn’t to love about that??? I haven’t come across a yarn of theirs I don’t love!

So I cast this on last week…

AWESOME!

The yarn pooled really well and I love it. I don’t think that I will keep it for myself, however. It doesn’t really look good on me. But I have someone in mind for Christmas, so it won’t sit idle in my closet. I promise.

Here are my points:

Simple Shawl: 2

400 yards: 4

Stash: 1

Lace: 1

Total: 8!

Good luck in this heat crafters! Please stay cool! I’m going to try not to melt while I work on a new hat idea…

There will always be sheep….

…the observant amongst you will have noticed that I didn’t complete our challenge in May – designing. I had ideas. I had plans. And I bottled it. I’m sure I will get to the designing stage at some point, but for now I’m content to stay cosily working away with other people’s. I dabble and alter from time to time, but haven’t got the patience to come up with my own, and after a few days sweating it out, decided that life is too short – and quit. there I’ve said it! I am a quitter, not a designer. And I didn’t feel to hot about this.

And then last week I made another sheep.

My original sheep was the first project I earnt points for on this blog way back in February. And I designed it. Yes it’s little, yes it took less than 50 yards of yarn, and yes, I only have scrappy notes on the design process and not a beautiful PDF to show for it.

But he’s cute!

And functional,

and came out of my pretty little head.

And he has a tape measure that comes out of his bottom, and there aren’t many of us that can say that.

 

Ooh, and he adds another….erm. 1 point to my total! Wow! Bet you two are shaking in your boots now!

Happy Wednesday everyone. x

Yummy Socks

Fun fact of the day: Did you know that dinosaurs love to much on hand-knit socks?

These were a bit of a variation on my usual toe-up after-thought heel vanilla socks.  I wanted to add a bit of texture to them, so I knitting the leg of the sock with a diminishing broken rib pattern.

I brought the socks into the wilderness for a photo shoot and managed to lose them to a mother dino who was foraging for food for her baby.

Miraculously, I wrestled the socks away from her without dying in the process and then took some rather mediocre pictures of the socks on my feet.  (Why is it so hard to photograph socks??)

 

 

Yarn: Art by Ana Cashmere sock party (80-10-10 merino wool, nylon, cashmere)
Needles: 2.25mm
Pattern: Improvised

Ravelled here.

 

 

Points:
3 points – 304 yds
2 points – socks
1 point – stash
1 point – design
7 points – total

Magdolna

It is finished!

HAT!

Our May Challenge was to design something. I designed this hat! I’ve been working on writing, knitting, and test knitting for over a month. And now it is here! You can buy the pattern HERE (Ravelry link. Don’t have a Ravelry account? Just leave a comment and I will get in touch with you).

I’m so proud of this hat. Sometimes when I design I get sick of the project. I usually end up knitting quite a few items before the pattern is ready to release. This time I only knit 2 and I plan on starting another very soon!

I also decided to change the pattern name. Orignally I had named the pattern Magda, but I choose to use the Hungarian version — Magdolna, my grandmother’s actual name. I think she would have liked that. I’ve been thinking about her a lot lately. I always do in the summer. I have very fond memories of helping her in the garden, picking flowers, shelling peas, and sitting on porch.

I’ve been wondering what her life must have been like when she was my age. I wonder how she must have felt, living in Hungary, surviving after the war, being married, trying to rebuild her life. I wish that I had asked her.

Ok, enough reflecting! Let’s talk about this project!

Cinch top

This hat uses DK weight yarn, I used something random and blue that was hiding in my stash. I love it. I can’t wait until the weather turns cold and I can wear it!

POINTS:

hat = 1

150 yards = 1.5

stash yarn = 1

designing = 4

lace = 1

total = 8.5

I can’t explain how proud I feel about this pattern. I think it is a pretty clever little hat and I can’t wait to make one for all the women in my life!

 

 

Super Fast Shawl Knitting

I started this shawl on a Wednesday and finished it on Sunday.  That’s right, it took less than one week to knit.  The combination of a few different simple lace charts and larger yarn and needles really made quick work of this pattern.

Pattern: “Springtime Bandit” by Kate Gagnon Osborn
Yarn: Diamond Galway (100% wool)
Needle: 5.5mm (The pattern pdf suggests this size, but the Ravelry pattern page suggests 5mm, confusing!)

This shawl is destined to be a store sample at Knit Knackers.  I can totally see myself knitting it again however, next time I would like to try it in a yarn with some silk and/or alpaca fibre content.

Points:

2 points – simple shawl
4 points – yardage (400 yds used)
3 points – lace
1 point – first time knitting this pattern

10 points – total

I think that the real reason this was such a quick knit is because of one of the paradoxes of knitting: things that logically seem like they should take longer to knit actually take less time.

Examples of this phenomenon are stranded colourwork and lace.  The patterns are more complicated than “just plain knitting”, but for some reason they seem to knit up faster.

Maybe it is because the knitter’s interest level is easier to maintain due to the variety of stitches or colours.  Maybe the desire to “knit just one more row” or to finish another repeat of the chart is a stronger motivator than finishing another inch of plain stockinette or garter stitch.

I don’t know!  What do you think?  Have you ever worked on a more complicated project that seemed to fly off the needles?

From handspun to shawl…

Hello there? Remember me?! I’ve been M.I.A entertaining visitors for the last couple of weeks, lots of fun, not much knitting! It’s been very good for my elbows though, and I’m back in action again now, with a project to share which will hopefully bump me up to at least second place!
This is some of the fab roving that Emily dyed for my birthday, using neon food colouring. I started spinning it back in April. I wanted to challenge myself to go finer than I’d managed before, with such a generous amount of fibre though, this made for a LOT of spinning!

Eventually, I ended up with this little beauty of singles.

It still amazes me how different fleece can look after spinning. The original roving was really vivid, a real knock out pink. The singles here are much more subdued, the white has toned everything down.

From there on to plying, I’m a Navajo plying addict now, and although I knew I wouldn’t end up with a striping yarn, I really wanted a three ply as I’ve realised that I much prefer the knitted fabric this creates.

Here I am plying away in the sunshine (yep, the sock is still on the wall!).

I love the finished yarn (modest as ever!). Not quite down to a sock weight yet, but I’m getting there slowly. And the skein has a sound  380 yards to play with – fab!

And so……I cast on straight away, and soon(ish) after, I had a handspun shawl to gift to a good friend as a much belated birthday present. The pattern is Multnomah, a nifty little combination of garter stitch and feather-and-fan. Easily memorised yet still effective.

 

 

 

 

 

I think the colours work really well with the pattern – hoorah!

So lets see if this project has clawed back a little of my dignity regarding the scoreboard:

380 yards 3-ply handspun = 1140 yards singles = 11.5 points!

Plying = 1 point.  Simple scarf/shawl = 1point. Knitting yardage = 360(ish) = 3.5 points. And the Multnomah is a new pattern for me so that’s one more, giving a grand total of……18 points!  Back in second place, whoop whoop!

Nice to be back with you everyone, and if I can organise a little bowling trip this week, I have a corking project to share with you – watch out ladies, i’m back in the game!   😉

My latest addiction…

So pretty. So addictive.

A little while ago Julianna posted about her new design. I jumped at the chance to test knit for her! The minute I saw the project I knew I had to knit it! So much fun! A great way to use a skein of special sock yarn (I used Indigodragonfly’s Merino Sock in colourway Ruxpinosferatu — from her April club mailing). I loved every single stitch of this scarf.

I cast this off this morning, waiting for the stove guy to come and fix my stove. I haven’t blocked it yet… Who has time to do that when they just want to share with everyone how awesome their new project is???

Freckles and curly hair, must be summer!

POINTS:

Scarf: 1 point

Yardage – 350 yards: 3.5 points

Stash yarn: 1 point

First time knitting this pattern: 1 point

TOTAL: 6.5!

Keeping me strongly in the lead!

In other knitting news, I have been keeping up with my self-imposed knitting challenge. I have not cast on any new projects. I’ve actually finished another one (which I need to wait to post — it’s kinda a surprise) and ripped out two more. Leaving me with 4 projects! I’m pretty pumped about that!

Violet Handspun Yarn

This yarn was spun from organic Merino wool that I hand-dyed in shades of blue and purple and then carded with some milk fibre and firestar (nylon sparkle) on my drum carder.

On the drum carder

I just recently acquired the firestar and wanted to try it out.  I took the advice that “a little goes a long way” a little bit too literally.  For the next batts I card using the sparkle , I am definitely going to use more of it!

Violet batt

The finished yarn only has very suble hints of sparkle.  The undyed milk fibre that I carded into the batt gave the yarn a “tweedy” affect.  The final skein is super soft and squooshy.  I have already cast on a hat – top-down this time so I don’t run out and end up with another neck-warmer! 🙂

The skein weights 37g and is 120 yds of 3-ply (chain-plyed) about a sport weight in thickness.

Points:

1 point – dyeing the wool

1 point – carding

3.5 points – 360 yds of singles (120 yds x3)

1 point – plying

6.5 points = Total