Yarnivorous

G'day all! Hooray, the Ravelympics are over! I no longer have a deadline for my knitting. What did I accomplish out of the five things I wanted to? Well I failed on the spinning - I have only spun maybe a third of a bobbin of the blue fluff that I had lined up (though I did spin 500m from 100g of a wool/soy blend I had). But I think I won on the rest of my projects: Husbandly socks! Finished these an hour before the Ravelympics closed. Very simple pattern, well once the template stuff is created. Details on Ravelry . Blood Orange . Still a wee tiny little thing, not sure what use it will be to anyone! But it is very lurid and very soft and I am sure I can find a home for it amongst my rellos and friends who are helping out with the chemo thing. Colour is still a bit off - it is a bit more orange than this - but good enough to get the idea. Aeolian (rav link), well you've seen that one before but it seems to be a hit :-) The ugliest sock in the world! LOL. I have to f...

G'day all! I am frantically knitting Nathan's discovery socks. Frantic is the word. I have 20 hours to finish two toe-up socks, one of which is not at the heel, one is on the leg but I need to reknit the heel. Thank you to those scouring Stitches for things for me. You are very sweet :-) Sluggy weekend - chemo is knocking me around a bit but that is to be expected. As long as it knocks the cancer around more, I am happy! Or at least content enough. Or willing to put up with having very little spare energy and being a bit burpy. I have pics of Blood Orange but am yet to edit them. Will probably have to wait for another day whilst I finish this pair of socks, well hopefully. It is teensy! Such a little thing, but the lady who knitted it looks like a little thing as well, which may explain why she can get it around her neck more than 1.25 times. Not that I knitted Blood Orange for me. It is not my colours. We've been moving stuff into the attic. Actually, Nathan ha...

G'day all! Finished my Aeolian yesterday morning and blocked it: (discovered my poor old sheet was unable to keep up with Nathan's hogging of said sheet and it has parted company with itself... very sad! Old, soft and comfy it was but ah well. Lots of rags instead!) Then today we went up to BAAG Where I got a few modelled shots. Hooray! Aeolian is done! Row 43 of the edging was not so bad cos I did not insist on doing it all in one go. Instead I picked it up and put it down several times during the day. The cast off took a while cos I started doing it with two strands of yarn (I had plenty left over!), then with the dark end of the ball of yarn (looked wrong) then with the lighter end that blended (looked much better). Taking the shawl with me was very handy because I could drape it over my hat/neck to keep the sun off (I had sunscreen on but the nape of my neck has not seen sunshine in years). My hair is getting pretty darned thin now - it always was fine but plenty of ...

G'day all! I have Aeolian beaten into submission. I hope I do not speak too soon 8-) But 30 minutes or so ago I finished the Monster Row from Hell. Yes, row 43 of the edging involves beading roughly every third stitch, including a lot of decrease stitches. For every k2tog, you have to slip the first stitch, bead the second, slip the first stitch back again (carefully to make sure it sits correctly on the needle) then k2tog. There's a few k2tog. And just as many SSKs but they are easier to bead cos the stitch to be beaded is right there. Now I have three rows to go, with the bind off. And um the blocking. That will be a challenge! Hooray for me! Today the cats had to go to the vet for their annual service. That was amusing - poor things got shoved into their carriers (after I knocked a redback off the side of one of the carriers and then got paranoid that I'd somehow been bitten), put on the wheely thing (like removalists or delivery people use to carry stuff) and whe...

G'day all! I'm still plugging away at Aeolian and Blood Orange. OMG, they are starting to get tough, simply due to the number of stitches. Citron/Blood Orange is basically stocking stitch (stockinette). Every few rows, it doubles in stitch count then a few rows later halves the number of stitches on the needles. Lots of good plain knitting for when my brain is fried! Aeolian. Oh lordie, this one is getting to me now! It is taking an hour to do a row and back. Two rows and I've had enough. I only have 3 major pattern rows to go, but when I took this pic yesterday, I wasn't far into the edging. I thought the nupps (said noops, I hope nupp is a transliteration of the Estonian, otherwise I'll go sick at Americans who say doo for due (dew) - no wonder we can't say noop cos we see nup, as in nup, wasn't me!) would drive me insane but they are much more fun than beads! You can see one of my ginormous nupps in the top left of the pic above. I've tried th...

G'day all! My (Rav)Olympic reports have disappeared! AKA I forgot to take pictures, two days in a row. Ooops. It's been a choice of cook and eat tea or take pictures. Given I've got an appetite and a half currently, I'm happy to cook and eat. Well the knitting is continuing apace. I am past the transition chart of Aeolian and into what the 11th or 13th row of the edging. The fun part is will I have enough yarn? Also, I made the classic mistake of putting a lifeline through the stitchmarkers, and I've made these stitchmarkers well enough that I had to break the life line to release them. I just stuck some beading elastic through the hole of the knitpicks interchangeables and knitted across, forgetting to take the stitchmarkers out for that row. 8-D But I am in good company - Mrspao also has done it and I am sure that pretty much everyone has done it at some point.... I am onto the third section of my Blood Orange (citron) shawlette/scarfy thing. My hair hasn...

G'day all! It has been a day packed with action here at the Modest Manor. This is your 8pm update published at 10pm. Yep, we are up to date here! DH has been hammering himself, pretty much literally, trying to get the measurements for the built in cupboards with stairs on them correct. We know what they should be and how big everything should be but our house is not square and working out the corrections is hard! There's been some melt downs along the way too. Last night, I finished the sock. Yesirree, it doesn't have much of a leg but that is because I didn't want to sacrifice any more yarn to it. The sock is a good fit, very good, as one would expect from a sock custom fitted to my foot, and the shortness isn't a problem either. But the colours? This one may be frogged and the yarn reclaimed for other projects.... On the knitting front, I cast on Citron not just once but twice! I needed a fairly brainless pattern to help offset the brains required for the...

G'day all! I am into my (Rav)Olympic projects now. Here's the World's Ugliest Sock - my personal footprint sock. I've been using scraps to knit it with. I love the emerald green and the heathered burgundy colours but not together! And the heel itself is knitted in some leftover hand-dye that I did ages ago. This is the foot blank. At the time I took the pic, it had no leg hole. See the white lines? They are where I had to pick up the stitches and put them back on the needles, then the pink bit is the centre stitch that was snipped so that I could make a leg hole! I've practically finished it now - only another round or two before I cast it off. It is a "footie" type sock now cos I can't be bothered finding some more Patonyle scraps to give it an actual cuff. I figure it will either be frogged or will be a lonely little sock always wanting a mate. Maybe I'll use some Lorna's Laces leftovers to make it a mate. Heck, it only took me sinc...

G'day again all! Having a slow day today. Yesterday was a Big Day Out (and I did most of the driving), and last night, well it seems that I shouldn't eat food that is spicy, nor should I eat chocolate later in the day! So I am now allowed to cast on for the Winter Olympics. Indeed I could've cast on nearly four hours ago (if I have my timelines correct) but nah. We've got a little time yet and I am busy knitting up squares for an afghan for the family of a friend who is no longer. What are my plans? Well I want to make a Citron out of this handspun (only I will run out of yarn before it is finished). I will call it blood orange though Dh thinks it should be called pink grapefruit. I hate grapefruit though. And a small Aeolian out of this handspun (again, probably don't have enough yarn but I may just replace the nepps with beads just to get me to the end ok) and make a personal footprint sock for DH out of this yarn (and maybe a pair of socks) and make a per...