Monster sock and fabric bomb

Well, this was our miserable start to the day (we washed the white dog last night so of course it rained this morning)


Soon brightened up though with a bit of toe shaping to carve out monster sock number 1


With pretty heart detail down the top of the foot


I quickly read this great article and thought I would give the shawl a try, based on the nice and easy prinicples... it's working. (I simplified the design to be literally the basics)



As you can see the laptop had become the new stage for my knitting show, partly because I am lazy, and partly because my other stage (couch) looks like this...


...I call this piece 'The thought process'.

Oh and of course study, but that doesnt make for interesting pics at all.

Making Peoples day

Hee hee, I had to post this, Cashmere cafe, one of the fabby blogs that I gave the 'you make my day award' posted this in her blog when passing it on...

"...After careful thought I decided that no, I probably cannot give this award to Ravelry, where I have met a couple of lovely, great, kind and adorable knitters..."

After giggling a lot, I thought, how true though...

So, this is the new sock....



See the distinct lack of holes around the gusset. That is with the biggest thanks to Rani and
Queen of the froggers who helped me way back on the first disast....I mean sock.

I had a lot of new visitors to the site this week and I would just like to say thanks to them for popping in and having a look at my wee site and wee life. And thanks for all the comments, its been lovely to be visited as much.

We love the post office

This is what we call a good day in our wee house.


This is what arrived this morning (as if the post office doesnt think I am odd enough ordering spindles) It actually came in sack.... ha ha...

This is my valentines wool ....

Its BFL from fyberspates, i have 5 glorious skeins , so of course I had to cast on my february socks...

which let me test my new 30cm (12") sock needles... so much fun, feels like knitting with toy needles they are so small. Though, it means I am not always loosing my spare needles. Someone is going to have to teach me to knit socks on 2 circulars.

Next up is 500g of Norweigan grey sliver. Roving with 2 lengths of fiber to make 'hairy' wool...

and of course I tested just a tiny bit...

Perfect! I love it.

Lastly There is some falkland top (200g)..... so soft and absolutely beautiful (i'm saving the spinning till I have time to really enjoy it)

If you want a wide choice roving at great prices check out Wingham wool works ... I'm really pleased with them.

Trip to the park

It was so pretty at the park I tried to get a pic of the dog. I have about 20 failed attempts but we did get 2 wee beautys


We like to think we can tire him out (silly owners) by taking him to an enclosed park where he can run in circles chasing grass to his little hearts content.



But it's not an entirely wasted trip

Progress is slow but steady on current knitting projects...

I even have a finished object.... Penllyn Socks which I knitted in my 'famous' non-descript mixed wool handpained stuff (leftovers from lost in translation) I am almost sick of knitting with it, but I feel the need to use it up... the man was muttering something horrible about wool not needing purchased till stash is used up....

Urban Lanark plods on, I have almost finished the flank detail (back). I still havnt decided to make it a jumper of a cardigan. Of course my most challenging problem was that I kept having to undo rows, thinking, 'there are purls where there should be knits' . Finally it struck me that if you go B-A-C for the panels one way, you cant do B-A-C on the way back accross... D'oh!

What's knitting a shawl like... any hints?

Heat bag tutorial

I have a lot of back problems and I find one of those microwavable heat bags is just the thing I need at times to help soothe it a little... however, I have 2 major problems with my bog standard shop-bought heat bag

1. All the wheat falls to one end when I use it
2. I can't find it...

Which spawns this...


My own (sheepish) lavender scented heat bag with individual compartments for the rice, so that it stays evenly distributed. I used rice as it's what I had in the cupboard.

**When heating the heat bag, put in the microwave for a max of 2 mins, it should heat up quickly and any longer may burn you**

You will need:

• 20" x 10" piece of natural fiber outer fabric (I used a heavy cotton/linen canvas)
• 20" x 10" piece of cotton lining fabric
• sewing machine (hand sew if you are brave enough)
• aprox. 200g of rice (long grain and not quick cook/ parboiled rice)
  
• 9 teaspoons of dried lavender flowers
  
• Ruler, Pencil, teaspoon, funnel, iron

Start out by cutting your fabric up into pieces 20" x 5"so you should have 2 pieces out outer fabric and 2 pieces of lining fabric with those measurements.



Put the outer fabric to the side for now, take the lining and consider the edges like this

(to see larger versions of the pics at any time just click on them)



Now make a 1cm pressed fold along egde A of both pieces


and now you can consider the right side (RS) and wrong sides (WS) of the fabric like this ...


Place the 2 Right sides of the fabric together so that the folds are on the outside like this


Now, sew round edges B , C & D, leaving the length of edge A open


you should have a pocket like this



Turn the pocket the right way round, so that the folds are now on the inside, press flat and even.



Now take a ruled and (here I should say fabric marker, but I dont have one) pencil, measure out and line 2.1" compartments all the way along the pocket. In the end you should 9 marked out pockets like this



Now sew up each of the marked lines and you should have 9 little pockets like this



Heres where you will need your rice, lavender and your teaspoon. In each of the little pockets put aprox 4 tsp of rice and 1 tsp of lavender. the pockets shouldnt be more than 2/3 full in the end.






Now, sew the little pocket shut, like this




Repeat these steps until you have 9 filled and sealed little pockets along the strip


Now come back to your outer fabric. Place RS together.



Considering the edges the same, fold down (towards the wrong side) and press 1cm along each edge B.


And now sew edges C, D & A so it should be a long narrow pocket looking like this


Now turn the right way round and press


Now insert your pockets in the outer fabric


And neatly sew edge B closed


There you have it, you just made a heat bag and I bet it didnt take you long.

You Make my day...

The very fabulous Rani awarded me this little award, which is just lovely. I have to say she would be on my list if she didnt already have it!





So, It's my turn to pass it on to 10 beautiful blogs. I may not always comment on your posts, but these are some of the blogs I most love to read (alphabetically)

All buttoned up

Cashmere cafe

Cloth.paper.string

Craftymum

Hyena in petticoats

Knitting Elephant

On the needles

Pink Purl

Queen of the Froggers

Twisted Knitter

These are not the only blogs I read (not by half) many of you already have the award. Its nice that so many people share so many interesting bits and pieces of their lives with everyone else. Thanks very much.

Progress and sunshine

Well, I haven't done much substantial knitting (and no sewing at all). I did finish the felted clogs though. The Man modelled them today...


Hamish loves to get in the way.


They are great, although I think the left one needs just one more felt for comfort and equality with the other.

I have been trying to knit the Penylln socks, Last night I thought it was going fabulously till about 4 row into the pattern I got to the end of a round and realised I had too many stitches left over and couldn't figure out for the life of me what had gone wrong. I pulled them back to the rib to start over and somehow lost 2 stitches .... didn't drop them, just, lost them.... I think I will just start over.





We've had cold weather but lots of sunshine, so, in the house, with the heating on, the sun coming through the windows is making it really warm. So warm that the plants seem to think it's spring...


My Ivy went on a mad growing spree and I have to keep picking its creepy fingers out of the walls. It is pretty though


And this is a very brave chilli that is determined to flower.



Urban Lanark is going well.


I think after knitting on a much smaller gauge for so long it shocks me how quickly it falls off the needles.

I love it though, the most I have to cable is 4 stitches so no sore fingers for me.

And the New Lanark wool is lovely, I really like it.

OK, so thats just about where I am at for now. The exams are going ok, though I have another biggie in a couple of days which is STRESSING me out.