Recent projects #2

I've been a bit quiet of late. Not because I haven't had anything to post about, but more through shame. I'm reluctant to post about projects I've finished when I still feel guilty about not finishing the present I was making for the lovely Lisa's 30th birthday months ago. Lisa - I'm really sorry! I promise you'll get it before Christmas...

I've been being fairly experimental, trying to learn new techniques:

This, believe it or not, is supposed to be a sand dollar...


I've also been mucking about with recycled yarn and made a few crochet scrubbies:


I also messed about with colour work (don't look too closely - it's fairly rubbish) with this Charles Rennie Mackintosh sample:


In terms of garments I was pleased with these:

This 'Mudstone' shawl used the Old Shale* stitch and some lovely soft merino tweed wool that my marvellous brother bought me for my birthday this year. It now resides in my office where it routinely keeps me warm when the university fails to put the heating on.

(* According to one of the Earth Science profs here, there is no such rock as shale - they are all mudstones...)


This Urchin beret used to be a cardigan. (Note also my new favourite t-shirt.)


These Maggie arm/hand warmers are also made from the other tweed bought by Stef for my birthday. My very first invisible joins. I feel quite proud.


And finally, the Wispa cardigan. It cost me about 50 cents to buy the crappy acrylic fibre at a sale in the Anna Templeton Centre. It's not perfect, and if I do it again I'd make several changes, but overall not bad...


I have a few other things on the go (not least the mystery late birthday present), including my first pair of socks and my first lace. However, I appear to have destroyed my hands in making my Halloween costume for next Friday, and I'm only about a quarter of the way through. Doh!

On Social Knitworking* and Turning to the Dark Side

(* © David Brooks 2008)


I have a confession. I am an addict. I don’t think a day has gone by when I haven’t had at least one fix. Ravelry has taken over my life and is now starting to affect me in ways others are finding disturbing.

I have become obsessed with pattern searching and seeing what my friends are up to (whether it’s stashing yarn, queuing patterns, or uploading their project progress). The sheer number of free patterns is amazing, and the fact you can see all the patterns from published books before you buy means I will never buy a dud crafty book again. Amazon’s ‘Search Inside’ is rarely available for this sort of thing and, even if it is, often doesn’t show you all the designs. So, I’ve been caught on many occasions when a lovely cardie on the front cover hides a multitude of tack on the inside…

Amongst all this I have slowly come to the realisation that I am going to have to learn to knit. Yes. I said it. Out loud and in public. The hardened crocheter is finally giving in to the dark side.

I tried it first on Monday night and immediately threw it away again in disgust as I was shocked to find I wasn’t instantly brilliant at it. I could see it was going to be a hard slog getting used to being rubbish at something again. Still, I persevered and even took it to Stitches and Hos last night, where friends were shocked to see me sans hook. It was strange. It felt completely alien. I was used to being the one person doing something different at S&H and now I was doing what everybody else was. Suddenly I felt like I was jumping on the bandwagon, completely unoriginal, and I didn’t like it.

Still, I’m sticking with it. I finished my first ‘object’ last night which was strangely satisfying. Watch this space for evidence…



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