Back home now and I'm such a proud mum. Ben swam one race this morning he competed in the 50m breast stroke. He was a bit miffed because he just turned 10 two days ago which meant he was the youngest in his age group. He didn't have much of a chance of winning, but he did knock over 4 seconds off his personal best! Go Ben!!!!!
I'd like to drawn your attention to a post by Woolmakers. They are a company from the Netherlands who make lovely spinning wheels. They are offering 10 people the chance to try their product and tell the world what they think. So if there is anyone out there who thinks this could be for them, write to them and who knows.
I'd also like to tell you about an app I used for the first time this week. It's called Knit Evenly. It costs £1.49 in the iTunes App Store. I have to say that it could be one of the best £1.49's I've spent in a while. If you want to increase or decrease a certain number of stitches across a row or a round of knitting, it will tell you exactly how to do it. It gives you 2 choices, either one that's easiest to remember, or one that is most even across your work. It will even walk you through the row step by step. I used it on my Inspira cowl and found it to be a god send! I can't recommend it enough.
Onto the knitting.
FO's -
I cast off my Poetic Inspira Cowl this week. I'm really happy with it. My project page on Ravelry gives all the details of my modifications. I cast on more stitches than required because I'm significantly bigger than the models. If I'd cast on what was prescribed I would only have been able to use it as a leg warmer! Turns out though, 300 stitches still wasn't quite enough. I wanted it to fit over both shoulders and to be able to pull it up over my head when it's really cold. I can do this, but not if I'm wearing a winter coat. M only consolation is that we're heading towards spring, I'm unlikely to need it until the end of the year and hopefully I will have lost some inches by then. Fingers crossed!
WIP's -
I concentrated on the cowl for most of the week, but my 2012 Advent scarf came out of hibernation. I got further than I thought last Christmas. I kept up with the pace for 14 days. Rather worryingly I gave up half way through a spacer row though, so when I pulled the project out of its bag I nearly lost 20 stitches. That was a tad hairy! Note to self, finish a row before putting projects on hold.
Finishing the cowl has reduced my WIP numbers to one. I have got a sock I'm designing and a vanilla sock on the go, but these are handbag projects I work on when I've got a spare minute, so I'm not counting those! I had bought some yarn to do thePinery sweater a while ago, I came to cast it on last night, when I realised it was reverse stockinette worked in the round. Eekk! All that purl! I know that I could work the sweater inside out and knit all the way, but I'm not nearly that experienced a knitter. So I spent a chunk of the evening trawling Ravelry for new inspiration. I wanted to use the same yarn, Hayfield Bonus Aran weight, and I finally landed on Wisteria. I cast it on last night and set to work on the collar. This morning (Sunday) I picked up where I left off and discovered a glaring error. My neckline looked nothing like everyone else's. when I re-read the pattern it says to repeat row 1 of the collar chart 12 times. I took it to mean work 12 rounds of row 1. What it actually meant was repeat the chart 12 times to complete one round. I felt a little silly until I was looking though everyone else's projects to see how other folk had done the neck and realised that I wasn't the only one to have to frog and start again.
My progress so far! Sigh! Hopefully I can get this spaghetti knitted up tonight.
Spinning -
I finished the first single of my Nunoco dark wings batt. I'm pleased with how thin I'm getting it. I wonder if I can spin the second 50g this week? I'll give it a whirl. I need to clear some fibre out of stash to make room for Woolfest purchases. Is only eight weeks away now, so I need to get a spin on!
Goals for next week -
I'd like to get a couple of days done on the Advent scarf each week, they're mostly 16 or so rows each, so I think that's realistic.
I'd like to make progress on the Wisteria sweater. I'm setting no deadlines for this as it's my first ever one piece sweater. We'll see how it goes.
And lastly let's see just how far I can get into the second half of the dark wings shall we!?
So until next week, happy crafting x
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