Wibbo's Words

Birthday stuff

I celebrated my birthday last weekend, starting with a trip to Scoop & Crumb. Emma's birthday is two days after mine, so this was a joint knit 'n' scoff 'n' open presents afternoon.

 

Liz was down for the weekend (she took the photos) and the weather behaved - sunshine, blue sky and sea - nice.

 

I had lovely presents (some yarny and some non-yarny) including purple merino/cashmere handspun

 

and a beautiful knitted cushion.

 

The basement cat decided she was not amused...

 

Photographs in this post copyright Liz Marley 2009.

It's still here...

...the netting, that is. Oh, and of course the scaffolding too.

Three months and counting....

So is this

 

Hey, it's blocked!

I'm well known for my tendency to finish things and not get round to blocking them; I'm very much a process knitter. I have, however, blocked the Big Brown Blob which has been transformed into a lovely, light shawl called Gallimaufry.

 

Knitted in two identical sections grafted together, Gallimaufry will be available later in the year as a free pattern download both here on the blog and on Ravelry. There are more photos on my Ravelry projects page - I'm Wibbo on Ravelry. I'm busy working on the laceweight version (Jaggerspun Zephyr is lovely to knit with). So far, I'm about halfway up the first side, so photos as and when...

Bugrit resolved

 

I tried the Yarn Harlot's crochet cast off (thanks for the suggestion, tinebeest); this method works very well but the resulting edge was tight. I frogged, reknitted the last pattern row using a much larger needle and did the crochet cast off again. The edge was still too tight for the shawl to block nicely. More frogging. After a rustle through my stash, I found a tiny ball of Hand Maiden 4ply Cashmere in a brown/black/grey combo and used this to knit the last pattern row and to do a stretchy cast off (K2, *insert left needle into front of stitches on right needle and Ktog, K1; repeat from *).

I'm happy now - more pics when the shawl's blocked. As ever, this may take some time :o)

Bugrit

 

Not enough yarn left to cast off...

A few highlights

Busy times at Wibbo Towers! I had a great time at Sam and Dan's wedding which was followed by lunch with the DC&A'ers (no link - it's a Ravelry thing), then knitting in the sunshine at the Pavilion Cafe.

 

There has been sewing going on

 

and much knitting. The Big Brown Blob is finished, the halves are joined together ready for blocking. I want to offer this design as a free Ravelry pattern, so I'm knitting it again in laceweight (Jaggerspun Zephyr in plum). This will check that I've avoided making mistakes in the charts/instructions and also let me adjust the number of repeats to suit a thinner yarn.

 

I'm also whizzing though knitting Laura Chau's Milkweed, a lovely scarf/shawlette pattern, in Hand Maiden Casbah. (Thanks for the yarn, Liz!). The yarn is gorgeous to knit with and the pattern charts are nicely done - what more can a knitter ask for?

 

 

 

Flossie, as usual, has been busy doing Sweet FA...