I spent almost the entire weekend in bed with a flu bug, not only feeling unwell, but also really angry that my solitary, uninterrupted weekend had been completely wasted and ruined. In the entire 72 hours, I barely managed three hours of knitting. Most of the time was spent sleeping or blowing my nose. Miserable.
The previous weekend I'd ordered lots of new wool cones for my projects (and other ideas), all of which, thankfully, turned up exactly in the right size, quantity and colours I'd ordered! I also splashed out on another eBay collection, which nearly ended badly when the seller seemed uninterested in posting the items... I have felt a little bit like March was about testing my knitter's resolve! My mum gave me a couple more balls of the fake Noro too... I have to think of something good to do with that stuff...So, a recap on the projects:
OLD THINGS
1. Absolutely nothing has happened with the Vixen Camisole, the Cinched Waist Top (including just unpicking it!), or the Grey Embroidered Dress. I also haven't finished the smaller of the knitted sheep.
2. I managed to knit a few more inches of the Snowflake Cardigan last weekend at dad's. One armhole is now nearly complete.
NEW THINGS
3. Having designed the outline idea on an online site before leaving work for the weekend two fateful Thursdays ago, I did manage to knit a tiny bit of one of my own prototype designs for a scarf between coughs, sneezes and generally feeling sorry for myself:
I had to alter my original plan a little, as only using one stitch per square made everything just too bunched up, so each square became two rows, and I think that's made the image clearer. There's more to do on the edges yet, and it took another week of knitting between lethargy to complete one side of the prototype:
Once I've finished the edging, complete with flags, it should look a little more like my original idea... Sort of... My very original design was a little rougher:
I'd love to get to the point where I could program the knitting machine to do this, but I think I'm a looooong way off that level of understanding, particularly as it's a manual machine...
I do have a couple of other scarf ideas too, such as this one, which I'm hoping to play with next:
They are a bit wacky and daft, but this all goes back to Mr KR and I talking about making novelty jumpers for Christmas on the knitting machine, way back when all this started... So, I thought, since I love scarves, why not just do novelty Christmas scarves instead of jumpers? They've got to be a bit easier, right...? Ehem...
Oh, and, yes, just to drop it un-casually in there - I designed those scarves using my iPad... ;D
4. One of the other projects I'm starting with my new cones of knitting wool is a replica version of this dress by Holly Fulton:
She was one of my style inspirations for 2011, so I thought I'd have a play with the idea. I'm using a free Vogue Knitting pattern to give me the dress shape:
I am a little concerned at how very stick-thin that model looks, so I suspect the dress may turn out tiny, but never mind. The interesting thing about the pattern is, instead of decreasing at the sides to get the shape, you just change needle sizes. I think I'll wait and see on that... I haven't got very far yet - it's another project that's been sorely affected by my post-flu lethargy:
I'm trying to decide whether to start again using the larger measurements and/or larger needles, or whether to continue as is, and add some side panels...
5. Finally, for this post, I've been attempting to turn this beautiful Japanese waistcoat (Half-Moon Rising from Haiku knits):
into something quintessentially British, using some of my recently purchased wool. Well, that may not have been my actual plan, but it certainly seems to working out that way:
Thank heavens for the Easter holidays and a chance to try and get some of this stuff finished... May be...?
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