Moth holes and Christmas balls...

Having discovered I was a knitter, one of my colleagues asked me to help restore a jumper of him, with particular sentimental value. He told me it had very large moth holes. I assumed he was exaggerating a bit and that it would be easy enough to repair...


That's just a part of the holes...

Anyway, I set to, back patching behind the larger, wider holes as it was the only way I could reconnect the tatters. Unfortunately, I didn't have an exact colour match, and my trip to the local wool shops wasn't anymore successful. Whether by design or wear and tear, the colour was most definitely a faded version of itself. So I combined a grey DK with a royal blue 2 ply to get the closest match I could. My first successful attempt at combining colours to create a new one (I got the idea from the Tanya Alpert book). Unfortunately, one hole fell in the middle of a colour strip that I couldn't match with anything, so I had to re-knit an entire strip and sew it over two areas to hide this.

My colleague repeatedly insisted that he was not worried about the final outcome and, although I'm happier with it than I expected it to be, I'm still not sure this is a good enough patch job. But I'm going to show it to him tomorrow to see what he thinks...


This weekend, I have mostly been infusing my old, battered Christmas baubles with new life by knitting each of them a kitsch 'Christmas jumper' to use up some of my scrap yarn...

To do list: update blog...

It isn't that I haven't been knitting since July. It's purely that I haven't kept up with the blogging. Until there's an 'app for that', I probably won't either...

Still, while I'm here, a few items that have been made recently:

When my Nan recently fell ill, I decided to make her a scarf out of the remaining bright pink wool she'd given me (see jumper below) to cheer her up. And I used my newly-learned skill of double crochet! If I could just start to understand the crochet patterns I like, I might be able to use this skill for more than straight lines one day... I used a pattern for a ruffle scarf from Lion Brand, which came out rather well. So well, in fact, that my mum asked for one too, so I've made her exactly the same thing for her birthday.

My friend Sandy is having a birthday party at a pretty expensive restaurant in London, so I have to confess, what with the thought of all the money I'm going to have to spend and the fact that I'm not really sure what she might want as a gift, I decided to make her something. Sandy's a photographer, and one of her most popular photos is of a sea turtle, hence the obvious choice:


Mind you, he's so cute, I'm tempted to keep him... No surprises there...!!

I had a job finding an actual sea turtle pattern, but I eventually used this one and adapted the colouring.

I'm sitting on about six unfinished projects, which I won't bore you with, and I've finished the first side of my brother-in-law's Christmas scarf (well, it was supposed to be his birthday present in October, but it's still in need of a 'back' to cover up all the loose threads...). I will try and update again soon... :)

Finally, I can tick this off the To-Do list...!

Puce it all up

This one has taken absolutely ages. Admittedly, I had other more interesting events happening in the meantime, like chatting up Strange men and finishing college for the year. And also the fact that I could not make head nor tail - or rather sleeve nor neckline - of the god-awful knitting instructions. When I finally almost worked it out, it then took more than 30 minutes to do a RS-WS round. I've watched a lot of episodes of Waiting for God on YouTube of late - in fact, after 20 of these rounds, I'm now up to Series 5 (including 2 Christmas specials!)! But I suppose, in the end, at least there is an end to it:



And, on the plus side, it does fit. Although I do resent having to knit the larger size with considerably more stitches these days. I think I finally understand why the fashion industry really uses stick women for models - not because they look tall and elegant in anything, but because they use up far less material and are therefore quicker to dress!!

So, after just over two months, I've used up most of the pink wool my Nan gave me for my birthday. I visited her this week. She gave me some peach wool... I know. Try finding something you can knit in peach...

Monkey do...

I know I've been a bit skimpy with my updates lately. I could provide lots of excuses, but it doesn't matter. The knitting has been continuing, however. I've been trying to complete the bright pink jumper using the wool Nan got me for my birthday and the pattern from Brave New Knits, but I'm currently working on the sleeves and the pattern is suddenly becoming very complicated. I'm trying to decide whether to try and decipher what it's going on about, or to improvise... Yes it will probably end badly...


Meantime, Darwin Davey himself is complete, as is the skull he's meant to be holding. The thing is, he's so cute, I'm not sure I want to limit him to a lifetime of contemplating a poorly knitted skull whilst sitting atop a pile of knitted books. I think I can finally understand why people like dressing up monkeys! I'm extremely tempted to knit him the entire back catalogue of Doctor Who outfits... for starters... So, for now, I've cheated by only safety pinning the skull to his paw and by sitting him on my iPad with the iBooks application open... It's close enough! In the modern sense.


For myself (as if Darwin Davey isn't for me!!? I mean clothes-wise...), in frustration at the number of times I was having to reread the Brave New Knits pattern, I moved on to a design of my own. Admittedly I'm using, for the basis, a pattern from Sensual Knits and it's my attempt to copy the top Eowyn wears in LotR: Return of the King, but giving it a modern twist. I've finished the back, and have just started the front. Complications will doubtless arise with the neck line, but I'm sure I'll work it out... eventually... I decided to do embroidery, rather than try and knit the pretty swirling patterns directly on to the top, as they turned out to be more complicated than my charting abilities could cope with...

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Monkey see...

Primate...

Monkey see, monkey do...

My dad's birthday has finally been and gone. I think he liked his gifts... Anyway, it's now time to return to my stuff. And, as usual, new projects have been taking precedent. I've started using the pink wool my Nan bought me for my birthday to knit a jumper from Brave New Knits. Most of the body is complete, but the sleeves are causing some difficulty, so I've put it down for a moment to return to an old idea...