New projects

I was browsing through the knitting pdfs on my computer to put Percy on my Kindle when I noticed I owned Manolo already. I knew I wanted to buy it and had lined up the yarn in readiness, but I do not remember the purchase. Happily, I was able to wind the yarn and try a new cast on method in between percy shawls.

It's a slightly fiddly but really cool way to cast on for toe up socks and can be found here.  I don't think I can remember how to do it again so will have to use the instructions but you almost do a long tail cast on but over two needles.

On Sunday, I bought yarn and needles and beads to knit a Percy for my Aunty and it all arrived on Tuesday.  Excellent service from Violet Green, Pavi Yarns and Beads Direct.

So I now have plenty of knitting and both patterns are on my Kindle.  I was excited to find that although the pdfs look a bit small on the screen (as the screen size is roughly A5 instead of A4) I can zoom in, scroll around AND make notes! So, no more losing bits of paper with measurements and gauge on, or running out of room in the margin.  Hooray! :)

FO Red Percy for me

I showed my new percy to my aunty at the weekend.  She was very taken by it.  I had showed her the grey version when it was still in production and she'd seemed...doubtful.  This one really impressed her, partly because she preferred the colour and partly because it didn't look like a dishcloth.  I suppose I forgot that stretching part of the knitting out over my knee doesn't perform the same transformation as full on blocking does.

She liked it so much I've agreed to make Percy#3 for her. Yarn, bead and needle shopping followed.

Red percy - I hit a snag

The Percy shawl needs LOTS of yarn for binding off. Look how close I was to the end.

I think I managed about 90% of the stitches with the yarn held double. The recipe specifies that you should bind off loosely, and you'll see why when it comes to blocking. A tight bind off, or even an average bind off, will restrict how dramatically you can shape the edging points.

Here's what not quite enough yarn looks like:

More than you'd think? Here it is all neatly wrapped back up, ready to try again.

(here it is posing with my early birthday present)

I decided that rather than try the bind off with one strand of  yarn, I'd double up with another colour. My options were red Dye for Yarn or wine Fyberspates.

I opted for the sparkle sock and one bind off later, the percy was ready to be blocked.  Look at those lovely points!

Percy nearly finished

Here is percy, all knitted, cast off and waiting for a bath. You can see there is a pattern but it's all lumpyand needs blocking.

After a bath, percy meets blocking wires.  I used three, two for the top edge and one for the centre.

I also used  pins to keep the blocking wires in place and a pin for each bottom edge point.

Once dry, percy lounged all over the sofa to show off the improvement blocking makes.

Chart B is my favourite pattern so if I make a percy#2, I'll repeat Chart B again (and cut out a repeat of A).

I just needed to weave in the ends...and get some decent photos hahahaa.

I've been sucked into an internet blackhole today, catching up on machinations within the knitting world, which is why this post has lots of photos and few words.

Percy progresses

I didn't knit on Percy at all yesterday.  I went straight from work (having splurged at e-beads on four shawls worth of beads as I couldn't decide on colour...and I wanted to splurge) to Japanese which was really trying.  I was exhausted from 5 hours of sanding on Wednesday evening and working really hard all day trying to get ready for an audit next week, and had a headached from a too tight ponytail.  We started our lesson with the usual long conversation in English but we did learn some new things.  Which I don't remember right now.  New vocab and a reminder of agemasu あげます　and moraimasu もらいます　which we only learnt last week so are storming forward.  There were no cakes, and no cups of tea so I may have been short tempered.  I admitted I'm not signing up for the summer course but I had assumed it wasn't running anyway. I don't feel motivated at all, which may be because I visited Japan last year and won't go again for another year. Perhaps I'll pick up in the autumn when we will be combining our class with another one.  I have found the size of the class limiting this year.

Today, I worked some extra hours and tidied up a bit, found an order from a week ago that people had been searching for on Tuesday (oops) and even admitted it to a colleague.  I didn't have lunch until after 3pm and since have been knitting and catching up on homeland and big bang theory.  My beads arrived (so fast!) and my heart fell a little when I thought that none of the four colours were suitable but actually I think I'll go with the silver lined purple ones. That leaves me black, blue and pink lined green to keep for myself.  I'm really enjoying Percy and am imagining knitting another one for myself but let's wait and see how this one turns out. 

Percy so far:
The start was a bit fiddly and although I like the result, I wonder if I picked up stitches in an unintended plane as there is a weird line. Maybe I'll pay more attention next time.

I'm using grey unicorn yarn and have 200g to work with.  I worked an extra set of Chart A - 8 repeats instead of 4 - and I think this is key to my increased enthusiasm for Chart B compared to the vomit shawl.  There are more internal repeats along each row of Chart B so I cottoned on to the pattern and it became much easier to work.  This did not happen with the vomit shawl.

I've worked rows 5-31 of Chart B so then I went on to Row 0 and it felt really out of sync.  The stitch count is right though so I'm going to have to trust it and continue.  I don't know if I'll stop at Row 27 (as in the pattern) or add another repeat.  I'm torn between enjoying it and wanting to use the new beads.

Look what I got!

My brother and sister-in-law found a body in their new house - so after 5 hours of stripping*, I took it as payment.  There is a stand that I'll collect next week.  I gave her a good hoover inside and out and tried out her expansion mechanism. 5 hours of stripping meant 5 hours less of knitting but I expect my sister-in-law won't mind her present being a bit late.




*wallpaper

Feeling human again

I have been ill with flu, made worse by the fact that I kept dragging myself to work although I mostly only managed the mornings. I thought I just had the cough that was circulating in the office but I realised that shivering over payroll wasn't normal.  It really hit home that I was super suffering when I completed a week without knitting. That's especially strange as I'd just bought new needles ready to start swatching.

Once I started feeling vaguely human, after a Shogun marathon and many oreos and chips, I decided to take some advice from a fictional knitting guru featured in the book How to Knit a Love Song.  It says something like, sometimes you'll hate what you knit and it will be crap so give it up and knit something else instead of hating it.  This struck a chord with the shawl I stalled on last year.  I joined in a KAL and loved everyone else's Percy shawls but to me, mine looked like a pile of vomit. 

So I wrenched it off the needles and started again in silver grey.

I'm already much more excited about it and now wavering on the plan for it to be a birthday gift for someone else. I'm much more comfortable with birthday gifts for myself.