Knitting by Zen

Someone let me know recently that someone out in the blog world was knitting a sweet scarf from my Iris sock yarn.

Do you think I can find it???? Gah! If anyone knows of which I speak, could you please let me know? I want to share it with someone.

In other news, I have a broken finger and it means I can’t knit, so I’m going batty. I will have time/inclination to skein up yarn that I dyed last week though, and sell it soon. Sadly this means that I’ve made no progress on any knitting since my last update. 

Roughly this long:

I knit this on Monday night so that my neck is warm when I’m on my scooter. The yarn is a test dye of 20 ply hemp-wool yarn from Nundle (which is for sale - did you know that? I hope someone buys!) and is a simple basketweave scarf on 16 stitches, 8mm needles. Very quick knit and maybe 2m left over at the end!

In other news, I have a hat fetish that I think will be the next thing to get out. I’ve found a great site for working out how many stitches to cast on for a hat here, and have many yarns to knit into hats. I spent yesterday dyeing yarn, so keep any eye out for new and exciting yarns for sale! I am silly and didn’t wind the skeins in 100g lots, so I have a *lot* of skein winding to do in the next few days.

I have now made a few improvements to the wonderful Dashing pattern that I’ve knit a few times now, so here they are summarise:

Cast-off
I worked out after the first one that the cast off is not for me because it curls up! The way I fixed the curling over of the top of the glove was the funk-ify my cast off. I simply turned my knitting around, and cast off the opposite way to what I’d been knitting, but I knit where the stitch looked like a purl, and I purled where the stitch looked like a knit. So, with the pattern as k4 p1 on the right side, I turned and slipped the first stitch (looking like a knit), then knit and cast off 4 (looking like a purl) as I went, then p1 (that looked like a knit) and cast off, then k and cast off the next 4 (which looked like purls), then discarded the needle and continued around the top of the glove. When I got back to the starting point, my cast off was now 2 rows above the start of the row, so I picked up, k and the co a stitch from below, then picked up and knit and cast off another one, then picked up one randomly below all the knitting and knit and then cast off, then broke off the yarn and pulled the yarn through the last loop. I guess what that does is turn the cast off into a garter stitch one rather than a stockinette one. Woo.

Thumb
You need 4 needles to do this neatly. Pull the waste yarn out gently and have a look at your thumb - you will have 4 stitches on one side, and 5 on the other. Pick the 4 up and put them on one needle (needle #1). Pick the other 5 up and put them needle #2.

Dashing! I participated in a "Choose 3 for a 1 skein swap" swap with a knitting group that I’m part of, and my partner said that she liked pinks and purples, and wanted either a bag, fingerless gloves or socks. I had been meaning to try Dashing so I got some lovely wool out of my stash that Morgan dyed:

The one at the back there, all purple and pink, and turned it into:

The first three photos are of the first pair I knit for my pal Kate. The last photo on black is the pair I knit for me. I loved them so much I knit the darn pattern *4* times!

The first pair are near identical copies of each other, which is very cool! The second pair are pretty and lovely and all mine and highly coveted by lots of people. I have made plans *mwahahaha* to make some as gifts for friends as well. And my housemate has asked me to make some on commission for him!

I worked out after the first one that the cast off is not for me because it curls up! The way I fixed the curling over of the top of the glove was the funk-ify my cast off. I simply turned my knitting around, and cast off the opposite way to what I’d been knitting, but I knit where the stitch looked like a purl, and I purled where the stitch looked like a knit. So, with the pattern as k4 p1 on the right side, I turned and slipped the first stitch (looking like a knit), then knit and cast off 4 (looking like a purl) as I went, then p1 (that looked like a knit) and cast off, then k and cast off the next 4 (which looked like purls), then discarded the needle and continued around the top of the glove. When I got back to the starting point, my cast off was now 2 rows above the start of the row, so I picked up, k and the co a stitch from below, then picked up and knit and cast off another one, then picked up one randomly below all the knitting and knit and then cast off, then broke off the yarn and pulled the yarn through the last loop.

I guess what that does is turn the cast off into a garter stitch one rather than a stockinette one. Woo. 

The Sun tells us: 

"THOUSANDS of rich women were conned by a firm into believing LAMBS were valuable miniature POODLES.

Entire flocks were imported to Japan from the UK and Australia then sold by the internet company as the latest “must have” pet.

The bizarre scam was rumbled when Japanese movie star Maiko Kawakami complained on a talk show that her new poodle refused to bark or eat dog food."

Or not. But amusing all the same!