I am a Lady............... a February Lady!

Right I am not quite sure how this escalated into the Marathon knitting event of the last week but maybe I could start to unravel the situation a little and throw some light on it.

I have posted recently about becoming a bit Virral with my knitting and there is now even a viral knits group on ravelry where all us viral knitters meet and continue to either infect one another or offer miracle cures or threats of immunisation.

I think it was Laura (Indieknits) that first pointed out the February Lady Sweater to me in one of her Ravtastic posts. She had purchased some lovely tweed yarn at a very reasonable price to make it so I thought I would have a little look at this pattern a number of people were raving about.

It was great and fulfilled one of my desires to have a go at knitting a top down sweater having been inspired by Sally of Missflipknits, podcasters for procrastinating knitters. Based on a baby jacket by the legendary Elizabeth Zimmerman this was one to add to my queque. Pattern downloaded, added to ravelry queue and no yarn yet purchased.

Then I forgot about it for a couple of weeks until I bought this...





..... and remembered I had this............



Actually when I say rememered I had this it is really 20 balls of this. Rooster almerino in Grape, 25grm balls that spit splice a dream.

So then I started to add up in my head. What about this?



PERFECT!

That would be perfect apart from the fact that it was now Thursday and I wanted to wear the top to Hard Rock Calling in Hyde Park on the 30th June - 9 days away. Could I get it knitted in time? Well I am known for my speedy knitting but there were a few other pressing items on the agenda that week. I had to finish my other Mosiac sock for sockclub, I had my class reports to finish, two reports for govenors to complete and a marketing stall for school to put together for the infant school fair.

I was willing to give it a go so I cast on.



In my haste I made a little button hole phopar but this will be a design feature. All was otherwise progressing well. I even managed to get the socks finished, reports written and my reports for govenors prepared. I still had a fair bit of the sweater to go but I had now set aside Thursday and Friday night to really crack on. I was already pushing on down the back so by Friday I was starting to pick up and knit down the first sleeve. I finally finished the first sleeve on Saturday afternoon and hadn't quite finished the back because I wanted to make sure I didn't run out of yarn. Dr Who and the second sleeve was picked up I was now really in with a chance I thought.

Then another spanner in the works, around 10.45pm, turning out time from the Bonjovi concert disaster struck the house. Everywhere we looked were small pools of blood. It was one of the cats! But which one and what had it done to create such a mess in everyroom? We couldn't hear any sounds which I have to say panicked us even more. Finally we saw Lola with blood all down her leg and unable to put her hind leg down. Luckily she allowed us to pick her up. Anyway cutting the story short, she was fine and DH whisked her off to the emergency vet over in Northolt while I carried on knitting and waited for his parents to arrive back (they were staying with us for the night). Lola came back with a stitch, she had managed to puncture a vein in her leg. I still hadn't finished the sweater.

Having gone to bed late I had to get up early to finish off. The upshot being as we were pulling the car up in Holland Park to park the car to get the tube to Hyde Park I was still casting off the last row of the back of the seater but I did wear it to Hard Rock Calling but that was a close one in the end even for me! Actually I should have just taken it with me unfinished as I would have had two hours knitting time waiting for it to start.

So here is the evidence that
1) I completed it
2) I really did where it to Hyde Park
3) Isn't 100% finished as I have yet to add buttons and some ribbon



These photos were taken on my lap while I was waiting for everything to kick off. Hence the hint of grass here and there!











Notice my jumper neatly folded despite all the debris around it.

Sock(topus)Club Part Four - Fiori di Zucca

Yes it's that time again and the Socktopus Sock Club parcel has been delivered by Mr Postie to my front door. Why should I mention this - well usually it doesnt' actually come to my home address I get it delivered to work but knowing it was arriving on a Saturday I just couldn't bare to wait until Monday.
I have to confess now to having already had a little preview on our Socktopus 'jaunt' down to Brighton last week. I can now remove all those little blue splodges from the photos of Alice to reveal what she was knitting on the train.





Yes there it is Fiori di Zucca - WIP.

I just love these fab summer colours and in one of my favourite sock yarns - Dream in Colour Smooshy. Once again Alice has had this colour especially dyed for the club. This colourway is Gelato al Pistacchio.





Of course as always the package was filled with other lovely treats too, as if the yarn and the pattern aren't enough.....



I have to say the green and the yellow on the bag are going to need some getting used to for me as I am definately a pink girl but oh does it fit all my sock club stuff in so far. The front pouch is the perfect size for all the club patterns that have come so far and there is a little notions pouch that hangs at the back inside.

I love 'Hands off my Socks' logo.



I mean there is no way you can confuse that message can you?

And the back.......



This pattern is certainly going to be the most challenging for me yet. I don't really do knitting from charts, I'm much more a read the list of instructions girl so I am going to have to get into a new mindset on this one. Having said that after the initial excitement of opening up each parcel I have then had to draw breath and consider if I am actually capable of knitting the pattern and each time so far it has just been a matter of confidence and getting stuck in. I may just wait for the start of the school holidays for this one though when at least I can relax a little and draw several deep breaths first.

United at last.................

So Mosaic socks got finished, February Lady Sweater is still pending completion.

Here is the evidence..........




......and I didn't even need to resort to photoshop. I thought at one stage I was going to have to fake the whole scenario.

It was only a few days ago my sock blockers actually looked like this .....



...... one lonely sock waiting for its mate to become a complete pair.

I really didn't think I was going to make the deadline for this one. I only had a few days left, all my reports, and a lady sweater to finish. Oh and not forgetting two reports to govenors in my various roles at school and a marketing stall for the school fair to put together. Deadlines hey!

But I made it and they look great - well I think so.
I also managed to finish the toes on my second pair of Karenina socks too.



A definate improvement.

Brighton Rocks...................................

Didn't we have a lovely time the day we went to Brighton?

Odd toe sock...............................

OK so a while back I was knitting up some of my oddments and decided to knit another pair of Karenina socks designed by Jane Lithgow. I wanted to prove to myself that I hadn't had to have the yarn coming up through the centre of the sock to knit the pattern. I had some Smooshy from my gloves and a ball of RYC cashsoft that would do the trick. These colours somewhat remind me of Candy floss and icecream.

They have been on hold for a while as I have hit my usual problem. I wasn't sure if I had enough yarn to finish both feet. So in my wisdom I thought I should do a contrasting toe. I was also trying to use up leftovers and stumbled upon some Seawool from the SeaVines vest.



As hard as I tried it just didn't work for me.

At the weekend I saw a lovely pink artesano 4ply alpaca ball of wool for a cool £3.50 and it was up to the till and paid for quicker than you could say Frog that socks toe. So I knitted up sock two at Chessington World of Adventures on Sunday adding the contrasting toe just to make sure it worked.



I have to say I was rather pleased, however it left me with these.



Was I going to be brave enough to unpick the red toe. I have to say the thought of them not matching even if no-one else would ever see the toe was too much for me because I would know.

So I have unpicked and reknitted toe one to match toe two. A match made in yarn. All's well that ends well.

I blocked..................

I blocked, I blocked, yes I really blocked.



Yes I finally had a go at proper blocking. I finished this SeaVines Vest when I was on holiday in Turkey just after Easter but have put off blocking it because I will be totally honest I didn't know what I was doing. I am so in love with it. It has come out so well and I am converted. All I need now is the proper blocking mats, wires, and pins. You may notice that I have used my ironing board and my ever trusty iron is lurking in the background in case it was a total disaster and I had to revert back to my previous method. One iron and a damp towel!





Note: This was a kit from my sister for my birthday bought at Purlescence and is Fleeceartist Sea wool. The colour is Beet.

WWKIPD...............................

Yes it's that time of the year again. This year I was involved in the Iknit Treasure Hunt. I had such a fantastic time. I was one strand of team 4ply.

As usual I had made the required brownies now needed for any knitting event.



They were quite good even if I do say so myself. Actually they couldn't have been too bad because they were all gone by the time our team returned to Knitty HQ.

The day consisted of galavanting around London for 4 hours solving various clues on a knitty theme as we went along. There were a few anagrams of which I was so proud when I was the one who came up with the answer - Electra House.

There were also a good variety of knitty challenges along the way too to keep us interested and on our toes. We had to get several photographs of us knitting with various people and with various landmarks. We also had to knit as we were going along and this is where I certainly made my contribution towards the team effort. I knitted my backside off.

One of my favourite photo challenges was to get a picture knitting with one of our boys in blue - yes I did manage to find London's tallest policeman, and very nice he was too!



I was also photographed with my very own team celebrities Miss Flip Knits. You can download their podcast here.



We also had to pop into the Royal Festival Hall at one point to find clues and answer some questions and this gave us the opportunity to admire the fantastic Hyperbolic Crochet Reef. And if you aren't doing anything this Saturday That Iknit Guy (sorry G but couldn't resist) will be hosting the Crochet Social Jam there along with Amy Lame. Unfortunately I won't be able to go as I am off on a train to Brighton with the Socktopods.
I did take a few photos though and I think it is fantastic.




This one reminds me of something out of Fraggle rock!








The whole day was such a sucess and despite being pipped to the post on the longest scarf, we managed a mamouth 86", A tension seeker managed 90" by using drop stitches, very clever of them we had a fantastic time because WE WON! There was wine, chocolate, Yarnharlot books and tickets to the National Theatre. Wow.

I just want to say a great big thank you to both Gerard and Craig for all their hard work in setting up the whole thing I had a really fantastic day. (Despite the fact they seemed to think we could all get it done in a couple of hours! umm!) Really looking forward to see what you come up with next year.

Also a huge thank you to my other team mates, Justine, Sally and Dee who allowed me to join them and I am really looking forward to claiming our theatre ticket prize and going out very soon.

Oh and to team POP! We haven't forgotten!