Mia. At long last.

I need to find someone to take photos for me. I faffed about for ages trying to get a half decent shot with the self timer, with my camera balanced on a shelf in my housemate's bedroom (the only room in the whole house with a shelf at the right height), and the best I got was the one below where I look about 15. It was either that or "look, it's my arm in a mirror again".

Pattern: Mia

Yarn: RYC Cashsoft DK

I finished this over a month ago! Egad. Pretty much as is in the pattern, with a King Charles brocade cuff.

I don't know when I will ever wear this. Someone please invite me out somewhere and stop me spending my whole life in jeans and tshirts.

101 in 1001 update: Month 4

I don't seem to be doing very much with my free time this summer. I think it might be the lethargy of having nothing to do. Or perhaps I just need something important to push me to procrastinate. Either way, hardly any knitting, only one fat quarter sewn from the fabric stash, and I have read a grand total of one book, Of Mice and Men, which took me all of one cloakroom shift at work to read from cover to cover (it was a slow night).

I have been swimming and taking proper care of my skin, but I can't exactly say it's regular yet. Getting there though. Wearing skirts has fallen by the wayside a little. I've resigned myself to the fact that we're not getting a summer this year and my legs have been sulking in jeans and trainers every day since Nancy's wedding, with the exception of one night, when I went out in a miniskirt and boots and received many generous offers of drinks from sober and respectable gentlemen.

Knittingwise, I did finish Mia, sodding ages ago, and I farted about with the self timer on my camera today, so I have some very bad photos coming in the next post. Promise! As for sewing and embroidery, I did this a few weeks ago, but have been keeping it quiet as it was a gift for a swap. Anyhoo, Starry (Danielle) has received it now, so I may be smug and show off.

It's not perfect, but not half bad for making it up as I went along, I quite fancy making one of these for myself! I am particularly proud of myself for remembering how to make a jetted pocket (which the post-it block sits in), which was a tremendous waste of time since no one will ever see it! Embroidering and reverse applique...appliquing....appliqueing...sewing the cupcake was fun, thanks to Danielle for picking a fantastic theme for me to play with!

2. Fill out my student loan application for next year. Complete (yaymoney!)
24. Knit 12 garments. 1/12
36. Sew my entire fabric stash. 1/41
43. Do 4 beading or embroidery projects. 1/4
52.Go out to eat 4 times a year. 1/4
73. Go swimming regularly in the summer holidays; attempt to keep it up when I go back to uni. In Progress
92. Keep up a proper skincare routine. In Progress
58. Go to the cinema at least once a month, even if it means going on my own. 4/33
65. Read all the books I haven’t read on my bookcase. 4/25
95. Buy from a local butcher/grocer/market instead of the supermarket once a month. 4/33
20. Reach 175 blog posts. 64/175
82. Try a new food every month. 4/33
91. Wear a skirt at least once a week. 13/143

Old ladies are officially cooler than me.

I was knitting on the bus yesterday and an old lady started a conversation with me about how unusual it is to see people knitting these days. I told her it gave me something to do on the achingly long journeys. She said she used to knit a lot and I asked why she didn't anymore, expecting her to blame arthritis or something similar. Nope.

"I don't really have the patience anymore. I tend to go out and enjoy life instead."

Well, dang. So that's it. I knit because I have no life. I knew something was missing.

Anyhoo, this is what I was knitting:

Ths is my first pair of toe-up socks, using the Knitty Universal toe-up formula, which has a short row toe starting from a provisional cast on. I love this toe, tis genius.

Other than that I haven't done a lot since the last time I updated. The month sort of ran away with me really. The Snapping Turtle skirt is 2 and a half rows down and, man these hexagons go slowly. I finished Mia, and will take a photograph at....some....point, but I didn't get to wear it. The dress I was making for Nancy and Olly's wedding is still in piles of spotty fabric on my desk because (surprise, surprise) my sewing machine broke again, and my fallback dress wasn't quite as shrug-friendly.

I really need to buy myself a new sewing machine.

An update! A REAL update!

I'm a little late on this. The entire world has now forgotten about Woolfest, but I've only just unpacked my yarn from my many many moving boxes so I shall inflict it on you all now anyway (oh, I'm sure you are backing away from the screen in horror).

I took a grand total of...no photos in Cockermouth, big surprise, so we just have pictures of piles of yarn on my dining table instead. Hurrah! Somewhere, possibly on my mother's computer, there are photos of me wrestling a pair of giant knitting needles with which I managed all of 4 stitches, but it's probably a good thing I don't have these photos. The needles were about 9 foot long, they were very heavy, and there was much gurning involved in my manoeuvring of them.

I was very good at Woolfest. I had to be very good, because I only took cash. As in I only took cash to Cumbria. I left my cards in Bournemouth, so I'm not entirely sure what I would have done if I'd lost my train ticket home or something equally horrible. It was reasonably easy to be good, since the majority of the festival was fibre and I'm not a spinner (Mum is - she spent horrendous amounts of money on the offcuts of exotic beasties). Besides, I'd gone with specific garment projects in mind and most of the yarn stalls were selling variegated sock yarn rather than jumper's-worth amounts of solid colours. I did buy some sock yarn though. It was too fun to pass up. Only one though. I was good.
















Both my 'sensible' yarn purchases were from a stall called Knitting4fun (not at the same time - I had to umm and aah and then come back for more). This is a wool/silk blend for the Silk Ribbed Corset, hopefully, though I forgot to take my notebook with me so I have no idea if it's going to come close to the right gauge or yardage.
















These are pure wool for Candy, which Mum has promised to make me matching Fimo buttons for. Remember that Mum? I'm gonna remind you in like, 4 years time when I actually get round to making it.

















This is my fun yarn. See, I told you it was fun. It's Colinette Jitterbug in MARDI GRAS!! (I may have added the capitals and exclamation marks myself). As always, the photo does not do it justice, it's much more...glowy in real life. Especially the yellow, I could wrap the yellow around myself as a reflectivejacket. A very small and pathetic one, but a glow-in-the-dark one all the same.


I have new WIPs since settling (Ha!) in my new abode, mainly because I am a huge quitter and can't be arsed to work out the new sleeve caps on the red jmper.
















This is the first row of the Snapping Turtle Skirt. As far as I can tell it's going to fit me around the hips (yay!) but it is so far merely a Snapping Turtle Belt. I'm getting over my fear of picking up stitches though.





















This is the beginning of Mia, and is also an out of date photo. I took this two days ago (before I could be bothered to update the blog) and I have since knit about 4 inches of the lace back, decided it was too tight with twisted stitches, frogged it back to the sleeve, knit the entire back with nice normal stitches and started the second sleeve. I may even finish this. Woot.





I use brackets too much.