Magnum Opus

This project has been SIX YEARS in the making, and I am so happy to say it's finally finished!

I first started this hand-knitted testament to my insanity in May 2009, when I announced to the blog that instead of working from the already reasonable Vogue Knitting charts I wanted to re-chart Every Single Country to make the map more accurate.  I believe those charts are still available as a pdf here.  However after all that work are they accurate?  No.  No, they are not.  Because this:

Now looks like this:

NOOOO!  Curse you South Sudan!  I'm sure you probably had your reasons for the split, but did any of you think about me?  I don't think so.  I think this happened around about the time that I was knitting the last panel, back in 2011. Never mind, I can always embroider over the top of it later if it really bugs me, but for now I'm just happy that I can actually point to Sudan on a map.

As you can imagine, there were some fairly large chunks of time that I wan't working on this (I know it's big, but I'm not so slow that it took me six solid years to knit), so after knitting the main map on and off for 2 1/2 years I then abandoned it for about a year before sewing it together with a border, and then another 2 years before I got round to actually finishing it.  That was my main worry as I was really nervous about backing it without ruining all the work that I'd put in.  I wanted a wall hanging rather than a blanket, and since this thing is ridiculously heavy there's no way I could get away with hanging it up without stabilising the stretch somehow.  I bought some curtain fabric from Ikea in April, seamed it into one big panel with some hanging loops and then...sat and stared at it for several months.  

In the end I've gone for a mix of strength and neatness, so the edge is attached with 3 rows of machine stitching which sort of disappear into the moss stitch border and the middle, where machine stitching would be visible, is all painstakingly hand sewn to the backing.  This was pretty hard on the fingers so I could only do a few rows a day and it ended up taking a month to finish, but I think that's pretty quick in comparison to all the previous years!

The map has now been hanging up in my living room for 3 months (it was lovingly draped in fairy lights last month), and it still makes me grin every time I come home.  Every meticulous hour I spent charting countries, weaving in ends, embroidering islands and hand quilting the back has been totally and utterly worth it.

Plus every guest to my home now gets a free geography lesson on the side!

A Smorgasbord of Booties

Ah, I've gotten myself behind on blogging again, what a massive surprise.  Some day I will get my head round the concept that if I say 'I'll wait till the weekend to write when I have more free time', then I actually should use that free time to write rather than just sitting on my bum in front of Netflix. Having said that, I was actually away on one of the weekends on a mini break to Dublin, where I met up with my travelling buddies in various pubs (yay!), did some tourist-peeping at the Book of Kells (yay!) and bought fabric (YAY!). I haven't been finishing massive amounts of stuff in the meantime, but since I was already behind before I went away I now have 6 unblogged finished projects, some of which go back to September...oops.

So, to start catching up, last week was my friend Hayley's baby shower, and I knitted her a selection box of Debbie Bliss baby booties.

Can you guess what she's having? While I was happy to find one baby gift box amongst all the Christmas ones I do find it a bit weird that instead of, say, 'It's a boy' or 'Baby boy' the box just blurts out 'BOY' like it has tourettes.  I think they're reasonably happy about having a fella, seeing as there were celebratory penis balloons all over the house.

These booties are all from Debbie Bliss Ultimate Book of Baby Knits, and have all been knit with different coloured soles as a cute design feature because I was using up leftover yarn.

Cuff Bootees

Booties with Blanket Stitch detail

Baby Boots

Sandals

These are all knit flat, which I guess is great for beginner knitters who are still nervous about double pointed needles, but it isn't my favourite method as I found the seaming a major faff and the soles are a bit of a funny shape.  Still, I do think they're all really cute.  I love baby knits - they're quick, they use hardly any yarn, and they satisfy my feminine urge to make something ovary-crushingly adorable without, you know, having a baby.

Happy to say there was much squealing and showing off at gift opening time - since Hayley's clearly such a knit-worthy recipient I think I may end up making more once the baby arrives! I can definitely see a baby viking hat in my future...

USE ALL THE COLOURS!!!

Evening all, how are the trials of winter treating you?  Grumble grumble grumble.  Ok, so it's not proper winter yet and it's actually been unseasonably warm today, but still, ugh. Darkness. My brain is still lingering in the Portuguese sunshine and Daylight Savings really sucks ass.

It could also be that I'm already grumpy because I've had to order new glasses for my tragically ageing eyesight.  Oh for the youthful days when I still had perfect vision.  It's not so bad as I only need them for distance, but that does mean that my job won't pay for them as I don't need them to use a computer.  Booooooo.  I have also learned that when you're a cheapskate who refuses to pay for anything but the cheapest frames there is a very fine line between middle-aged shushy librarian and PAY ATTENTION TO ME I'M SO HIPSTER!  Hopefully I won't utterly hate the glasses when I go to pick them up.

Sooooo, now that I've bitched enough about my own eyes, how about I ruin everyone else's?

Kapow! Are your retinas bleeding?

This little beauty which escaped from the UFO mountain this summer is Posse from Rowan magazine 51, knit in the specified Cotton Glace, which I now HATE with a fiery passion.  It was not easy to weave in these ends, and holy tuna there were thousands of them.

That's just the stripy neckline, so you can imagine how messy the back of the intarsia looks.  Since mercerised cotton doesn't stick to itself like wool does I had to leave a bit of end still attached so it didn't start unravelling - I've tried to strike the balance between so long it drives me crazy and so short it sticks through to the outside.  I've...mostly succeeded but there already a few stragglers which I'm stoically ignoring.

It's also a little on the cropped side which I don't really love, but that might just be because I don't really own a whole lot of suitable clothes to wear with cropped jumpers, so maybe I'll grow to love it.  Or perhaps it'll stretch?  Is that a thing?  How about if I get it really wet and hang weights off the hem?  Hmm. Probably not the best idea. 

This was photographed a while ago, pre tripod and remote, so I managed to persuade Martin to take one decentish picture on my phone before he got bored and wandered off to play truck simulators or something.  So make the most of it, awkward and fuzzy as it is, because I am far too busy skipping around in my Insane Stripes of Joy to take another one.

P.S. If you think this is bright, wait till you see what I'm making right now - it's not for everyday consumption so it doesn't need to be as tasteful and restrained as this was.  Oh god, I can't wait to wear this...