all about the knitting

so now that i have decided to knit again of course everything has to be just right, that is, all the bits and pieces within easy reach. hence the re-establishment of a knitting bag and of course, knitting corner:



in part, i blame this on the lovely georgina, who stayed here the last couple of days while her usual first-half-of-the-week canberra residence is undergoing upheaval, and who is a fierce knitter, having about 6 things on the go at once and a rather enviable stash-in-a-bag. including some lovely jo sharp aran which i had the pleasure of demonstrating knitting on DPNs with. of course george displayed none of the incompetence i did the first time i played with dpns. sigh. anyway, i thought i had better get serious about this knitting thing then.

so i went through the stash basket and rediscovered all this inca.



remember a while ago i had an idea for making a striped inca and loopy blanket? that was knocked on the head when i realised how much i hated knitting with the loopy so bequeathed it all to taph but kept the inca. and i thought well theres no reason i cant just knit a blanket with that, its lovely and soft afterall. i dont have a great pattern yet so i am still looking for one that involves little or no sewing and perhaps some kind of texturing. not sure how much texture you get out of mottled 12ply thats supposed to be knitted on 7mm needles but hey. i was going to make a blanket out of lace squares made with the brown stuff that margie gave me but firstly little squares have to be sewn together and thats too much like hard work and secondly, sorry margie, but the wool is terrible. its very coarse and scratchy, too scratchy even for a blanket, and is too bulky to hold anything but garter stitch with decency. so i can bequeath it onward as well if anyone wants ten balls of strange brown stuff?

i am also thinking about my next project which i want to be a cardigan for myself. i would like to do something in 4 ply to keep it fine, rather than bulky, and ordered new shade cards from my favourite dealer, er supplier, the nundle wool mill,



which included some new 4 ply:



it is beautiful soft wool with lovely colours, and at $4.50 a ball (50grams) a real bargain, but i was hoping for a dark brown. maybe i will go with the hydrangea instead...

on the pattern front, george introduced me to this website, garn studios, its norwegian but has thousands of patterns in english, FREE, to download. if you search through the ladies section for 'cardigan' i am thinking of design number 97-16 but may need help in upsizing it and substituting yarn if i buy the nundle stuff (budgets to be considered and all that).

meanwhile the blue stripey socks continue to grow. i hope they will be big enough...


finally, apologies to some of my readers who i know are not knitters and have probably fallen asleep by now. i know i have not been a good knitting-blogger for a while and have gotten some of you here under false pretences but it wont always be about knitting i promise!