Thursday 7 February 2008

Eleven and a half

Note to self.


7th Feb, and 11.5 FOs in the last 38 days. You may want to slow down a bit. Or aim for larger Os to F.


In fairness, not all of the things that have been finished this year were started this year. A case in point are these hats. These were made in Norfolk over New Years when I was away with Rachel, Ferg & the wonder dog Ness. I made one for each of us humans to protect us from the ravages of the Siberian wind that then singularly failed to show up (I expressed my disapointment at the time to Rachel, who's neck of the woods this is).



The hats all started out using the basic hat recipe from LMKGs. All knit in Manos. I got 5 different colours that all sort of went with each other, and we all chose the brim style and colours we wanted, and then I just went for it.


From the top, clockwise; Ferg's, mine & Rachel's.

Of the 3 I am most pleased with Rachel's. She wanted the colours to be used totally randomly, and I had a lot of fun with that, carrying colours along rows, changing the colour order. The results worked out well. Mine is fine, but I had a regimented order, each colour did 1.3 rounds and the yarns were switched at the same point all the way though the hat. I can see the change and it annoys my that it wasn't smoother. I am quite pleased with the goofiness of Ferg's hat. He loved the strong colours, and really wanted a deep brim to keep his ears warm when he is out surveying on boats in the middle of the Irish or North Seas, my only beef with it was that I don't like the way the ribbing shows the colour change, and I think there is a better way of doing it. It was a fun project and a good way to start the new knitting year.

I seem to be living in the land of pregnant people at the moment. Thinking about it logically as a 34 year old woman with lots of married friends I can hardly be surprised about this. This has lead to the next 4 FOs of the year which are a little group of 4 bibs. These are another idea from Mason Dixon Knitting.


They are all for the bump of my mate Sarah. She is due to give birth a week today. For the purposes of these bibs there are 2 things you need to know about Sarah; 1) she is married to a lovely cricket playing, lager drinking, rugby watching Australian called Shane, and 2) she is mad for lilac. Mad for it. Every day of her life she has something lilac on, even if it isn't apparent to the rest of the world, be it socks, hair bobble, whatever. She has already made it clear to Shane that even if she has a boy she will be dressing him in lilac. I can't help it but I have pandered to the madness and knit her 3 little bibs in lilac and 1 bib for Shane in green and gold, or at least what passed for green and gold in my cotton collection.

All the yarn is peaches and creme. What I love about the yarn is that not only is it machine washable, but you can tumble it too. What I love about these bibs are the buttons and the neckbands. I wanted each of the bibs to have its own little identity, so I made all the neckbands different. The buttons all came from my Auntie Vera's button box which I inherited a couple of weeks ago. I somehow think that my 92 year old aunt would have approved of hand made bibs and saved buttons as a baby gift.

The final FO is a pair of tiger feet. This is the 3rd pair of slippers I have made from the Rowan Felted Collection but the first I have kept for myself, the other 2 pairs being gifted to Jenn for Christmas and Fiona for her birthday. I love this pattern. It is so quick but really satisfying to make.


Knitted in Big Wool Ginger Snap and Camouflage. I had enough for a pair in each colour way but decided to mix them, which means that when these die, and given the fact they pretty much haven't left my feet in a week now they will die, I have enough to make another pair.
Yay for cosy toes!

Now the astute amongst you will be saying "3 hats, 4 bibs and a pair of slippers do not 11.5 FOs make" or words to that effect. And you are right. Even my maths isn't that poor.

So where the other 3.5? Well, they are still waiting to be phtographed. The 3 are 3 kitchen cloths for the van. I have 1 more ballband to knit before the 'set' is complete and will reveal when it is done - probably this weekend.

The .5 is, depending on how you look at these things, either a finished sock which is waiting for me to get on with its mate, also unphotographed, but more because it is a plain stockinette sock in a frankly lurid makes-your-eyes-hurt-but-somehow-attractive yellowish yarn than because it is only half a thing, or my Scrumptious Calpotis which I am exactly half way through, and I am hoping that by thinking of it as half an FO it will encourage me to F the rest of the O. Hoping. By the way I offer a round of applause to anyone who actually followed that last sentance. For the rest of you a recap; 2 half finished objects trying to earn the .5 FO status, first is a nasty yellow sock and the second a half finished clapotis. I hope that helped.

It feels like a lot to have finished in 6 weeks.

3 comments:

Mama Urchin said...

That is a lot to finish in six weeks. I love the slippers. I mean really love them, I"m going to have to look into that pattern.

Anonymous said...

Your slippers look so amazing! Ofcourse, so do mine, and people who enter my living room frequently comment on them. I really am going to have to take up knitting soon...

ann said...

I learned a trick from Jackie Fee's Sweater Workshop Book ---- when changing colors during ribbing - knit all stitches during the first round of the color change, and then start the rib pattern. The break in the rib pattern does not show (I couldn't believe it until I saw it with my own eyes) and the color drop is only on the wrong side of the work! ta-da!