My So-Called Scarf, Pesky Fines and Pet Acquisition

If I hadn't devoted so much time to that blooming addictive Ravelry tonight, My So-Called Scarf would've been finished and I'd have been able to wear it tomorrow. Well, here's a preview:



I love everything about this project - the yarn, the stitches, the unevenness of the edges and especially the wearability. It will be finished this week. I came across this YouTube clip tonight, which shows an alternative way to stitch the knit rows (which I didn't use, but may be useful to someone.)

Knitting has been an expensive business for me this week - and I don't mean the buying of yarn and books. Firstly, after enjoying a lovely Knit Night with the outcasts in Reading, I came back to find an impertinent parking ticket stuck to my windscreen - my own stupid fault. Then, having ordered two skeins of yarn from The Sweet Sheep in Canada, I got slapped with a customs charge of nearly £12! The blow was softened by the beauteousness of the yarn:
This is a merino/silk by Sunshine Yarns in Field of Flowers colourway. I'd ogled this yarn ever since I saw it on Kerrie's blog in the summer and finally, it's mine!

And also this Colinette Jitterbug:
I also splashed out on three knitting books:

Traditional Fair Isle Knitting by Sheila McGregor - as recommended by knithappens. I'm desperate to get back to some fair isle or intarsia work - just haven't found the right pattern yet. I'm thinking maybe the Ivy League Vest from Interweave Knits.

Favorite Socks by Ann Budd and Anne Merrow - bit of a long story about this one. Suffice to say, there's a good few patterns in here I want to knit.

The Rowan Story Book of Little Knits - my quest to find the exact pattern to make Skein Princess the perfect cardigan has failed, but she like the look of a lacy cardigan in here with crocheted flowers, so I used my John Lewis vouchers from work to order the yarn for this online (new for them to sell yarn online and free delivery!)

If you happen to be a pattern designer, I'm sure there's a market out there for pretty cardigans for girls older than 4-5! Just a simple v-neck, maybe with a picot edging and lacy or fair-isle pattern at the bottom edge. It's not much to ask!

And now to Pet Acquisition. We have two cats and a fish. I should say, we had two cats and a fish. As of today, we have two cats and three fish. We somehow managed to acquire the former pets of a friend's teenage son who had them festering in his room (apparently - not my words) and boy, these are two ugly fish. This from a woman who freaks out in the shop that sells pet fish - ok, I have a bit of a fish phobia - if I see too many, I start gagging! I know, it's mortifying and stems from a school trip where the class got stuck on an island when the tide came in unexpectedly quick - me, Linda Patterson and the nun in charge decided to head back to the mainland across a sewage pipe to get help and as the water was getting deeper and deeper, a fish swam between my legs and I wasn't keen on that at all! I'll never forget the holes in Sister Moira's stockings and a flash of her pantaloons! (Bridget Jones's Big Pants had nothing on these.)

And we are on the look-out for a kitten (the height of madness with all this yarn in the house - I know I'll rue the day when I succumbed to the puppy-dog eyes of the littlest Skeins and said "OK, you can have a kitten.") They're kind of hard to find at this time of year - do you think they'll forget in time?!!!

Finally, there will be shop update this week which will include more Aran silk and more of the guest yarn from a couple of weeks ago as well as cashmere/silk in Lavish and Wisp plus much more.

www.skeinqueen.co.uk is launched

I know a man and he's a very clever man at things like numbers and computers and all the things I'm no good at and he's called Skein King (although that title may be a tad misleading given that every time he so much as touches a skein of yarn, it ends up in the biggest tangle imaginable) but his genius lies in the workings of a PC and he can turn bits and bytes into magic.

And henceforth, the kingdom of Skein has expanded to include the previously uncharted territory of www.skeinqueen.co.uk


Now, I am a huge Etsy fan, as you may have guessed, and I'm not abandoning it as this will still be where my yarns will be for sale, but it has it's limitations in terms of grouping and displaying to best advantage. This is where the new website comes in as there's more room to group yarn types together, including sold ones, to enable a better choice for custom orders.

There's also suggestions for projects with each yarn type, a direct link to my Etsy shop and display of my latest yarns for sale. I have plans to include a Finished Projects page and a Free Patterns page. So if you have ever knitted anything in SQ yarn and would like to show it off on my website, I'd love to see it - we could get a little collection going and possibly link to the patterns if they're online ones? Also any feedback is greatly appreciated.

And there will be a shop update this week. The batch currently drying includes some new semi-solids in pure cashmere (Opulent) and 100% merino (Divine), and some new colourways in Divine and Entice.

Knit happens (and Yarn Yard Merino Club spoiler)

First of all, click on Etsy, (only until Thursday 22nd Nov.) now scroll down to the bottom - yes, featured Etsy artist - that's the wonderful Suzanne, owner of Jelly Leg'd Chicken gallery, aka Alabamawhirly and maker of the finest gloves in knittingdom. And I know, because I own a pair of her Dark Love gloves.
I LOVE these fingerless mitts and they have been much admired at school picking-up time.See how the contrasting stitches make cute little hearts? Lovely.

I acquired them from Outcast's lovely, eclectic-looking stand at the South Hill Park Christmas Fair where I met a lovely lady who produces and spins Alpaca yarn and is based in Hampshire. Could be a new yarn base, methinks. Perhaps better use up what I have already.

I also made another purchase from a fellow Etsian last week. The lovely Nina at artquirk sells the most gorgeous original artwork and prints. I already have Four Little Houses and A Row of Colourful Houses and just had to add these to my ever-growing street:
They still need to be hung, which will happen as soon as we stop having power cuts so I can get out to the garage and actually find the hammer! Anyway, she was kind enough to send me one free for being her 100th customer. Check out her shop - she does free delivery and is based in Southsea.

Chevron Mark II is off the needles, but not yet blocked or ends sewn in:

And finally, some yarn which winged its way to me over the last week or two:
This little beauty is from Kerrie at Hipknits and I'm ashamed to say, I've forgotten what I ordered and no label! I think it has silk or seacell in it - I can't even remember the quantity and it's gone from her site now. It was one of her more expensive yarns and I'm afraid it was love at first sight!

And this is from Natalie at Yarn Yard from the second installment of my Merino Club membership. It's based on moorland and the yellow represents gorse bushes, which so reminds me of my childhood running about on the Pentland Hills:
Finally, I just listed some sock yarn in my shop tonight:

Foxglove in Plushness

Frogpond in Plushness (sold)
Octopus in Endure

Dr Seuss in Endure

I've got squished boobs!

Y'ouch! Went for my first mammogram today. After all those blog posts I read in October about checking your boobs etc, I took myself along to the GP and turns out I have a second benign condition to add to my first benign condition, which was diagnosed about nine years ago. The squished-boobs scenario was just an extra check and I've to go for a further blood test and go back to see the consultant, but the signs are good. (And the mammogram wasn't that bad! It was fine.)

Now, here is something knitterly I should've posted a week ago. The famous Chevron scarf is Off The Needles, blocked and finished! Oh, are you ok? Have you fainted? I'll just get the smelling salts!

And another shot:

And a final one:

I so enjoyed knitting this and hope to get another one on the needles in some SQ yarn very soon - just got to start the Delicato Mitts and finish more knitted lavender hearts first - oh, and there's all those knitted Christmas presents which aren't looking as if they're going to happen after all.

I did get another couple of lavender hearts done in preparation for the `Christmas at Hillcrest' Studio Opening - only two weeks to go - not panicking at all!

This heart is made in some of the Lavish yarn I dyed up at Debbie Tomkies' workshop in October.

How about a sneak preview of the shop update - I'm aiming for tomorrow evening:

This is Rose Gold in Entice

And this is Gold Rings - the next in the 12 Days of Christmas collection
I was attempting to be an Alchemist and turn yarn into gold - there's actually six different shades of gold, beige and pale yellow in this
And a new yarn type for me next - it's a 4 ply 75% merino 25% nylon sock yarn which I've called Endure. Ideal for hard-wearing socks.

There's more to be listed but I just wanted to show you this. The Endure yarns above are as yet unnamed but the top one reminded me of the Mystery Machine in Scooby Doo, so I decided to have a bit of fun and here's Velma in Divine yarn:

Can I bore you with more yarn?

Do you mind? I have some more if you'd like to see? Well, just in case, I'll show you - all listed in my shop - just click on the Etsy shop link on the right-hand side:

First up is Sour Fruits in Lavish:
Then Sweetbird in Mellow:
Next up on the catwalk tonight, we have Kew Gardens in Lavish which was one of my original colourways and sold within a couple of hours of my Etsy shop opening back in June (how excited was I!):
And then, fourth in my seasonal collection of yarns based on the 12 Days of Christmas is the brooding Calling Birds yarn in Lavish. The four birds which my True Love sent to me are actually Colly Birds and "colly" is the old word for coal, meaning that my True Love actually sent me four blackbirds! How kind. Here's my interpretation:
Moving onto the Plushness yarn, first up we have Candy Garden which is based on the colours of a beautiful throw I have in my sitting room:And again in Plushness, this is Green Skooshy:
For these Skooshy colourways, I'm using a different technique to achieve multiple colours for those of you who prefer a more random variagation in your FO.

Here we have Candy Garden again, this time in Opulent. I can't emphasise the gorgeousness of this pure cashmere enough - if you can imagine so soft it hardly feels like you're touching it? Kind of like that.

And finally, there's one skein left of Rose Vintage Lavender which is slightly darker than the original Vintage Lavender:And here's a custom order of two skeins of Gryffindor yarn I did for a Dear Customer over in Swindon:

And that is it for this week. ***Takes a bow*** Am I allowed a bow?

There nearly wasn't any yarn to be had this week for two reasons:
1. My merino base yarn being stuck in the post following the strike.
2. A dog - a big black labrador ran into our garage where I was mixing my colours with no owner in sight. It took me, Skein Princess, a new neighbour, an elderly man and my next door neighbour about an hour to locate it's owner - two young boys turned up for him. It was like something out of a nursery rhyme.

I have been a bit poorly this week and so didn't make it to a meeting in Bracknell about a contemporary art project to knit a cosy for the Tate Modern tower - yes, a cosy and yes, to cover a building - during the London 2012 Olympics. All the best to those running the project. It's mad but good. Am becoming a bit evangelical about raising/changing the profile of knitting myself and was trying to lure my friend Sarah into the goodness of yarn today in John Lewis... but I don't think she was having any of it!

Non-knittery stuff:

The Skein Prince and Princess attended a workshop at Jelly Leg'd Chicken this morning along with their friends to make Firework Pictures. The workshop was run by the lovely knithappens/alabamawhirly of Etsy fame and they thoroughly enjoyed it. Here's what they came back with:


Can you see the Catherine Wheels and the city skylines? Cool.

The lovely Rachel came over for lunch last week and we had a fab time talking crafty stuff and planning for the Christmas at Hillcrest sale including some plans for some kits. Rachel is a true Etsy addict and knew even more about it than I do and she showed me some of her favourite sellers, which is great because sometimes you stick to the ones you know. She brought me over this beautiful fern picture which she explained how she had made it - some kind of photo reactive paper - very clever:And just a quick mention for my first ever Australian customer who made me laugh when she said she wanted to stuff the yarn down her bra and carry it with her everywhere cos she liked it so much! Thank you - a true compliment!

The never-starting Chevron scarf

First, I got some yarn to show ya - this little lot was listed in my etsy shop last night.

This is Raspberry Mocha in Wisp:
This is Steel Orchid in Lavish:


Dolly Bunting in Lavish (2 skeins sold - 2 left)


From the Twelve Days of Christmas collection, we have Partridge Pear (left), Turtle Dove (middle) and French Hens (right):
This is Fragrant Stocks in Plushness (sold):

And Skooshy Pink in Plushness (there's a Skooshy Green to come next week):

And finally, Blue Moccasin in Plushness which I thought could be perfect for man socks:
I have done a little bit of knitting this week - nearly finished second Watermelon sock and knitted a new heart which isn't sewn up yet so no piccies. Some more lovely Socks That Rock yarn arrived for the infamous never yet started Chevron Scarf:
This is Thistle and Olive Garden.

I know it looks upside down, but I like photographing the folded ends of the yarn downwards - don't ask me why...

These are the yarn cakes ready for starting the Chevron scarf:This is Olive Garden and Sherbet. Still not sure whether to use Sherbet and Thistle instead. Decisions, decisions... JUST GET STARTED WOMAN! But I'm being good and finishing one project at a time... just slowly.

Last week, I took myself off up to Derbyshire for a dyeing course with the lovely Debbie Tomkies. The setting at Eyam Hall was gorgeous and we had a great day just mucking about and experimenting with colour and yarn. I met the lovely Becky who I've since been in touch with through Ravelry (she got her invite the next day - how handy was that!) Check out the beautiful cashmere/silk that Becky dyed in the first photo in turquoise, violet, yellow and green - beautiful.


Ah - photos - Blogger - spacing - I give up.

Was gutted at not being able to make the Knitting and Stitching Show at the Ally Pally due to my Achilles heel injury - is exercise good for you after all? - and salt was rubbed into the wound when a mum at school said that her teenage daughter had gone and purchased the most beautiful yarn.

Still cheered up by the lovely Piglottie's banner for her blog. Looks good, huh? Love ya, oh Piggy one.

Also got around to photographing a small section of my stash - at least the stuff not in the attic - for Ravelry. But I am generally pretty good at using up what I buy and kind of have a lot of single balls of stuff - some Jaegar, some Debbie Bliss, some just don't know. And lots of bits of cotton - not looking forward to describing on Ravelry.
(Oh except for about 5 balls of Sirdar Bigga in Red, Pink, Orange and Brown which I bought when I thought I'd be this great knitting designer and was going to do a Lola coat from Charlie and Lola until I realised I knew not a lot about designing - am thinking it'll make a good bag now - not sure if it would felt nicely.)

Oh, and I've been meaning to show this off for ages. It's a beautiful handmade book which my good friend Rachel made for my birthday - a real keepsake: