Our internet connection seems to be being a bit dodgy at the moment which is rather annoying. I have taken a photo of the latest hat and some of the yarn which arrived on Saturday, and have spent since Saturday trying to upload them to the blog all to no avail. At least things have improved a bit. Over the weekend I wasn’t even able to send emails, at least I can do that now. Just to add insult to injury something ate by blog template over the weekend too, I think it might have disappeared while I was trying to change something but couldn’t upload due to problems with the connection (oddly I can view pages fine, so info is coming in, it just doesn’t seem to be going out). Luckily I had saved the template on my computer so I have managed to get back half of it (well better than nothing), I think that was the limit of the size you can cut and paste. I have been trying to paste back in the other half but don’t seem to be able to save it. Oh the annoyance.

Anyway, rant on the uselessness of computers over. I have pictures, really, and will be uploading them as soon as NTL get their acts together. The purple felted bag has just come out of the wash and I am going to look in by button box for a nice button for it. I’ve cast finished my Lorna’s Laces Rainbow socks, and cast on for a pair in Purple Club, I haven’t got very far yet though.

I have got a lovely “Heather Knits” button now, created with help from the long suffering other half. It should be down near the bottom of the right hand side, once I get the template up and running again. Feel free to save it to your own server and use it to link here.

Goodness it is hot here today! I think summer has definitely arrived. I shall have to find some suitably summery knitting to do.

I have finished yet another stripy hat. The background this time is some double knitting cotton I found in a bag in the spare room – you never know what you might find in there! It is so nice to be knitting with a yarn where you can actually see the stitches.

3rd Stripy Hat

I’ve also finished the latest felted knitted bag, this one is purple. It is in the washing machine as I type, although I think it will probably need to go through two washes to be shrunk sufficiently. I’ll post some pics when it is done and I have selected a button for it.

I had three knitting related parcels this morning which was rather exciting. Traditional Scandinavian Knitting by Sheila McGregor arrived from Amazon, a parcel with some coil-less safety pins, some buttons and a bag with the Elizabeth Zimmerman quote arrived from Schoolhouse Press, and 4 cones of ex-Debbie Bliss yarns arrived from Coldspring Mill. Wow! What a day! I am going to go and stroke it all now.

The hat obsession continues … Here is another stripy hat with the colours the inverse of the last one. I was concerned that the last one was a bit big so I doctored the pattern this time around, and only cast on 102 stitches, then worked 5 stripes instead of six.

2nd Stripy Hat

There is still more yarn left so I am going to have a dig around for some cotton I have lurking in the spare room which I think will be in a colour to go with this.

I’ve just ordered some gorgeous sounding ex-Debbie Bliss yarns for an absolute song – hopefully they should arrive early next week so piccies will be posted, and much drooling will occur (at least from me).

I seem to be being inspired by loads of things lately, it is one of those odd things that it seems to go in waves. Some months I hardly see anything knitting related I want to buy and others I see loads. I rather like some of the patterns at Vermont Fiber Designs, and I’m still thinking about the Hanne Falkenberg Mermaid, and you can buy blocking wires at Heirloom Knitting. Wow, what a lot of choice, I shall have to think on it some more.

I finally got round to replacing our doorbell at the weekend. It had been a bit iffy for ages and then on Saturday it stopped working altogether. And now I have my efforts amply repaid! I ordered some sock yarn from Get Knitted a couple of days ago, and it arrived this morning.

Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock yarn

Aren’t they beautiful? The colours are, from left to right: Tahoe, Get Knitted, Purple Club, and Irving Park. Also a fun pen and soap were in the parcel too, I love a nice surprise!

In a bizarre coincidence, the latest KnitCast which came out today is also with Get Knitted.

Now the big difficulty of which to cast on with first!

The hat obsession still hasn’t worked itself out, although I have high hopes that it may end soon, more pictures of hats to come later.

I was checking my Amazon recommendations today (not really to be advised since I don’t have space on the bookcase for the books I do have let alone the ones I haven’t bought yet), and one of the books recommended was Traditional Scandinavian Knitting by Sheila McGregor. It looked interesting, but slightly familiar, so I dashed downstairs to see if it was already on the bookshelf. After much hunting about I decided it would probably be sensible to actually arrange the books in some kind of order, so I have now grouped together the knitting books, and the machine knitting books, and the knitting reference books and the other crafts books. The knitting books have also been arranged alphabetically since there are rather a lot of them (what a surprise). I discovered that while I did own two books by Sheila McGregor, neither of them was the Scandinavian one. I did however discover that I had not two, but three copies of the Batsford Complete Book of Traditional Knitting … oops. There was only one other duplication though so I think all in all I have done ok 🙂 I must remember to take the extras to Knitting Group and see if anyone would like them.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I go in phases with what I am knitting, and I am definitely having a hat phase at the moment 🙂

I finished the stripy hat, another hat for Nanny using Schachenmayr Princess yarn (72% acrylic, 28% viscose) from Elann, and here is a picture.

Completed stripy hat

I’m slightly concerned that as it fits my big head it might be a bit big for her, we shall see. One of the difficulties of this pattern was that no tension was given just a needle size so I wasn’t quite sure how big they intended it to turn out.

As I still had most of a ball in each colour left over I thought I would have a go at the aviator cap also from Headhuggers. I started twice since I thought that the 5mm needles seemed too big for this yarn, and then ran out of yarn when I was about 3/4 of the way through. At that point I decided that the pattern really didn’t work in that yarn, since the yarn is so textured, the texture of the pattern was completely lost, and I was concerned that the shape of the hat was coming out a bit odd. To cut a long story short, I unraveled it all and am calling it A Learning Experience (TM). I have cast on for another stripy hat with the colours the other way around, which I am making with 12 fewer stitches around and 8 fewer rows in the stripy bit, and 2 fewer rows in the crown. I am currently on stripe number 4 and I still have loads of yarn left!

I am getting perilously close to giving in and ordering some more sock yarn from Get Knitted, they have some gorgeous colours, and I am really enjoying working with Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock yarn.

PS. Hi Emma! Yes I am Val’s daughter. I’m definitely hoping to be able to come along to your knitting group next time I am up in the frozen north visiting the parents!

Wow! Two posts in one day!

As promised here is a photo of the stripy hat in progress.

Stripy hat in progress

I started off knitting this on a set of 4 Pony metal double pointed needles, and discovered that though I love knitting socks on my bamboo and ebony double pointed needles I absolutely loathed knitting with this yarn on metal dpns. I have now switched to a Milward metal circular and though it isn’t as nice as knitting with my Addi Turbos (which I don’t have in the right size) it is much better. I am having a go at the magic loop technique as I decrease for the crown, but I might have to give in and switch back to the dpns soon.

Anyway, the sun is out, the sky is blue, and I am about to attack the weeds in the front garden … I may be some time.

I’ve been having a play around with the template of the blog and now have pictures to link to my finished projects! Its so much fun!

It got me to thinking about photographing some of my older knitting too so I thought I would start with my big knit from last year, my wedding dress:

Paul and Heather

In case you hadn’t guessed I am the one on the right 🙂 The other one is the long suffering husband. We got married on May 15th at Leatherhead Register Office.

I designed the dress myself, it is knitted top down on circular needles and turned me into a total convert to that method of knitting, it really helps when attempting to get a good fit to be able to try on the knitting as you go. It is knitted using Jaeger Cadiz, 50% silk and 50% viscose, and the colour is Malachite. According to the ball band this is an aran weight yarn but after I knitted a few sample pieces I decided I liked the fabric best when knitted using 3.5mm needles. It is mostly stocking stitch, with 2×2 cables. I got so paranoid when buying yarn for this, since in typical Heather fashion I only discovered it after it had become discontinued! (although it did mean most of the yarn was on sale), that I bought so much yarn that I have enough left over for a matching cardigan, which I will get round to some time. The dress is really heavy but it doesn’t seem to have stretched and is very comfy to wear. I wore it again this February with a black cardigan to go to another friend’s wedding.

In other knitting I haven’t done much on the purple felted bag, hopefully I’ll get back to it soon. The latest hat for Nanny is coming along though, I have just started the shaping for the crown. Its a lovely day here today so I will get the camera out later and take a picture of it.

I heard back from Kangaroo and unfortunately they don’t have all the colourways for the Mermaid, and they wont do yarn snippets of the colours they do have. They referred me to Hanne Falkenberg’s website but that unfortunately doesn’t solve the problem of my monitor possibly not displaying the colours properly. It seems quite a lot of money for a kit which I am not quite sure that the colours will be what I expect. This bugs me a little about Hanne’s designs, that you can’t buy the pattern separately and then select your own colours from a source where you can actually go and see them and make sure they are all colours you like.

OK, you can take your hands off your ears now, I’ve finished ranting 🙂 I think I shall go and knit some more hat now.

I’ve finished the second hat for Nanny’s birthday, same pattern as before (the Braid-edged Cap by Judy Gibson), and also same yarn (Schachenmayr Princess, 72% acrylic, 28% viscose) but in a different colour.

2nd hat for Nanny

It actually used less yarn than I had thought so I have embarked on a stripy hat with the yarn I have left over. I have done three stripes so far and will hopefully take a picture of it in progress soon.

The purple felted bag is coming along, I am onto the strap now so the end is in sight. The black and red bag has had a couple of outings already and has proved to be a good size. Thanks for the comment Jocelyn, I am hoping to carry the idea of shading colours a bit further with the next bag which is purple and black, and entirely in my head at the moment!

The new edition of Knitting arrived a couple of days ago and I am part way through it. Seeing the ads from the various UK online knitting shops always inspires me to go and see what they have got in at the moment, never a good plan for the poor beleaguered credit-card. Anyway, to cut a long story short (too late!) I see that Get Knitted has got a whole load of lovely looking sock yarns in colours I don’t have yet, even though I need new sock yarn like I need a hole in the head. Also to add insult to injury I have fallen in love with the new Hanne Falkenberg kit, Mermaid. The only dilemma is the colour, I am in an agony of indecision over colour 4, blue, turquoise, and green, or colour 5, black, dark green, and kingfisher. I am worried that my monitor doesn’t always display colours very accurately and that colour 4 might be paler than I think, or that the colour is accurate and colour 5 is rather dingy. I might email them and see if they could send me a little snippet of the appropriate colours. Unfortunately I think I see a rather large credit card bill in my future …

I’ve finally finished my felted knitted bag! I used 4 strands held together of 2ply lambswool from Uppingham Yarns and 8mm needles. The after finishing and sewing together I put it through the wash twice at 40 degrees on a cottons wash with my towels. This is what it looks like:

Felted knitted bag

And this is it with the fold over flap lifted up so you can see the colour variation better.

Felted knitted bag

I think when I sewed it up I made the flap over a little long and consequently the bag a little short, but you live and learn 🙂 I have started another one in purple now, and have plans to make a shaded purple and black one after that. Felted bags are such a great use for all those beautiful buttons you find but can’t work out what to do with!

At knitting group on Wednesday we had an open session where people knit on whatever they like rather than a workshop on a particular technique, so I started another hat for Nanny, same pattern as before but in a mauve-y coloured yarn. I just checked my diary and discovered that though I was convinced Nanny’s birthday was the middle of June, actually it is the middle of July so I have a bit longer for her hats.

In other news, the other half organised all his wiring and computer bits in the bedroom and you can now actually see the floor – shock horror! He now keeps looking at the pile of my wool in the computer room in the hope that I will organise it soon. I am getting there, some has moved, I am just a rather slow knitter! Not much blogging or knitting requiring brain got done last week as I have a nasty gnat bite on the foot and the antihistamines have a tendency to knock me out rather. I’m back in the land of the living now though, lots of things to catch up with.