Nearly Two Weeks?

Where on earth has that gone!?!?

 Well. I'll tell you what. It's gone on knitting these buggers:

I am inordinately proud. LOOK AT THEM! Bloody hell. Haha. Read more here.



I'm still not quite ready to tell you what they're for but they have been collected and the person is very happy with them and you will find out a week tomorrow. I think.


You know how brill I am at washing though? Well... The big one was pretty much done two weeks ago, I blocked the body bit, did the embroidery on the lion, sewed the arms in, did the neckline and thought I'd leave the final blocking until they could be done together. So, on Monday night (after twoooooo days off frantically knitting (and getting mighty drunk in between)) all of the bits for the little one were done by about half past seven so I thought I'd skip the blocking by hand bit and send them both in for a quick wash and spin. Then I spent a few hours tidying, showering, sewing the sleeves on this beaut (which is much more beautiful than the picture suggests):

Which is a shrug that Verity crocheted for me which was just a bit too small, together to make a cowl which hasn't been off my neck since and generally having a 'Sunday' evening. It was lovely. Just before bed I nipped downstairs to grab the bits and bring them back upstairs for blocking. And, you guessed it (especially if you're on facebook) the white bits were pink. I genuinely nearly cried, spend about an hour scrubbing with some oxy-whatever-cleaner and googling what to do.

In the end I left them both to soak in the bathtub with heaps and heaps of two different kinds of oxy cleaner. In the morning they didn't look much better so I shoved them in the washing machine with more oxy cleaner and some colour liquid and hoped for the best. When I got into work I went and spoke to the ladies at the dry cleaners up the way and they told me about some colour corrector stuff so I got June to cover the shop whilst I madly ran around town spending far. too. much. money on all sorts of colour correctors, colour catchers and stain removers and headed back to mine on the bus. Got to Canning Circus and realised that I'd forgotten my keys. Got off the bus. Walked down to the shop and started again.

When I got in and checked the jumpers they were almost right all by themselves! Again, I nearly cried!!! I rang June to make sure I was doing the right thing by still using the colour correctors and she said she would so I did my thing and sent it all back into the washing machine. Then I went back to the shop and after that knit club (which was much needed after the stress). Thankfully when I got back in the evening they were sorted so after dinner I got the embroidery done and sewed it all up. Went to bed at 2am very pleased with myself. I finished the neckband yesterday morning and the job's a bloody good'n ain't it!? :)


So, with that finished yesterday, I decided to do a bit of *sort of* selfish crochet which has been on the go for a while. It's actually for Verity's baby and I'm glad it's finished but I can't work out if it's quite right and the terrible thing about giving things to expert crocheters is that they know when you've done it wrong... Anyway, I bought some beautiful ribbon this morning to go on that and at some point I'll write a blog about the bits I've done (when I've actually got anything properly finished. Everything I've made for t'babbeh so far is buttonless/ribbonless/final-rib-less... Oh well. It was only due last Sunday...).



And then I started back on this beaut:

Remember? Oh yes. I bought the buttons this morning from Pikes (I was hoping for neon yellow. They have every neon but yellow... so I bought wooden instead which might be more sensible anyway). I intended to spend about an hour finishing it but it's actually taken all day because I really didn't think about what I was doing so I ended up with hundreds of ends and some weird 'half' seams to sew and for some inexplicable reason I decided to use 13 buttons instead of a sensible eight. 'On what!?' I hear you say:

OOOOHOHOHOHOH yes! This is the bit I couldn't work out how to describe... Essentially, you know those Breton jumpers with the three buttons at the shoulder? Like this?

Yeah? Well I decided to do that but alllllllll the way down the sleeve! YEAH!? Good iDeA!?!? YEAH!?!?!? I know. I'm a bloody genius. Only, I didn't take into account the button band on the sleeve and how many fewer stitches I'd need so there's some weird decreases hiding there but I actually don't think that affects things. What does affect things is that the buttons are on the left hand sleeve when they should be, and I wanted them, on the right sleeve. And there are loads of buttons. And I should have sewn the plackets together first and the buttons later - as it is it's a bit wonky. But whatevs. I actually think I'm in love:

That was literally the best photo we could take today (things with boyf are still going well and last night he cooked me dinner with THREE DIFFERENT KINDS OF MEAT(!!!) in it and I think I'm still digesting...).

Now, the bottom needs more rib to balance out my fat arse. And I have about a third, maybe a bit less, of a ball left so I'm going to take the cast off out and just carry on until that's gone. I haven't sewn the tail in to that end:

Stylish.

So, that will be done.... Maybe. My lovely friend Sue sent me a bike in her big house clearout so I think the first real outing will be this Saturday when boyf and I are cycling around Attenborough (weather permitting) and/or to the pub. :)

Thinking about it, if I'd have actually thought about it before casting on, I would have done many many more cables. Maybe another six? Oh well. You live and learn. I can't see me needing another jumper with neon cables so I'll just have to appreciate the one that I've got. :)

That's it. It's six o'clock. I need to answer e-mails and get to Dee's to get fed and watered.

Love,

Eleanor. xxx

Neon.

So. Neon, ey? What a trend. What a beautiful beautiful trend. Well, I'm slightly late, because apparently it was a trend in summer 2013... However, nobody presented me with neon cotton (ahhhh, neon Cotton Bamboo. Be still my beating heart... Maybe one day King Cole!?). The lovely Jem, however, presented me with neon chunky just a couple of weeks ago (and neon sock yarn though that's stuck somewhere in the annals of Regia's warehouse, be patient). And I've gone a bit mad.

The first thing I did was these beauts:

The main yarn there is the Lova Superchunky in the Beige/Pink (love an inspiring name...) and the contrast in the Pink in the Boston Chunky. I knocked them out on Wednesday (I think) which is the first day they came in. Somebody described them as 'oven mitts' the other day, obvs she's off the Christmas card list, but she's kind of right... they ended up a bit big. So be it. They're warm.

The next day was the first full day that these beauts were in the shop and the lovely Robin came in looking for some inspiration. Now, Robin's a man who loves a bright colour (and ponchos.... tssk...) so eventually we came up with a combo of deep navy, bright shocking red and the neon orange for a cowl. The background was to be navy with intarsia cable columns alternating red and orange. Seriously. Phwoooooar! If that wasn't the last ball of the red (and the last ball of the navy before our order appears) I'd have totes cast that on and been happy with it. Unfortunately a navy backgrounded, alternating cable columned cowl isn't much fun in just neon orange. So I had to make do.

LOOK! Look at what I've gorn and done...

Can you see? That was definitely the best photo I could do in the circumstances...

It's a blady jumper ain't it!? Can you imagine how beautiful this is going to be!? IMAGINE!!! It's got a beige Grousemoor Chunky background and I've done cable columns in the neon yellow Boston Chunky.

I did a gauge swatch. Let me repeat. I did a guage swatch.

On 7.5mm needles. 3 stitches per inch. Cast on 90. Did a bit of rib. Couple of rows in the neon to start off with and then began my cables. They're 4 stitch cables, cable forward I think but I'm doing it without a cable needle and it seems to matter less. I did 6 cables all around because in my head that meant that there were then 8 sections of beige and I could just do an increase every beige section a bit like a top down raglan but not on any proper lines. But apparently 6 cables meant 7 beige sections which meant that I did one increase per section and then an extra increase in one section per increase row and I moved the section that I did the extra in on by one each time. Does that make sense? Anyway, that increase rate kind of worked until I started 'fading out' the cable columns (as in, each cable sort of whisps away at differing points) and then I got too confused and just did some increasing where I fancied it.

Once it looked about right, as in the ribbing was where I wanted it and the knitting reached almost to my arm pit, I divided the jumper - a 6th for each sleeve, a third for the front and a third for the back (roughly, there was a totes random amount of stitches, like 213 or something so I put a bit more in the sleeves and front than the back).

Now all of the cables have whisped away, I'm ready to join in the round and I want to do some shaping like the Owls Jumper and then I haven't decided if the sleeves should be full or 3/4. We'll see. Top down knitting is just full of decisions (and surprises).

There is an extra design feature thing but I'm going to tell you about that when I'm done because try as I might I just can't explain that to you without sounding like an absolute mental. Suffice to say, it involves buttons and I am v. excited!!!

I'm hoping to have the body done by tonight and maybe the sleeves by tomorrow, pick up buttons on Monday and present the finished article by Tuesday. Hahaha. We'll see.

Are you excited?!!?!?! Me too!!!

So, finally a montage:

 

The Lova Superchunky which totes looks more impressive in real life. Seriously, it coaxed Jazz out of her yarn diet. 

 

 Look how happy she is with her funky bag. Haha. Love Jazz! :)

And Boston Chunky which has totally stolen my heart. Ahhhhhhhh. 

And that's your lot. I have to tidy before the lesson tomorrow and clean this bloody toilet which is a disgrace on my good housewife name. 

Love Eleanor. xxxxxx