Hexagoning and Needles

While I have a bit of time on my hands I decided it was about time I shared my finished hexagonal baby blanket.  I have been unable to knit today!  {Sharp intake of breath} Don’t panic – I feel fine but my knitting is feeling decidely soggy following an unfortunate encounter with some tea this morning so it’s still drying off from its little cleansing shower.  Yesterday I have to admit no knitting got done as I was really tired and in quite a bit of pain from my right shoulder which knitting aggravated – I’m waiting on the results of yesterday’s x-ray on it.

Anyhoo back to some knitting I finished a few weeks ago.  This is Swirl and yet again is from Comfort Knitting and Crochet Afghans.

In total it measures about 74 cm (29″) across and is in double knitting yarn on size 4 mm straight needles.

When I showed pics previously Fiona enquired as to how it was constructed here we go – please excuse a the quality of a couple of the photos – I took them on my phone and can confirm that its correctly called a phone with a camera and not a camera phone.

Now it should have been knit on four double pointed needles but as I’ve said I avoid these if at all possible so adapted the pattern to suit two.

I started with one hexagon and joined the seam on that to close it up.  Then I cast on 100 stitches and picked up another 20 along one side to join the second one on.

This carried on adding 20 stitches for additional side that the new hexagon needed to join on to ie, this one had four hexagons so had 80 stitches from hexagon sides and 40 new ones…

Each hexagon had a seam that needed joining because of being knit on just two needles.

And just once there was a seam to be sewn between hexagons when I didn’t pick up enough stitches…

I wasn’t particularly orderly about adding hexagons possibly because I didn’t have any green to start with.

but after filling in the irratic gaps it looked like this…

Yes its not quite flat, and not quite as noticeable in ‘real life’ but I don’t think knitting it on four needles would have made that much of a difference.

This again isn’t a pattern I would have chosen to knit or colours I would have necessarily used (the colours are similar to the ones in the book) but I am quite pleased with it and do think it would look great in really bright colours.

Other creative spaces can be found here.

I started the DT-PACE IV chemotherapy today – my switch to peritoneal dialysis (PD) caused a bit of delay will things were thunk about.  I said to the blook pharmacist this morning that I believed I was causing them a problem, he agreed and said I was really testing them.  The renal doctor called to see me again for the fourth time, however its the first time I was actually ‘in’.  Tuesday with not having anything scheduled I’d been allowed out and after a trip into Primark would have come back with clothing if I’d been able to remember my credit card pin.  The third time the doc called yesterday morning I was having a shower.  The only concern he had about the schedule was that it resulted in me restarting the PD at midnight when he thought surely nine would have been better.  As it is I only got hooked up at quarter to one so by the time the bags have run through its probably going to be three o’clock Saturday morning that I need to start up again.  As you may have gathered I am being allowed to do the PD during the treatment, rather than having to go down for the haemodialysis (HD).  He must have thought that I looked way too enthusiastic having to get up at 12 even to pop a bag of fluid in but bascially I’m just estatic that I don’t have to go back to HD – and can only think he doesn’t know what sort irrate hours and late nights this can entail for inpatients – like the time I went down at ten past midnight so got back to my bed at 4.20 am!

After getting back from my non-shopping spree on Tuesday B took me out for tea – fish and chips which I had to stop eating part way through as I felt sick and got chastised for not asking for an anti-sickness tablet – I forgot!  It didn’t help that he knew I’d been sick at lunch time at the tiniest taste of Pot Noodle.

Oh, and tomorrow I get to have a biopsy needle stuck in the bump on the back of my head as the x-ray report says my skull is fine – which is good since when I was diagnosed the x-ray showed a lorra, lorra lytic lesions.  I’m think I may have to come up with a convicing ‘Silly me I forgot but I do know remember bumping it’ – depending on the size of the needle!

Red and denim and white and green

I love, love, love this pram blanket and everyone who’s seen it whilst in progress have loved it too – well at least that’s what they’ve said and maybe the ones that didn’t love it just didn’t say anything!  Four friends at Armchair Yoga wanted to know where the pattern came from and two friends last night described it as striking.

Although I selected the yarn I didn’t as such pick the colours – if you know what I mean. No? Well, its for the impending grandson of a lady who works at the Royal and the pram that’s been bought for him is denim outside with the lining white, red, lime green and denim so she gave me the list of colours and I went and shopped for the actual shades.

Now I’m not going to even pretend that given the whole of the Sirdar Bonus DK colour range that I would have selected these four colours to go into one blanket but I’m truly in love with it – surprisingly smitten actually since although they went together okay when still on the balls it was only when combined in the pattern that I started feeling a growing affection but only after  I’d changed the colour order.

I initially started following the order the colours were written down in on the basis that if you were listing the colours on something you might note them down in the order you saw them (apparently they hadn’t done this anyway).   However the red and denim together just looked too heavy.  So I undid it back to the denim set up row and re-ordered it along the lines of light and dark which I think works much better.

Then there was the issue of the number of colours.  Did I work each strip separately ie, cut the yarn at the end of its current use or did I carry the yarns up the side.  I thought it would be easier to cut the colours, knot them and crochet the edging over it.

Then one of the Armchair Yoga ladies queried this as she wasn’t at all envious of all those ends to deal with and I explained that I didn’t want to spend ages un-tangling the four balls but since I had about a third to go I decided to give it a go.

I have to say the later was the better option.  Not only was it neater but it was way easier to edge over.  Fortunately I’d already decided to edge in denim but had I chosen the green or white I would have had to change my mind as the stronger colours would have peeked through.

The edging was the single crochet (US double crochet) first round and a second round of sc (dc) worked backwards – it’s so simple and every time I’ve used it I’m always pleased with the result.

I’d done the six rows I didn’t like by Sunday morning and this was when I undid five of them and started again from the set-up row and I finished edging it today – which shows it’s quite an easy pattern that grows quickly.  Mind you it’s not like I’ve been doing tons of other stuff although if I hadn’t gone out for my tea yesterday I could have had it finished then.  (I didn’t go out with B by the way but two friends one of whom was a bit worried about me going as B told her I’d been sick yesterday – which I had but apparently the way B told her she thought I’d literally just up-chucked but it had been in the morning.  As it turned out I was fine and really enjoyed the food – I had stilton and garlic mushrooms and then lamb shank with mash and green beans- sometimes anti-sickness meds are just wonderful.)

The blanket measures 75 cm (29.5″) x 95cm (37.5″) and the pattern is Greenway from Comfort Knitting and Crochet Afghans – again!  It’s a good job I don’t have to pay royalties – I’ve never had such use out of a book of afghans.

Other creative spaces are here.

More Twisted Cables

I finally got round to block… oh, I didn’t I dried it flat,  the cardigan I started during my last holiday in the Royal.

It was from Designer Knitting (which is what Vogue Knitting is called in the UK) Winter 2009/2010 and looked like this…

Not a particularly good picture but enough of a resemblance that it needs to be borne in mind for later.

There were a few teething troubles…

This was my first attempt at the back which had an untwisted bit at the bottom of the first twisty cable – I did notice this and thought ‘Hey I’ll just do an untwisted bit at the top end’ – and then I got to the above point and suddenly realised that I should have had five twisty cables instead of the four I had.  So  it should actually have looked like this…

And then there was the collar.  I picked up the stitches and knit it the other Tuesday when a friend was visiting so it didn’t have my undivided attention and it was the night I was really tired so the attention it did have was probably less than adequate.  This was the first go…

This was the second go…

much smoother with evenly distributed stitches.  I knew when I was doing it it would probably go pear-shaped but carried on regardless.

Anyhoo, here we have the finished article on the dress form and remember the picture from the magazine – closely fitting tailored style silhouette

nipped in waist, fitted looking, mmm, slightly loose round the bust maybe but still I’m probably bigger than the form…

We’ll ignore the little creases under the back cables from where it dried – I was going to say they would drop out but let’s face it there the least of it’s worries…

Perhaps I could just get some shoulder pads and longer arms!

Here’s some things that are going a bit better.  The crochet blanket I started last week which just needs another 15 cm (6″)…

but I did get a bit fed up with this which translates as I made a few boo boos – I’m blaming it on my haemoglobin level, lack of circulating oxygen must affect concentration, so I dipped into my bits box and started another granny square afghan…

Other creative spaces are here.

Cobweb Lace

I started this shawl back in September when I abandoned the shawl I’d started the previous summer – yes that would be summer 2010.  If I hadn’t touched it for over 12 months it wasn’t going to be finished any time soon.  I don’t knit much lace because I find it a bit messy, or maybe it’s because I don’t really have any reason to do lacy things or it could just be that I don’t really like knitting it – loath as I am to admit not liking anything knitty other than circular needles and intarsia (that’s multi colour knitting for the non knitters and should not be confused with fairisle).

Anyhoo, after deciding I wanted to knit a lace shawl, and even though the first one didn’t get very far,  I searched for another pattern on Ravelry, which again to the non knitters is kinda like Facebook for knitters but with added extras.  You can see how finished items look not just as per the pattern but as knit/crocheted by other knitters.  I’d once seen a blanket pattern that I just loved and after having checked it out on Ravelry and seeing finished articles it put me right off.

It turned out that the majority of the shawls I liked were all by the same designer, Birgit Freyer.  So I tootled off to her website and selected myself ‘Flamenco‘.*  Now I have no trouble knitting with fine yarn but I do like knitting it on fine needles, so cobwebby yarn on 4.5 mm needles I find a bit, you guessed it, messy and fiddly as well.

I have been perservering, and undoing – which is extra fiddly and here’s how it looks so far…

The big plus is that I’ve got plenty of yarn for when it tips me over the edge and I throw it out the window and start again.

Other creative spaces can be found here.

*  When I went to Birgit’s website to link to the pattern and saw her beautiful finished article I could have cried!

Little cardys on the table, little cardys made of yarn and stuff

Firstly thank you for all the comments this week, actually just thank you for all the comments – my sister in law has told me I should reply more and although I am a bit rude in this respect I do read and cherish each and every one.   ‘Put that bucket down it wasn’t that soppy.’  I am feeling somewhat better today.  I had a kip (nap) after a tiny bit of shopping (whilst B hoovered – so I was well away) and I’ve generally only felt tired/fatigued really as opposed to unwell plus my temp seems to have maintained a respectable level.  

I may not have a new creative space (it’s currently still got the scrap quilts from last week all over it and knitting hasn’t hit a production high) so I thought I’d share these little jackets I made for the South Africa consignment via our GP’s receptionist (I really need to find a way to shorten that).

I wanted a quick cardigan pattern but something that could be un-problematically sized up – the five hour cardi pattern I used last year was more matinee style so, for me, didn’t size up well for older children.  I found Garter Yoke Baby Cardi, which I think is more jackety and would look just as good on a toddler as a baby.

I completed four.  One in Snuggly 4ply with novelty yarn trim…

One in double knitting…

This one has I-cord trim on the buttonhole border and I think is probably my favourite.  Here’s the back…

Another is in the remnants of the recent aran crocheting binge…

B liked this one best and picked it to be entered in the Rainford Show, which was fortunate as the one in Snuggly DK, with shell buttons, which he nearly went for…

 

 

 

 

 

had a little boo boo on the sleeve…

it may not be easy to tell from that pic (or it may be glaringly obvious) but I apparently gained an extra stitch leaving a hole!  It has since had a little TLC and it didn’t leave a scar.)  Oh, the shame!!!!!!!  (

But then again, look at this from the Early Autumn 2011 issue of Designer Knitting (previously Vogue Knitting)…

A missed cable on the sleeve and a wrong way cable at the bottom front. Now fair do’s if I’d done it for myself I probably (definitely) wouldn’t have undone (frogged?) the whole front to redo that cable but the one in the sleeve!  Plus if it was to appear in a magazine I would have… cut the sleeve out of the pic and put something over the one at the bottom!

Oh and I forgot to mention yesterday what B said to me on Monday (other than asking me if I wanted a jam butty sandwich – we were short on groceries – jam butty being the same thing as jam sandwich, in case you wondered, and I declined).  I was talking to B and I do have to repeat myself a LOT but Monday instead of ‘What Paula?’ he says ‘What Mum?’

‘WHAT MUM?’ WTF!?!?!?!?!?!?!

‘What darling?’ I said – or words to that effect.

‘Nuffin!’

‘Yeah, right!!!!!  Is that because I’ve been a whinging pain in the a*se the last few days?’

He just laughed.

Other Creative Spaces can be found here.

 

Scrappy Squarey Doh!

In answer to Fiona‘s question from yesterday as to ‘WHAT HAPPENED’ with the m-i-l and B at the doctors.  I didn’t know at the time I popped it on my blog as their appointment was only 16:00 so I was on tenterhooks as to the outcome. Well the GP ‘lol’ed at the note, and then B asked for it – so I was confronted with B extracting the note from his pocket and reading out ‘Bernard has the retention quality of a distracted three year old unless it involves pretty women.’  To which I said ‘Hey it could have been worse I was going to say Page 3.’  Needless to say it was the running theme of numerous comments between then and him going to work.

With regard to the m-i-l, my behind is safe from being exposed to shoppers, as the ‘fungal infection’ was a just a big fat nail that needed filing.  {smug expression}

So to my creative space this week – it’s a bit of a tip, but better a creative mess than neat un-productivity (or something like that).

On the ironing board is a backing for a quilt whilst on the window ledge is 83 Share a Square squares…

Which brings me up to 149 with the total requested from any participant being 150.  I had a bit of trouble with my 150th.

Its one and one quarter rounds short of a full square – I must have been over generous with the tails on the last batch.

Fortunately I found this novelty yarn and with some creative usage (and a tail of about two inches left of it – phew) I managed to finish square 150.

The quilt backing is for some scrap quilts I must have started at least three years ago.  I did finish the top for one…

but since I had all these left from dresses I’d made years before (my Great Auntie Bet always told me to save excess material just in case the garment needed a repair in the future – what I don’t know – but she was alive during WWII rationing and so on numerous occasions was able to show me that a pattern positioning was wasteful and if I did, this, that and that I’d have plenty left over) and since they are in the main lovely crepes I’d hung onto them, even past the expiry of some of the dresses.

All I managed to do yesterday was fill the 3′ x 4′ backing with pieces…

Yes I know they need a serious pressing but they have been screwed up in a box for a long time.  I thought if I could get them finished this weekend they could go to South Africa with the other stuff I’ve given to our GP’s receptionist.  We’ll see.

I have an appointment at the Royal this afternoon regarding the numbness in my forearm, that’s still there, and I also have a numb bit on the right side of my chin and an intermittent numbness to the pad of my left thumb!  I’m going with a friend and I forgot to ask if there’d be eating out involved.  Doh – I must get my priorities right!

Other Creative Spaces can be found here.

Rainford Show – already!

Can you believe that it’s already 12 months since our last village show and despite me having kept the trophy I jointly won last year here for the last 12 months…

 

 

 

as seen entering the hall/dining room from the side door and kitchen

as seen entering the dining hall from the front porch and it, obviously, being fully visible when walking down the stairs or indeed in and out of the lounge I still hadn’t got round to returning it.

We had a lovely visit from Lorna and Mike last week with cupcakes and not so lovely courgettes (blahhhhhh) – actually if they’d brought three I could have entered them in the show.  Despite one being almost the size of a marrow I couldn’t pass it off as one as they apparently need to be 16 inches! Anyhoo, Lorna asked if I would be entering this year’s show and I said yes if I hadn’t been blacklisted for not returning the trophy so the co-winner could have it for the second half of the year – she had said I could keep it for the full year as she’d kept it on top of a cupboard and put stuff in it but I wasn’t convinced she meant it.  So when I called at the doctors’ today I stopped by the library too and picked up this…

 

Just the book not the knitting, that came later, and I’ve phoned the lady responsible for the Domestic Section (ah yes, domestic – that’s me all over – it also includes Confectionery and Preserves) and I can return the trophy on Saturday when I drop off my entries for this year.

So on my sewing table at the moment I have this pile to sort through…

The sections I’ve decided to enter are cross stitch picture, handmade toy, knitted garment, crochet item.  There’s no limit to the number of items you can enter in the categories I’ve picked! Ohhhh I’m so excited!  I excluded scrapbook page 12″ x 12″ and handcrafted greetings card. I think I should just about find enough to enter but I have started a new handmade toy as well.  I mean there’s £2.50 at stake for first prize and the radiator cabinet looks bear without the trophy! (It’s currently undergoing a pre-award ceremony pampering session.)

Other ‘Domestic Section’ type creative spaces can be viewed here.

With regard to my trip to the GP this morning (where I babbled like a cranked up three year old rather than kept it to the point) it turns out that the area of altered sensation in my forearm relates to C7 – no worries there then as the loosening is C6 – right? Wrong I got my number wrong – I double checked my blog entry from February and indeed I had initially been told C7 but had somehow transformed that to C6 between then and now.  My GP was able to confirm it was C7 by looking at the x-ray report from February on her computer (remember the one that ‘wasn’t on file’ at the hospital on Tuesday).  So long story short (I really babbled and repeated myself) my lovely GP is faxing a letter to the Prof at the Royal today about doing an MRI on the relevant vertebra and should I get any pain or weakness in the meantime I have to contact them immediately.  She did say that the vertebra could just be irritating the nerve or it could even be a local, non-myeloma related problem round the elbow.

When I went in I said that I’d come for some peace of mind and after it all she said ‘Have I made it worse?’

The thing is she hadn’t.  If at the hospital on Tuesday they’d x-rayed my cervical spine and said ‘There’s nothing new showing, sod off and only come back next week if it’s still numb’ I would have quite merrily tottered off and enjoyed a good night’s sleep.  But I left with doubts and I know a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and this is why I ask questions to satisfy my naturally extremely curious nature because at the end of the day I’m a typist not a hema, haemer – a blood doctor and when I do ask questions I want to receive an answer that sufficiently satisfies my enquiring mind!

Looking up Shawls

Today, well this evening in fact, which is probably the reason I am currently so tired I could cry and am cutting it fine to post a Creative Space Thursday post, I finished my

KAL stands for knit a long (just thought I’d let any of you who were uninitiated know – this included me for the first two weeks of it).

I had a little assistant when I took my photos – I think I may have left a boiled sweet stuck to the shawl because he was being very inquisitive (rude) looking up the bottom of it.

And it cost me the price of the pattern.  The purples were given to me by a friend and were part of her machine knitting days and the green from one my fellow armchair yogaists.

I would also have liked to share my latest afghan made up of my ‘boo boo’ squares made last year for Share a Square when I had a little misunderstanding between worsted and double knit but Bud had other ideas…

(Please note he is still pointing in the general direction of the shawl – he has such a hectic schedule – standing on crocheting and looking up a shawl in the same evening!)

So more on that when later.

Other creative spaces here.

And yet more crocheting…

Last week after I’d used the yarn bought specifically for Share a Square I found some aran/worsted weight I’d been given by a neighbour.  The problem with it was that it didn’t tell me what it was made of – I asked but it was being coy.  I was pretty sure it was acrylic and indeed the cardigan I’d made myself from it didn’t bother me and I am wool phobic from a wearing point of view – I think this stems from a pair of tartan trousers my Mum made me when I was little they still itched after she’d lined them.  (I also had a matching cape!)

So I made a couple of squares anyway but since I wasn’t 100% sure (Share a Square squares need to be artificial to any allergies) I decided to make a blanket for the hospital/crèche in South Africa that one of the receptionists at our GPs has ties with and having bumped into her on Tuesday (not literally) she mentioned there was another container leaving in the next couple of weeks – so I timed that well.

I used the yarn I had left over from the Greenway blanket (presumably so called becasuse in the book it was done in shades of green but from here on in known as the Daisy Blanket because of the stitch) and I cannot tell you how gorgeous that cream yarn is even though it as 20% wool. It almost glows and it has to be fondled to fully appreciate its softness – as B was instructed on Sunday ‘Feel that.’ slight touch ‘No, fondle iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.’ (In my best Homer Simpson impersonation.)

The edging is also à la the Daisy Blanket.  I was going to leave it as three rows of double crochet (US single crochet) but then did a backwards row of double crochet and it just finishes it off nicely – well I think so.

I had my hair cut by a friend on Monday.  She used our clippers.  She regularly cuts her husband with their clippers – he has it very short and she consciously tired not to get mine the same.  Let’s read the reviews.

Friend who visited last night on being informed that I’d had it cut – ‘Yes I noticed it was shorter than last time.’  (That being two weeks ago.)  So noticed but hadn’t said anything – mmmmm.

Friend who cut it as she was leaving – ‘As I say to my husband, if you don’t like it it will grow back in a couple of weeks.’

My husband (who as we know says what he sees) – ‘It’s alright.’ Oh!  When asked a second time because I had the strange feeling he may have developed a dose of tact. ‘It’s a bit (sparse, say sparse) bald looking in places.’  Doh!

Me – ‘I look like a cancer patient.’

Other creative spaces are here.