Goodbye, Little Orange

Oh, how I miss thee....... JKD's car was written off last week (as in - small accident - insurance company giving him a little money instead of mending it). We had discussed him maybe buying the car in January, as they have a GIANT people carrier (from S's work) and he wanted something with less of a footprint for him too-ing and fro-ing to work. C and I chatted - and we think we'll be able to cope with just one car. She'll have to commute sometimes by bike (14 miles) and we'll have to do complex swaps when I need it for work and she needs it to get to niights etc, but we'll have NO car in Oz - so good practice.

Every so often I just think - Orange doesn't live here any more. I've had it for 7 years (practically almost) - having bought it new in the first week of one of the first 5 Smart car garages opening in the UK. it is left hand drive,a s at that time there were no factory-made right hand drives. This was great for getting out straight onto the pavement on busy roads when visiting patients.

Oh well, sniff, at least Orange is still in the family!

Garden sculpture and a mystery contimues.

Friends have given us a sculpture for our garden - belated, for our birthdays (March and April, since you ask!). They came round in overalls and made us not look out the back window till they had placed all the parts. Lovely!
Anyway, I felt this - along with the hand-hewn bench, made by one of the same friends - made a great MS3 backdrop/vehicle.

Agree?

I think this unblocked pic really looks like a snake. It'll be totally different when I block it with my lovely new dressing wires from Heirloom Knitting (who couldn't have been faster or more helpful, by the way). I'm still loving it, and zipping along. Have checked out the local bead shop for seed beads for if I repeat MS3, too.

p.s. Word is that Getknitted will have stuff from Knitpicks imminently.

p.p.s. Melanie is getting more and more mysterious about clue five - not due out till next Friday.

p.p.s. Did I say I won a reduction on some yarn from Jen of Fybrespates? I chose the chocolate toffee in laceweight silk, and I think if Anne's Bee Fields rectangular stole is as successful as her triangular shawl of the same name, I might well use if for that. it is rather like a dark honey!

Mysteriouser and mysteriouser (to misquote the Cheshire cat)...

Clue 3 - finished it on Saturday or Sunday, surprisingly quickly, anyway! i'm very much enjoying this knit, finding it pretty straightforward so far. of course, I have the advantage of the Addi lace needles (3.5mm) and good yarn that's is a smidge thicker than the zephyr peoplpe seem so keen on.This will certainly be a more rural - not silk-shiney- version of Melanie's stole.

I found I couldn't wait till Friday for my next lace fix, so cast on the Swallowtail shawl from IK - 2006? in the other colour of Jaeger lace (discontinued) that I have. This is the yarn I used for the Amy Singer NSFY Tuscany shawl.

More Mystery stole

Well, I managed to finish clue 2 at lunchtime today, so only an hour or so after the third clue was posted. I'm really enjoying it, and not finding it too hard so far - someone's idea of writing the number of plain knit stitches in each batch of them in the right-most square of said batch is working very well for me - keeps me on target, and aware if I'm not as it doesn't all fit. Here's a couple of details - is that a stagbeetle to the left? And the start of honeycomb underneath - with a writhing edging?

My first ball of this Ultra by Jamieson's (about 188yds, I think, in 25g) has lasted j-u-s-t past the end of Clue two - should help me know later on if my 5 balls will mean a full length shawl or a shorter one!

More Sally Bowles...

So I went to my cousin Daniel's lovely wedding on Saturday, and wore my hat.

As expected it was a stylish do (the bride wore a halter-necked red dress, with LOTS of petticoats, and had red roses in her hair; the adult bridesmaid wore black with red petticoats and the 2 younger ones black with white spots! Daniel looked good, too). The ceremony was in a beautiful Council chamber in London.

Anyway, my bowler was much admired, and people were very surprised that i had knocked it up myself. It was comfortable to wear too, despite being filled with bubble wrap in order to keep it's shape! Folded up in my handbag nicely for the train home. BTW, I sewed narrow ribbon in around the brim with a sideways backstitch every 2cm or so, so as to have something for my hairgrips to grip, and this worked well, though it was a two person job in the loos of a bar nearby the town hall!

Tour de France...

This is BIG in our household - Clare's a mad cyclist, competing in 100mile cyclosportives around the UK (most recent: Devin - in diabolical rain) as well as 10 mile trials locally. So I was intrigued when I found there is a Tour de France KAL. Here's an amusing video of the Aussie contender in the dodgy shorts competition (aka the real T de F).

***ETA: JoVE has commented about the Tour de Fleece which she came across on Knitterguy Ted's blog - it looks like a great spinning challenge (for those of you who already partake of such things - I haven't *yet*).***

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnUqjEdfBC0 (might come up on a separate posting)

I don't think I'll join, but watch from the sideline - I am planning to do the Mystery Stole 3 from Pinklemontwist's Melanie. There have been 2 previous shawls, Leda's Dream and Scheherazade - I gather Melanie picks a theme and designs to that. So far the clues are that it would be most appropriately knit in black or white, and NOT an appropriate wedding stole. Intriguing!

I've ordered Shaela, a charcoaly grey in Ultra Shetland/lambswool yarn from Jamieson's,
which I hope will work with either my 3.5mm or 3.25mm Addi lace needles. Can't wait to get the yarn and start! I don't think I'm going to use beads, as I usually find they irritate me in a finished garment.

Sign-ups finish on Friday 6th July.

Sally Bowles

I decided I wanted to try to make a mini bowler hat to wear to my cousin's wedding (at a rakish angle!)

Here it is drying with bubble-wrap in the brim. And here's how I bodged it!

I started with Emily Ocker's cast-on and EZ's instructions for the start of her Pi shawl from the Almanac book. When I felt I'd done enough flat, I reduced slightly (one in every 9 stitches) and then continued to knit down the sides. Then I did a series of increases over several rows, with some plain rows inbetween - 1 in 3, one in 4, 1 in 5 stitches increased etc. (Probably overdid this! Hence the slight gathering in the base of the brim). I did several (/3 - ?4) rows plain, then started to do decreases in a similar way to the increases before. Once more, probably over-decreased. I tried to hand felt - not enough, looked like a beret for a Sacha doll!Washed in our front-loader on 90*C with some old trousers - and viola! I trimmed off the cast off )too tight). I'll try to get a pic of me wearing it (if it is stiff enough to work - that's my worry!)