Pattern: It was featured on a this website, but is now gone.
Yarn: Rowan Big Wool in shade #06
Needles: Pony 12mm logs.

This scarf took about 4 hours to make and has blocked out quite nicely. It is nice and soft and will be very warm. Now I just have to start frequenting markets until I find a suitable pin to hold it in place, as it is a bit short for wrapping or tying (and would be both too hot and too bulky if it were longer).

If only my camera coped a little better with photographing this particular shade of red. Note to self buy new camera or less red yarn.

Today Jesse and I went to see my reproductive immunologist, not to discuss why I wasn’t getting pregnant, but how to stay pregnant. Pretty exciting stuff. Except for the part where it took all day. This guy’s practice is, shall we say, far from home and when we got there we discovered that I had the time wrong and we were two hours early. TWO HOURS. He then ran two hours late. That’s right people four hours waiting for the appointment*.

Just as well I had planned for a little waiting and fetched out my recently purchased logs and two balls of Rowan Big Wool to keep me company. I cast on in the car. I guess I got nearly one repeat done on the way. The first repeat took me a lot longer than the rest, partly because I was learning the pattern, but mostly because it just felt so weird to be flapping around 12mm straights after tiny little 2.25mm DPNs!

Not long after we had moved from the doctor’s reception area to the hosptial’s cafeteria** I realised I better document my progress.

Little did I know how glad I would be that I packed both balls of yarn, because what you see below was the end of the first ball and we were only half way through the wait.

I cast off about 20 mins before the good (great) doctor called us in and had to resort to reading very bad magazines. Which was stupid because I had this in my bag but my mind was so fried by then I had forgotten.

All it needs now is a little blocking and a really nice pin. And perhaps I might weave those ends…

* He was worth the wait, seriously worth the wait.
** So that Jesse could spread his gear out and get on line, yes, we are a sorry pair of geeks that can’t leave home without a laptop and a mobile broadband connection.

Pattern: Lacy Scarf Pattern
Yarn: Eki Riva “Sport” in a pale green (colour “1182″)
Needles: 7mm Addi Turbos

I finished the green scarf off by adding some beads while we were in the mountains. I am not completely happy with these particular beads, but they were the best I could do after a very long time spent in two different bead stores. I thought about taking them off, but in the end I decided that I like the scarf more with them than without.

This scarf turned out to be a great project to concentrate on improving my purl style and I cannot tell you how glad I am to have done this before starting the Debbie Bliss Cabled Jacket. I really think cabling combined style would have driven me quite mad and I am now as comfortable purling in my new way as I was with the combined purl.

After my last post on my purling problems I spent the night experimenting with different ways of improving my purl stitch . Eventually I found that if I held my fingers just so I could purl continental style but still pick the yarn in a way similar to combined style (but in the other direction) rather than having to use a second finger to wrap the yarn manually around the needle.

The next morning Kelly left a comment with this link to a wonderful site, which has videos of a whole variety of purling methods. I had always thought that the Norweigian purl was the same as the combined purl, how wrong I was. I gave it a go and found that I quite liked it, but my tension was looser than anything else yet so I decided to stick with the style I had devised the night before. As it turned out there was also a link to a video of my new style, which apprently may have been the way that EZ purled, so much for my clever new way of purling. Whatever the case I think this new style will continue to improve and as I said earlier, I am very pleased to have sorted it out before starting the cables of the Debbie Bliss jacket. The ribbing also looks better than my combined style ribbing.

This morning we all left the house early and we left together. This is a pretty rare occurrence in this house, the only precedent is the daily family outing to the fertility clinic we were doing last month. Today’s outing was much more fun that that! We drove all the way out to Penrith to pick up one of these and this:

I am so excited it’s just silly. Along the way I all but finished the green scarf, this is what I have left to knit:

So tonight I will knit two more rows, cast off the scarf and then immediately cast on for the Debbie Bliss Cabled Jacket. What no swatch? Nope, no swatch, despite using different yarn. This jacket is one size fits all (most?) and I fall exactly in the middle of the size range, which gives me about twelve and a half inches of ease. I am actually hoping that it comes out a bit small (just a tiny bit).

Who would have thought it, actual knitting content. I picked up my needles the other night and it seems I can still remember how to knit.

A green scarf… I have three balls of luscious Eki Riva Sport and this pattern is a lot of fun, I think this one will be growing rather quickly. Though I have to say the purl side is driving me mad. It’s weird, purling is troubling me more now than it ever has before. I am guessing that my knitting has improved dramatically, my purl not at all, and there is now enough disparity to drive me nuts. Purling combined style is wonderfully fast and gives me lovely even tension - but odd selvages. I have been trying various other methods and I am so painfully slow at purling continental style that I actually tried to teach myself English purling. I simply could not figure out how to purl with the yarn wrapped around the fingers of my left hand, I ended up finishing the row by just dropping the yarn between stitches. This method was faster and looked better than when I had tried holding the yarn properly but it just felt so wrong. Purling problems, ugh. If you have any wisdom to offer here, please share it!

It only lasted for 5 minutes, but it did happen and it happened when the camera was handy! Once the poncho was on she then wanted the scarf which was just too cute not to include…

Mmmmmm Alpaca….So happy was I with my first Eki Riva scarf that I just had to buy more… I plan to make this and this. Many thanks to Wendy for maintaining her list of free lace patterns!

Actually I have already started on the brown one. Oh ,but this yarn is lovely. Never the less I think it will have to wait until the vest is done and I think I will probably rip it out and start again with more stitches.

Yesterday I realised that I was kidding myself (yet again) and that I really wasn’t pregnant at all (yet again) AND we got turned down for a great house that we had applied for. Blech. But amidst the misery that has been this week there have been some happy knitting discoveries. On Tuesday, after hearing that my local newsagent gets the occasional copy of Interweave, I stopped in (without much hope given how the week was going) and lo and behold there was a copy of the Spring ‘05 Interweave! I snapped it up as I love the ballet wrap on the cover and the bear claw blankie (have I mentioned that I have a thing for blankets?). Following on from this unexpected success, yesterday I tried another nearby newsagent that I NEVER go into and found the Christmas ‘04 Marie Claire Idee. I was so excited I gasped out loud and got myself some very strange looks. I have to say that there isn’t that much in the Marie Claire that does it for me, but I bought if for the scarf pattern I feel in love with last year when Froggy first posted about it - back with the mag was actually seasonal.

Pattern: er, pattern? what pattern?
Yarn: Eki Riva “Natal” in colour 1837
Needles: 4.5mm Addi Turbos

Not only does Isabelle like the scarf, she agreed to have her photo taken wearing it! There were actually enough good shots that I had a choice, a choice! Sadly the best shot was lost when the camera unexpectedly ran out of batteries while trying to save it but this will do. Check out the egg on her head, she fell off the couch this morning. That’s right, she gives other mothers the horrors with the things I let her do in the playground and then gets her worst egg ever falling off the couch while watching David Attenborough!

The good news: Isabelle’s scarf is done and I like it! Even better news, so does she!

The bad news: It’s upside down.

Tonight I will remove that heart and reapply it the right way up. Stay tuned, I may even get a photo of Isbaelle wearing this one.

Not many of you seemed that keen on trading cotton yarn for the stitch markers, so I have ditched that idea. However, I am still producing way more markers than I need so if you were interested (or you are interested) and you see a set you like please let me know and we can sort something out. I would love to see my markers actually used and enjoyed (and an excuse to make more). I may get really organised and make a page to display all the markers currently looking for a home, we shall see.