Pattern: Shedir - Knitty Fall 2004 Surprise, modified to fit a baby.
Yarn: Rowan Calmer in shade 460
Needles: 3.25mm Addi Natura circ and Addi Bamboo DPNs

It has to be said - this pattern is awesome. I may have a worrying tendency to knit the same thing again and again, but 5 times is pushing the limits even for me - this pattern is worth it! It also has to be said that I would rather knit it on a circular than DPNs any day. Circular needles are my friend, next time I break one and decide it doesn’t need replacing can somebody please thump me? And while I am getting excited about patterns and needles - I think I am in love with Rowan Calmer, well certainly for baby hats. I was worried the white was a bit too nothing and yet this is my favourite Shedir so far! Could I be more chipper today?

The next mini flower hat is well underway and I am fabric shopping for quilt backings today…

Nothing like three simple baby hats to make a girl feel productive! So that was supposed to be it, all my gift/baby knitting done… two quilts to go. But it’s never that simple is it? I realised a) that I had forgotten somebody and b) that I could not possibly part with either the pink baby Shedir or the mini flower hat. I confess I am finding it hard to come to terms with giving away baby knitting at the moment - but there are so many long awaited babies arriving that it has to be done! Thus two more hats got added to the list. I rushed out yesterday afternoon and bought another ball of Rowan Calmer - here comes another baby Shedir and then another mini flower hat. And then the gift knitting really is done!

Pattern: Shedir - Knitty Fall 2004 Surprise, modified to fit a baby.
Yarn: Rowan Calmer in Powder Puff
Needles: 3.25 Addi Bamboo DPNs

I have been working on this for a while now, but with the amount I have been sleeping progress has been slow. Who would have thought a grow adult might win a “who needs more sleep” competition with a 4yr old? But last night a friend had some exciting news and despite trying to go to bed before Isabelle I was thinking too fast to sleep.

The question now is what to do with the not quite half a ball I have left. According to my scales I have 24g left from the 52g ball, clearly my scales lack a certain accuracy as I am sure Rowan don’t make a habit of giving away yarn. But still I think it is safe to assume that I have just less than 50% of a ball remaining. Given that more babies need hats, do I try to drop a few more rows from the pattern so that I have enough yarn to make another Shedir? Or should I try something different? A top down hat would gaurantee I don’t run out of yarn, a slightly smaller hat would probably not be a bad idea (from both newborn head and yarn perspectives) and a change would be nice. But I haven’t seen any patterns that grab me… I don’t want it to be too plain, but something a little simpler might not be a bad idea given the sleeping issue mentioned above. I seem to be running out of time.

Pattern: Shedir - Knitty Fall 2004 Surprise, modified to fit a newborn.
Yarn: Rowan Calmer in Khaki
Needles: 3.25 Addi Bamboo DPNs

It worked! If I didn’t have a raging cold I would be doing a happy dance right now. I cannot believe how cute this baby Shedir is - if only I had a baby handy to model it (I am running into this problem a lot lately). I tried it on Baby Born, but as you can see it swallowed her head whole.

If I recall correctly real babies have much larger noggins.

This was a really easy modification. I used six rows of ribbing instead of nine, only six pattern repeats in each row instead of eight, three repeats of the main cable pattern instead of five and then dropped all the knit straight rows between decrease rows once the cables were done. My scale is only accurate to 2 grams and keeps flicking between 24 and 26 grams, I am hoping that makes it exactly 25 grams and that I might get two out one ball - because I need to make more.

Pattern: Shedir - Knitty Fall 2004 Surprise
Yarn: Rowan Calmer in Khaki
Needles: 3.25 Addi Natura circular and 3.25 Addi Bamboo DPNs

Shedir #2 is all done, and check this out: leftovers.

My first Shedir sat on the shelf for a couple of months while I searched the world for a second ball in the same dye lot to knit the last 20 or 30 rows. This one I squeezed out of one ball. Consistent tension? Evidently not me.

I spent most of the time I was knitting this Shedir wondering whether I could make a baby sized one by dropping two of the pattern repeats in a row to make the hat 6 segments instead of eight and also dropping one or two of the main cable pattern repeats. What do you think? It would be so soft and comfy for a baby to wear and so cute, don’t you think?

My baby knitting has stalled again. This time the interruption comes not in the form of my own health problems, but someone else’s. A dear relative who had surgery for one cancer last year has now been diagnosed with another. She faces eight months of aggressive treatment and a great deal of uncertainty, so those balls of calmer I was hoping not to need have made it out of the stash and onto my needles.

I had a wonderful time last year knitting Shedir from the Knitty Fall 2004 Surprise. I still love this pattern but some how it is harder to have fun with it when I am so heartbroken to need to be knitting it right now.

No, not the kind where you are compelled to cast on 5 new projects at once. I am talking about the sort of startitis I get all the time. The inability to start at all. Last weekend we unpacked the last of our boxes, this house is set up and it’s lovely, the nicest place we have lived in a long time. I am feeling (colds aside) relatively healthy. Life really is getting back to normal. But still there was no knitting. Eventually I had to face the fact that I have trouble getting started on things. I am pretty good at maintaining my momentum, due mostly to a need for closure that borders on the obsessive. If only I were so committed to getting started. I have a terrible habit of just not making a start on things, especially when the task is difficult, annoying or boring. If you were interested in book keeping (I am not) you would find a definite pattern to my book keeping practices…

Eventually I realised that I needed to be knitting again and that it was never going to happen if I kept waiting for the urge to knit that bloody sock. It’s very pretty, I am pleased with the outcome so far, but the Spearfish pattern hovers somewhere between boring, annoying and difficult. Although I usually find stitch patterns easy to remember, I have to consult this pattern constantly and yet keep making really stupid mistakes, which is driving me nuts. Other than that I can’t quite pin down why I am not enjoying knitting these socks, but mentally it’s been hard work to keep at it (or it was before I stopped and failed to start again). Finally it struck me that the Spearfish socks were not my only UFO and that I could work on Shedir - which is my idea of knitting bliss. Less than a day later and what have we:

Pattern: Shedir - Knitty Fall 2004 Surprise
Yarn: Rowan Calmer in Khaki
Needles: 3.25 Addi Natura circular and 3.25 Addi Bamboo DPNs

This hat was just so much fun to knit, beautiful yarn, wonderful cables. As I said, my idea of knitting bliss. I may have to make another one, though it may have to wait a little while. I am thinking of casting on the DB Jacket with Moss Stitch Bands next, hopefully gaining enough momentum along the way to return to the dreaded Spearfish socks when I am done.

Thankyou all for your kindness, it has meant so much to me, really. I am sorry I have been silent for so long but there just hasn’t been much to say, well not about knitting anyway. I did knit three rows 9 days ago - hows that for scintillating knit blogging?

What I have been doing is recovering from the IVF, unpacking, enduring a little food poisoning, unpacking, trying to find a school for Isabelle (so that I can find a preshool), unpacking, fighting off some sort of nasty cold or flu, unpacking. You get the picture. Oh and having more blood tests, because you can never have too many blood draws you know. There is something about seeing new doctors that makes me drivel on like a lunatic, all the while trying (and failing) to at least be humorous since I can’t seem to keep my mouth shut. It takes hours to recover from these little episodes. And this was just a garden variety family doctor that I will most likely never see again. Anyway not much time for knitting. But as the house begins to resemble a home I have begun to ponder when I might resume knitting and I am yet to come to a precise answer.

There have been goodies in the post this week, I am hoping they will provide some sort of inspiration or temptation. I am determined to finish the Spearfish socks but to be honest they aren’t much fun, which is probably delaying my return to the needles. But just look at these irresistible goodies, I will have to finish my socks so I can play with the pretties! In the order that they appeared in my mail box.

Markers from Jenifer, sent as part of the stitch marker swap, aren’t the gorgeous? Just what I need right now.

More Khaki Calmer in the right dyelot! I had to email every single internet distributor listed on the Rowan website to find it so I cannot tell you how happy I am! Sadly while I have been waiting for the yarn to finish Shedir a family member has been diagnosed with breast cancer and is currently waiting to find out if she will be needing chemo or not. This hat was meant for someone else but I will now be sending it to her and wishing that I wasn’t. Not because I wouldn’t love to make her hat, I just wish it weren’t this hat, for this reason.

Koigu! Alison, who mentored me through my first real knitting project has yet again reached out from so far away to enable my knitting.

And finally does anybody know if there is some rule spammers have about spamming you more the less you post? I have been receiving an INSANE amount of spam the last week and I seem to recall a similar pattern in the past. Do the think that if we aren’t posting we aren’t moderating? Ugh.

We got the house we applied for, we will be moving in about a week and a half - which should keep me nicely distracted through the waiting phase of the IVF, should we be so lucky as to make it that far. I also emailed every Rowan distributor listed on their website (apart from the UK folks I contacted last time) and The Knitting Garden has the right dye lot, so Shedir may yet be finished as planned.

Do you think they will let me knit my sock while I am waiting around in my hospital gown for my procedure tomorrow? I think I may be really wanting my sock right about then.

I cast on my sock, it’s making me happy. I found a tip somewhere to cast all the stitches onto two needles held together and then slide the needles apart so you have half the stitches on each needle and then redistribute onto the extra needle/s from there. This worked really well and I am kicking myself that I forgot to book mark the page, it had lots of other sock knitting tips which may have turned out to be equally useful.

I spoke to Wendy at Jo Sharp’s studio, apparently my swatches are now en route to the mill with a request for an explanation. It doesn’t look like my yarn problem will be resolved any time soon. My Rogue is, I think, dead in the water. Perhaps it will be my first sweater next autumn, I guess it will depend on the effectiveness of the IVF and the timing of a successful transfer. I feel kind of sad and edgy about the whole thing, like I have forgotten to do something important and it’s about to bite me on the ass (I am talking about Rogue here, not IVF, or am I?).

Oh and my Shedir is in trouble too. The shop that said they had the right dye lot actually don’t have it after all, apparently some sort of discrepancy between their inventory and what was actually on their shelves. They say they are trying to track it down for me but I feel some frogging coming on…