Thursday, July 29, 2010

Almost there!

As you know, I've been on a journey in the World of Cardigan.

I started off in Sleeveland:
Then the miles of Backville:
And the twin villages of East and West Frontdale:
Now I have to make my way through Seaming Heights. My least favourite part of this adventure. But to top it off, I'll take a quick jaunt to Collar Ridge.

I've quite enjoyed this journey actually. It hasn't taken me as long as I thought it might, thanks to the worsted weight yarn and simple stocking stitch pattern with minimal shaping! A lot of people get bored with stocking stitch but I'm loving it right now. It is exactly the sort of knitting I can manage!

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

So I took a de-Tour

I mentioned in my last post that I had signed up for the Tour de France KAL again - I am loving watching the race every day - so much controversy this year! Huge crashes, broken collarbones and arms, headbutting, tyre-throwing, bitchslapping (ok, I made that up, but it was close enough!), fabulous scenery and of course absolutely epic bike-riding. They are simply amazing, those competitors.

Me, not so much. I took a detour from my adventures in the World of Cardigan - having finished my journey through East Frontdale, I decided I deserved a little holiday in Hatland. I spent a week in Hatland, a long time I know for a simple stocking stitch hat knit in the round with aran/10ply yarn. I used popular modifications to the pattern which are designed to make the brim a bit more flare-y than the original pattern (and whoops, I just realised I didn't change needles for the brim - I should have used a size larger for the brim - no wonder this turned out to be an EPIC FAIL!)
So yeah, my holiday in Hatland wasn't so much fun.

The questions, dear reader, are:

1. Should I see if blocking makes a difference?
2. Should I frog back and redo entirely?
3. Should I frog and just make a different pattern already?
4. Should I wear it with the brim turned up at the front (it doesn't look too bad that way I think)?

Right now, the hat is in the naughty corner and I'm sulking. And I've returned to the World of Cardigan and am about a third of the way through West Frontdale. At least that is going well (touch wood...)

Friday, July 02, 2010

Keeping Track - June 2010 - and a KAL...

Another month has rolled around, can you believe it??

I was doing well this month, managing to fit in some knitting and not purchasing any yarn (I didn't even go to the Stitches and Craft Fair in Sydney this year, although I thought long and hard about it and tried to work out how best to manage it with the little guy and transport etc). But then I had to go and be virtuous and walk the 30 minute up-and-down-small-hills walk up to the next suburb on Tuesday this week (yes, the suburb with the yarn store), and since I was there, well, it would be a crime not to call in just to see what they've got.
And this yarn just fell into the pram. Well, it's red, the pram is red, it was meant to be. It helped that it was on sale too...

Luckily they only had 4 balls. And I've managed to knit 4.5 balls this month so I come out ahead, weeeeeeeeeeeee!

In: 4x50g balls
Out: 4.5x50g balls
YTD: +26.5x50g balls - or a monthly average of about 4.5 x 50g balls - not bad at all! Heh!

In completely unrelated KAL news, it's almost Tour de France time again - huzzah! I'm following Cadel Evans again, and have signed up as a Domestique on Team BMC for the TdF KAL on Rav - hopefully it will be 3rd time lucky for me following Cadel, and this year he'll have a win! I'm kind of sad that I'm not going for the yellow jersey, but I just can't commit to a big project in such a short period of time! But I might go for a little green jersey sprint with this hat...we'll see!