Autumn Walks and FO - Rainshine Shawl

Mr Soaring Sheep has managed to get my laptop fixed at work, it was an update that had broken the loading program but he was able to delete the update and now everything works the way it should. In fact it works better as it had been slow for a while before it eventually died. Huzzah :-)

It's half term here so I've got the four little monsters darlings at home for this week. Yesterday we decided to make the most of the sunshine and go for a walk round the nearby country park. I also took the opportunity to get some photos of my newly finished shawl.







I love this part of the walk to the country park. Church yards are such peaceful places and with the sun shining on the Autumn leaves it was beautiful to walk through.



Maybe not quite so peaceful when my brood are around :-S





My eldest boy asked to wear my shawl so I was able to get some photos of it being modelled :-)







The shy one (not) wanted to pose for some photos too. I took quite a few but this one really sums up her personality lol



Halfway round the circular route is a playground. Whilst the children burned off some energy I was able to get some more shawl photos







That cast off took me over 3 hours, I had to keep getting up to walk around and stretch my legs lol.







I really enjoyed this pattern, apart from the tedious cast off! I'm a little disappointed about the width of the shawl as I prefer them a tad bigger. I could possibly try blocking it out again to try to stretch some more width out of it or if I made it again I might make the stockinette section larger. The actual lace section was very straight-forward and well written like all Booknits patterns. I'm pleased with how it's come out though and I'm looking forward to wearing it this Winter :-)

Linking up with Keep Calm Craft On

Computer Woes

My laptop is being a pain at the moment and not updating so I can't get it to log on. This also means I can't load up pictures from my camera as I normally use the SD card slot as I've no idea where the cable alternative is! Mr Soaring Sheep is on the case, he's reinstalling Linux and then he's going to copy the important files across to an external hard drive and then wipe everything and start again. Bit of a pain.

Hopefully I'll be back in a few days with lots of photos to share with you. I've got 2 rows and a looooong cast off to go on my shawl so I'm hoping to get it finished, blocked and photographed by the end of the weekend :-)

Have a good week everyone

Evelyn

FO - Custom Fit Sweater

I'm really excited to share this FO with you today. It's my first attempt at making up my own sweater pattern. I started back in May with a swatch and after taking lots of measurements and following this guide and this cable pattern I ended up with this :-)



Working out where to start the cable was a bit tricky and I'm not entirely happy with it as I'd have liked something that grew out of the collar in a more organic way but that's just me being knitpicky.



The collar was the next challenge. Sleeves and the body of the sweater were fairly straight forward providing I kept an eye on the fit but the collar had me daunted for a while. In the end I was a bit sneaky and based it on the collar from the Abernathy Sweater which uses short rows to shape it so it sits nicely. I'm really rather pleased with this bit given how much it was worrying me. It naturally wants to sit in the right place, it doesn't pull on his neck and will keep him nice and cosy.







I've really enjoyed the challenge of making my own design. I've knitted quite a few raglan sweaters in my time so that part was fairly easy for me but the process of working out stitch counts and shaping took a bit more brain power. I definitely fancy doing it again although I expect my next sweater WIP will be designed by someone else so I can just enjoy the knitting lol.

Mr Soaring Sheep seems rather pleased with it too which is always the main thing!



Linking up with Ginny's Yarn Along and Nicole's Keep Calm Craft On

Shawl Update

I've been thoroughly enjoying knitting my Rainshine shawl. The first part of the lace section is very straight forward to knit but I'm itching to get to the beaded bits. I've done 3 repeats of chart A as suggested in the pattern and now it's chart B which has the beads and gorgeous border.



It's going to be beautiful when it's blocked out, I think Tussah silk works really well for lace knitting as you can block it surprisingly hard.



I've just made myself a cuppa so I'm going to get a couple of rows done before I have to get the children from school. I've had quite a productive morning, baking, ironing, cleaning, washing clothes and vacuuming so I'm going to enjoy an hour with my feet up before the chaos starts again lol.



My gladioli have opened up perfectly and are probably past their best now but they're so bright and cheerful I've left them. I wonder if I had a bad batch last time as they didn't open at all :-S You can see more of the mirror my Mum made us too. She's on instagram if you want a nosy at what she's up to. I'm on instagram too if anyone wants to say hi :-)

I'm going to leave you today with a video of the puppies enjoying their first explore outside aged 4 weeks. We won't know which one will be ours until after Halloween as the breeders are matching pups to families. It's a relief to be honest, I don't know how I would choose!

Wednesday WIP's

It's feeling quite Autumnal now, cooler days, darker evenings, the leaves turning red and gold. A good time to be a knitter I think. I feel like I'm actually making progress on my WIP's which makes me want to work on them all the more.



I turned the heel on my sock yesterday. I used the Fish Lips Kiss pattern again as it fits my foot well and is nice and straightfoward to knit. The sock is now back in it's project bag ready for days when I want something to knit but haven't got a lot of concentration.

If I want to concentrate on something then I've got my lace shawl. As you can see it's grown quite a bit since I first showed it to you on Monday. I'm ready to start the lace section now. I need to do at least 3 repeats of chart A and then I can move on to chart B which is the beaded border section. The pattern is Rainshine



My crochet blanket is also growing steadily. The pattern and colours combination makes me think of Hundreds and Thousands for some reason :-) I'm enjoying working a few random stripes at a time and watching the pattern develop


Yarn Along
Keep Calm Craft On

A New Project

I've finally finished Mr Soaring Sheep's sweater. It's washed, blocked and dried ready for him to model for photos at some point. I can't wait to show you, I'm so pleased with it.

As a reward for getting it finished I decided to cast on some lace yarn that's been sat in a project bag, wound in a ball for aaaaaaages. I bought the yarn over 3 years ago with the specific intention of making this pattern so I'm excited to finally get it on the needles



It's hard to tell but the yarn is a lovely warm grey colour with a hint of pink to it. It's by Dye for Yarn and is tussah silk in a one of a kind colourway called "Forgotten Dream of a Rose". I love this shop's colourways, so vibrant. The names are pretty cool too lol



To bring out the pink of the yarn I'm using these pink beads with silver lining. I'm going for a more subtle yarn/bead combination this time, hoping for something elegant.

The pattern is one of Boo Knits designs called Rainshine. I haven't decided if I'll do the long drops on the edging or not yet, will see how I feel when I get there I guess



I've acquired another bunch of gladioli but these ones don't seem to be opening as quickly. I've treated them the same way as the previous bunches, cutting a bit off the stems on a diagonal angle, fresh water with the sachet of plant food mixed in, same place in lounge etc. Does anyone have any tips? I've added lemonade or sugar to water in the past to make flowers open so I might give that a try later :-S

Anyway, I'm going to enjoy a bit of shawl knitting. I'm eager to get to the lace and beads part. Have a good week everyone