Planning

I was planning on showing you my latest finished socks yesterday. I was planning to give them a quick wash and block and then getting some photos in the sunshine. I was planning on casting on a new pair with some stash yarn I'd chosen. I was planning on having a productive morning and relaxing in the afternoon.

I wasn't planning on finding my skein of yarn looking like this



I wasn't planning on spending 6 hours untangling it



I forgot to plan for this little scamp



He's not really sorry. He probably thought he was being helpful



6 hours of my life wasted thanks to this monkey!

*sigh*



Instead today I thought I'd show you how my smarties socks are looking. You can see the pattern now with the yarn overs and decreases each time the colours change. I'm enjoying them, nice and simple to work on



I've been a lucky girl this morning. Mr Soaring Sheep ordered me a skein of sock yarn for Mother's day. Unfortunately somewhere along the route to me it got lost in the post. He chose me a second yarn and it arrived today. It's very pretty, I'm looking forward to seeing how the coloured sections knit up with the white. It's from Devon Sun Yarns and is the "Berry Splash" colourway



The little lavender sachet it came with has made the room smell lovely. I'm going to stick it in my yarn box :)


So today I'm planning on weaving in the ends on my socks and blocking them to show you soon. I'm planning on casting on a new pair of socks with my untangled yarn. I'm planning on having some chill out time while the children play.

But first, I think I need to plan on taking Pippin out for a walk to burn off some energy ;-)

Stalling

I'm finding it tricky juggling things at the moment. The running three times a week is tiring me out, as is the dog walking, puppy classes, driving lessons and tennis lessons. Hopefully the driving lessons will be finished in a couple of months and the running is training for a 5k in a month's time. I'm missing having a bit of time during the day to sit down and knit and catch up with the blogging world. Hopefully things will balance out a bit better soon.



I've not worked on my daughter's cardigan much recently. Bit silly really as all I need to do is two increases at the sides and then just carry on in pattern. The hard part was earlier on while doing the shaping and measuring. Following cable charts is a bit taxing right now lol



I've finished one of my Blueberry Waffle socks and have this second one cast on and ready to go. I'm enjoying working on these. The pattern is relaxing but interesting and the yarn colours are my favourites.


However I've also done one of the classic things a time-frustrated knitter does and that is to cast on more projects. Two in my case, more socks. Because if you're finding it hard to keep working on two projects, why not double the amount? That will work right?



These ones will eventually be for Mr Soaring Sheep. I'm thinking Father's day in June is a nice manageable deadline. And failing that there's his birthday in September lol. He just wants some plain vanilla ones which suits me fine. I've got a second skein of this yarn for me so I'm looking forward to seeing how it knits up and to hopefully inspire me into deciding which pattern I want to make my socks in.



I've also cast on some socks using the self striping yarn I got from Fab Funky Fibres. The pattern is very simple, every time I start a new colour stripe I do a row of yarn over/k2tog. It's from this free pattern if you want to see what it looks like. I thought it made things a bit more interesting to knit without being too taxing for my brain lol.


The children finish school on Thursday for their Easter holidays. Hopefully we'll get some nice weather to go for walks and maybe have a play around at the allotment. We went down a couple of weekends ago and got some onion sets in and have lots of seed packets for things we want to try to grow. Hopefully this year we'll have more time to put into it with Mr Soaring Sheep no longer working away all week. The puppy thinks it's a great place to visit. I do wonder what our plot neighbours thought of the muddy paw prints over their white fleece ground covering :-p

FO - Hermione's Everyday Socks

Ooof there's been so much rain in the UK over the past few days. I went out for my run yesterday and was literally wading through streams instead of the road I usually attempt to run on. I was soaked to the skin, my trainers were wet through. It was grim :-S



However, I now have another pair of colourful socks to keep my feet cosy so whilst I'd love the weather to warm up and the rain to reduce, at least I'll get lots of use out of my socks lol. I like these ones a lot more after a quick block, the texture of the stitch pattern looks neater. I'm looking forward to getting them on my feet :)



I used the Hermione's Everyday Socks pattern to make these but used the Fish Lips Kiss heel as I like the fit of it on my feet. The yarn is from Flamboyance yarns who are no longer trading and the colourway is called Firebird. The pattern is very easy to remember and makes a change from plain stockinette socks. Definitely one I'd use again.



I'm still working on my Blueberry Waffle socks. Another straight forward pattern and it's working nicely with the yarn. I'm hoping to get the heel done today although my knitting has slowed a bit after I took a slice out of my finger with a bread knife. It doesn't hurt weirdly enough but it's right where I have a tendancy to push the needle tip so I'm having to take a bit more care over what I'm doing. This is my first day in over a week where I don't have anything on so I'm going to enjoy chilling out with Pippin.

Linking up a bit late with Keep Calm Craft On and Yarnalong

Monday's Makings

It was Mother's day yesterday in the UK. Bit of a cold day so we spent it mostly inside. I decided I wanted to get a new project cast on. I had a big ball of Hayfield Bonus Aran (400g!) that I wanted to make into something for my eldest daughter. I had a browse through ravelry on Friday and came up with a list of patterns that would suit the yarn and that I fancied knitting. The first few I showed her she wasn't too enthusiastic about but when I showed her Casual Wednesday her eyes lit up and she immediately squealed she loved this one.



The construction requires a little bit of concentration, you do a provisional cast on (I used Judy's Magic cast on with a spare circular needle) and then knit down the back. Then you cut the yarn and using the provisional cast on you knit down the front sides and then eventually they'll all join up to make the cardigan shape. It's not a hard pattern particularly and like Elena's other patterns it's well explained with lots of detail, it's just one that you need to keep track of what you're doing rather than zoning out. Because then you cross the cables the wrong way and have to drop the stitches and rework them with a crochet hook ;-)


Much as I'm enjoying knitting something other than socks, I'm enjoying having projects that are a bit more mindless. I've added a few more squares to my sock yarn blanket although I'm trying not to do too much more until I've generated some more yarn scraps. I'm trying to resist buying mini skeins because I think that could be a dangerous black hole for me to fall into lol.



Today I've decided I'm going to concentrate on finishing off this pair of socks. I've got about 8 rows of the pattern and then the ribbing so it shouldn't take me too long. Depends how much time I spend procrastinating...



Firstly though I need to take this young pup for a walk. He'll be 6 months old on Saturday and is growing into such a handsome chap. At the moment we're trying to work on his barking, he sounds terrifying if he's on the lead and there's a dog coming towards him but if they're off lead playing around he is a silly, soppy boy who falls on his back at every opportunity. His breed is used as livestock guardians so they've been bred to alert if there is a possible threat. He just needs to learn what a threat really is




Apparently wood pigeons are ever so dangerous ;-)


Have a good week everyone!

February Yardages

Lately I'm finding myself wanting to knit something for me to wear, other than socks! I'm not quite sure yet what that will be though, despite having made a list of goals in January. I'm also feeling a bit guilty about my recent sock yarn splurges so don't want to add a sweater quantity of yarn to the stash as well!



I've had quite a productive month knitting-wise. I've finished some Stripy Rainbow socks, some Bandwagon socks and a pair of fingerless mitts using the Coast to Coast pattern.

I did add two more skeins of yummy Countess Ablaze sock yarn, but I can't feel bad about that lol.



My yardage totals for February are:

Yarn In: 874 yards
Yarn Out: 968 yards

So this month I've got a small loss of 94 yards. Doesn't quite balance out the 2075.7 yards gain from January though so my current stash status for the year is:

1981.7 yards GAIN




I guess I'd better get back to my sock knitting then!

Keep Calm Craft On