This is Carpathian Black Roses from Norsk Strikkedesign. I ordered a kit for it from Pinnsvin Design in Norway last weekend and it arrived last Thursday. Very speedy postage! And a snip at £35 including air mail shipping. I saw it on an American site for $140!

It's knit on teeny 2.5mm needles but I haven't done a gauge swatch yet - I'm hoping that gauge might need 3mm needles. It's only a difference of .5mm but somehow I can stomach knitting a steeked cardi on 3mm rather than 2.5mm.

I have a bad case of RSI in my right hand at the moment - too much clicking on the net I think - so tales of my first K&C Guild meeting, new issue of Vogue Knitting, Rowan magazine, cat print pajama progress and my new sock project (I just couldn't keep away from another sock!) will have to wait.


posted by Marie Irshad at 11:08 AM

Hmmm no sooner had I joined the Knitting Kitty webring than Pushkin came in with an unfortunate mouse. Thankfully he ran back into the garden with it. I can't deal with the squeamish side of cats, well I can if I have to but I prefer them to be dealt with by Andy instead!

Finished the purple linen skirt last night and wore it to work today. I wish I'd have cut it on the bias but I was too impatient. Garments cut on the bias have to
hung overnight because the hems "grow".

I was planning to do some more sewing tonight on the cat print pajamas but I've been distracted by the computer instead! I may try and do a little overcasting of raw edges now before it gets too late.

Knitting - I really want to cast on for another sock. I have some wonderful opal that keeps calling to me whenever I go into the craft room. My favorite purples with some green and black. I also have some fab yarn that Shobhana gave me for my birthday that would look great as socks or mittens or gloves or all three! Also have a nice fair isle silk mitten kit from Sweaterkits. Am now near the armhole increases for the India top. I'm planning on taking the Sherlock cardi to the guild meeting on Saturday.
posted by Marie Irshad at 2:15 PM

I'm very pleased to say that my overlocker is now working! I rang up Cliffords in Swansea and they suggested that there might be a problem with the automatic power cutoff. Basically the power cuts off everytime you open the front of the overlocker to thread it etc. There is a little plastic toggle to switch the power off and on automatically as you open and close the front. However the toggle must have shifted after the machine was made so I unscrewed the toggle - obviously with the overlocker unplugged from the mains - put it back into position and screwed it back down and now the overlocker works! Whew!

I've already made a skirt from some purple linen. The properly overlocked hems etc. look a lot better than the overlock stitch on my regular machine and take less time too.

Some more good news in that my Birkenstocks arrived from Germany today. They will take a while to get used to, apparently about four weeks, but I'm glad that I choose the regular fitting. My feet are more than happy to spread out. The ridges in the sole of the shoe feel very different. Another thing to get used to! They do look cool though!
posted by Marie Irshad at 1:20 PM

I finally got around to threading my Babylock Prestige Overlocker (serger) only to find that it will not sew. The light comes on, the threads aren't tangled and everything looks fine. I can turn the wheel manually and get stitches that look perfectly fine to me. However when I put my foot on the pedal it will not go. Damn.

So anyway that's ruined my afternoon. I bought eight more meters of various coloured linen yesterday and was going to make either a shirt or skirt that I could wear tomorrow. But with the overlocker not working it's not going to be as fast as I'd thought it would be.

I can call Cliffords tomorrow to see if they can give me any advice over the phone but if they need to see it in person I won't be able to take it down until Saturday. And then if Andy doesn't mind getting up early and leaving his car checkup until the afternoon when I'll be at the KC Guild meeting.

Ah well maybe I'll do some work on my Cat print flannel pajamas instead.

Knitting - I'm about halfway through the back of the India ribbon top but am unsure about the way it looks. Some of the stitches are uneven and look a bit odd to my eye. Maybe I'm fussing about nothing, perhaps this is just what happens when you knit with ribbon yarns.
posted by Marie Irshad at 10:06 AM

Today the weather was a little cooler but it was still too uncomfortable to knit the Sherlock cardi. So I've switched to knitting with the India ribbon I bought in Berlin. I'm making this top. It's worked in a drop stitch so it's knitting up quite quickly which I like. Of course the ribbon is still twisting on itself which is not good.

The other day I received the schedule for the Knitting and Crochet Guild's Glamorgan and Gwent group. I didn't even know that there was a local group. Well the members seem to be quite spread out but they do meet once a month at each other's homes. I spent a wonderful hour chatting to Michele the group coordinator. I can't tell you how good it was to talk to someone who lives in my home town and also knits! Plus Michele is a Colinette fan too. And I love talking about Colinette. I'll be going to the next meeting which is a week Saturday and I'll let you know how I got along.

Birkenstocks - Well I found some shoe guides for Birkenstock on the net and printed them out. I think I will fit a regular - sometimes my feet feel as though they could do with a little more width in shoes. So I ordered two pairs - one are clogs and one two strap sandals - from eBay on the weekend. The clogs are size 36 as I have to take a size smaller in the classics and the sandals are waterproof Birkis so they're in a size 37. They've just been shipped from Germany so hopefully will arrive soon. I've read that it takes a few weeks to get used to them so we'll see how I do.

Something that has arrived is my Amazon book order. I haven't much of a chance to flip through them but I have seen a few waistcoats in Folk Vests by Cheryl Oberle and some jackets in Jean Frost's book that I like.
posted by Marie Irshad at 3:55 PM

Too darn hot

I hate the heat, I've just felt so drained these last few days. Work is particularly difficult even with all the windows open and the overhead fans whizzing away. I haven't put the fan on the highest helicopter setting yet because it always looks as though it's dangerously close to taking off!

I got a little bit of work done on Sherlock at lunchtime. My colleagues are amazed that I knit in such heat. Only grim determination keeps me going! Just three inches until I reach the shoulder decreases. I've decided that I will try a three needle bind-off on the shoulders and try and pick up stitches at the armholes for the sleeves.

I must pick up a top down cardigan pattern sometime. Maybe I'll look for one when we make our annual pilgrimage to San Francisco in the autumn (fall).

When I got home from work I was pleased to find the winter issue of Family Circle Easy Knitting waiting for me. There's an interesting pattern for a tailored jacket style cardigan in Colinette Wigwam that might be worth trying. I've been meaning buy some Wigwam for ages and this might be a good excuse. Of course I also want to buy some Tagliatelli for the Winter 2002 (I think) Vogue Knitting Swing Coat. The swing coat would be a lot of knitting but would be very wearable.

I've ordered Jean Frost's Jackets book from Amazon as well as a collection of Norwegian fair isle patterns. Perhaps I've been reading Wendy too long but I'd really like to have a go at fair isle.

It's been so hot that the cats have been lazing around even more than usual. Even the energetic Pushkin was too pushed out to do anything more than lie on the kitchen floor.

Have a look at Claudia's blog for a picture of her blue cat Igor being especially obstructive!

Just made the mistake of looking at Colinette's site. They're doing textile workshops there now. There was one on felting last month that would have been really interesting. Ah well maybe they'll do another one. The biggest mistake of looking there is that I was reminded of how much I'd like some Giotto yarn even though I don't need it. Have to finish Sherlock quickly! I'm also suffering severe sock withdrawl! It's been a whole week since I last knit a sock! :-)
posted by Marie Irshad at 12:44 PM

Just a short entry today. Excuse the bad formatting but I'm emailing this
and Blogger's email posting is in beta testing.

This weekend was far too hot, too hot to move. I didn't feel like doing
anything so that was my sewing weekend out of the window! I did manage to
make some jewellery this afternoon though. A pair of dragonfly earrings
with matching pendant and a heart pendant with a silver scroll charm. I
used dichroic glass beads from Sara Creekmore http://www.sararuna.com that
I'd had for a while but just hadn't got around to making up.

Not much knitting done this weekend - just two rows or so on the Sherlock
cardi. It's beginning to feel like the never ending project!



posted by Marie Irshad at 4:18 PM

Well the knitting report was wasn't that bad in the end although the
introduction into it was a bit cringey and predictable.

Still progressing slowly on the Sherlock cardi. I'm hoping to get onto the
shoulder decreases by next week. Saturday I'll be taking a break from
knitting and trying to sort out the threading on my overlocker and perhaps
sew a linen shirt.

Wendy at www.wendyknits.net has unveiled her Birkenstock addiction in her
latest post. I'm kicking myself for forgetting to look for some when we
were in Berlin. I completely forgot although I did pick up a half price
pair of Ecco shoes. The one thing that I'm not sure of with Birkinstocks is
my exact size. I once tried on a size 4 (37) and found them to be too wide
but they can run a bit big so perhaps I need to look at a smaller size
and/or a narrower fitting.

I've found plenty of cheap sources online and have seen a wonderful pair on
eBay for about £22 but I'll have to try a pair at the local stockist first.
Shame that the auction for the ones I really like finish at 8pm tomorrow
night ie before I'd be able to try a pair in town. I could wait and see if
they get auctioned again but we'll see. :-)



posted by Marie Irshad at 4:31 PM

The Art Fibers cardi is coming along slowly but surely. It takes me about ten minutes to knit 200 stitches, I'm not very fast. The purling takes even longer. I've just started the third ball of yarn - the yarn is called Sherlock and is 75% Merino wool, 25% silk. I don't know the colour because it was on sale and the shade is unmarked. It must be a discontinued colour because it's not shown on the yarn page. It's an interesting mixture of purple, wine, red and greens and is being knit on 5.5mm needles. I can't wait until it's finished. Knitting the cardi in one large piece seemed like a great idea until I put it into practice! :-)

Geri Halliwell was in a few of the tabloids today, she's guesting in an episode of Sex and the City and is shown knitting in between takes. She's working on a garter stitch scarf. Of course this has started up the old "knitting is the new yoga" line that some members of the media like to trot out.

One of my colleagues had commissioned a reporter to make a package - long radio report with interviews and commentary from the reporter - about "Sexy Knitting" and asked me for suggestions of places and people the reporter could approach. He actually asked me if I knew of any young knitters and trendy wool shops! That made me laugh out loud because the UK is not the knitting mecca that the States is. I don't know any proud young knitters locally and if there's a trendy wool shop I haven't found it yet. I gave him some pointers and wish the reporter luck but I do fear that the report will be one of those that make fellow knitters sign with despair. Ah well, one day I will get to do a programme on knitting in Wales and I'll do it properly with no nasty stereotypes.
posted by Marie Irshad at 4:13 PM

Cast off the second Regia 5047 sock this evening. I've put off casting on a new pair of socks because I really need to finish off some projects. I tidied up my craft room a bit yesterday while looking for the cat fabric - which I found underneath a load of other stuff! - and discovered several knitting and sewing projects that I'd put to one side.

I'm now knitting the Art Fibers cardigan and it will look so beautiful once it's finished. The colours are just wonderful, I must take a photo of it when we have some good light and I'm home to appreciate it.

I've also got the Kureyon felted bag to finish and Kureyon Fuzzyfeet from a knitalong that I joined back in March I think. I keep meaning to order another pair of 7mm Addi Turbos so that I can knit the Fuzzyfeet on two circs. I already have them on two circs but they're terrible cheapie ones and the cable is just awful. It's very difficult to knit them on such poor needles.

While tidying yesterday I also found some eyelash yarns that I bought in Berlin for scarves. I've heard of people making these in a couple of hours but I'm just not fast enough. I'll wait until the felted projects are out of the way before I look at these. I've got plenty of time before it gets cold again anyway.
posted by Marie Irshad at 2:56 PM

Hello! I'm still here and have been busy with work, knitting, sewing and feeling better!

Andy and I celebrated out eleventh anniversary yesterday! I was 20 and he 27 when we met back in '92. But although that was eleven years ago it certainly doesn't feel that long. For his present I promised to finish a shirt that I've been working on since..well so long that I can't remember! I think he bought the fabric last year and asked if I'd make a shirt for him.

I've worked fairly solidly on it since Thursday night - would have worked on it on Wednesday but my mum and her partner Phil made a flying visit to Cardiff so we went out to dinner with them. A lot of late nights later it was finally finished in the early hours of this morning. We went out for a Japanese meal last night which was another factor in it taking so long! :-)

Now that that's finished I can work on things for myself again. I have a lot of linen fabric that is constantly calling to be made into shirts/skirts ect. for the summer. I'm planning on using Lois Ericson's On Top pattern in view C. I have heard that her patterns can run quite large so I'm going to use the pattern to make a pajama top first. I bought a wonderful cat print for pajamas in Stone Mountain and Daughter when we visited Berkeley last year. But can I find the fabric now when I can work on it? No of course I can't! It's hidden somewhere in my craft room! My fault for having too much stuff! :-)
posted by Marie Irshad at 10:00 AM