Saturday. And you know what that means?

Sky, blue, beautiful, hot. Well, it was hot, then the wind picked up and cooled it down again.
It also means that the school holidays are half over. Yay! I love my kid, really, I do, but she drives me insane. And it’s a mutual feeling.
She had her first date this week. Yes, all the dramas are coming to a head. The boy she has had a crush on has finally asked her out, and she’s up there on Cloud 9. But I’m mean and nasty and overprotective, and ruining her life and so on and so forth.
So a compromise was reached. They went to the movies, during the daytime, with his little sister and two young cousins, and his mum took them and went shopping while all the kids watched the movie.
Emily called me to say they were done, but when I arrived to pick her up they decided to go for ice cream, leaving me to my own devices. At which point she bumped into Ailsa and family, fortunately (for me) finding me a coffee date to kill time and unfortunately (for herself) having to introduce her boyfriend. (Ailsa, you haven’t scared him off. Thanks, anyway)
Poor kid then proceeded to run into my sister and niece and had to introduce him to them, too. I think she’s learning that you can’t hide around here! And no, they didn’t scare him off either. I think he’s pretty keen!
However, the date went well, and she’s happy. (She wouldn’t let me take a picture for the blog. And she calls me mean! 😉
I got to see Ailsa’s test knit pattern in person, and it looks gorgeous! I missed out on seeing the nail file, though.
Time for knitting updates?
Hanging Garden. Still loving it.

Five repeats down. The pattern calls for fourteen repeats, but we’ll see how we go. I may get bored before that.
The gloves.

Growing nicely. And it’s a good thing, because I am getting somewhat bored with these.
And the Slinky Socks.

These are my problem child, knitwise. They just aren’t playing nicely. I had a long train trip yesterday, so I took them along.
I got up to the afterthought heel bit, and had no waste yarn with me. So I had to use my keys to hack off a length of yarn from the start of the ball.
I’m liking the pattern though. It’s like a horizontal rib. Here’s how it looks all stretched out.

Clever, clever. I’m still using two circs, but I can’t say I’m loving it. I will finish the sock to give the technique a fair go, but I think I’ll be back to the dpns after that.
I’m a little worried about the afterthought heel. How do you decide when to start the toe if you can’t try on the sock?
I’m caught up on my housework. Twinkie helped with the sweeping.


She hates to be brushed, but she loves the hand broom. Every time it comes out, she sits in the mess I’m trying to sweep until she gets swept too.
Look at that cute little mouth.

Aawwww.
Anyway, the house is clean, I’m taking advantage and knitting.

A couple of weeks ago, Jejune had a competition, and I was one of the lucky winners.
Today my very lovely prize arrived.

A packet of her very lovely Knitting Art cards, and some Lindt chocolate. The lindt is long gone, and I think the cards are far too pretty to write on! Thank you, Jejune!
Em had another dance comp on the weekend. This is becoming aomewhat of a pain in the arse, because they always seem to end up on the last weekend of the month lately, preventing me from attending Stitch n Bitch. But that’s not what I’m whining about tonight.
I had a ton of stuff to drag along, so I decided to only take along the gloves that match the cabled beanie for my knitting project.
It was pretty important that I have some knitting to do, because she had one dance at 9.45am, then nothing until 2.15pm, then another big break until 5pm.
After her first dance I sat down and merrily started to knit away on the first glove. I’d started the cuff at home the night before, and was up to the hand. I’ve got few problems with the pattern. It was written to be knit flat and seamed, and I hate knitting gloves that way, so I’d already rewritten the pattern to be knitted in the round. I was using 3.75mm needles, because it’s 8ply (DK) yarn, and I always need to knit 8ply on 3.75mm needles to get gauge.
Can you see where this is going?
So I was knitting the hand, with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was huge. I’m pretty sure she could have got both hands inside this glove. It was only 10.30am. I finished the thumb gusset, and tried it on her.
Huge doesn’t even come close. Gigantic. Gargantuan.
When I thought about it, I wasn’t really surprised. Her hand is 6.5 inches around the knuckles. The glove is knit at 22sts = 4 inches.
There were 41 stitches in the hand.
Plus my gauge was off. Even without the gauge issue, it was going to be nearly 8 inches around. When I measured it, the glove was coming out at around 9 inches around. So I frogged it in a temper and had to sit, all day long, with no knitting.
I should have taken a backup. I have learned my lesson, I swear.
So when I got home, I went down to 3.25mm needles, and rewrote the pattern again.

It’s looking much more realistic now.
And alas, it’s not the only knitting difficulty I’ve had this week.
I’m struggling along on the sock on two circs. I got two 40cm KnitPicks Options circs from YarnsOnline, thinking they’d be easier to use. They’re not. Not for me at any rate. the needle portion feels too short. I think I should have gone for the 60cm.
But that doesn’t explain my difficulty with this whole 2 circs process.
Today I came up with a new problem. Once again, all my stitches ended up one one needle. But this wasn’t Magic Loop.

Need a better look?

I not only picked up the wrong needle, but somehow I also twisted the needle.
Aren’t I clever? I’m thinking I need to go back to the DPNS. And soon!

Monday sky! It was a public holiday here today, so it’s like a Saturday.

That little wisp of a cloud? It was the only one in the sky. Seeing as it was such a lovely day, we upped and went to the Sydney Fish Markets for lunch.

I had the seafood platter, David had Barramundi and Em had Fish and Chips.
Yum.
We also had an audience.

We weren’t the only ones who decided it would be a nice place to have lunch, either.

And it’s October 1, which means that the Southern Summer of Socks kicked off today!

I have chosen the Slinky Socks as my first pair. I chose these for a couple of reasons.
It’s a different pattern to use up some of my self striping yarns, it has an afterthought heel, which I’ve not tried before, and I’m going to knit them on two circs.
Only one sock at a time, though. Last time I tried two socks on two circs, it was a disaster. And I hated it.
Mind you, so far, this hasn’t been a total success.

Both of those needles are supposed to be in the sock. I lose track, and end up picking up the wrong needle. Then I’m Magic loop-ing, instead.
I may end up back on DPNS yet. The yarn is Hot Socks, given to me by the lovely Jessica. It has been claimed by Em, of course.
Here’s a better picture of the sock. (Such as it is!)

Next time, we’ll discuss why it’s sometimes a good idea to pack more than one project if you’re going to be locked in a school hall all day.

Fortunately, I’d had the good sense not to finish the hat and weave in the ends before I got Em to try it on.
So I ripped out the decreases, and the last 8 row cable repeat, then redid the decreases.

Much better! (Notice that I again didn’t finish it – I wanted to make sure it was right first!)
The fit around her head was just fine, the hat was just a bit too long. I tried to convince her that it would keep her extra warm in New York, but she wouldn’t have a bar of it.
Something I’ve learned from this hat? (Well, apart from the obvious!)
I’m not a fan of cables.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the way they look. I just don’t particularly like knitting them.
My tension tends to be a little loose apparently, so I always have to go down a needle size to get gauge. But when I knit cables, I always feel like my knitting is too tight. If I try to loosen it up a little, my gauge is off.
And they’re sl-o-o-o-w.
But I am happy with the hat. Now it’s onto the gloves.
I need to finish these up and move on with my Hanging Garden Stole, because the next project is already planned.
Yarns Online is getting in Cascade Eco Wool. You know, the one that Brooklyn Tweed used for the Hemlock Ring Blanket?
Guess what I’ve preordered?
Yup, now that we’re heading into summer here, I’m going to knit that gorgeous lap blanket.
And I guess that means that the Shetland Shawl gets pushed back a little again.
But I promise, it will be finished by Easter.

Hmmm.

When you’re knitting something, and it looks like it might be a little big, don’t just keep knitting on with blind faith in the pattern, mkay?