Friday, June 30, 2006

Distracted? Me? Never!
I mentioned in a previous post that I bought some navy Patons 100% Cotton double knitting yarn last week to knit the Louisa Harding cropped cardi ‘Tide' from the Beachcomber Collection book, and I wanted to knit it for my holiday in Wales in just over four weeks time, and I'd also bought some Patons Cotton 4 ply to knit ‘Candy' from a previous Rowan mag..




So why on Tuesday night did I rummage round in my stash bin and pull out a pack of Rowan All Seasons Cotton in a glorious shade of lilac (shade 184, Gay) and cast on the stitches to knit ‘Grace' from Rowan magazine 27?



I've been wanting to knit this jacket for ages and I've been really restrained about casting on anything else until my mohair cardigan and my James Brett ‘Marble' bolero is finished, along with Dad's Opal Magic socks. But I always get the 70% syndrome and can't wait to cast on another project about 70% of the way through my current WIPs. To tell the truth I'm fed up with the mohair cardigan and the bolero, and I had to frog the socks because they were too tight on my foot let alone my Dad's. I started them again with the exact same number of stitches and the exact same size of DPNs, but used bamboo instead of Brittany Birch DPNs and the socks are working out okay now.

Where was I? Oh yes! That's right, the Grace jacket. Someone else on the Angel Yarns forum was asking what they could knit with 10 balls of All Seasons Cotton and I suggested the Grace jacket, and before I knew it was all systems go and I'd cast on. This is the progress so far:



Distracted? Me? Never!

Decisions, decisions.....
I have to decide which projects to take with me to Wales - something interesting yet not boring, something that I can knit in the car (John the Brit does all the driving on holiday), something that I can make a dent in during a fortnight's knitting, and something that I won't lose interest in. I often take ‘a selection' of projects with me on holiday along with all the yarn for the projects, the needles, the patterns and the accessories kit. But this year I want to keep it down to a bare minimum. I'm definitely taking a sock project - or maybe two - but the bigger project?

I'd quite like to knit ‘Suzy' from Rowan's ‘Big Wool' in Big Wool; I bought some scrummy dark pink mix Big Wool called Smooch from a board member last month and Liverbird sent me the book as a gift, and I know I'll be able to get it knitted up in a fortnight. I've even got the 15mm needles in preparation. There again I quite fancy one or two things from the new Debbie Bliss book "Cashmerino DK" which I've seen at the Get Knitted site, and if I send off for the book it's a good excuse to buy a pair of 5mm Brittany Birch straight needles while I'm about it to save on postage {I used the 4.5mm Brittany Birch straights to knit the rib of Grace and they were just heavenly} And I have enough Debbie Bliss yarn in my stash (....that I bought in a yarn buying frenzy from Coldspring Mill last year.....) to sink a small cruise liner.

I did buy some Noro Silk Garden from Celticove to knit the tweedy textured jacket from Debbie Bliss' Noro Collection 2 book for a holiday project to take to Wales. But then again I might take something else. The jury is still out.....

Does anyone else have these What-to-Knit-Next crises or is it just me being distracted so easily?

On the ‘health at home' front: Danny has made an astounding recovery in the past 24 hours even for a small child, and his temperature was down to normal today and he's eaten some food. The rash is still quite apparent, but he's certainly on the mend. He'll be back at preschool on Monday..... and that means me too.

Danny's miraculous recovery today meant that I was able to collate Denver Jon's birthday present and send it off to him via Airmail today, so he should get it next week sometime. I never seem to send birthday presents on time, so being a month or two adrift is nothing unusual for me. I'm just..... not... that... organised. I can't tell you what the pressie is of course, it would ruin the surprise. But think of Denver Jon. And then think yarn and choccies. Ooops! Darn, done it again.....

4 comments:

Carol said...

Welcome to the fold! I'm new at this blogging thing too, maybe we can learn together I'm even "pretty" new at knitting but can not knit enough! Seems we have birthdays pretty close? Mine is Aug 28, how about you>

Melody said...

Thanks Carol! I got the hang of putting piccies where I wanted them tonight *phew!*

My birthday is 31st August. VERY close to yours!

Deb the Brit xx

Seahorse said...

Grace is looking gorgeous!

Hope you can narrow down the holiday knitting and don't end up taking your entire srash (or would you need a removals lorry to do that? ;))

Anonymous said...

ooh, I have Rowan 27 and lots of ASC...you're distracting me! My vacation knitting plan for July is going to be very simple--simple ribbed socks. With a baby in tow, small portable projects that don't require a lot of attention are the ticket for me :)