I Promise...

... that this is the last post in which I'll mention Lizard Ridge.

Here are the details:
Pattern, Laura Aylor on Knitty.
22 balls of Noro Kureyon.
1 and a bit skeins of Rowanspun Aran for sewing up and border.
5mm knitting needles.
4.5mm crochet hook for sewing up and borders.

Here's a (blurry) close up of the back showing the crochet seaming. I seamed 4 blocks into strips along their short sides then seamed strips together.

And here's the finished blanket (pre-blocking). The border was two rounds of crochet, one double crochet and the second triple crochet (British notation - I think). The seaming didn't use too much yarn, but I couldn't believe how much the border took - almost 200m!

Finally, here's an almost action shot of the blocking (with Splat inspecting my work). I had planned to pin out the blanket, then spray it with water until it was thoroughly damp, but this failed miserably. I couldn't spray it enough for the water to penetrate and my hand was aching from working the spray bottle so I reverted to plan B. As the blanket was already pinned out and I couldn't face unpinning it, dumping it in the bath, then putting it on a low spin in the washing machine, I left it where it was, soaked a bath towel and layered this over the blanket, making steam with a very hot iron. I then left it pinned out overnight to dry. This worked almost as well as a proper wet block would have and I'm really pleased with the results.

The finished dimensions are approximately 5 feet by 5 feet which presented me with real space problems for blocking in my tiny wee house!

Just because...

...it's a beautiful day. The sun is shining, my laundry can dry outside, and I'll get Lizard Ridge blocked today.

Here are some pictures of my cat (she's called Splat - we took her in after she'd been hit by a car, fixed up by the Resident Radiologist back when he was a plain old vet, and then not claimed by anyone) just looking like her usual cute self.


And here is the finished version of the tweed corsage I showed a few posts ago. I finished it off with some french knots in embroidery thread, some with beads incorporated, and sewed a safety pin on the back.


Klaralund is well in hand again. I'm past the elbow on the first sleeve (after much ripping and resizing) and things are looking good. I think it's going to be too warm to wear her by the time I get her sewn up, but she's one of those timeless jumpers that will be with me year after year.

Wheee...

Lizard Ridge is done! It's been knitted, steam blocked, seamed and edged. All it needs now is a good wet blocking to even it out. This final blocking will have to wait for more good weather as I have two options: either move all my laundry to dry outside, hoover the floor of the spare room and block lizard ridge there, or block lizard ridge outside. I think the first option is the best as I can then shut the door and keep the cat out while the blocking is happening.

Here are the final six blocks for lizard ridge.



And here are some of the layout options I considered.



The Resident Radiologist, who is particularly gifted when it comes to matching colours, had the final say with the layout but I'm not showing until the blocking is done.

No Broken Bones...

... and not even any stiff muscles or sore joints. The Resident Radiologist and I had a fantastic time in la Plagne, skied many tens of miles (some of them uphill which wasn't supposed to be part of the plan, but never mind) and improved our technique. The weather was OK - snowing most days so the light was a bit flat and the definition on the snow wasn't great, but the snow conditions were the best I've ever skied in.

Above are a couple of photos of the view from the balcony of our apartment and below is a photo of the most beautiful run through the woods - the aforementioned uphill skiing.

It was a bit too much for the Resident Radiologist at times!



On a knitting front, no progress has been made on anything except a few inches of stocking stitch on Klaralund since my last post. However, I have tracked down the last few balls of Kureyon I need to finish Lizard Ridge from here. Only 5 blocks to go, then the finishing (which at the moment I'm kind of looking forward to, but I'm sure once I start, my perspective will change). The downside is that the yarn has to come from the States, so may take some time - I'm getting jittery waiting!

Cat on a hot tin roof...

...or at the very least, cat on a warm lizard ridge! Give some animals an inch and they'll take a mile.


I came downstairs this morning and this was the view that greeted me. I'd piled up the squares for lizard ridge (a whole 17 of them finished and blocked now) beside the radiator and madam had obviously gone, 'Ooh - a woolly cat-sized bed for me beside a heat source. Thankyou very much!'. When I berated her for her insolence, I received a withering look.

I have little doubt that by the time I get home this evening, she'll still be in the same place, give or take a few 'cat push-ups' (getting up, stretching, turning round and laying down again).

On a knitting note, yesterday evening I... ran... out... of... yarn! Of course I'm only taking about lizard ridge yarn here, I've a spare bedroom full of the other stuff. I cast on with the left-over ends from the completed squares and got most of the way through the 18th square when I couldn't find an end to blend in, so #18 is languishing on a spare needle until more left-overs are obtained. In the nick of time, a ball of Kureyon 150 was delivered to work this afternoon so operations can be resumed. This is the last ball I had on order so I really will be having withdrawal symptoms once this one is knitted up.

Thankfully, a week's skiing here, starting on Saturday should take my mind off it for a while. We're going with another couple so I'm leaving all my knitting behind for a week to avoid tangling up a very small ski appartment. The Resident Radiologist is very sympathetic to my yarn cravings, but I'm not sure all my friends might be so understanding.

More colours in America...

Lizard Ridge squares 13, 14 and 15, pre-blocking. 16 is on the needles as we speak.

We may have a breakthrough. A colleague, (the Swedish Virologist), who is also working on Lizard Ridge has been looking at American and Swedish online yarn stores and apparently, in America, there are more colours of Kureyon available. We're going to investigate this possibility thoroughly as nothing would bring me more satisfaction at the moment than to finish the blanket with a different colourway in each block!

Here's a bit of my Christmas 2006 knitting. The socks were for the Resident Radiologist and were knitted to my standard heel-flap pattern in Artesano Alpaca Hummingbird, colourway pheasant. It's a DK sock yarn so the knitting went really quickly and it was lovely to knit with. The colours did pool slightly around the gusset decreases but I didn't mind this too much, and also, I don't really know how to stop it happening again if I ripped it out and started again. As socks, however, I'm not convinced. The yarn has no 'give' so the socks have to be exactly the correct size and are a bit stiff to put on. They're also handwash only which is a bit impractical and after their third wash, they've started to shed quite a lot of fluff. The RR assures me though, that they're really good to wear.

Even after knitting a pair of UK 11 socks from a skein, there was a fair bit left so I decided to check out the yarn's felting capabilities. I knitted this little box / tray based on something I saw on Mason-Dixon Knitting, then sewed the pieces up and slung it in the washing machine on a 40C cycle. It felted beautifully and I stretched it over a box to dry into shape. It's now on my dressing table for collecting all the bits and pieces I jettison at night - watch, earrings, rings coins etc. The only down-side to the felting is that the colours aren't so apparent in the finished fabric. The burgundy comes through strongly, but the green, especially, has pretty much disapeared.

No. 15 on the needles

Well, in the last couple of days, I've finished blocks number 13 and 14 for Lizard Ridge and have cast on no. 15. I'm fast approaching a dilema though. I have bought or ordered 1 ball of each colourway I've come across in Kureyon since I started this project, but have only managed to accumulate 17 balls. This will knit into 19 squares by the time I've used up the ends of the balls, but what am I going to do for the other 5 or 6 squares I need? I've already scoured ebay and various online yarn stored for odd balls and come up blank. Do I buy some duplicate balls, then use two balls together (rather than both ends of the same ball) to get a different effect, or do I wait until Noro bring out some new colourways? Patience is not a strong suit of mine (I hate having unfinished projects hanging around) so I suspect I'll opt for the first solution.

In the mean time (until I get the camera out again) here are another couple of things from last year. They were knitted for a friend's baby boy and are made in DB cashmerino aran. The hoodie is the same pattern I did several times last year from Special Knits for Babies, and the bunnie (yes - it is supposed to be a bunnie, I just need a bit more practice with knitted toys) was from the same book. I altered the colours on the bunnie to use up the ends of the balls of cashmerino aran I had kicking around, and on the whole it worked, though the ears are a bit strange looking. Were I to knit this again, I think I'd try to adapt the limbs to work in the round - there was an awful lot of seaming for not much knitting.

Past Half-Way.

Well - after a fairly lazy Sunday, I'm past the halfway mark on my Lizard Ridge. I've knitted, steam blocked and woven the ends in on 12 blocks and am nearly finished a 13th. I've made a bit of an alteration to the pattern as written, (that phrase seems to come up a lot in my knitting don't you think...), in that I've done 5 pattern repeats per block rather than the four in the original pattern. This way, I have slightly less yarn left over per block, but the blocks are larger. This also means that if I arrange the blocks in a 6x4 array, my blanket will be quite long and skinny, so I'm begining to think that I might knit an extra block and arrange them as a 5x5 array. Either way, it will be a while before I need to think about this in earnest. I've been pinning the ball band to each block as I go along to help me keep track of the colourways I've used. I'm toying with the idea of embroidering the colour number of each block in its top corner (or possibly on the back). What do you think - would this be a nice way of keeping track of the colours for posterity, or would it just be a bit silly? I'm still undecided.

As I promised last post, here are my yarn splurges from Ebay last week. The pinkish skein is Hipknits Cashmere Sock Yarn which is going into stash for the moment, but will be destined for a pair of socks for me, and possibly something else as well as there are 700yards on the skein. The other two are Plum Knits aran weight cashmere in a lovely hand-painted autumny colourway. I have absolutley no use in mind for this yarn at the moment, I just saw it and loved it. It is beautifully soft and warm and I don't know what to do with it except look at it and occasionally stroke it. My mother has suggested that I should keep it until I can use it as a highlight on a plain garment - a collar or such which is certainly an option. Other suggestions are welcome...

Frantic Friday

Everything seems to be happening today. My mother-in-law is coming to stay for the weekend so the house had to be tidied and cleaned (it's not really big enough for two of us, so to accomodate three, it has to be immaculate). Food had to be bought so that I could get straight on with supper when I get home from work. On top of that, I expect to hear about a grant application I made for a new research project and another application I made for some travel funds so I can attend a conference in Trieste this summer. If anyone out there is harbouring any ideas about working in biological research being glamorous and well paid, think again. The hours are long, the pay is moderate at best (especially considering the length of time it takes to get qualified) and every three years, you have to compete against all the other researchers out there to win grant money to allow you to keep your job! Anyway, rant over and on with the knitting...

I've put Klaralund to the side for a few days as it's boring going round and round on the body and the yarn colour (a dark blue-green) - whilst being a colour I love and am looking forward to wearing - is pretty hard on the eyes in the evening. Instead I've knocked out another square for Lizard Ridge in beautiful pinks, reds and purples (colourway 124) and am halfway through another square (colourway 183). These squares are the ideal small project when I need a fast injection of colour on a grey Glasgow evening.

I really need to get started on another baby gift too. A friend of mine is due to have her third child next week and I've not cast on yet. I'm planning a set of hat and baby socks in a fawn 4 ply cashmerino yarn (can't remember the make). I've made this set before for another friend's baby and it's a really quick knit so I should be OK time-wise.

Here are another few items from my back-catalogue:

The socks are bedsocks / slouching socks for my sister to match the hot water bottle from a couple of posts ago. They are knitted in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino aran and Noro Silk Garden (84). The pattern is Austin from the Jane Ellison Noro Knits book. Personally, I would't knit these socks in the silk garden again - it's too scratchy and shrinks a bit, even with careful washing.

The shrug is the Paris Loop by Stephanie Japel. I knitted it in Noro Transitions that I bought in the Glasgow John Lewis sale last year, when they decided not to stock Noro any more (dreadful decision). It's a really versatile little poncho top which is beautifully warm and I've worn it far more often than I ever thought I would.

Finally, some baby socks knitted for a friend's 3 month-old last year. The yarn is some left over Opal sock yarn and the pattern is this one (scroll down a bit to the hat, sock and mitt set), which is the same pattern I'll be using for the baby which is due next week.

One last thing - a big GOOD LUCK to the Scottish rugby team who are playing Italy in the Six Nations this weekend. I'm off to Murrayfield to watch the game with the resident radiologist, his mother and a friend and I can't wait!