Nautie

Knitting has definitely slowed in the last week or so, but I am still getting through project bags and making progress on my larger projects.

Here's the contents of project bag 3:

Some left-over Debbie Bliss cashmerino aran, 3.5mm DPNs and the pattern for Nautie byBeth Skwarecki, published in Knitty.
This was a really well-written pattern but the knitting was a little fiddly as the spiral shell had to be stuffed as it was knitted and simultaneously coiled. I found that no matter what I did, the stitch securing the coil was always a little on the loose side, but it didn't seem to matter in the end as the loose end from the shell cast-off is used to sew the coil in a little more securely anyway.

I did make a modification to the pattern as written - instead of knitting the head as a separate piece and sewing it in afterwards, I picked up stitches inside the shell and knitted the head on as I went, stuffing it before closing it up.

Once again, it's a pattern suitable for a newborn onwards as there are no hard bits or attached bits to swallow. My sister has seen it and already requested one for a friend of hers who's expecting the week before me - I'd better get my skates on!

Productive Weekend

The project bag system is still going strong. At the weekend, I sat down and finished the knitting on the major project I've been working on for weeks (more on that another post - I've got a long way to go before I consider it a 'finished object').

I rewarded myself with another dip into the project bags and completed another little knit before I knew what had happened!

Bag number 2:

This time the contents were a pile of left-over 4 ply bits and pieces, another bell-in-ball cat toy, 2.25mm needles and the pattern for the Toadstool Baby Rattle by The Purl Bee. This pattern is beautifully constructed and written and was a joy to knit. There is almost no finishing, barring the weaving in of a few ends and it is stuffed as it is knitted. The cat toy goes into the bell of the toadstool, covered in a little polyester stuffing.


The finished rattle is just the right size for tiny hands, and once again should be suitable for a newborn onwards, as there are no small parts or hard bits. I still have lots of 4 ply left-overs and a couple more cat toys, so might need to knit another of these for a friend...

Bag Number One

These small-project bags were intended as a reward for getting a chunk of larger project knitted, but I decided that to get the ball rolling, I would knit the first one straight off. So, what was in the bag?

A ball of Regia Crazy Colour sock yarn in Jupiter, from John Lewis' sale, a set of 2.25mm DPNs, a cat bell-in-ball toy and the pattern for Celestine Sox from Berrocco.

This pattern is knitted as twelve points, with each point being joined to the adjacent points with picked-up stitches. The last time I knitted this (a couple of years ago) I tried to be very clever and used a provisional cast-on to avoid the picking up stitches, but in the end it was very fiddly and the lack of a firm cast-on edge anywhere reduced the definition of the design.
The first 11 points are knitted, the ends all secured and the toy is stuffed (standard polyester toy stuffing).

This time I put a cat toy in with the stuffing so that as the toy is rolled around, or shaken, it jingles. I'm hoping that this star will have a long life as a baby / toddler toy...

The last point is then picked up and knitted closed with a little more stuffing added as the point grows.

The finished toy should be suitable from birth as there are no sharp bits and nothing that can become detached / swallowed. It's even washable!

And did it work RE getting me back on track with my large UFOs? Well, last night I sat down and knitted several rounds of the (300+ stitch) edging on the shrug I'm knitting, so progress is being made - only 10 round and the bind-off to go...

Overcoming inertia

About a week or so ago, I was reading Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's blog, and something she posted about making up her own sock clubs - essentially a series of bags, each containing all the makings of a sock - got me thinking about how to overcome my knitting inertia.

The main problems as I see them are two-fold: I'm working on three projects at the moment, one is large and boring (but I'll like the outcome), the second is a very dull 2x2 ribbed scarf in 4ply (very boring but the Resident Radiologist will like the outcome) and the third has stalled, waiting for more yarn; the projects I'd like to be working on are in my ravelry queue, where I gaze at the pictures, browse my stash list for good matches, and then promptly forget the combinations by the time I get home.

The solution was presented by Ms Pearl-McPhee: make up project bags containing everything required for the project. Genius.


I now have a collection of about eight bags containing the pattern, yarn, needles and any extras required for (mostly small) projects I'd like to knit in the near future. All I have to do when I'm struggling to keep going with one of my larger projects is pick up a bag and get going. No thinking, no procrastinating, no indecision about yarn, just knitting.