YOP- In which the cardigan is divided

Yet another lousy picture, although I took this one during the day it has been pretty grey and wet so still not a great deal of light for taking project pictures.

My Mr Greenjeans cardigan, worked in Year of Projects yarn is making slow but steady progress. It only really gets worked on at knit night on Thursdays. It is very simple so a good choice for knitting and chatting.

I have finished the raglan increases and divided for the body. The last few rows before the divide felt like they took FOREVER! Being a sock fiend I am not used to such long rows and with it being stocking stitch it was not the most exciting. There are a few more plain rows, just increasing at the front edge, then the cable section starts. I am not sure if I can cable and talk though.

YOP- In which I have started an actual adult sized garment

Much to the amazement of my knitting group who only ever see me knitting socks and other small things on tiny needles. The Mr Greenjeans cardigan is underway.

See those 5mm needles and aran yarn? Nothing short of giant crafting supplies to my sock obsessed mind!

I have three repeats of the raglan increases done. I am aiming to do one a week. That makes it fit nicely with all the other knitting/spinning/crafting I want to do but gives me some kind of measurable progress.

I am not linking to the YOP again as I can't make it around to all the other blogs and it doesn't seem fair. This last week the drama llama has been visiting (major car trouble, uni work issues, naughty horses at other work etc) so hopefully he will be gone this week but even so I am only just making it around the blogs in my Google reader. I spent a very pleasant time this morning catching up with you all. Fingers crossed for a quiet, calm week this week.

Finally, (an in no way fibre related) I thought you might like to see where I work:

Unfortunately it doesn't always look like this, but on a sunny day it is nothing short of beautiful.

Year of projects- In which I swatched, and there is photographic evidence

In keeping with plans to work slowly on this project in between others all I have done this week was to wind a ball of yarn and knit a swatch. I never swatch, so this is a big deal for me. I have to say it was quite painless!

I have hit stitch gauge, with 18sts over 4 inches, but am a little off on row gauge at 22 rows in 4 inches rather than the specified 24. I think I can live with it, I may add an extra row in here and there when knitting to make up for the difference but I am calling it close enough. So this week I can cast on for real. Expect a skinny bit of ribbing next week.

This post is not going to be linked up to the Ravelry link party because I am feeling a bit bad that I don't have time to go and see others' posts. So if you are reading this you are probably one of my lovely followers, or have stumbled in and am wondering what I am talking about! If I follow you I assure you I read and enjoy your posts each morning as I have my breakfast, so I get to see some of the year of projects posts. Hopefully I will find more time for reading posts so can rejoin the link up in a few weeks.

Year of projects- In which you get to see how the dyeing went

The yarn is out of the dye pot, dry and ready to use. It went from this:

To this:

I am really pleased with the colour, it is a lovely red wine shade. I use this colour a lot, in fact I have a hat and socks on the needles and several past projects in a similar colour. It is also the colour I had in mind for dying the Hemlock ring blanket. It seems to be evenly dyed so using the enormous pot was worth it.

Next week I will be swatching for my cardigan, that's right, I am planning to make a swatch! I have worked through quite a bit of the yarn already and still have lots of the year to go so I am going to work on this project slowly in between other things.

Year of projects- In which the yarn is in the dye pot

Literally as I type the yarn is on its journey from undyed to dyed.

To accommodate the 820g needed for the cardigan I have used possibly the largest pot in the world, it covers my entire stove and has two hob tops going under it to get it hot.

I am trying out some new dyes this time, so I will report back when I have rinsed the yarn. I have also tried using citric acid rather than vinegar to avoid making the house smell. I am using a mix of red and black to hopefully give a burgundy shade.

I had a few doubts about whether I would even be able to get it up to temperature, but it seems to have worked. The heating is done and I am waiting for it to cool. It looks as though all the dye has been absorbed but I suspect I will have to wait until the morning for it to be cool enough to rinse.

Year of projects- In which the yarn is still au naturel

I have not had a very successful year of projects week. In fact, all I have managed to do is work out how much yarn I will need to dye. I took the yardage for the largest size of Mr Greenjeans, divided it by the number of yards in 100g of my yarn, which gave me the number of 100g(ish) skeins for the project. I should not need all of it as I will be making the medium size but it is better to dye too much and have leftovers for something else than to run out.

I have been dragging my feet on dyeing it. It will not all fit into the pot I usually dye in. I do have a giant pot that will fit it all but I am not sure if I will be able to fit it on my stove, it may have to go accross two burners, which does not seem like a terribly good idea. The other option is to dye in two or three lots and alternate between dye lots each row to blend the colours.

Maybe next week I will have something prettier to share.

Year of project update- In which there is an owl

Anyone who visited last week might be expecting to see a freshly dyed pile of yarn this week. Unfortunately the dye I ordered didn't arrive in time, so I will be dyeing it up this week and hopefully sharing it next Sunday.

I wanted something to share, so I worked up one of my teeny tiny pattern choices, Oisin owl by Pauline Gallagher is a speedy little project that only uses a tiny bit of yarn. Cabling and Irish moss stitch make two panels that you sew together to give a little 3D owl, he is about 3 inches tall.

I think I need to embroider some eyes on to make it more obvious that he is an owl, rather than a swimming costume for a barbie which was suggested by someone.

Year of projects- In which there are skeins

My year of projects plan is to work through 2kg of undyed aran yarn I was gifted at the end of last year. I am working on other things as well, but projects made from this yarn are the focus of my Year of Projects updates.

So far I have used about 600g on the Hemlock ring blanket and 300g on my knee high kilt hose/boot socks. So I have about 1.3kg left. My next project will hopefully be the Mr Greenjeans cardigan, but I don't want it to be in undyed, in fact I am not a huge fan of undyed yarn colour generally, so my Year of projects work this week has been to turn this: 

Into this:

Skeining yarn takes much longer than I thought it would!

Apart from a few odd balls the rest of the yarn is skeined up ready for dyeing. Hopefully this week I will be able to pick out what I need for the cardigan and dye it up, next week it should look very different.

Year of projects- In which there are socks!

How annoying is this!

When I finished my first sock I weighed it and picked a ball of the same weight to make the second. It was exactly the same weight which was not ideal as it didn't leave any extra to cover gauge variations or differences in the yarn. And I ran out with about four rounds of the toe to do.

This is not really a problem, I still have over two and a half kilos of this yarn left so I joined another ball in and finished the sock.

Ta da!

Two socks, and I even modelled them as requested.

Now I can pick my next project for this yarn, I am thinking about the cardigan next so I am going to have some skeining and dyeing to share.

Year of projects- In which I have two warm legs and one chilly foot

My year of projects plan is to work through 2kg of Aran undyed yarn that I was gifted. I am working on this between other projects, so at the minute it is not getting huge amounts of attention as I have been focissing on my A-Z sock challenge.

This means that my Sunday posts often don't show a lot of progress; so this weekend I made my second kilt hose sock top of my knitting list so I would have something to show you. I have made it all the way down the leg and am about to start the heel flap.

Maybe by next week I will have a pair of socks and can start picking my next project.

Year of project- In which I started the second sock

The second kilt hose sock is under way, but as you can see I have not made a great deal of progress on it so far. I have been busy with my A-Z challenge and one a day project. Plus I have started some slippers and frogged them twice so far so these have not had much of a look in, hopefully I will get more done this week as the weather is heading in the boots and woolly socks direction.

On the first cuff I had a nightmare getting the lace portion set up. It is an incredibly simple bit of lace, but for some reason it just didn't want to work out, fortunately this time round it was much simpler, no idea why.

I have weighed the finished sock and the ball of yarn I am using, it will be a close thing, but there should be just the right amount, hopefully I will not have changed my gauge at all. 

Year of projects- In which there is one sock

My Year of Projects yarn has not really been getting much attention this week, but I took my boot sock to knit night and managed to finish the first one. It is nice and cosy, I put it on in the cafe, so all the non knitters there probably think I am extremely odd.

A not terribly good close up photo of the lace panel at the top.

I will get the second sock started this week, so hopefully I will have a lovely cosy pair for the cold weather.

Year of projects- In which there is an almost sock

The knee high socks are progressing nicely, almost at the toe on the first one.

The thick yarn means they work up really really quickly so I am working on them in between other projects, don't want to work through my year of projects yarn too fast!

Year of projects- In which I have a sock leg and am posting late

There has been some progress on my knee high socks. I am working the calf shaping and so far it is going well. It works up fairly quickly because of the thick yarn and large needles (relatively speaking, in the world of socks 3.75mm are large!)

Shown with the decorative cuff folded over the funtional ribbing this time.

I have tried these on and have to admit they are not hugely flattering (remember shire horse not thoroughbred legs). However, they are for wearing in welly boots so no one will see them.

My YOP choices seem to be turning into process projects, where I want to make a pattern (Hemlock ring) or type of project (knee high socks) and I am not overly interested in what comes out at the end. I will try to choose my next project more carefully so that I love the process and the finished object.

Year of projects- In which there has been a subsititution and some socks

I have chosen a pattern that was not on my original list, but since my personal challenge is to knit through the 2kg of aran yarn that I was gifted that is within my own rules for the challenge. I had planned to make the Irish Boot socks, I thought they were knee high wellington boot socks but it turns out they are ankle length socks. I subbed in Toirneach Kilt Hose instead as I want to make some knee highs, but am too lazy to make them in 4 ply sock yarn.

They are going well, I have done a little more than in the picture, I am part way down the k5p1 rib section that makes up the leg, but it was not really interesting enough to warrant another photo.

The decorative cuff folds down over the top of the k1p1 ribbing that holds the sock up. To make this work you have to work the ribbing then turn the work inside out, I added a wrap around the last stitch of the round before making the turn to help close the gap that appears.

I am using the sizing from the pattern, but will reduce the length of the leg after doing the calf decreases. I have chubby legs that it seems are not far off the measurements for a fully grown adult male (think shire horse rather than thoroughbred, actually think shetland pony, I am short too!), ah well, never mind.

I secretly suspect these will not be flattering, but they are for wearing inside wellies so no one will actually see them.

In other YOP news I am a little concerned about my Hemlock ring blanket, I tried to lay it flat this week and it is seriously lumpy, I can't see how I will ever block it flat. I am toying with the idea of blocking it first as I would hate to dye it and then find it can't be blocked out and has to be frogged. I had a little look on other Ravelry projects for it (I LOVE Ravelry!) and generally a lot of scruchy things were blocked to be beautiful, but one knitter did frog hers, so it could still go either way.

Year of Projects- In which the knitting is finished, but some blocking is needed

Hurrah! The knitting is done on my Hemlock ring blanket, which means I have also finished the first ball of my year of projects yarn. I used about 50g from a second ball to do one stocking stitch round and the bind off.

For the bind off I chose an applied i cord bind off following the instructions in Knitty. I am pleased with the choice as it is much less frilly than the pattern bind off and it is quite fun to work, even so it got somewhat boring and I had to do the bind of in four sittings. It looks better than a plain bind off as there are several lines of stitches going across the work.

The big reveal is somewhat lacking today:

Blocking is definitely needed to make this look decent, but lace usually does. I am holding out on blocking bacause I need more pins and because I am planning to dye this. I don't know if I am going to keep it or gift it so the dyeing requires some thought. Currently I am thinking of dipping it slowly into the dye pot from the centre so the colour fades towards the edges, but I don't know what colour to go for, maybe greys. It will probably not reappear on YOP until it has been dyed.

This also means I get to cast on my next project so I am going back to look at my list of ideas and see what I fancy.

Year of projects- In which the blanket is still not done, it all gets a little nerdy and I need help choosing the edging

I have made progress on the blanket, but it doesn't look any different to previous pictures, so I thought it was not worth another photo. Making my P socks has taken most of my knitting time the last week, but I am approaching the end of the blanket yarn ball so there is not much further to go.

I have been taking stats (because I am a nerd), at the minute each round has 536 stitches, takes 22 minutes and 10g. That is 2.46 seconds and 1.019g per stitch.

I have 54g left, so should get another five rounds which will take me up to row 68 of the pattern chart. I am going to add a new ball to work one more plain round then work the bind off.

Which brings me to the choosing part. I used a length of scrap yarn to work a sample of the border as given in the pattern, and also cast off a few stitches with a typical bind off.

I think the pattern bind off is too lacy, having looked at finished projects on Ravelry it makes a frilly looking edge that I am not keen on. I am currently thinking I will work a plain bind off instead; as a bonus it is much faster. I have also considered a picot type bind off, but am not overly keen on that either. Any opinions?

Year of Projects- in which I have made no progress, but have taken a couple of pictures

The last week and a half have been spent on scout camp. I was helping to organise a section of the activities, so there has been no progress at all on the Hemlock Ring blanket. In fact I didn't knit on anything for over a week, which was probably the first time in almost three years!

The wonder of scheduling meant I could put blog posts up even when I wasn't here, but I did miss the various link parties, so I am happy to be back and blogging in real time this week.

I was asked for a close up of the centre of the Hemlock ring in the comments of my last post, I have tried to oblige. The centre section, before the featehr and fan chart is started.

The very centre

I enjoyed doing the large holes as it was a new technique for me. On one row you work a lot of YO one after the other, the following row you work several kfb into the large loop of yarn made by the YOs. It sounds complicated, but like a lot of knitting instructions if you just do exactly what the pattern says and it comes out fine (of course this only works if the pattern is well written, but this one is).

Next week I hope to be approaching the border, but quite a few rounds to go before I get there!

Year of projects- in which the blanket has reached the end of the pattern, but not the end of the yarn

The title is a bit of an exaggeration, but I am prone to that. The blanket has reached the yellow "suggested cast off for blanket" line on the pattern chart. There are actually another two pattern repeats on the chart, plus I noticed someone has writtne out a few more on their Ravelry project, so fear not, the blanket wil grow more!

Here it is so far, it is still scrunched up as the cable is a bit shorter than the edge (is it a circumference or a perimeter when it is a wiggly circle?)

You can see that the yarn ball has shrunk a lot, it now fits into my hand, just, but that is a lot smaller than when it was the size of my head. I weighed it, I have 126g left. Of course due to the nature of circles as it grows more yarn is needed for each round, so the fact I have more than 1/5 of the yarn left does not mean it will get massively bigger. There is probably an equation to work it out, I suspect it involves pi (the mathematical one, not the edible one), but maths is not my strongest subject so I will just keep knitting and when it runs out is when the blanket finishes (and yes, engineer nerds can be bad at maths, I am better with the edible kind of pie).

I measured it which it was on the floor.

I am currently at 18 1/2" from the centre to the furthest outside edge. For some reason I seem to want it to be 4' across, I don't know where this number came from but since each pattern repeat only adds about 1" I don't think there will be enough yarn to get there. Admittedly this is unblocked, which will probably add a bit more as the fan bit is very scrunched.

Next week we might be talking about edging, I may need your views on that as I can't decide between the fancy pattern edging and keeping it simple.

Year of projects- In which the blanket has grown even more and listing stash on Ravelry has its benefits

The Hemlock Ring blanket is growing, it is now officially a long way round, currently 440 stitches in each round! I have had to use a cable connector and join two cables together (I knew I bought them for a reason).

It is still not easy to photograph so here is a partial shot which shows that the feather and fan section is taking shape.

I have reached the point with the knotted ply. I wanted the blanket to be much larger, so I cut the yarn and joined the two ends with a Russian join, fortunately it is in the stocking stitch section so is quite well hidden.

I am going to keep working until the yarn runs out and see how big it is then use the Russian join again to attach a second ball and work the bind off.

I have been adding my Tour de Fleece handspun to Ravelry and decided I really should get better at listing my stash. I probably won't bother with photos for commercially spun yarn, but if I put it in I can link projects to it.

This has worked out quite well with my Year of Projects mystery yarn as I managed to find it on the database, which has given me details of the yardage and I can see other projects made from it. It looks like it will felt, but only if you get mean with it, so I can make the hat after all!