Flower square

Old stone wall. Started yesterday, just finished and now blocking. This is possibly one of my favourite squares so far. The colours are beautiful

Backwards farmhouse

I'm on a train with lsb waiting to leave Carlisle. This of course means plenty of time to knit my gentleman sock in lana grossa. As the journey takes close on 3 hours it would probably have been a good idea to bring along the mystery blanket but sadly it's not that portable, what with the pins and makeshift blocking board. I finished the farmhouse square after realising halfway through the house that the house was facing the wrong way. It doesn't really make much difference in the grand scheme of things but i suppose it does irritate me slightly but not enough to think it needs unpicking. It does teach me to pay more attention next time though.

I can do colourwork! I'm quite suprised and pleased at the same time. This square's flowing a bit better than one or two of the others I've done. The neatness could probably be improved, but for a first piece of intarsia it's not bad at all.

This would be my first of the now completed mittens on strings that I worked on during the week, very very simple to make and much warmer than gloves, which is quite vital this time of year as it's freezing up here in the north. The yarn's round about one ball of rowan polar I had in my stash left over from ice maiden. As for the pattern it's a hotch potch of two others, inspired by ash from rowan's little book of big accessories but the instructions for the mitts came from cocoknits mittenscarf, just minus the scarf. I've also just inherited last year's Debbie Abrahams' mystery blanket club kit (I'm saying nothing about my mother's ability to finish projects, I fear my yarn supply may be cut off if i do), there's still quite a bit to do before it's finished but it's actually very enjoyable, and while it's not such a mystery anymore it hasn't lost any of it's charm. The squares also noble perfect travelling projects for me as they're so portable, also with only a few stitches and rows needed to make each square I don't really have time to get bored, which is a huge problem at the moment, it's not that I'm not enjoying knitting anymore - I just have a very short attention span when it comes to trying to focus on one project only at the moment to clear some of the ufo's I've got on needles. Another thing I'm loving about the blanket is all the new techniques I'm getting to try, yesterday I cabled for the first time, and it was goood! More please.

My rather lovely newly finished broad street mittens. I made the shell a few rows longer to accomodate my very long fingers aside from that i kept the pattern pretty much as it was intended. The jitterbug makes for a lovely warm glove - idea for this very cold weather and the colours look fantastic in the flesh, they've got an almost jewel like glow to them which just doesn't come across in the photo - the flash in poor light conditions just seems to distort everything.

I've had quite a busy Christmas and new year (for someone who hates Christmas and Christmas food I somehow managed to have two full Christmas dinners in one day. Not quite as bad as the Vicar of Dibley episode where Dawn French does it on a bigger scale, but not far off), I got plenty of knitting done when I wasn't doing random festive things. Unfortunately though my angels rest socks had to be pulled back again as it was just too much of a struggle to get over my ankle comfortably. Then the ball winder decided to eat the yarn as I rewound it so the whole project's taken on a dingy, dirty sort of luck - hence the lack of new pictures. I also started another pair of broad street mittens on Christmas eve in the Colinette Jitterbug I bought months and months ago. I'm about halfway through the thumb gusset increase on the second mitten and it looks so good I can't wait to wear them. Pictures to follow when there's something more to show, provided blogger lets me. For some reason, every time I try to write broad street mittens blogger freezes up and crashes, this is possibly the fourth or fifth time I've tried to post this entry. In other knitting related news I've been at the book buying again, this time the AntiCraft book which has so many rather cool knitting patterns in, and even more for other crafty persuits too. I also managed to get my hands on the little box of socks and currently have a pile of the pattern cards that lsb and I picked out (so much for taking a break from socks).