£10,000 per day

Didn't you know us top models don't get out of our beds for anything less than £10,000 a day?

The wingspan shot. (There are four more pix after the text.)

Ok, here's the lowdown on Kiri. Thanks for the comments and inquisitiveness so far.
I got the pattern from the sidebar of Polly's blog All Tangled Up . Thank you so much Polly.

I used just short of three balls of Orkney Angora St. Magnus D.K., which is a blend of 50% angora 50% lambswool and is as soft as a baby's bottom. Each ball has 200m of yarn and I purchased mine from K1 yarns which now does mail order, although I bought mine in person. I am really happy with the yarn and have cast on all two stitches for the Flowerbasket Shawl in the olive green shade. This shawl here was done in shade #20, Magenta, which is a very KEDkrafty blog template colour.

I used a 5mm circ for detail hounds and my shawl ended up as 174cm wingspan (just lightly stretched), 75cm from neck to point and 393 stitches total along the diagonals.

I can't imagine that I have missed any relevant details, but no doubt you will surprise me. Fire away.....

It is very snugtastic and although I had a couple of tedious days around the 300 st mark,
I LOVE IT!

A nice sandy shot of the edging. When I did my headscarf/ swatch I decided to change the edging when I got to the full scale version. I wasn't crazy about starting the edging on a half-open leaf, so this time for the last rep I used make one to increase in each leaf rather than y/o. I continued by basically keeping the stitch count correct by doing y/o between each rep and a double dec in the middle. I reasoned that this edging could be longer or shorter depending on how much yarn I could eke from the ball. In the end the ball decided for me because there was a knot near the end and I took the hint to finish there, although I had a few rows' worth of yarn left. The edge wants to scallop like this, even before blocking. 

Instead of the usual hedge shot, here is a rock shot requiring feats of great courage and agility to get the vertical view. All of these pictures can be enlarged by clicking. 

Kiri, Kathleen and Hawthorn. 

Wistfully looking out towards Balcary Tower and Hestan Island, trying to look as if wearing a shawl is second nature to me. Lovely snuggly size and beautifully snuggly yarn. 

A sneak preview....

....of a forthcoming attraction!
This is Kiri in Orkney Angora! I've been threatening people at my knitting group that I've been "nearly finished" for centuries, and here at last, she is. I changed the edging a bit. I'll tell you about that and the pattern specs after my countryside modelling shoot this weekend. x K 

The dye is not entirely evenly saturated, that is a feature of the yarn.  

The easy way to five-a-day!

If you want to give yourself a head-start on your healthy living regime by kicking off your morning with a massive fruity injection to your Five-a-day plan then follow these simple steps:

A) Arrange a local bank holiday.
B) Head to a countryside location.
C) Go bramble picking, just like scarybez .
D) Collect a good couple of handfuls, but leave some for the birdies.
E) Blitz them in the blender/ smoothie maker, with other fruity delights.
F) ENJOY! aaaaah.
You can almost smell the antioxidants.

















As a complement why not try something not quite as healthy, but equally yummy. Socherry always inspires with her home-baked cakes from Cupcakes Galore so I followed her lead and bought that and its sister publication Cookies Galore . My first recipe was Citrus Cream Clouds, or in my case, Citrus Cream Stars. Yummy! If the others turn out that well, we'll be laughing.



In knitting, I have decided to join in the Charity Mitt Knit in aid of Childline, as seen over at K1 yarns. I am following the pattern for medium sized ladies' fingerless mitts, and I'm using Rowan Kid Classic in an olive colour. A nice fast knit, and I don't think I'll need anything like the full 100g recommended. Yes the backpack and boots are mine, I AM knitting on a picnic mid hillwalk!

And in yarn bargains, Twilley's Freedom Spirit is only £2.79 per ball in Galloway Gems, Castle Douglas, AND they have a new yarn range called Sublime. Bought 14 of the former, none of the latter. Yet. (Laughs demonically.)

Lucky me!

Hee hee, I did really well at the Swap Shop yesterday!
As you may have noticed I'm on quite a lace kick at the moment so I was delighted to bag some purple 1ply Cashmere yarn which the donor (Gloria, no blog) used to use for machine knitting. I'll try a wee swatch of it as is, and then try doubling it up on the ball winder, as Glo suggested. I traded some books and four balls of sock yarn for this and some cornflower blue Merino yarn, which is very fine too, although not in the same scale as the Cashmere, which is apparently 2/30 for those in the know.

I also got two balls of Rowan All Seasons Cotton which I swapped for some Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran with Mhairi, who I'm still trying to talk into getting a blog. She also took some of that red stuff off my hands, for which I will be eternally grateful.
Clever clogs has managed to put it away before photographing it, but I can tell you it is shade 195. Similarly I can't show you the Debbie Bliss Maya Karen gave me but it is shade 16, the fiery orangey mix. Too organised for my own good. Oh well, at least there's a good chance of you knowing what ASC and DB Maya look like anyway without a specific photo. I didn't have anything on me yesterday that Karen fancied so she let me off with an IOU for a future deal!

Didn't she do well? x K

Spot the difference!

The first picture is my stash April 2006, before the yarn diet. The second one was the stash this morning. Not a mega amount of visible difference except there is now one more box and even less daylight getting in through the spare room window, but no overspill sitting on top. The great difference unseen to the naked eye is that if you open a box labelled say "Rowan cotton and cotton blends", you will find exactly that, nothing more, nothing less. What I'm trying to say is that it now does what it says on the tin rather than fighting my way through random extras stuffed in each box out of the way. I've been through my stash over the last couple of days because the Glasgow Knitting Meetup is having a SWAP SHOP today!!!!! Wonder who's superb idea that was?

My contribution to today's swap shop at the Glasgow Knitting Meetup. A mixture of project ends, impulse sale buys, misjudged ebays and finished-with books and mags. The object is to swap this for something exquisite and TINY or nothing at all. I'll update you later to see if I managed to bring back a lot less than I took. 

Won't be putting this devil yarn into the swap shop. Will just give it in to charity I think. Spent quite a while making a nice jumper for myself out of this only to find it lost its look in 0.274 seconds. The problem is there is a core of fluffy wool cased in a fine mesh like ultrafine tights. There is no actual structure to the yarn. AVOID THIS YARN!  

Loved the side to side cabled jumper I made in Jaeger Como. Hated the fact it catches on everything and you look like you've been wearing it down the mines. 

Knitting friends

Last night I was lucky enough to attend the wedding reception of a lovely knitting friend who I first chatted to on the Rowan forum and then met in the flesh at a Kaffe Fassett talk in good old John Lewis.

J described her as "one of the original Dream Team", as I am spoiled here in Glasgow with many knitting friends.

She looked absolutely beautiful and I wish Jill and her new husband Kevin every happiness for the future.

Isn't the internet great, it's through the internet I met Jill, India, and Heather, and indirectly Nancy and Irene, who were all there to join the celebrations.

In case you're wondering about the lemur, the reception was in a beautiful venue- the Mansion House at Edinburgh Zoo. We took our time leisurely walking up and we chanced upon some friendly lemurs frolicking about.

And in case you're wondering about any KNITTING for the last fortnight I've been doing a little knitting, and a lot of frogging, sigh.

Progress

Here's the evidence of one ball of Orkney Angora St.Magnus DK knitted up in the Kiri pattern. Last time I checked my stitch count I had 211 so it's shaping up nicely. I'm enjoying working with the yarn and loving the zingy colour. Unfortunately the colour is not too accurate in this picture. It is not an entirely solid colour, there are slight variations in shade, but I think it's really pretty. I still have my work ahead of me as I've got two more balls to work through.
In other knitting I have been working away on both my Simply Lovely Lace Socks from Interweave, and psyching myself up for the surface embroidery on my Eva jumper. Hopefully more pix when I get some daylight shots.
I've also been playing with colours on the Dulux paint colour palette pages .
For craft purposes of course, heaven spare us from decorating the house. You can make a scrapbook of colours you like within various moods, and they suggest complementary tones and that kind of thing. Great for would-be Kaffe Fassetts! 

Triumphs and disasters!

Okay, now that I know Carol has safely received this and is happy with it, I can tell you about my Rowan Home and Hearth Exchange project.

(Carol, Orkney Angora is mighty fine! Started my Kiri shawl in it, scrummy!)

Some of you may recall I had got a hold of 50 balls of Sirdar Indigo yarn at the last Creative Stitches at the SECC. Well, I got the chance to put some of them to good use for this year's exchange.

My first project turned out to be a disaster, in spite of the best of intentions. It was so nice of you Mhairi to call it a near-disaster, unfortunately, it was a full-blown disaster.

I had to come up with a substitute which would be quickish to knit, would not weigh a ton, was homey and hearthy, virtually foolproof, would suit someone who lived in a warm climate (California) and liked denim colours.
So, I made these table mats from the Sirdar Indigo. I'm guessing that you recognise the pattern as the ballband washcloth pattern from Mason-Dixon. I made them a good bit longer than the pattern because 1) table mats are longer than dishcloths and 2) Sirdar Indigo shrinks lengthwise in the first wash.

So I made one pair with the descriptively named Dark Denim and Light Denim alternately as main shade and

contrast and one pair with Mid Denim and Ecru.

(Just as an observation, that's a very yarn-efficient way of using up the full balls with no wastage. Not that I would have begrudged some extra balls from my 50!) I also made a wee jug cover from Rowan 4ply cotton and added a couple of wee Scottish goodies to the parcel.

If Plan A had worked out okay it could be as heavy as it wanted, as Carol was in the UK for a while and I had her temporary address, but as time was marching on and the time for her to return to America was looming I didn't want to go mad with the weight.


Ok, plan A.
To make a pyjama case from mitred squares with a knitted front and a fabric back . Keep the colours consistent, but vary the stitch pattern on the different sections to show off the relief due to the deliberate wearing effect you get with denim yarns. Some lace, some texture, some colour, blah blah blah.

Here's how the swatches worked. Yes, swatches plural, she who does not swatch. Stocking stitch mitred squares, double decrease on each right-side row, ends up rhomboid, swatch washed at 60 degrees, SHRINKS IN LENGTH not width, ends up square, Bob's your uncle. No qualms whatsoever about knitting up the pieces.
Except when the pieces were finished and washed at 60 degrees (twice) then at 95 degrees eek, they did not shrink one iota. The piece above has been through three washes and some very assertive stretching and still looks like a kite/ shite. I look the pieces on holiday to Mull with me hoping to come up with inspiration to make it all work out, but none came.
The pieces do kind of align together, but they want to become a tee pee, poking up in the middle. J thinks it would be ideal as a cover for a canary's cage.
I WILL be able to do something with it I'm sure, but it is far far too big for a pyjama case (cos it didn't shrink), and the amount of doctoring it would have needed didn't make it a viable option for an exchange whose time guidelines were already marching on.
If the worse comes to the worst, I could frog it and use the yarn as normal yarn, but I am more likely to find some use for it as a, as a.... large denimy thing, without which no home is complete. In case you're wondering, the table mats shrunk perfectly well. x K

If you like knitting...

If you like knitting, get yourself over to
K1 yarns new ONLINE shop!
You too can enjoy the delights we experience in Glasgow.


If you don't like knitting, sorry you have stumbled onto this single-minded blog.

Happy Birthday to KEDkrafty!

Today is my blog's official birthday!

I did first log on some time in June 2005 with an inspirational message like "Hello," or "Testing 123," but it wasn't until August 20 that I finally started blogging for real.

So, thank you very much to all my visitors, commenters and lurkers this past year. X K

(I do have knitting to show you, but I am not at home so I don't have access to the photos. Hopefully get a chance to show you over the next few days.)

Midges beware!

Here's the next addition to my arsenal in the war against the midge!

I wanted to try out the stitch pattern for the Kiri shawl (which can be found on the sidebar of All Tangled Up ) and have something usable at the same time. So, voila, another head scarf for the collection, this time with extra sun-reflecting properties.

I used Rowan 4ply cotton and really enjoyed the pattern. Thanks very much Polly.
My only reservation is the edging. When I embark on the full scale version in Orkney Angora I will have plenty of time to work out what I want to do about that. I would like to find an alternative to starting the edging on a half-open leaf. I have a few ideas swimming around so I'll see if I can adapt or come up with something.
This should be a nice clear picture of the stitch detail.

This is the heid bunnet in action. Yes, I look like

a First Communicant

a woman with pants on her head

a Puritan maiden

a schoolgirl from yesteryear

St. Bernadette

a peasant dancer

a nun

a knitting fanatic

you-name-it,

but guess what - I LIKE IT!

Real Kiri will probably start tomorrow, all being well. x K

Okay, you asked for it!

Here are all the items completed during the 97 day yarn diet for your perusal.
I haven't been saving them up, I've just been posting about them as and when- they've been here on the blog over the last three months.
(I haven't just sat and worked this all out, it was all logged as I went along, I'll just transfer the relevant bits.)

In order of completion and photo-
Colours for fun, not links.


DB Cotton Cashmere
Midwest Moonlight
DressingTable Mat -140m

Jonelle wool blend
Tiny leaf lace shawl -10m

Rowan Summer Tweed
Deep Cardigan
-972m

DB Maya
Braided Mischief scarf
-378m

Rowan Kid Classic
Lace Leaf Shawl
-560m

Venezia Color Lang Yarns
Shetland Triangle
-390m

Jaeger Baby Merino 4ply
Baby Cardigan
-275m

7 balls Sirdar Indigo
Sneak preview!
Failed Rowan exchange pyjama case
-616m

Present for Rowan Exchange
Not yet received
-382m


Which gives us a grand total of
-3583m.

I've got a little something blocking which I hope to show you tomorrow. x K

Four letter words - Y.A.R.N D.I.E.T

Glad you agree with me about my gifts from Sarah.

Now, I must share the good news-

The yarn diet is over!

I survived! Now I'll have find to find something else to witter on about obsessively.
Do you know, in a strange kind of way, I sort of enjoyed it.
I committed to 90 days, and I got to 97 days.

During that period 3583m,
yes three and a half kilometres of yarn, were made into items and 0 m of yarn entered the builiding.

Angel Kathleen says, "May I add at this point that only finished objects were taken into account?"
Devil Kathleen says, "But you finished some things which had been languishing just so you could count the yardage for the whole item towards the yarn diet tally."
Angel Kathleen says, "Yes, true, but at least I got some more finished objects for my trouble and have also cut down the number of WIP, which was getting out of hand."

Normal everyday Kathleen is just so glad it's all over and I have made a tiny bit of an inroad into my stash. I must spend a little time over the next couple of days tidying it up a bit to see if I can spot any improvement.

Fanatics will be wanting to know what yarn signalled the end of my abstemious period. It was Orkney Angora St. Magnus D.K. 50% lambswool 50% angora, bought from K1 yarns last Friday. (See sidebar for K1 yarns.)

Ha ha, I am a free woman!

Parcel of knitted goodies.

Feast your eyes on the wonderful array of gifts which Sarah from Louisiana has sent me as part of the Rowan International Exchange!

Everything was beautifully presented too.

I have forgotten to add in the almond hand cream which Sarah sent too- I was too busy using it to remember to let it pose!

Thank you very much Sarah for the very generous gifts you have sent across the Atlantic.
I am delighted with all of them.


This a lovely large cushion made in Rowan Chunky Print and other yarns. The back is made of an extremely soft suedette fabric in a toning slate grey colour. It is no wonder Sarah's little one kept saying how soft the cushion was!
The colours will go well in my living room and I'll show a pic of it in situ when I've cleaned up a bit...





This picture shows hand-knitted socks which fit perfectly- if I had thought this through I'd have taken a pic of me wearing them.
They are heavy socks for round the house on colder days. The colours are beautiful, but haven't come up quite right in this picture.









Here you can see a knitted and felted tub in what appears to be Chunky Print or similar storing some lovely Lantern Moon 4mm ebony needles (told you she was spoiling me) and a knitted flower which may become a corsage, you never know.













In this picture you can see a big tin of New Orleans French Market coffee, as well as some beautifully scented rose soap in its own handknitted cotton cover. There is also a super soft fuzzy lavender sachet for my drawers.

All in all I am delighted with my exchange gifts as Sarah has been so thoughtful and generous.

In a couple of days I will show you what I am sending to my person (not Sarah) and if I am strong enough I may even spill the beans on my disaster.