The graduation scarf begins...

Of course, with my deadline for this semesters portfolio looming in less than a week, I not only have the infamous "fear" experienced by many university students around this time of year, but I also appear to be suffering from the apathy and procrastination that serves to strengthen the "fear's" vice like grip....

At least as a result of my procrastination, I have finally got the motivation to start making the graduation scarves that I've been planning!

I saw the pattern for this scarf several years ago and being such a geek knew I had to make one, but as a humanities student I didn't think it would be socially acceptable for me to wear one.... Fortunately I have some rather geeky plant science friends who would delight in helping me out there

So luckily for them, I am making two of these, both displaying parts of the sequence for a particular type of Begonia that was grown in the botanic gardens where they are both working!

I want to make backs for these as well so you don't see the mess on the back of the work, so I have a lot of knitting to do before June 26th when they graduate. I can't wait until May 21st when I hand in my last assignment and can be stuck to my needles until these are done!

Wish me luck!

x

**Update! I finished it, check it out here, or on ravelry**

Spring Cleaning Surprise...

This morning I awoke to realise that my desk was a disgrace. I was allowing myself to be engulfed by an ever growing pile of books, papers, pens, pencils, folders and portfolio work in progress. To match this state of utter chaos my computer desktop was also suffering, making it damn near impossible to find anything on my laptop anymore. So both got a spring clean today!

In a valiant attempt at procrastination I started with my laptop. 

I was making good headway until, to my surprise (and delight!) I found these beautiful flower photos taken by my little sister last spring.

These photos were taken both at my parents allotments and on a walk through some nearby woods.

I love the colours! 

They are so fresh and bright.

I thought to spruce up my desktop I would use the pink flower above as my background picture, so now I'll have to keep it tidy so I can keep looking at the photo!

Ok enough procrastination, I'm getting back to cleaning and working now.

Before I dash, I also found this rather cheeky one of Charlie, our family dog...

x

So much yarn, so little time...

I've had a lot to be getting on with recently (as you can see from all of those library books), but as ever the cries of a neglected yarn stash are hard to ignore. 

So I stole myself away when everyone else was out of the flat and secretly started a jumper I have longed to start for some time...

I've decided to do a mixture of patterns and inspirations (as always, which is probably why nothing seems to work out the first time around!) so I'm using Glarna for the yoke, and possibly Vormorgan for the shape but i haven't decided yet. Finally, instead of using separate colours to create the colourwork, I am using rowan colourscape to create the colour changes.

Here is a closer photo so you can see it better...

The colourscape is pure lambswool and can be felted, but the cream yarn (sirdar denim) is machine washable. So to make life easy for myself, I decided I would preshrink the lambswool as an experiment before I knit it all up. I haven't preshrunk yarn before so i did a quick rummage around the internet and came up with a method:

Wash your skein in hot soapy water, then rinse in hot water, dunk in cold water, hang it up to dry, wind it into a ball!

Easy, and very fun. I went a bit crazy during the drying process and hung weights from it and flung it around in the garden and all kinds of strange manoeuvres due to various recommendations from the myriad of yarn loving folk on the internet. It must have looked quite strange to all my neighbours but nevermind!

I can't wait to get cracking on this at last! Just a few more essays to write and then I'm free...

x

Spring is here!

Spring has definitely arrived, snow drops, and daffodils are starting to say hello and look at all these flowers that I found growing in my stash!

These lovely ladies are starting to blossom all over my flat at the minute, a new one seems to grow every day! Pearl and Florence have even taken over My Etsy shop, PrettyPorcini

x

Rosario

Remember this?

I decided to name her after my Grandma who gave me the beautiful buttons and who is a pretty crafty lady herself! I don't get to see her very often these days, what with being so far away from home, so it's nice to take some time to rummage through my button pots and remember the stories behind them all.

To make this lovely lady I used the same yarn as i used for my first purl beret. I love this yarn because the merino/silk combination makes every petal shimmer!

The Rosario Brooch is now for sale in my Etsy shop if you'd like to give her a good home.

Lovely new pegs!

I made some pegs recently because I hadn't crafted in such a long time...

I made them a little different from usual by adding a wooden disk, now I can put special little designs on the pegs to make them more interesting!

I'm going to head over and put them into my Etsy shop now

=)

x

Hard at work...

I have plenty to be getting on with for university of course... but my room is full of yarn that is simply begging me to put it to use. Being so selfless and all, I decided to put some it out of it's misery.

With some elbow grease (and a few sacrifices to the knitting gods) I'm hoping that this will eventually be a sweater vest for the workshops. They aren't the warmest of places but having long sleeved jumpers just means you get your lovely woollens covered in wood shavings and glue.

Swatches are no fun but I know it will be worth it, so this is the second one I've made and I like this layout much more than the first, which had only cables and no straight sections. The light isn't fantastic at 5pm on a first floor flat, so to clarify it's bright purple, Aran weight yarn from Robin I think.

I haven't decided yet whether it will be round neck or V-neck but I think the latter is probably more appropriate.

I have some more of this yarn in a dusty navy colour, which is slowly (very slowly at the minute) becoming a jumper for someone else. Unfortunately, it was supposed to be a christmas present and so has snowflakes on it... I've sort of missed christmas this time around, but at least if I hurry on and get it finished I'll be ahead for next year!

x