Black Fitted Sweater: Work in Progress pictures

I finished the back! So of course I had to pin it together with the front and try it on, which in turn led to pictures. I'm so pleased with how it's going so far - I absolutely loathe baggy sweaters, if I'm wearing it then it must be fitted! - and this looks to be shaping up well. Believe it or not it's still based on Dragonfly from Knitty, you can't really tell though. All I've taken from there is the neckline and armhole shaping, I winged the main body. So, here goes!





Ah I'm so pleased with this, there's nothing worse than spending hour upon hour knitting something, and then when you try it on it doesn't fit how you wanted. So, now I'll be starting the sleeves. I was going to do them in plain stocking stitch again with rib edging, but now I'm not so sure for two reasons:

1) After the front and back I'm ever so bored of stocking stitch!
2) As I mentioned here, I have a book from the library with lots of amazing stitch patterns in which I'm itching to try out, so I might do something with eyelets or cables perhaps? Not sure if it'd be better than a basic sweater though. Hmmmm.

The Morning After the Night Before

So I went to Jen's last night. She decided we all had to go in fancy dress as a rock genre, so I was a goth:



Sexy! Anyway, we drank lots of drinks and played Guitar Hero, Star Trek Interactive Board Game (hell yes....trust me, it's amazing and I've never watched star trek in my life.... a klingon shouts at you from the tv and its got really crappy old school special effects.....love it) and Dead or Alive. A good time was had by all, sadly I feel awful today - brought on by a combination of too much alcohol and staying up until 4am. Oh well, did I mention I don't have to work?!

13718th in line for Ravelry...slowly but surely....

Here is current progress on black jumper by the way:


Rubbish picture, I blame webcam. When Matt comes round I might steal his digital camera and take better pictures. Actually his camera is probably already here, most of his stuff is, but in my semi-comatose state I'm not going to be searching for it right now! Anyway, as you can see the back is nearly done, I've just started the armhole shaping. I need to alter the neckline though, so I need to calculate a bit before I knit any more. That's my task for this morning.

Although I might have a little snooze first!

What Sunday mornings are made for...

I'm sitting in bed in my pyjamas, watching Black Books and knitting my jumper. Heavenly. I could get used to this no working lark!

The jumper is slow going at the moment, mainly because I'm surfing the internet too much and thus knitting a row about once every twenty minutes. Damn you, assorted knitting bloggers of cyberspace! This just adds to the pile up of things-I'm-going-to-knit-at-some-point-in-the-future....

I'm still 13952nd in the invite list on ravelry.com.....checking if its changed is my other new addiction.

Insomniacs Anonymous

It's 1.23am.....I think I should stop knitting now.......

Trouble in t' Shire...

Someone got stabbed in my town last night. I think. I was walking to work this morning, and when I got in to town one side of the road was closed with all tape over the pavement, and there were men in white overalls with face masks cleaning up a whole load of blood. And it was a lot....and then later, when I was fetching my lunch some people in the sandwich shop were talking and said someone got stabbed. Now, my town is not big - it's right by Wales in the middle of the country - and in the last year two prostitutes were murdered, a policeman was shot dead and someone was shot on the dancefloor at one of the clubs (we only have about two anyway). This seems to me to be quite a lot of serious crime for such a small place! It's quite scary really, I think I'm going to be a bit nervous going out now, knowing that some nutters out there take guns and knifes with them out on the town.

...I just looked on the news website, it said two men suffered serious lacerations in an attack early this morning, they're in hospital, so hopefully they'll be ok.

In other news:

Today was my last shift at work! This is what I mainly spent it doing...



Oh yes, more designs for knitting patterns. I wish I could knit as fast as I think of things I want to make, that's three sweaters there. I'm going to have to organise myself with some kind of folder system I think.

After work, I went for a finishing-work-celebration drink with Chrissy, which was cool, and then I watched some bands in the square with Jon in the rain! There was the son of the guy who did the 'My Old Man's A Dustman' song, he was good. I wish he'd played that song though!

And now, the rest of my night shall be spent on the black jumper!

Last day of work!

Woop woop a woop! Uni here I come!

I should probably be getting ready to leave.

I'm knitting though.

Misuse of working hours

Wow two posts in one day! Although the one earlier was technically yesterday's post, just I got back too late to write anything and went straight to sleep. So anyway, today I have been at work for the penultimate time! On my break, I went to the library and got the most amazing book. It's called "The Ultimate Sourcebook of Knitting and Crochet Stitches", and it's incredible! It has about 900 different stitch patterns, more than half of them are for knitting and they've given me so much inspiration already. I was reading it slyly under the counter and spent the last couple of hours designing a scarf (don't ask me why I wanted to make a scarf in July!), it's really pretty. I'm going to make it out of something soft and dark red I think. Anyway, tonight I'll type up that pattern and then when I've done my jumper I can make a start on that. Or something else, I have too much I want to knit!

Talking of the jumper, it's getting on well. I've finished the waist decreases and now I'm increasing for the bust, it's quite monotonous all being in stocking stitch, but oh well. Then I have to work out how to alter the sleeves to fit and make them, and then it's all ready to sew and block! Ahhh I love finishing things.

I'm not going to Jen's tonight now because she's ill, so I'll be going there probably Sunday instead. Which means knitting tonight! Hopefully I can finish the back and maybe make a start on the sleeves. I won't get much done tomorrow because me and Chrissy are going for a celebratory drink when I finish work, but Matt's busy on Sunday so I might get the sleeves done then. Rrrrright to work!

London Calling

I'm so tired today, got back from London at midnight after getting up at 6am. But oh my god I can't wait to live there! It's such an exciting place, plus my bus went down Oxford Street, and the shops there are about as big as a whole shopping centre here, good stuff! And my uni-to-be gets more gorgeous every time I go....e.g.:



Ahhh it's so pretty! Plus I got to meet some people I'll be there with who were all really nice. We had a look through the windows of the halls, I hope I'm in Willow or Aspen, but if not Garden Court looked nice too. I want the letter to come now telling me where I've got! We also went and had a look in Putney, which was nice too, lots of shops and things. I can't wait to go, less than two months left!

I've got work this afternoon, last shift but one - it's going so slowly! Then when I'm done I get some time off, me and Matt are going to go to Leamington and paint a house as well, we're getting paid £700 which isn't too bad. I can't wait to not have to go to work, it's going to be so nice not having to get up in the mornings any more! And I'm definately ready to do something else now.

Not entirely sure why the first bit of writing is blue incidentally....(edit: it's ok, i fixed it!)

My jumper is getting on well too, I didn't get as much done on the way to London as I wanted because I fell asleep! But I've done about 7 inches of the back, it's looking good. I'll do some more this morning before work, can't do much tonight though because I'm going to Jen's.

It's sunny today! For once! But I have to work, I bet it's raining again by the time I finish on Sunday. Oh well, my jumper will come in useful!

Almost free....

I have two more days of work, and then my job is over and I have a month to do whatever I like before I start uni! It's really exciting, but unfortunately the shifts I have left are dragging so much - oh well, today was the last delivery day. Tomorrow I'm going to London to look around at uni, which should be good, although it's going to be a bit scary getting there on my own. I'm going to take my jumper with me to knit on the way as it takes about four hours to get there, hopefully I'll manage to finish most of the back and then there'll only be the sleeves left! I'm up to the neckline of the front now, I think I can finish that tonight. I think I'm going to be doing lots of knitting in the next month, I've been having so many ideas for things that I want to make, so I'll have to see if I can design some patterns.

Dragonfly

I've made a good start on my kind-of-dragonfly sweater! There was a sale in the wool shop, so I managed to get 10 balls of pure wool in black for cheap, so that's what I'm making it with. I've done about 1/3 of the front so far, which I think is good as I only started yesterday! It's going to be really nice and cosy, which might not seem like the ideal project in July, but it's unbelievably cold and wet this year - go England! I hope I can get most of the front done today, it's knitting up quite fast.

I found some more things I want to knit!

http://www.vogueknitting.com/vkm/charts/2007/vk25/JCA-Reynolds.pdf
http://www.vogueknitting.com/vkm/charts/2007/vk25/Patons.pdf ( I really REALLy like this, might have to make it next)

Stuff

I got quite far with my wrap cardigan, I did the back and half of one side of the front, but then my mum raided my room and threw away half of the messy scraps of paper I'd written my vague pattern on, so I don't think I'll be able to go on with it now, I can't remember what I did! Anyway, I haven't done any knitting for ages because I've been busy with work and dance exams, but today I'm going to start a new project. There's loads of stuff I want to make, but I'm going to start with a variation on Dragonfly from Knitty.com. I'm not doing it two different yarns and I won't be doing the dragonfly stitch because I just want a plain sweater, but I love the neckline, so that'll be my starting point. So after work today I'm going to the wool shop to find something to make it with, I'd like it in black I think, something nice and soft to keep me warm at uni!

Also, I'm going to start a list of things I want to make, because I always find stuff I love and then lose it. So here goes:

Knitty's Eiffel http://knitty.com/ISSUEwinter06/PATTeiffel.html
A top down raglan of some description. Maybe with a hood. http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=152316.0
Lana Grossa's Come Cardigan http://www.lanagrossa.com/service/mdm/01_2007/index.html
Lana Gross's Croisette http://www.lanagrossa.com/service/mdm/03_2006/index.html
Mystique http://ziaperamore.blogspot.com/2007/01/maybe-i-give-up.html