Archie The Wonder Dog

  Furtle (v): to have a rummage or delve into the contents of something This month has been another sock month. I’ve knitted this pair using the leftovers from two balls (a friend bought both of us a ball of this WYS Brightside and she gave me her leftovers so I could make another pair): Yarn is WYS Brightside (874) And this pair, which are the one hundredth pair I’ve knitted: Yarns are all from  Made By Penguins , five minis (she has lots for sale and they’re perfect for socks) and a leftover from a previous pair I’ve also knitted the first sock in pair one hundred and one: Yarn is WYS Woodland Awakening (1025), one of the collection by Zandra Rhodes Mini Archie has been watching all of this and wondering why none of it seems to be for him.  No, I isn’t practicing mine knitting pattern poses, I is watching for Pirates *dignified face* Linking up to the November Furtle  If you're linking up, please add a link (one per person, please) to your blog post, which could contain: a mosa

I recently realised that I was approaching my one hundredth pair of socks and Mr Random Number Generator thrilled me by choosing a ‘kit’ from my Sock Lucky Dip album which consisted entirely of yarn from  Made By Penguins . I started with these: And after not very much knitting at all (we all know that stripes go faster), I had these: Usually, I make socks which match but for these I fancied stripy and co-ordinated but not matching, just for something different. I started by choosing two cuff colours and decided that they would swap over for the toes. I also decided that I’d use one of the six yarns for both heels and that I’d do regular (ten round) stripes. I also decided that I wouldn’t weave in the ends as I knitted as I’m not keen on the uneven stitches I get as a result so I thought I’d see how tedious darning in all the ends afterwards was. I was pleasantly surprised and found it very satisfying, which bodes well for future scrappy socks. I did my usual diagonal path, darning the

Continuing with my unintentional year of the sock, I’ve finished another pair. These are made with the leftovers from two balls of WYS Brightside, one from a pair I knitted and the other from a pair my friend knitted. They’re both the same dye lot so I assumed that it would be as easy as knitting two socks from the same ball and getting the colour changes to match but that was very much not the case. The first sock, which was knitted all from one ball, went smoothly but when I came to knitting the leg of the second sock, from the other ball, I had constant trouble trying to get the changes to match. Fortunately, once I got to the point where I could swap back to the first ball, things went a lot better. A (different) friend said that although they’re the same dye lot, that will be comprised of many hanks and if one has a tighter twist than the other, they won’t knit up exactly the same. Which makes sense when you think about it and made me feel a lot better about my knitting consistenc

Furtle (v): to have a rummage or delve into the contents of something This month, I’ve sewn up the Luna Lapin jumpers knitted eleven dishcloths and knitted a pair of socks Yarn is ‘Rimjhim’ by Dusty Dimples The yarn has lovely speckles of colours, it really is beautiful. Needless to say, Mini Archie is still a bit miffed that the dishcloths aren’t blankets for him and his chums and, well… These is ours, I is merely reclaiming them *firm yet dignified face* Linking up to the October Furtle  If you're linking up, please add a link (one per person, please) to your blog post, which could contain: a mosaic of all you've made in the month, something you've made/started/worked on, a goal which you'd like to achieve in the next month (and then in next month's post you can reflect on that goal and set yourself another one - I find this particularly handy if I'm in the midst of a big project and finding the making of hundreds of blocks to be interminable), anything crafty

I’ve got another tick on my Fettling List to report which has increased my Fettling Points total quite nicely. Last week, I’d made two from each ball of cotton and now I’ve made three more using the leftovers: The bottom two are made from alternating two yarns, the top is broad stripes of each one: I love the way the bottom two look like they’re knitted from whole balls rather than striped leftovers.  Here they are laid out with the non-scrappy cloths on either side of them so you can see the difference between the scrappy and the non scrappy: And here’s them all in a nice neat pile, eleven* Fettling Points all stacked together and looking, if I may say, lovely: Sheila  said that each cloth deserved its own point and I agree, so a point a cloth it is. From this to this, with over 50,000 stitches in between: Dishcloths from dk cotton: Cast on 60sts on 3mm needles, knit 80 rows, cast off.  For I, yes? I and mine chums is in need of new blankets for winter…

 Having added dishcloths to my Fettling List after receiving some gorgeous hand-dyed cotton, I decided that they would be my reward for finishing the tiny jumpers and I set to the moment the jumpers were finished (I’m really not kidding!). This is how they looked in the skein: Yarn is from  Made By Penguins This is how they looked wound: And this is how they look knitted into dishcloths: Each dishcloth weighs about 38g and I have about 31g left of each so I’m going to combine them to make scrappy dishcloths; I’m hoping for another three. I’ve started by combining the two yarns on the right in the ‘wound’ photo (bottom two in the photo above) in simple stripes, two rows of each, and it’s going well: I’ll hopefully be back with more dishcloths (and no yarn left) quite soon and then I’ll have to make up my mind how many Fettling Points I award myself: one for each dishcloth or one between them *dithers* or an option I haven’t yet thought of.   Are you making good progress this month?

Earlier this year, several felty chums of Mini Archie were worried about how they would keep warm this winter and I was tasked with providing jumpers to keep them toasty. Firstly, to check the fit,  I made a test jumper which fitted all of them well , they placed their order, it was added to the Fettling List  and Mini Archie put it to the top of my order of works list.  I started them last month and by the time it came to furtle for September’s progress , I had three jumpers in pieces which had been soaked and blocked, ready for sewing up.  Penny had already bought some gorgeous metal buttons from Cool Crafting  (as used in the jumper on the pattern ) and had them sent here so there was nothing stopping me from making a start with the sewing up.  Well, nothing bar my dislike of sewing up knitting, that is. However, Mini Archie gave me a stern talking to and then pulled on my heartstrings with tales of nithered chums. Naturally, I set to.  At first, I was going to sew up each jumper

  Furtle (v): to have a rummage or delve into the contents of something Hello! This month has been a satisfying sock month. I finished the enormous socks: Yarn is  Summer Lake by Mothy And The Squid To show how enormous they are, I took a photo with the size six socks they were travelling with to their new home: I’ve blocked the tiny jumper pieces: And now they’re ready for the (dreaded*) sewing up: (*I’m hoping that doing three of them back to back will cure me of this dread. The sewing up of the test jumper wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I was expecting so I’m hoping to continue that and cure myself.) I got a fantastic new bag from a friend in California which is the perfect sock knitting bag: Here’s what it holds with room to spare: Aren’t the fabrics wonderful? Thank you, Ramona, I adore it! And I turned this sock lucky dip item: Into these socks: I had under two grams of the multi-coloured yarn left at the end, which is very nearly almost as good as just having enough left to graf