Daily Drivel

City & Guilds revisited...

I started doing the City & Guilds 7922 certificate in hand knit textiles ages ago (by distance learning). I made a good start but stuff happened and I haven't touched it for a long time. So - I've decided to try again and tonight I've started looking at different cast-on methods. I know a few - backward loop, knitted, long-tail, german twisted cast-on, a couple of provisional cast-ons. In the course notes it says to do at least six samples showing different cast-ons & cast-offs (let me think about which cast-offs I know - knit, suspended cast-off, purl, knit and purl). Anyway - I'm now really curious about how many different cast-ons (and off) there are. I've learnt a new one tonight - the channel islands cast-on or knotted-edge cast-on. Thanks to lovely people who take the trouble to put videos up on you tube of these sort of things - much easier to follow than written instructions or static drawings!

So - I'll all motivated again now. Hopefully I can stay motivated this time and get the module finished. I really should go to bed now!

Weekend - yay!

I'm glad it's the weekend - especially as we're taking Monday off - which will make for a nice short week next week. Yay! I've been making some more yarnimals tonight - just some bodies in brown and black. Black Fimo is so much softer than the other colours - I have to leave it a while to harden up a bit before adding the other bits on. Hopefully I'll be able to finish them off tomorrow. I'm so low on stock right now it's not funny! There's just been too much 'stuff' going on recently. So - hoping 2 long weekends will give me some time to get a bit of stock built up again. The little oven seems to be behaving ok - the batch in the ' 'baking photo' came out fine.

I've got high hopes for my productivity this weekend - I really want to get A's socks finished - I've been knitting them in the car this week - I can get about 4 rounds done each way - I find it a bit trickier in the car, especially as I'm doing these 2 at once. I've got quite a bit to go - they are going to be my 'rugby' knitting!

I'm making slow progress on Kiri - but I think I'm finally getting the pattern in my head now and I'm really starting to enjoy it. I'm still a bit nervous of the laceweight yarn - and still worried it's a bit 'girly' for me. I'm sure I'll manage to snag it on something too - how do you avoid that! I'm always catching my Clapotis on something (eeek, that sounds rude!). Anyway - I was knitting Kiri tonight and thinking about having a go at designing a shawl. I've got some ideas but I don't know if it would work. Which reminds me - I must do a bit more work on my C&G course too - I did do a swatch and a bit of drawing last week. Really trying to do a little each week. It's going to take me ages at this speed but nevermind - there's no rush.

Right - time for bed. Going to listen to a podcast and get a few more sock rounds in before I go to sleep.

Productive weekend...

Had quite a productive weekend for a change. I finally got round to making the cushion I bought the stuff for 2 years ago (eeek!) when I got my sewing machine for Christmas. It didn't take too long to make and I even managed to put the zip in ok (well, ok-ish - but it's only my 2nd ever zip so I'm pretty pleased with it!). It's a snowman pattern on one side and plain red on the other. I suddenly realised how I should be positioning my zipper foot while I was sewing it on - DOH! The instructions I was following weren't that clear and I think the foot was different to mine. My first time using basting tape too - very cool stuff - it worked a treat holding the zip in place. I think I'm going to make some more cushions soon!

I also made something else - but I can't put that up because it's a secret! I'm going to have to make myself one as well I think.

I did manage to knit a swatch for my course today too. I really do need to get on with it and try and get a bit more done. I need to keep the momentum up a bit.

I'm working on a pair of socks for my Dad for Xmas - first 'fitting' tomorrow hehe. I don't rate my chances of actually getting them finished for Xmas though. I'm also making slow progress on my Forest Canopy shawl - I keep getting it wrong. Very annoying as it is such a nice, simple pattern.

Ooh, yarn!

I got a nice parcel of yarn today - I had posted on a forum asking if anyone had any bits of yarn going - just enough to make some different swatches for my C&G course as I don't really have a massive stash and it's going to get expensive buying lots of odd balls of different yarns. Anway, big thanks to 'blueadt' for sending me a lovely selection of interesting yarny bits to get me started. I can't decide what to try first :-) I still need to make a bit of a plan re. what I need to do and work out roughly how long it's going to take me to complete the first module.

Right, I think I'll choose some yarn and knit a swatch now!

I've started!

My first module for the City & Guilds course I'm doing arrived this weekend. I've had quite a good look through it all. There are quite a few activities to do - including a fair amount of swatch-knitting to show different techniques etc. I made a start tonight and knitted a swatch :-) I'm going through different cast-ons and cast-offs. I think it's going to be interesting to try lots of different techniques - I know I could do that anyway, without a course, but I quite like to have a bit of structure to work with - and it's the design part I really wanted to do the course for. I need to decide how I'm going to store / display my samples. I've got a gadget for doing those plastic binding thingies so I might use that (as I've got a box full of the bindy bits up the loft from when I did my OU final project!) to bind it all together. I'm wondering if there are some super-strength glue-dots which would work for yarn. Hmmmm.