I have been knitting all this time, just not blogging about it.

What happened was, I took the ASJ with me on holiday to York, but I didn’t have enough wool to finish it, so when I ran out of knitting, I started doodling.

I got thinking about a garment made of a single strip that zigzags about the body, weaving over and under itself to form a whole cloth.  This is very hard to explain in words, and I’m not sure my chart will make it clearer, but I’ve put the chart up here in any case.

Now I have made something before with woven strips of knitting, and it ended up very heavy, so I decided this new garment would have to made of a very lightweight fabric.

That set me off exploring lots of lace knitting patterns and making endless little swatches out of some lace weight (?) mohair yarn I’ve reclaimed from a charity shop jumper.

Finally I invented a stitch pattern I’m happy with and I’m now working on the thing itself.  I have created a project for it on Ravelry (also sadly neglected) and I’ll try to log my progress there.

Meanwhile in amongst the experimenting, I managed to knit some actual things.  First, two different projects which (I realised afterwards) both used a technique I have become fond of – non-circular knitting on two circular needles.

I used a thicker wool (Rico Organic Twist aran, found at Sheepish in York) and larger needles to have another go at my sideways gloves (Ravelry login needed).  Having promised to write up the pattern for these “after Christmas” I still haven’t done it, but knitting these made it a little clearer in my mind.

I also had another go at the Short-row slipper socks (opens PDF) I designed last year.  This resulted in some improvements to the pattern, which is another thing I need to get round to sorting out and uploading.  It also resulted in lovely cosy slipper socks for me and Allie.

My most recent finished thing was an emergency “toe sock” for Allie’s mum, who has broken her ankle and has a plaster cast.  Her toes stick out the end of the cast, so she needed something stretchy to keep them warm.  I don’t have any pictures of the thing I made in action, but here it is doubling up as a hat for Beatrice!

I made two, each in a single evening.  The strings are made of i-cord, and are long enough to reach round her ankle twice and be tied in the front.  She is extremely pleased and says I should patent it.

Now I’m playing with lace knitting, as preparation for a new invention.

I love this pattern – it’s so clever!  I’m not doing stripes, but the wool changes colour, so it will end up looking a bit variegated.  I have added a kind of diagonal rib stitch pattern to give myself some added interest while knitting it.  I hope that’s not going to come back and bite me.

I improvised the pattern as I knitted the first sock, and made some minor improvements while doing the second one, so they don’t exactly match.  Of course, I’ve thought of several more improvements since, so I’m going to have to make some more now!

The pattern (first draft) is here - be warned, it’s a bit approximate, so do check that you know how it will work with your yarn and gauge before you start.  It owes a lot to Cat Bordhi’s Houdini socks – if you want an elegant and properly worked out sock pattern with a fresh approach, do use hers.

Any comments or suggestions welcome, especially if you spot a mistake.

I have moved my blog over here, as I my old blog was a bit too slow to load and clunky to update.

Now that I am on Ravelry,  I can do a lot of the organising there that I was attempting to do on the old site.  I’m slowly listing all my projects on my Ravelry notebook, but I’m leaving the old blog up as additional background.

There’s been a bit of a hiatus, since I last updated the old blog.

I’ve made some birthday and Christmas presents, which will have to be blogged later, half a pair of slipper-socks using my own birthday present yarn, and this:

Spinning a Yarn

This has reignited my interest in knitting a cauliflower.  I have been drawing unsatisfactory sketches, which look a little bit like the arrangement of cauliflower florets, but not quite close enough to get the lovely Fibonacci spirals I want to show.

I’ve just rediscovered this lovely page, which has the exact pictures I wanted – look at this one: how fantastic is that?.  Back to the drawing board…