Knit, Crochet and Natter 5 - the roadmap to MORE YARN!

[lazylinguist]

A thread for knitters, crocheters and yarn crafters of all kinds. Total beginners very much welcome! Previous thread here

Oh no lazy, poor you and poor DD. It can't be easy at the minute with all the schools having been off for so long. Maybe a day off from it will help clear her head a bit?

Well she certainly seems pretty chilled after an afternoon of hanging with her friend at the park and playing Minecraft. While I worry about her future. Grrrr. Today was an extra - I'd booked her in last-minute (with her agreement)for a taster session for an alternative subject because she's decided she hates one of her chosen ones. Then she refused to go. Tears from both of us and I'm really not a crier. Thanks for the sympathy, Flavia.

Anyway... looking forward to some nice easy Goldwing jumper stocking stitch after dinner. Or maybe.... a little research for next projects. I still only have two on the go atm .

Oh dear @lazylinguist sounds a nightmare! Did your evening knitting help?

Wish I’d stayed in and knitted, had a date with a guy, nice enough but his pics were a good four years and four stone out of date!! Not a match.

Eek at the date, petridish! It must be a minefield, dating these days. Whenever I read any MN threads about online dating, I just can't imagine navigating it. Here's to a more appealing next candidate for you!

My evening knitting did help a bit. We're all at least being very calm now. Dd is in denial about having to make any kind of decision and I'm wondering whether to try and dissuade her from the new, unsuitable, course she likes or to just shut up and hope she drops the whole idea...

Yeah it’s a bit of a nightmare! But hopefully just a temporary one.

Glad it helped. Tricky with teens isn’t it, I know with me if my mum wanted me to do something it would usually make me want to do the opposite (actually I’m a bit like that still at 34 lol)

Oh no Petri! Hope your food or drink was nice at least!

Lazy I wish you immense diplomacy and patience for today. Petri definitely has a good point about teenagers being bloody minded for the sake of it! If it's any consolation I know loads of people who took a wandering path to their final career of choice.

Sigh. Yes, that's a good point Flavia. As a teacher I'm very against kids being made to do the subjects tgeir parents want them to do. But it's very hardxwhen it's your own child and you're sure they're making a big mistake!

Anyway, sorry for the non-yarny derail. As you were!

Its been a bit chaotic here - I've done all the training for my new job and have done quite a bit of work over the last couple of weeks. Now that I've got a better idea of what I'm doing it should be more flexible going forward. We've been "up north" to see family for the first time in ages and we've been having some work done in the garden which has been quite stressful as one of the deliveries disappeared! All sorted now thankfully.

I'm working on my cricket style sweater for stress relief but its third time lucky with the neckline as I keep just doing it wrong.

What's going wrong with the neckline, NiceCardigan? Bit chaotic here too - we are putting in a new bathroom, and dh decided to do it himself, with help from (retired engineer) FIL, who's arriving tomorrow. Dh has been starting it slowly, so we've been without the main bathroom for a while. Don't worry - we have a shower cubicle in the downstairs bathroom, so we are all still clean.

I'm ploughing along with the Goldwing jumper. I'm a bit more convinced of the sizing now, as it grows. I'm intending to make the body a bit longer than in the pattern. I find short jumpers really unflattering on me!

There's a decrease in the bottom of the v in the neckline and it's supposed to make a nice neat line but goodness know what I was doing as it didn't look neat at all. Obviously not concentrating!

I've completely and utterly lost my knitting mojo so I've given up and I'm translating a couple of my WIP patterns into machine knitting instructions and then I'm borrowing my mum's machine. All my current WIPs use tiny needles and I just keep thinking how much quicker it'll be on the machine instead of wrestling with hundreds of stitches at a tight gague for acres of plain stocking stitch.

I need lots of fairisle or lace to hold my interest I think, otherwise I have the attention span of a goldfish 🐠

My view whilst crocheting this evening. We're away for the weekend as it's my partners birthday and we're visiting puppy tomorrow :-) Going to be one spoiled puppy, having handmade crochet toys. I know they'll get destroyed but in truth am happy to have the opportunity to crochet things without ending up with a mountain of soft toys!

Lovely @tizwozliz. Enjoy the puppy visit.

How's the bathroom @lazylinguist?

I'm with you@FlaviaAlbiaWantsLangClegBack. My brother is after a summer jumper but I've told him to go to Marks. There's no fun for me in acres of stocking stitch.

Having said that, I feel like putting my shawl away permanently after having noticed another mistake. I'm so frustrated because it's such a simple pattern. I can't understand why I'm messing up so much. I'm blaming the fluffy yarn I can't see properly (light grey). I had a dream last night that the yarn had broken all over the shawl so I was justified in throwing it away!

I hope your sweater neck behaves better than my shawl this weekend @NiceCardigan

I seem to have sorted it now @MerylSqueak it just needed me to actually concentrate on what I was doing! Hope the shawl does what its told.

Once I've finished the sweater I don't know what I'm going to make next. Maybe I'll just do some crochet squares until inspiration strikes!

Glad it's sorted, NiceCardigan!

The bathroom is coming along, MerylSqueak - DFIL arrived yesterday late afternoon after a 7 hour drive and got straight to work with dh. Floor nearly finished, toilet plumbed in. I need to get a move on and choose some tiles! I want to go for patterned ones because everything else is quite plain, but I'm having trouble narrowing it down - it's as hard as choosing yarn!

I'm getting a bit bored with stocking stitch too, on my Goldwing jumper. It's ridiculous really- I thought 'phew!' when I finished the Fairisle part, but actually now wish I were still doing that! I'm thinking of doing a fully Fairisle project soon - maybe that Neville Longbottom hooded cardigan that was discussed way back on Thread 1!

Northern Yarn, the local-ish shop where I got my Goldwing yarn is going tonbe a stallholder at a 'Farmers' Yarns' event not too far from me at the beginning of July, which I might go to. Nice to support local wool producers and nice to be able to attend things in person again!

Sneak preview!

Oh my gosh @tizwozliz that little face!

tizwozliz look that face 😍 those eyes are old, soulful eyes!

😍😍😍

Ooh tizwoz, what a beauty 😍

I think I have a small problem 🤣 8 months of crochet & these are FULL, with the majority earmarked for specific projects, and there's a bag under my bed too that's full of yarn mainly for my current WIP's 🙈 (Ignore the corner of my bra, I'd already walked away when I realised it was there & am too lazy to re-take the photo!)

Awww @tizwozliz sooo cute!!

I’ve not done any knitting all week! Just not really been in the mood, I’ll pick it up again soon!

Finished!

That's really lovely, NiceCardigan!
I've just spent about 40 minutes talking to FIL about knitting . He's a retired engineer and does pottery and guitar making and is enslessly fascinated by craftsmanship and the construction of things. He was asking me all about the things I'd made and how Fairisle works and about my circular needles etc. Bless him!

This is why I make fair isle jumpers from the bottom up rather than top down! Need to make myself wait for the interesting bit otherwise I'd never finish them!