The countdown is on.

Life in this household for the last couple of weeks has been a case of tip toeing on egg shells around a teenage daughter, Ry, who has been stress out to the max with her GCSE exams.  This week is a count down week as we have two exams to go, her birthday and her graduation leavers dinner.

Knitting wise at the moment I am a little shawled/laced out so what did I cast on last Wednesday a lace cardi for daughter.  Rocks in my head.  Well at least there is a big stretch of stockingette as she is a bit of a stretch.  I had a skein of dark grey summer tweed from J's waistcoat. I had managed to get a couple more of the same dye lot just enough for a short sleeved Hey Teach.  It looks like I will cutting it fine.  I started with six skeins.  2 for the back, 1.5 for each front.  I have 1 skein left to do the two sleeves and the ribbon band.

So onwards  I go to do sleeves with lace....  Why am I doing this to myself lace and shaping must be cause I love the mumble mumble ruddy teenager.  I keep putting myself under stress through my repeated habit of short knitting deadline.  I have three days to get the rest of this garment done, sewnup and then wrapped for daughter's birthday on Wednesday.

What to knit now?

For someone who has multiple projects around her at all times it was very strange not to know what my next project was. I have a Christmas list and of course I am limited on time but looking at the stash and the list it was a real case of MEH nothing really interested me. I looked at the current lace KAL and went nice but why bother.

Then the daughter came down and did a flounce about her clothes and how nothing in the shops fitting her. I was going to do a dress for her but she has been mucking me about for months now about colour and style so I decided to put that project in time out about 5 months ago. But the last time I had done some dying I had autumn colours and a whole lot of greens. During my deliberation about trying to work out what my next project would be I started winding some of the skeins I had lying around including starting to de-tangle some of the skeins that the animals had tangled into a mess which takes hours to sort. After only getting through one detangle job it was time to find some knitting cause I was getting desperate.

I did not want seams again cause I had been put off after seaming J's waistcoat. Like J, the daughter -Ry is a long stretch in the body. She has broken the 6' mark so we know she is long. Daughter is a size 4-6 but needs the length to cover her belly. Yes we are talking long tall and very skinny. So what is girly, can be knit in the round on circs, not miles of stockingette and has an xxsmall version in the pattern directions. After a trawl through ravelry I found lots of pretty girly patterns, not miles of stockingette but Nope I am not going to do seams again for a long while. Then whoo hoo I found a pattern, it has directions in xxsmall, and it would be simple for me to make it longer to suit the body dimensions of the blonde stretch. So I knit up a tension swatch , check. Count the balls of wool I have , check. Made sure I had read all the pattern directions and cast on the start of a February Lady sweeter for the daughter last Sunday night.

I got the yoke section done the first night if I can keep up to my half a ball a night I will be able to knock this one off pretty quickly so I thought. Monday night started on the lace pattern after a few hickups I start to get the four line pattern sorted in that thick head of mine. Tuesday I skived a little from work and went out to a knitters lunch. The sweater went with me but I did not get anything done on it cause I reckon we talk to much. Then tootled down to Prescot and had a look in the wool shop. Nothing really grasped me there. Hang on shesh I have to do some Secret Santa knitting OMG I had not done the order with Chris... Give a call to Chris ayah home do you want to take some money off me... Well Secret Santa yarn purchased and some for a special item for me. That's my Christmas present to myself sorted. At knit night I think I got more gossiping done thank knitting but a couple of rows got done.

Wednesday did a few rows at work and then when I got home I could not face it all. So what do you do then you cast on another project. That did not hold me. So I cast on another project and then another. But here is the kicker it was not my Secret Santa task or even my own xmas present. Nope I have no real idea what I was casting on but I think that one of them is a thin Sasika scarf and if I do any more on it can be another stocking filler.

So feeling guilty on Thursday I say to myself if you knit 1/2 a ball on the daughter's sweater you can do some work on something else. I did not even get a row done before I fell asleep. Friday again I am thinking do a row and another row when I get a chance. Did a row here and a row there and still not finished 1/2 a ball before throwing it down in a heap. Ok tomorrow you are going to be hanging around at work a bit thanks to the Open day so take the sodding thing with you. A row here a row there and eventually you will break the hold of this black hole were you dont seem to be progressing very far. After knitting in the wind were the breeze was blowing the knitting away from me at 90 degrees and I was so glad of my circular needles I still feel that I had not progressed. Spent the afternoon on the couch but I was snoozing not knitting. This pattern is putting me to sleep.

Everyone comes home from the movies to my snoozing form on the couch and I think ok now you really have to crack on with some knitting. Join a new ball and before bed tonight you need to get 1/2 way. After 2 movies and now on the start of the third movie I am still only a quarter way through this ball. The knit is getting heavier and heavier and I keep dozing off due to the pattern. I am starting to wonder if I will ever get this sweater finished I am not even near the waist yet and I have to get it down to her hips.

Travelling Woman or should I say Women!

Well I thought it was time that I got down to work and started to tackle the Christmas Knitting List. I had ordered some yarn from Christine at Knits in the City for the Husbeast's next waist coat. I needed a quick knit and I had some lovely Rowan - RC luxury cotton DK in the stash and though of Ry. Ry's favourite colour is green and I had picked up a couple of balls just case it was a pretty green. Why is it the way that as soon as you like a yarn they discontinue it - Rowan does it all the time!

So I had several shawl patterns thanks to my trolling on Ravelry and was planning to do the next Beginners Lace Knitters KAL next time it started. The KAL voted for September and what do you know it is a Travelling Woman. I had this pattern in my library so I thought it is a good as time as any to start on. I know it was a little early for September but the Beginners Lace Knitters group is pretty flexible about when and how you do things which I like. After casting on last week I go into work and find out that Kate is leaving next week to head off to teaching college. So since it was a quick knit so far I pulled out the stash bag again and found that I had two balls of Artist Palette Butterly. This DK is perfect for a quick knit shawlette for Katie as she goes off to start her new life as trainee teacher.

So at stitch and bitch on Tuesday night I cast on the second Travelling Woman. Perfect time as the initial part of the shawl is straight stockinette. I thought this was a good idea since I would not be able to do a chart and in theory I would be just knitting while chatting. After a couple of attempts and rips I got the shawl cast on. Wednesday night I had completed Chart A repeats and Thursday all done, time to cast off. I think with Ry's I am going to do a couple of extra repeats of Chart A and this will make it slightly longer shawl which is necessary since the girl is so long.

So I think officially I now have the lace bug which is handy as I have been stumbling round trying to find ideas for the Christmas list. Looks like a couple of lace shawls will be flying off the needs at high speed.

Buggy's Bee Socks 2

Since she wanted short socks I have managed to knit another pair out of the Buzz Sock yarn that I had ordered from Wyndwitch because I thought the daughter would choose a long line design. So we have managed another pair of anklet socks. Managed to get the second pair finished in time for her to take them off to France with her last week.

With Graduation on this week I am not expecting much in the way of knitting time. This week seems to be one graduation after another. As an usher I have to be there an hour ahead and battle with traffic and car parking gnomes. I have been allocated disabled parking but as per normal I think I will have to battle getting my allocated position.

Since I will be able to be seen on television screening I can not even do a sock in the corner type job during the speeches. As I have only one or two students when not at graduation hopefully I will get some knitting done in the off times and in the evening as I am starting to get behind on the great aunty knitting in my queue. Some of the babies will be here before I get their gifts done.

Buggy's Bee Socks

Well after a little pottering round yesterday I finally got to caste on for the second time (first time had to be frogged) the Daughter's next pair of socks. Was at Preston SNB session and MrsTessyman had skein of Buzz by Wyndwitch which was so appropriate for the daughter who has the multiple nick names around Buggy or Bugsy. So yours truly ordered some up pronto. The dilemma was how long would she want the socks - daughter has two sock lengths - short ankle highs and long knee highs (especially when you see how long those legs are). So being prepared I think make that two skeins cause knowing her she will want them long again.

What do you know she wants them short! So this means I am going to have some left overs which I think I will try and do her a pair of fingerless mittens to match her socks.