More socky goodness

Here is a picture of the sock that I made for DH, it fits him perfectly. Unfortunately he has to wait for the next one because I got a delivery of some beautiful wool from the Knittery :) I got waterlilies, bloody mary and orange blossom. So lovely and soft!

Sock Heaven

This is my first ever completed knitting project, and I'm pretty proud of it. So far it is only one sock :) but the second sock is almost done, just half of the foot and the toe to go. My daughter really wanted my first pair of socks to be for her, luckily they turned out to fit her perfectly! Then I have more socks lined up, as I got some fabulous books for my birthday: Vintage Socks, Favourite Socks, Getting Started Knitting Socks, and Sensational Knitted Socks. I got them from the Book Depository, which has great prices, and also free delivery. I also ordered Colorful Stitchery and the New Crewel. And then I had to get myself some wool from the Knittery because the colours are so beautiful :) I am having so much fun knitting, socks are very rewarding because they can be finished so quickly. My first one took a week, the second one was started yesterday and is almost finished now that I know what I'm doing. I spent some time looking up stitches on the internet and watching knitting tutorials on youtube to figure out each stage, the books have also helped a lot. I never thought I'd be so excited by sock knitting lol :) I must be getting old!

Sock tower

This is my first sock attempt. I'm using the Thuja sock pattern which is a nice easy one to start with. I thought that I'd use wool I had lying around to practice on, and I grabbed some 4mm dpns. After a bit of a struggle with the dpns (the first part is pretty messy, don't look too closely!) I finally got the hang of how to hold them and now I have made a sock tower. The wool is quite thick and I've been knitting it quite tightly, so it stands up by itself!



I'm really enjoying the whole thing though, and I have bought some more wool to try different socks after this one. Socks are probably a good way to learn different knitting techniques such as cables while actually finishing something :)

Bamboo scarf

This is what I've been knitting with some of my bamboo yarn. It is the first knitting project I've ever done, and I'm pleased with how it's turning out. Unfortunately Lincraft only had 2 balls of the yarn and the ball in the photo is all I have left, so it's going to be a very short scarf, unless Lincraft get more yarn in! The scarf is called the April Showers Scarf.

I'm really enjoying knitting, I've got a few things I want to try, next I'm going to have a go at knitting socks. I've also just been invited to Ravelry, so I'm going to spend some time poking around on there :)

I'm also trying to decide on a quilt pattern for a new queen sized quilt. I know the fabric I want, I just have to find a design that will show it off nicely. I'm afraid it may end up slightly resembling a d9p...

A couple of other things

A quick blog entry just to show a couple of photos.

As soon as I turned my back, my naughty cats thought they'd try out my quilt.



Yesterday I made some pretzel pralines, they are very yummy, nice and crunchy and salty and sweet. They are hard as diamonds however, I think I overcooked the toffee a little, I like my toffee just a little overdone though, that almost-burnt sugar taste :)

Knitting

Ok, so maybe I haven't been spending all of my spare moments quilting :) I've been practicing my knitting. I'm having fun with it at the moment, although I haven't actually made anything. I'm trying out lots of different stitches with the aim of eventually being able to make something other than scarves - I want to try more tricky stitches like cables so that I can make some of the lovely socks I've seen, and this beautiful top:



The bamboo yarn I bought from Lincraft is so soft, and the colours are beautiful. This is a picture of the moss stitch I'm trying out:



DD had a go as well, apparently she's knitting a pair of undies, and this is the bit that covers the bladder :)

Quilting quilting quilting...

I haven't blogged anything for a while because I don't really have anything new to show. I'm still quilting the d9p, I do it every time I have a spare moment but it's taking ages - my thumb has developed a callus where the needle pokes it underneath the quilt!

Anyway here are some progress photos of my quilt.

D9P hand quilting

I have started the hand quilting on the D9P quilt, but I'm not sure now about the thread colours I've chosen. I liked the idea of using both a chocolate thread and a pink thread, but in practice the pink doesn't really show up. I'm now considering just using all chocolate, any opinions? Does it even matter? lol

D9P update

I've decided to sew some piping around the outside of the quilt top, I think it looks quite nice, although it was a bit of an experiment as I wasn't sure what it was going to end up like. It's not really piping in the end I guess, because I didn't put any cord in the middle and it's rather flat.

Fabric shopping

Today I bought some fabric from Spotlight, and some yarn from Lincraft.

The fabric is for making bags, I have a messenger bag pattern that I haven't tried out yet and I can't wait to have a go.





The yarn is a bamboo/cotton mix and it's so soft, I just love using bamboo. I have lots of nappies and wraps for my DS made from bamboo, so when I saw this yarn I had to get some. The fact that I've never actually successfully knitted or crocheted a single thing didn't stop me... I actually have no idea what to do with this yarn, I'll have to poke around on the net for some ideas.

I bought the fur fabric from Lincraft ages ago, it is the softest thing I've ever felt, just like a really soft bunny fur. I think I'll make some sort of toy for DD with it.