October 19th 2006
Filed under General, Socks, Stash Enhancement
For a while now I have been thinking that knitting and the Internet work so well together. Ever since I started knitting again nearly two years ago, the Internet has been my crafting buddy. I started knitting again to relax and unwind the evenings, I picked up some yarn and Vintage Knits in John Lewis one Sunday afternoon, came home found my old needles and two weeks later had made a lace vest.
One day whilst bored at work, where I was wishing I had my knitting with me, I started hunting around on Livejournal for knitting communities. There I found several devoted to the Stitch ‘n Bitch Handbook. I fell in love with the new interesting patterns – I adored the idea of an iPod cozy (my other new obsession at the time was my iPod). I was straight on to Amazon to order the book (again the Internet was there to help my obsession).
The other thing the livejournal communities introduced me to was knitting blogs and knit-alongs. The following spring I started sharing my craft with this knitting blog and signing up to several KAL’s. soon I had several daily reads and I started using the internet to find new patterns, (like Spring Fling and the OSW), learn new techniques (Socks 101 was a great help for my first pair of socks) and discovering new yarns (I am still dying to try Knit Picks Wool of the Andes). Of course this isn’t mentioning all the other knitters I have ‘met’ from various swaps and exchanges.
This weekend, I brought some Sirdar’s Blur yarn to make a scarf as a birthday present. Instead of looking in my knitting books I headed straight online to find a pattern. The silly thing is I have no idea what kind of pattern of wanted. To me this yarn is the thicker version of Kidsilk Spray, so I was thought of looking for a pattern involving this yarn, however all I found was lacy patterns, and the yarn is too thick for this.
So I never did find a pattern – but whilst hunting on the Rowan website, I found this book. It only has six patterns but all of them are amazing. This is the knitting magazine I have been dreaming about. Recently I have been obsessed with grey yarn (I think it started as I had trouble finding grey cotton this summer), I am already making my dress, but I have plans for a cardigan and capelet. I had an idea what I wanted them to look like and intended to just make up the pattern. But they were Kelly and Harvey.
Feeling good about my new discovery, I turned to bloglines to catch up on my daily reading (see what you all have been up to over the weekend). And there on Lolly’s blog were images of there My So Called Scarf – the perfect pattern for my Sirdar Blur.
This month, is meant to be about Socks – and I have done very little updating. For me one of my greatest knitting pleasures is shown right here. One completed sock all ready for grafting.
I am still amazing when I look at the toe of a hand knitted sock and the grafted stitches – Kitchener stitch is fabulous – even an someone who is awful at sewing (e.g. Me!), can end up with neat, smart looking socks.
I should add I learned to do kitchener stitch via a tutorial on knitty.com – as I said the Knitting and Internet perfect companions.
I have been extremely busy at work over the last few weeks (hence the lack of updates), the 
Every shop on the high street seems to have amazing knitwear, every fashion magazine seems to be mentioning knitwear, not to mention all the top trends of Autumn 2006 
As sun seems to have gone on holiday and the shops are full of autumn clothes , I have put together a list of things I have seen in shops, that I fancy knitting.
As well as planning some knits, I have been busy knitting the mohair stripe sweater, I am knitting this with 4.5mm circular needles so it is knitting up very quickly after about a week, I have knitted over 12 inches of the body, and am about to start shaping the armholes.
