Counting stitches

Because I'm a geek like that, and because I'm trying to work out how much more fibre I need to buy, I've just constructed a spreadsheet to work out how many stitches there are in Wisteria. Interesting facts:

• There are 57,170 stitches in total, including my mods: 6 rows of short row shaping in the bust, and a 6-row turned hem in two ply (hem stitches counted as ⅔ of a stitch each, as opposed to the main three ply yarn) instead of the hem cables


• I've knit 22,993 stitches so far (40%)


• The proportions of total stitches used in the yoke, body, and sleeves are 26%, 38% and 37% respectively


• I need to buy about another 250g of fibre to spin enough to finish (probably a bit less, since the fibre weight is generous, although I didn't make a note of by how much, so I'm working on the advertised rather than the actual weight)

Knitting while camping

Just back from a weekend of camping, swimming and knitting (report on the camping and swimming on my personal blog, and photos on Flickr), during which J and I both cast on for coriolis - she wanted to try a toe-up sock and had beautiful but very dark and rather subtle yarn, and I wanted some simple, portable camping knitting, so coriolis suited both of us. We spent a lot of time sitting at the tent or on the riverbank knitting, and both got to about halfway through the spiral increases. We're planning to cast on the second ones together at the Reading Festival in a couple of weeks (even if we haven't finished the first by then), so these should probably be called my "camping socks", but the swimming trip was so much fun it's taking precedence, and I'm calling them "swimming coriolis".



(This is the variegated yarn I used in my push-me-pull-you socks, but it's so much more beautiful on its own.)

Handspun cables

Wisteria is progressing fast enough that I'm going to have to go and spin some more yarn for it in order to keep on knitting!

It's thick and heavy and warm and soft, and I'm loving it. In fact, it's terribly difficult to work out whether what I'd prefer to do at any given moment is knit it or admire it :-)

Making progress and starting new

This is the current state of the Ella:



It's lots of fun to knit, I've got the pattern memorised, and it's progressing quickly. However, today was cold and rainy, and I was not dressed warmly enough, so I spent the day shivering and fantasising about getting home and putting on a warm snuggly jumper. The only problem is that I don't own such a jumper. Enter Wisteria...



The slightly fuzzy nature of the yarn means the camera doesn't focus where the eye does, so these cables are actually visible in the flesh. I'm a bit worried the collar is too wide, but I expect the cables (crosses on every round!) will pull it in more as it goes along, so I'm not panicking yet. And it's beautiful, and the yarn is lovely and soft, and I'm smitten.

Weekend of crafty goodness

I spent this weekend with Frax and J, dyeing lots and lots of yarn, knitting (and spinning for me), and watching a hefty chunk of Battlestar Galactica.

This is what I came home with:



That's overdyed yak yarn (previously salmon pink, cream and grey) at the front, a whole load of previously-undyed Cumbrian wool yarn at the middle and the back (it's semi-solid rather than solid, but more consistent in colour in real life than it looks in the photo), and some handspun undyed grey wool in the middle-back (this is going to be Wisteria). It feels as if I suddenly have lots of new yarn, and I've even started knitting the violet wool:



There's a lot more of it now than when I took the photo, but this is Ella from Knitty, and it's working out rather nicely :-)