Making progress

I finished the center of my Saltire & Thistle Shawl. Since the next step is to pick up 100 stitches along each side, I decided to lightly block it. It sure beats trying to fight the curly edges.

And to help me pick up the stitches evenly across the row, I’ve put coiless safety pins at the 4 even points across each row and I will pick up 25 stitches between each pin. I can’t remember who gave me that tip but it’s one which is a great help. Usually I would use stitch markers between each pattern repeat but the way this thistle lace pattern (from Barbara Walker’s second volume) repeats, I won’t be able to do that. Also, traditionally one would work each side of the border individually but I’m going to work it all together in the round.


I've also been pondering what color to make my next Dalek. At first I sort of thought this (they're gold nowadays):



But then, last night, I watched "Genesis of the Daleks" and decided I might go with an early color scheme:

The early ones sported a much more industrial look that I kinda like in a Dalek.

Mark it off...

Finished the Collinette socks...

Opens things up for the next pair. Here's what I'm going to use. I dyed it with the Jacquard Acid Yarn Dyes in sapphire. I did 2 skeins with the sapphire in a pot. There was still dye left in the pot so I added another skein which came out a great jean color. Definitely good value for money!

I was going to use my braided cable pattern but the yarn told me tonight that it wants to be more of a lacy sock so I'll have to give it a think.

I forgot to add this project to the list of on-goings the other day. I'm testing the larger size of my Baby Sailor Suit pattern. The navy one was the original but it's definitely a preemie size. I wanted to test the pattern with the larger size and this jean color yarn. I'm going to need to do some work on the sleeves as well because I wasn't too crazy about how they came out on the original. I think I'll try to finish this on the weekend.

Hummmm....

OK, so I’m working on my new lace ‘dinner cloth' (see previous post). The pattern calls for size 60 thread, which if you’re not up on crochet cotton sizes, is just slightly larger than sewing thread. I chose not to use size 60 thread for a number of reasons including the fact that I have no idea how many of those little dodahs I would need to finish a dinner cloth.

There’s no problem with substituting cotton sizes on doilies or dinner cloths, which is a good thing, but you need to substitute an appropriate size needle as well. Since that’s the sensible way to do it, I substituted size 10 cotton. I didn’t, however, change the needles. To be totally honest there were several reasons for this. 1) I had size 0s out for the Dalek; 2) It’s a size that I have both double points (for the beginning of the dinner cloth) and several lengths of circular needles (for when it gets larger); and 3) I didn’t really think it through.

I used the size 10 thread because in the last 2 doilies I made, I wasn’t so crazy about the smaller thread in the knitted doily. I do prefer it for crocheting doilies but not so much for the knitting.

Now the combination of those 2 things and the fact that this pattern is quite advanced and uses a lot of knit 3 togethers has made for a rough start. So now I’m re-evaluating. I’m 27 rounds in so not too far – sounds worse than it is because of course you start so small - it’s only a couple of evenings’ work. If I’m going to change now is the time to do it. I only have 1 skein of the 30 but I can still get more of the same lot so I may just go that way.

In the meantime, I’ll get back to my shawl and looking for gold wool in my stash to make another Dalek.

Fini

I've finished the Dalek and I'm loving it! It's amazing how when you get things like this stuffed, they take on a life of their own. Many, many years ago I had a pattern for a crocheted dinosaur which I used to make for the older sibling when a friend had a baby. I was okay to give it away until it started getting stuffed. The personality just popped out and if I hadn't seen how much the kids loved them, I would never have given them away!! One even got named Diannasaurus. Look at me - got an extinct animal named after me! I hate that I've misplaced that pattern - it was so, so cute.

Also, just to prove that I really did finish them, here are the stripey socks. They're knit with Regia Silk and Silk Color and they are the softest socks I've ever made or owned.