Next month I am going to Pfaffenhofen in Bavaria with some knitting friends for a weekend away and to visit the Wollmeise shop. I went there last summer with my family - this trip is a knitters only weekend and I'm really glad I'm going to be able to go. It is going to be a bit of a whistle-stop trip, mind you. My flight to Munich is on Saturday morning, and I have to come back to London on Sunday late afternoon, but it's worth it to be able to visit the shop with my friends.
When I visited last year I bought myself a sweater quantity of the DK yarn in the colourway Dora.

I've used a fair amount of Wollmeise's 4-ply yarns and heavy lace but not the DK. I don't know why not. It's my preferred yarn weight for jumpers for myself. To be honest I think I've just been a bit scared of messing it up because I didn't want to waste my only SQ, and also a bit lazy because I like fitted sweaters so any new yarn requires swatching to make sure the size comes out right.
I picked out a pattern ages ago that I wanted to use it for, Girl On Fire by Mary Annarella, and I even bought the pattern during last year's Indie GiftALong and it's been sitting in my library waiting for me to devote the time and the yarn to it. Recently I'd been thinking it would be nice to have a WM sweater to wear that weekend. I have two - both Elphabas, one three-quarter sleeve and one short-sleeve so probably not suitable for Bavaria in October. Those three skeins of Dora DK have been making noises in my stash "Knit us up, come on, you know you want to..."
Last week I came to the decision that if I was going to make that sweater it was now or never or I won't have time to finish it before I go. But I've never used WM DK, and I'm told it grows when you wash it. (Super wash often does. It usually shrinks back again in the dryer but I don't tumble dry my hand knits.) I'd need to account for that growth because that sweater is fitted, and to make things just that little bit more complicated, I've lost weight recently and am a dress size smaller than the last time I knitted myself a sweater. I'd need to take measurements as well as calculate stitch and row gauge.
In the end I did a deal with the yarn (as you do...) If I swatched and got a tension I could work with, I'd go ahead. So I swatched. Off the needles I was getting 22 stitches and 32 rows to 4 inches. I washed the swatch, shook it out a little, laid it flat to dry. After that, 20 stitches and 28 rows to 4 inches. And what does the pattern call for? 20 stitches and 28 rows. Spot on, absolutely spot on. Now I know swatches lie but if that wasn't some kind of sign that I was meant to just go ahead and cast one I don't know what would be.

So here I am, knitting Girl on Fire with less than three weeks to go before my trip. Never mind Girl on Fire, my needles are going to be on fire trying to finish this in time! I started on Monday, today is Saturday and so far I'm just about to start the waist shaping. Of course I like to really add to the time pressure by working an extra 12 rows of bust darts as well, as if there wasn't enough knitting to do already.

I am a little concerned that it looks a little small, but then it will do. I'm allowing for it growing on washing so it is a good 3 inches too small around the bust at the moment. I did try it on just after separating the sleeves and it was OK, a little bit snug but that's what it needs to be. No point it fitting now if it's going to grow to the next size up the moment it hits water.

I shall update here each weekend until it's done. Nothing like a bit of blog accountability to get a project done.

What have you knitted to a tight deadline? Did it work out?

My latest sock pattern went live this week. (Yes, I seem to be going through something of a sock phase still.) Indian Violets are worked toe-up with a flap-and-gusset heel. The star of the show with this design is the stitch pattern on the leg. It is made by wrapping the yarn multiple times per stitch on one round, and then dropping all the extra wraps while changing the order of the stitches in the next. Don't worry, it's nowhere near as complicated as it sounds, and it works up really quickly. The plain stocking stitch foot allows you to get to the fun bit fast as well as allowing the colours of a multi-coloured yarn to pool and flash. The whole sock is terrific in a wild multi so dig through your stash and see what you can find!

Recently I decided it was time to stash-bust all the little bits of Wollmeise Pure I had left over from other projects. I must admit to being very careful with my Wollmeise. I can't stand to throw away even the tiniest tail end but there are some lengths that it's difficult to know what to do with, and since the skeins are so generous in the first place I do often have bits and bobs left at the end of projects.
There are only so many striped socks a person needs, and I'm not fond of sock yarn blankets, scrap squares and the like. In the end I decided to make something like a Magic Ball out of some complementary coloured oddments. The original oddments were between about 2g and 10g each and I just joined them end to end with Russian joins, pulling the colours randomly out of a bag, ending up with a new ball of just over 50g-worth of Wollmeise. 
And then I made this cowl.
I added a small amount of one more colour as starting and finishing edgings, just to tie the whole design together, so in total I used 57g, which is about 220 yards of fingering weight yarn, but you can easily use more or less depending on how much yarn you have to use up. More yarn will make a taller cowl (obviously!), less will make it shorter.
This one measures about 30" around and about 6.75" tall. It's quick and easy to knit up, is very portable, and the nicest part for me was remembering all the previous projects that the yarns had come from in the first place. A real knit down Memory Lane...

Memory Lane cowl uses approx 220yds fingering weight yarn, and 3.25mm (US 3) needles for working in the round. (I suggest a 24" circular needle, but use what you prefer.) You should allow approx 20 yards to make the edgings. If you are not using a separate yarn for this, be sure to allow enough yarn left at the end to make the final edge.
At the tension I knit to, one 20-stitch pattern repeat measures 3" across, but matching that isn't vital although it might affect the finished size of the cowl if yours is very different. The pattern is quite flexible if you have more or less yarn to use. Just knit to a tension that gives you a fabric you find pleasing. You will also need one stitch marker.

The pattern uses the following abbreviations:
CDD - centred double decrease (slip 1 stitch knit wise, knit 2 stitches together, pass slipped stitch over and off the needle)
K - knit
P - purl
Rpt - repeat
St/s - stitch/es
YO - yarn over


Using your edging yarn, cast on 200 sts and join to work in the round, taking care not to twist. Place marker to mark end of round.
Edging round 1: K all sts
Edging round 2: P all sts
Rpt edging rounds 1 and 2 once more.
Change to Magic Ball of oddments.
​Chevron round 1: *YO, K8, CDD, K8, YO, K1; rpt from * to end of round
Chevron round 2: K to end
Rpt chevron rounds 1 and 2 until cowl is desired height, or until you have finished your Magic Ball, ending at the end of a round.
Change to edging yarn. Work Edging rounds 1 and 2 twice more as before (four edging rounds in total).
Cast off knit wise.

To finish, wash cowl according to yarn manufacturer instructions and lay flat to dry, patting to shape to form neat chevron edges. Weave in ends. Wear and enjoy!

Something very strange indeed happened in my house yesterday. Very strange for me anyway although, to be fair, it is likely to be the normal situation in the majority of households. What am I talking about? It is this:- I had NOTHING ON THE KNITTING NEEDLES!!!!! How could that happen?! Really, nothing at all.

On Tuesday evening I finally finished the Blue Lace Square Shawl of Doom. By the time any WIP merits capital letters you know it's time to just get it finished before it moves on any further and begins to lurk. I've been working on that beauty since April but I had reached the stage when you're beyond halfway but still too far from the end to be able to see the finish and I got bored and kept making other things as a distraction. However, at the end of August I saw a call for design submissions from a large yarn company looking for advanced lace designs and I decided to finish this so I can submit it for consideration. Because of that, no photos yet!

On Wednesday afternoon I finished my only other WIP, a scrap buster cowl using up oddments of Wollmeise Pure left over from other projects. I do like my Wollmeise and I hate to discard even the smallest tail ends and part-balls but I'm not a big fan of sock yarn blankets and the like. I designed a simple cowl to use up oddments of pretty much any length magic-ball-style. I'll put the pattern up on here at the weekend so keep an eye out for it. It got eight small skein oddments out of the stash and it was a real trip down memory lane knitting it as I remember every project that the yarn was left over from.

But then that was that. No further knitting in progress and no immediate plans for the next thing. Not a situation I find myself in often and I wasn't quite sure what to do about it. Fret not, though. By bedtime I had already cast on a ribbed and cabled sock using some German sock yarn I was sent in a swap at Christmas. Normality is resumed, or what passes for normal in this house at least.

I must admit to not being the most tech-savvy of knitters. I don't have a smartphone, I only recently learned to use Excel, and anything beyond Beginner level on the computer requires the use of some sort of tutorial, a For Dummies book, tearing out my hair and muttering under my breath! Despite all that though I can't believe it has taken me this long to discover the world of the knitting podcast.
I might not have a smartphone but I do have an MP3 player and I did know that it had a podcast player on it but I've never used it. I was out for a run this morning, listening to the radio on my MP3 player, and my mind kept wandering back to the lace shawl that I'm working on. I have been knitting this shawl since April. It started out as my participation in a KAL. The idea of that was to knit whatever pattern you wished, but it had to be worked in the round to create a flat work (so circular shawl good, tea cosy bad!), it had to be lace knitting, and it had to use a minimum of 1000 yards of yarn. I had had an idea to make a square shawl in the round so I set about designing it and knitting-along with it.
The KAL finished in July. Unfortunately my shawl did not. By that point I'd got a square about 12" across which used barely half of the required yardage. On the upside I did also have four pairs of socks, a short-sleeved top, a beaded shawlette, a cowl, a vest and a market bag that had acted as excellent distractions from the Massive Blue Square Shawl of Doom!

Finally I am getting to the end of this piece. Two things finally spurred me on. The first was a challenge in a Ravelry group I belong to to finish a WIP that has been in hibernation. Technically this hasn't been hibernating as I have been working on it, but one or two rounds a month wasn't getting me anywhere very quickly. Some accountability in that group would help. The second was a call for design submissions for a yarn company looking for shawls, stoles and wraps in advanced lace work with a deadline at the beginning of October. That did it. I am going to finish this shawl so that I can submit the pattern, and if it isn't successful I'll have the pattern ready to publish myself.

So, to get back to the point, where do the podcasts come in? Well, I thought if I could have something to listen to rather than look at while I knitted I might get done quicker. I had a browse around online and I had no idea there were so many podcasts I wanted to listen to. So far I have downloaded a BBC Radio 4 podcast of The News Quiz, and a couple of editions of The Infinite Monkey Cage, a science podcast with Brian Cox. I've also subscribed to half a dozen knitting podcasts. I have only listened to one so far, from Never Not Knitting, but I enjoyed it and look forward to listening to more. The others I have downloaded are from the Knitmoregirls, KnitBritish, Pom Pom's Pomcast, and Shinybees.

So far my plan is working too. I have completed 7 rounds of my shawl already today!