Ginger Knits UK

Mr Gs socks have holes in!!!! They were the first sock I made so I've tried my hand at darning. I found this tutorial which looked straight forward til I got myself in a yarny tangle. As the space I was darning was quite small I fudged it. The mended area is a bit thicker than the rest of the sock but a wash and wear should even it out. I finished my Bloody Stupid Johnson hat, named after a Terry Pratchett Discworld character. I've named mine the Bloody Brilliant Me hat as I had to rewrite the pattern. My first attempt was enormous, so big I could have kept a large rodent in the hat as well as my head. The pattern is a clever design. The focal point is a cable panel which is irregular in width. This is compensated with short row shaping to even out the overall hat width/height.

This year we were around to take part in the RSPBs Big Garden Birdwatch . We get many avian visitors to our garden including a pair of wrens, loads of blue tits and great tits, the occasional blackbird and a woodpigeon . For the birdwatch you record the birds you see in your garden for 1 hour. What did we see? 1 magpie. 2 feral pigeons. That's it. Rubbish. It has been raining all day which hasn't helped but still a poor show. Come on birdies, show yourselves.

Today's knitting news. I successfully joined the front and back of my V for Victory jumper using short row shaping. There was a bit of making it up as I go to get the seams to match but it worked. I wanted to knit the sleeves using the set in seamless method but I think this will be too tricky to keep the stripes. I think I'll do a provisional cast on, knit the sleeve cap from the bottom up, sew it in, then pick up the arm stitches and work the rest of the sleeves top down. This way if I run out of yarn I can make the sleeves of equal length. In other news, the ASA (Advertising Standards Agency) have ruled that the Atheist Bus ads do not breach the adverising code . Well most of us knew that. It's mainly odious people like Stephen Green of the highly irritating Christian Voice (who don't speak for many Christians I know) who claim they are being persecuted while spreading their hatred and bile. Ha ha, they lost. It's a good day. Obama is sorting out Guantanamo and ...

Oh Happy Day. Finally Shrub has gone after 8 long years of, well, you know. Highlights today are: 1) The reaction amongst my fellow Atheist and Agnostic Crafters group on Ravelry, especially at Obama mentioning non-believers. I've learnt alot about how atheists are treated in the US and it's not pretty. Hopefully this will start to change. 2) The reaction of the black community in London. YES we can. 3) Seeing Floella Benjamin interviewed about how being a black presenter on Playschool helped change attitudes to race and raise black kids expectations about what they can achieve. 4) Arethra Franklins giant bow - it was mesmerising. I was working on my angora jumper while Obama was making his speech. I'm on the v-neck so I'm naming my jumper V for Victory.

Sad news today. Tony Hart died this morning. He was an important part of my childhood. Being an asthmatic kid I couldn't always be as active as other kids so I used to draw a lot. Take Hart gave me plenty of inspiration, ambition to be as good as Tony Hart and laughter from Morph and Chas. I never sent anything in to the gallery but always thought I could do better. I remember watching it with friends and we'd tun into mini Brian Sewells determinging the quality of the art work based on the kids age.

I finished Dad's waistcoat on Saturday after much battling with button holes . The tutorial is excellent but I was rushing them on Friday evening and making the button holes 1 stitch wide which turned out to be too small. On Saturday I tried concentrating more (ie less Ravelry chat) and making the holes 2 stitches wide. It worked like a dream. I decided not to properly block it but lightly steamed it with the iron on wool setting. I gave it to Dad this evening. He's very happy with it.

I spotted my first atheist bus ad today. The picture isn't great as I was on my way back frm the supermarket so juggled my camera and shopping. I also got a lot of strange looks from the people on the bus.

The short row shoulders worked and the top seams are bound with a fairly neat 3 needle bind off done on the inside. The shoulders are narrower than I'd planned, the weight of the garment is stretching the knitting downwards thus narrowing my gauge. I'm learning quite alot with this project. I compensated by making the ribbing around the armholes wider using Mr G as my model. I've finished both arm ribbings. All that's left is deciding on button placement and knitting the button and neck band. I'll be so happy to finish this.

A fellow Ravalien/Raveller/yarn fiend has created this spoof BBC news page about the Norovirus . It's brilliant but probably only funny if you are a knitter.

I'm finishing off my Dad's Waistcoat wich was supposed to be his Christmas present but was delayed by flu. My Dad's ace and paid for the yarn himself and decided what he wanted knitting. The knitting has been straightforward, I'm working without a pattern but have been following basic jumper contruction. I want to create short row shoulders and do a 3 needle bind off which will count towards my new techniques resolution. As always a quick search on the Ravelry forums as provided a link to knitty.com. Here goes.....

Life resolutions? Nah, can't be arsed, rarely stick to them anyway, apart from one year where I tried something new each month which was fun. Knitting resolutions? Well that's completely different. 1) Knit more for me. Looking at last year's project list I made 37 items, 5 of which were for me and 5 for charities. I have a few outstanding gifts to knit and then it's me me me (and some charity knitting). 2) Be braver about knitting adult jumpers. I need to get the hang of gague & learn short row set in sleeves. 3) Limit the number of FOs on the go. I'm not sure to how many, I'm going to try and have a big project with a couple of smaller projects on the needles at one time. 4) Get over my fear of finishing projects and stop coveting them once I've finished. 5) Learn new techniques 6) Write up my patterns.

I haven't done much knitting today but I did manage to wear 3 handknits when we went to the farmers market: My new socks, the everfaithful clapotis and my old hat. I was toasty. I should point out I was wearing other clothes too. I'm making BIL a scarf for his birthday. Someone on Ravelry said this pattern took them 2-3 hours but it's taking me about 45min to do one row.

Yippee. I've finished my Kurious Orange socks which I've had kicking about for a while. I made them with a left and right foot as I figured feet are not even on both sides so why knit socks that way. The zebra print in the background is a cushion our friend Danielle in France gave us for Christmas. There's a matching giraffe one which is equally kitch and goes perfectly in the chaos of our flat. I forced myself to weave the ends in by promising myself a go on our new DS game Mr G bought today. http://professorlaytonds.com/

I finally attempted the Uncle Argyle Scarf having practised my double knitting. I'm getting the hang of knitting continental style but am still having tension issues and my left hand cramps up every so often. Hey ho. After 6 hours of full on concentration (interspersed with tea and loo breaks) I'd managed a whopping 14 rows. Feh. Bugger this for a laugh. I've given up and am making my BIL a crochet quick scarf as his belated Chrimbo present. I like the fabric double knitting creates but if I try it again I'm making something for myself. Because I'm worth it.

Well we're still recovering from the flu but are out from under the duvet to see the annual date change. This year is extra exciting as we get an extra second. Woo bloody hoo. I did use the occasion to make a cake with our fancy new silicon loaf "tin" we got from MIL for Chrimbo. I used a vegan apple cake recipe as I couldn't be bothered to brave the cold weather just to get some eggs and wanted to use up the cooking apples we bought at the farmers marked a few weeks ago. It turned out lovely. We saw the New Year in eating apple cake, watching TV and Indiana Jones and the silly crystal skulls. Well Mr Gingerknits watched it, I was concentrating on double knitting. Happy New Year.