FO Friday.........Good News and Bad News.

The good news is, I have finished my Mock Cable Socks after a month, the bad news is..............

the dye has run from the yarn!!!!

I soaked them last night, ready to block and when I came to take them out of the sink, they looked like this. I was going to do some toe surgery and remove the cream and replace with the brown but the whole sock is patchy, with some of the rib and foot, turning a purple/blue colour. I will still wear them around the house, though.

I have used the Natural Dye Studio yarns a few times and have never had this problem before, I'm obviously gutted after spending all those hours knitting them but it was just one of those things.

I have got to say the customer service has been excellent, I emailed them this morning and within 20 minutes I had an email back, apologising and a full refund. They haven't had any other problem with this dye lot so it was just my bad luck. They are also looking into why this would have happened so that's all I can ask for, sometimes company's pass the buck which they didn't.

Check out Tami's blog for other FO's this week.

Thanks for stopping by, have a great weekend.
xxxxDebxxxx

A New WIP and not a Shawl in Sight.........

Hello there, I hope you all had a great weekend, I went to a wedding and is was absolutely beautiful. The bride was stunning and the whole day was just perfect. I would love to share the day with you in a separate post. 

I'm back today to share this week's WIP's, I haven't done so much this week as I have a sore shoulder. I'm on the second Mock Cable Sock by Wendy Johnson, which I have called Coffee and Cream. I was hoping to finish them before the end of the month but that's not going to happen, now.

As I'm linking this to the Yarn Along over at the Small Things blog, I've included what I'm reading on my Kindle. I am still reading Inferno by Dan Brown, which I tend to read before I go to sleep but if I'm out and about, my Kindle is in my bag and I've just started to read The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway.

I'm not too far into yet but an old fisherman named Santiago, who still goes fishing each day and keeps coming back empty handed, has a friend, a young boy named Manolin.  He helps the old man, each time he comes back from his boat, carrying his gear, giving him food and chatting about baseball. It is one of Hemingway's major works which won him the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1953, it was also made into a film, which I will watch after I've read the book. Do you prefer to read the book first or watch the film first?

I've also started the Sideways Knitted Cardigan by Debbie Bliss, it is the pattern on the front of this book. It has some beautiful patterns inside too, the Debbie Bliss Rialto Lace yarn has some really pretty colours to choose from, I went with colour 17, Sky. This will be a long term project, it is not TV knitting or a project to take to my craft group, it is a pattern that I need to concentrate on but I am loving the pattern.

I'll be starting a new project soon using some Rowan Cashsoft DK, that I have in my stash, I'm just deciding which two colour combo's to go with. I will tell you more about it, next week, when I have cast on.

Something else that I would like to make, is a drawstring project bag using this gorgeous Riley Blake "Little Red Riding Hood" fabric, designed by Tasha Noel. I'm not accomplished at sewing but I've found this free online class from Craftsy called Bag Making Basics, so I'm going to give it a  a go.

I've finished my French Cancan, which as I'm writing this, is soaking in the sink ready to block. I use a product called "Soak" in Aquae, it is a gentle no-rinse soak that softens and relaxes the fibre's of your delicate yarn, leaving a beautiful, fresh scent. I will show you the FO on Friday.

That's all from me, if you want to see other WIP's, pop over to Tami's blog and Ginny's blog and check out what everyone else has been up to this week.

Enjoy the rest of the week.
xxxxDebxxx

WIP Wednesday...........Mock Cable Socks.

Hello there, my friends, I hope you all had a good weekend. I can't believe it's Wednesday already !!! I've had a busy week so not much time for knitting. On Monday, I spent the day cleaning and de-cluttering my conservatory. 

Our daughter had the T.V for her new house, so I decided to move the furniture around and have this room as a quiet, relaxing room, though I do still have the radio in there. Yesterday, after spending the day with my mom, dad, sister, nieces and nephew, I had half an hour in my conservatory working on my Mock Cable Socks by Wendy D Johnson, before I started the dinner. It's so nice to look out into the garden and hear nothing but the birds singing.

I bought this beautiful chocolate brown yarn in the sale at the Natural Dye Studio, it is the Stardust Sock base in the colour Paracombe. I decided to knit the toe in a cream 4ply, just to make it a bit different. I have called these my Coffee & Cream socks.

These are the socks on, you can see the cable better here, this is why I love to knit socks, toe up, you can try them on as you knit them, to get the perfect fit. I've nearly finished the first sock, I'm deciding whether to do the rib in cream to match the toe. They seem to be taking me a lot longer to knit than other pairs, I don't know if it's the pattern, knitting on two circulars ( I normally use DPN's) or the type of heel as you have to create the gusset, then turn the heel and then do the heel flap.

I'm hoping to finish them before the end of the month as my goal is to knit a pair of socks a month. The other project I've been working on the last two weeks is my Makai Shawl by Mel Ski. This as been great travel knitting, the pattern is very intuitive so I don't need to look at the pattern, now. The last couple of weekends we've been travelling about so I've been able to work on this quite a bit.

My daughter has just moved into her new house, so we travelled up to see it and spend the day with her. It's a lovely house, she use to house share with five people at Uni which was just chaotic but Jodie and her best friend have moved out and got this house. They seem so much happier and says it feels like home, rather than just somewhere to sleep.

So with all the time spent in the car, I'm half way through the second part of the pattern called Waves Frolicking. I love how it's turning out, it's my first mystery pattern though it's strange not knowing how it's going to turn out, I do like the anticipation and second guessing what the next part will be. My guess for the third and final part is a frilly edge which would look like the waves washing up on the shoreline. I am probably completely wrong, you'll have to tune in next week to find out!!!!! What a cliffhanger, lol.

 

I love the stitch definition on this shawl pattern, if you want to check out what everyone else is working on this week, head over to Tami's blog.

Enjoy the rest of the week.

xxxxDebxxx