Why I’m not cross stitching…

Last week, I got my order from Deramores *squeal*.

Naturally, I had to spend more than £25 in order to get the free shipping 🙂

One of the things I got was a set of 1.5mm Knitpro Karbonz dpns. Guys, these things are amazing! Seriously, I wasn’t convinced by the plan of having a rougher middle, to keep the stitches on, and a smoother tip, so they slide really easily over the end as you’re working the stitch. But now I’m convinced 🙂

I’ve even begun swatching to make a sock-yarn weight mitred square blanket. With 1.5mm needles. I’m insane 🙂

These are a couple of different styles- the middle one I did first. It’s a straightforward garter stitch with a decrease of slip 2 stitches as though to knit them together, slip the next stitch as though to knit, put the three stitches back on the left hand needle and knit through the back loop. It’s a fairly basic decrease, which puts the middle stitch on top. I wasn’t convinced about this one, as I quite like the ridge created by the decrease on stocking stitch. (Plus, this decrease is super-easy to do as long as I remember to stay on the slippy tip of the dpns 🙂 )

So the square on the right is the same, but in stocking stitch. Having tried this one, I don’t like it. It’s not square, and rolls too much for me.

So then I tried the square on the left. This has the garter stitch which means I get a square, but I purl the decrease stitch on the wrong side, so I get the line of stocking stitch I like. I don’t really think it works for this, so I think I’ll go with the middle square. I am glad to have tried them all. 🙂

Now I need to decide how many stitches I should cast on for the squares. These were all started with 40 stitches, and they’re tiny! I’ll try 60, 80 and 100, and see what I think 🙂 The 100 stitches might be too big for the needle (they’re only little dpns!)

Of course, I need to finish my other blanket before I start this one… *whistles innocently*. Seriously though, I really want to finish that other blanket.

I also got a 80cm 2mm Addi cable needle, for my socks 🙂 It’s amazing (no photo of it, I’m currently knitting socks!). As soon as I got it, I swapped it in for my other cable needle. My first thought was that it was a bit big, but that was just because I’ve worn the ceramic off the really cheap knitting needle I had been using (I’d had it for more than 2 years, and knitted 13 pairs of socks on it!!!) My second thought was that the cable doesn’t twist and kink at all! Again, my other needle really did, again because it had been used so much! I know I could’ve dunked it in hot water to un-kink it, but effort 🙂 I also love how much easier it is to pull and push the cable around by pulling and pushing the needle 🙂 So here’s to many more socks 🙂

The main point of this was to mention how much I love these needles, and therefore needed to work on my socks 🙂

I know they don’t match. This way I get to knit this pair again, and have two matching(ish) pairs, with the colour repeats going the same way 🙂 Genius idea, even if I do say so myself 🙂

I’ve also been dabbling in some crochet

Guess what? This is a test juggling ball 🙂 I’ve got some sparkly yarn, and some cotton, and you can never have too many juggling balls 🙂 I’m loving it, although it is taking some getting used to to deal with two different yarns 🙂 Totally worth it, they’re going to be some awesome juggling balls, I think 🙂

I’ve also cut out more fabric to make juggling balls. I’ve got some Christmassy fabric, so this is going to become 6 small(ish) balls

Each ball will have 8 triangles in it- one of each type. I’m not planning on controlling which fabrics go with which others so we’ll see 🙂 Most of these fabrics have some kind of sparkly in them…I wonder how long that’ll stick around for 🙂

I’ve also cut out some fabric to make another 3 balls of the same size as what I already have

This is so I can start juggling more than 3 balls at a time 🙂 I think that 6 should keep me out of trouble for a while 🙂