So far but still the same.

Well this went quiet when Ravelry took over but, well, that’s a story for another day. 

Time to try and catalogue my work. 

So far I’ve finished a crochet shawl and a hitchhiker this year. 

I need to work out how to put pictures in here again, if I even can from the web browser or not. If not I’m. It sure this will get used. My ten month old doesn’t really let me at a computer, back to work next week but that won’t really allow me to blog now will it. 

Now the question is, what next in my WIP pile?

Finished!

A finished object yay!

Very proud of them. 

Now what to finish next?

updates on WIPs

So how am I going...

Well the second sock on my rainbow socks just turned the heel this morning. My aim is to have the gusset started and a good chunk done today and then see what I can get done tomorrow as I'm not headed out anywhere.

My paintbox cowl was frogged as I really wasn't happy with it and didn't want to waste the yarn.

My sweetie socks have been frogged because I checked the size and they're too small. The patter I used was quite tight so I'll pick another one and go with it instead.

No other progress to report. I'm happy though, by focusing I've managed to make a huge amount of progress on my first pair of socks. I'm excited to get them finished and then I can start on another pair and try and blast at least one other project off the needles. I'm thinking either my cabled scarf or my moss stitch cowl as that's something I can do without paying attention to it.

Just keep knitting ;)

Hey number 1

Sock one is officially complete! Sock number two is already 3.5 inches long so my aim is to get to the heel flap as quick as possible as that's what slowed me up last time. 

Knit knit knit! :)

 

So focus...

Well it's just over a week since I posted saying I was going to focus more on my old projects to get things cleared off the needles.

I'm pleased to report that one project has been frogged and one sock is passed the heel stage! Look:

I measured the sock this morning and there's only 2 and a half inches left to go before I start the toe decreases (yes I've done more than is shown in that picture) so I think I know what I'm doing tonight after the hairdressers.

It feels good to have very visible progress on a project and I just love how the heel turned out with the striping.

Oops I did it again...

Oh sweet blog you're as neglected as my many many WIP knitting projects!

It's getting a little silly not and I've set myself a challenge to finish as many as I can before I'm allowed to cast on anything else or even wind any more yarn, because if I do that I know I'll want to cast on something straight away.

I have two projects I really want to get onto needles so I'm definitely not allowed to start one until I finish one.

So time to admit it, here's my WIP list:

• Self Striping socks (my first WIP to be tackled I think)
• Sweetie socks (vanilla latte pattern with gorgeous yarn painted by my LYS)
• Big reversible cable scarf (think this will be my second as it should take long and it's stash busting, win/win)
• gray gaptastic cowl (this one 3rd I think, again shouldn't take too long and it frees up a cable for my interchangeable set)
• Trillian (this is going to be my travelling project I think so I don't mind too much if it takes awhile)
• Pogona (I really love this and I'm ready to start the next section of it. Again not a bad travel project and isn't too difficult to knit up in chunks)
• Cowl test knit - I must be honest. I'm not loving this and have no motivation to knit it which doesn't help. Thinking of frogging but feel bad for doing so. 

So these are just active(ish) WIPs! I do have lurking UFOs hanging around which I will figure out what to do about at some point in time but above is my focus at the minute.

If I finish at least 2 of these I can start my Americana tshirt that I want to make which will be my first real (to me) item having only done shawls so far.

I shall love you and leave you and go do some work now.

Cakes all around

There's something about yarn when it's caked that makes me think it looks professional. I've had fun playing with my yarn winder but when you drop the yarn it is definitely not fun to fix!

Not done too much knitting recently. I am behind on a knit a long so I need to catch up but I won't have the first chance until Friday night. Mostly garter stitch but using short rows so it is interesting.

Bank holiday

I'm looking forward to the long weekend to hopefully get some serious knitting and video game time in.

My Trillian is almost back to where it was when I frogged it, I should be done tonight which would be great news, I plan to take it to knit-n-natter on Saturday as it will take much less concentration than my Firebolt did.

Speaking of the Firebolt, I need to frog it again. The pattern increases are 7 stitches from 1 stitch which can be quite tricky to do. I'll crack the pattern I just need time to think about it so I'm thinking this is my Easter Sunday/Monday project.

I'm actually quite excited for the yarn winder I ordered to arrive, I'm hoping it'll speed up my current knitting projects so I can get onto new patterns and learn some new skills. I love my Trillian for it's mindless knitting but I'm learning nothing from it and I'm not really learning much from my Firebolt. The last time I learnt new techniques was in the Mandy Cowl I made (shown above) that was such a fun knit and took less than a week as I blasted my way through it.

When to frog and when to accept the defect?

We all know the pain, you're so far in to the pattern and something happens.

This weekend I have restarted a Firebolt using Malabrigo sock 4 times and I've also had to frog my Trillian as I dropped a stitch in the lace section and to me it threw the who pattern out.

Normally I'm not such a perfectionist, there are at least 3 yarn overs in my Hitchhiker and I know I made some mistakes in my Shade Loving Shawl. I think I'd just like a pattern to go right for once.

When do you restart versus accepting its not quite perfect?

I've popped a picture in of the yarn I'm using for my Firebolt. It's gorgeous yarn and even better my LYS stocks it.

Knitters block

There are certain things I know I don't enjoy and that's definitely stalling at least one project.

The first is the shawl lace rows of (k1,YO) they slow me right down and cramp my hands and just plain frustrate me so as my Light and Up has come to this section it has stalled.

My other blocks include terror of thumbs in mitts (explains why I have two stalled sets of mitts now) and the fear of having to stitch together a cowl done on flat needles.

What blocks do you have?

Current knitting projects

So I guess the first place to start is what I'm currently working on:

Trillian in Crazy Zauberball (blue/purple/green) this project is shown in the photo.

Light and Up in BlueToothToaster Sparkle Sock Yarn (pale blue with purple flecks)

Marywarmers in Nerd Girl Yarns Bored Now (black and green)

Multicolour armwarmers in RICO self striping yarn (blue, pink and white flecks)

Yes this is many projects. I also have a couple of others on needles too that I really need to finish. I'll start posting photos as I progress.

Resurrection of an old blog, however do I do these things.

Things have changed a little since that last post, I did in fact build the PC, it's my pride and joy. I've also rebuild my boyfriends PC since that time and I've spent many a good hour playing League of Legends, Starcraft 2 and Guild Wars 2.

One of the main changes in my life is that I had to quit WoW due to starting work full time and being unable to commit the time to it and I have since picked up knitting as a hobby.

I'd quite like to turn this into a record of my knitting and ideas and problems I discover along the way.

I learned to knit a very long time ago but had long since forgotten how and when I picked up needles again in October 2012 it was amazing how quickly things came back.

So look for me trying to keep this place updated, with pictures and struggles along the way as I try to learn new techniques.

Achievement Unlocked: PC Building

The past few weeks I've been planning a computer build, my laptop is dying and now tech wise very old.It wasn't top spec when I bought it so you can imagine it struggles with newer games like Space Marine.

So here is the specs I'm looking at:

• Intel i5 2500K 3.3Ghz (looking at all the current Sandybridge chips this seems to get the best reviews for value)
• Intel Z68, GA-Z68A-D3-B3 Gigabyte motherboard (I've lookedat a few and I'm still undecided but this is the region I want to be)
• Coolmaster Hyper 212 aftermarket heatsink
• 1Gb MSI GTX 560Ti Twin FrozrII (omnomnom 560Ti Nvidia card mmmmmmm)
• 4Gb Corsair DDR3 ram
• 650W Corsair PSU

I've already bought a 120Gb SSD to house Windows and WoW and maybe LoL because fast loads times = win. and I'm looking at 1 or 2 1Tb hard drives for all other things and storage. This seems to be the region I want to be in just need to get the money together and the time and I'll be good to go. I'm excited to build the thing and of course I'll take pictures, maybe not video you don't want to hear me swearing :P

Patch 4.0.1

According to MMOchamp the patch is due to drop this week, honestly it's taken long enough! I've been in the beta for over a month and I've pretty much stopped playing both live and beta due to burn out, instead concentrating on other games like ZvP, Minecraft and Starcraft2 amongst others.
The changes will be enough to get me back online though. Having fun playing with the new talent trees. Getting used to my Mage and pally again in wintergrasp. I really want to go fire again, so hopefully I'll be able to reforge enough hit to make it happen.
Word from the PTR is that paladin healing has been hit hard which is a shame but I'm hoping that I should still be able to do battlegrounds ok as I hadn't aimed on healing properly with Tam until cataclysm.

Here's hoping that the patch bring the spark back for many people. Bring on Deathwing!

Ding! 80, finally.

The one good thing about your second 80 is that you can plan out exactly which quest chains you want to do, for Tam I picked the Sons of Hodir chain, Argent Vanguard, Fallen Soldier before starting the Arthas' heart chain I love so much. It made me happy I got my ding after just completing the quest where you become Arthas and killing his troops in order to turn them to scourge minions. So yeah screenshot or it didn't happen I know.

Now begins the gear grind, I've already sorted out her final ret spec and I'm researching her OS holy. On the dummies I managed 1.7k dps on the normal dummy with questing gear so hopefully I'll be an awful lot better when I get some epics on my side. Just nice to finally be here.

Bringing the War to Warcraft.

After my complaining about slow levelling I powered my way through the Wrathgate chain and helped me ding level 73 in the buggy as hell Battle for Undercity. Headed to Grizzly Hills for some colour after the bland Dragonblight and then I discovered the wonder of Alterac Valley call to arms. I already have fond memories from this battleground when levelling my Mage around level 55 but this was just amazing. So now I'm level 75 (!) and wondering how I'm going to do this final push to 80.
It's always nice to take a change whilst levelling prevents a character getting boring.
But alas I think my time may be taken up a little more by Starcraft 2. Fun times!

Oh Outland I miss you.

I started to type this a couple of days ago but then my phone got a call and I lost it. My paladin is now level 72 using a mixture of questing, battleground and random dungeon finder because honestly Northrend at least Howling Fjord and Dragonblight have been kinda boring with heirlooms and cold weather flying from 68.
Outland I knew where to go for good questing hubs and although these were again improved in Wrath, I just don't seem to be managing to level quite so quickly and I'm guessing that's due to the fact that the experience required for each level has gone up massively. I shall however continue on, starting to worry how I'll ever get two sets of gear together (ret and holy) I had enough problems just managing one for Red.
Speaking of Red she's only 35 frost emblems short of her four piece t10 bonus. I should really fix that this week.

Not much to say tonight.

I did want to say that I'd been working on my paladin and she'd gone up x amount but I haven't. Instead my boy got me into an ICC 25 pug and it didn't wipe after Saurfang! Yay! In fact we managed Rotface, Festergut, Blood Princes and we even saved an internet dragon! yeah, she started off as :

But in the end became:

This makes me happy :D I'm now 40 frosties away from my full four piece t10 and then I have no gear aims before cataclysm, I know I'm not going to win marks to upgrade them and I'll not beat any of the higher bosses to get better loot for other things. But hey, it's nice to know I can do most of it.

Just a shame we couldn't get our guild Ony/Uld raid done tonight due to lack of people.

A blog before bed.

So as I type this my boyfriend is in ICC10 attacking the Blood Princes for the first time. My main has been well and truly shelved for anything none guild raid wise an my paladin is now level 71 and just started questing in Dragonblight. I was having fun running Eye of the Storm until it got to the time of school finishing, unfortunately for all of summer now, and magically we couldn't use tactics anymore. I seem to be doing between 800-1500 dps is northrend normals which I'm finding alright as I'm in greens throughout and I was still wearing my Argent Dawn stone collection trinket until tonight!
All in all it's seems to be going well. I power levelled her cooking and I'm working on fishing and her blacksmithing but I need another profession, potentially alchemy if I can get the money together to fund it.
I'm finding ret fun an excited at the prospect of getting holy for guild raids. I want to be more useful and I know boosting the dps numbers massively is good but I think this could be better. Let's just hope it doesn't take me too long to get from 71 to 80 and then to get two semi decent sets of gear!

When things go well.

I’m really really loving my paladin, yesterday, again with a little help from my boyfriend, I completed the Hero of the Mag’har questline. I love epic lore quests and can’t wait to get going on the Wrathgate chain again. This morning my little Belf girl hit 67, so it’s just once level of questing to grind out and then I can head to Northrend.

Like I said before I already heave her cold weather flying money now I just need to decide which starter area I want and I’m kind of leaning towards Howling Fjord, seen as I do love the Undead lore and all.

The only issue I have with her are her much neglected professions, with heirlooms it’s really easy to power past them, unless you focus on them like I did my priest where she has been capped out most of the time with inscription. I’ve definitely decided on blacksmithing but I’m not sure for her other slot.

Hopefully tomorrow she’ll hit 68, but I’m not sure as it’s Naxx night. Yes, we raid content for fun *gasp*.