A love affair

I promised you all a very indulgent post about a shawl that I have been completely in love with recently. To say that I am besotted would be an understatement. As evidence of the reason why please see the picture below.

Pretty isn't it? The pattern is called Whippoorwill and is by Carina Spencer, who is also known as Sweet Mama on Ravelry. The pattern has been in my queue for quite some time. On a snowy day in February I decided it was time to release some stash that had been marinating for quite some time and cast on.

Firstly, let's talk about the yarn shall we? The main body is knit in NorthboundKnitting yarn, Super Wash Merino, a lovely fingering weight that I thoroughly enjoyed working with. As always with Lisa's yarns the colour is absolutely perfect and I was completely addicted from the get go. The colourway is called 'Moonstone' and is now firmly in my all-time top yarns. The subtle variation in this wonderful yarn is just the kind of colour that I love in order to create an interesting fabric.

To complement this lovely neutral I picked a Tactile Fibrer Arts yarn that I had been sent for review. The yarn is called Bolinas Sock and the colourway is 'Pomegranate'. It is a bouncy Blue Faced Leicester with a high twist that has been naturally dyed and I felt the red popped wonderfully for this project. While I had a few issues with bleeding from the yarn I had been cautious enough to soak it first as I knew that naturally dyed and red are both prone to bleeding. Luckily, it was more a case of excess and so I didn't lose any of its' wonderful deep colour.

(I'll be doing a fuller review in this Sunday's podcast episode so stay tuned for more news on this lovely yarn. It's a goodie.) 

I loved working up this pattern, and was sad that I didn't do my homework before it was too late to realise that I could have squeezed a medium-size shawl out of these two skeins. Realising this, I set about adding an extra red ripple and the size is now perfect to wear around my shoulders this summer. You can see more details and notes on my Ravelry page here.

Roll on summer!

PS I appear to be getting better with this dictation software -  photos!

Something new and very funky

Before I start, if there are any errors in this post I'm going to leave them uncorrected. You will soon see why.

I originally started knitting following a sports injury that left me unable to do most of the sports I did at the time and in fact barely able to walk. Forced to sit still, I took up knitting as a way of soothing my very active self with a new kind of continuous movement. It seems that no matter what movements I'm doing, there will be injury as I'm now having to work out how to deal with RSI. I suspect I am naturally tense person and in my head I excuse this as being something of a 'creature', the kind that doesn't stay still and is constantly bustling about!

I have learned to position myself more ergonomically, take regular breaks and pay attention to where I hold my stress. This has really helped a recent change from teaching to freelance writing and editing means that 70% of my day can now be spent on my laptop be it as work or in my own time when I'm blog reading etc. I edit audio andvisual, format documents, write blog posts for myself and others, proofread and generally spend a lot of time clicking away at my desk. So while I have managed to overcome wrist pain from knitting, the constant use of my laptop was not going to work.

So I thought I would share with you my new solution -- dictation software! I have to admit I saw very strange chatting to myself but look, a whole blog post, complete with (over) punctuation and no pain! Also, as an added bonus I can break into 'Vogue' thanks to my nifty headset.I felt I just had to share as I know many of you out there suffer from RSI either due to your crafting the kind of lifestyle we all lead which involves heavy workload on a laptop or computer.

It is not cheap option and involves a large amount patience in order to train it to your voice and learn how to use it to manipulate different software programs. However, it now means that when I finish my working day I can sit and knit rather than stare sadly at my needles and mutter, "soon friends, soon". my next plan is to invest in a RSI friendly mouse because that investment now will hopefully save me from pain for years to come. Do any of you use different support for RSI? I would be very interested to hear about it.

The hardest thing is going to be resisting the urge to knit with my now free hands which would kind of defeat the whole point, don't you think? Also, if anyone knows how to get a similar software that will make my appliances respond and do things like all my laundry and cooked me dinner without my having to lift a finger, do let me know.

Episode 24: Unravel 2012

A Playful Day is kindly sponsored by Superknits, and brace yourselves because..... the stripes are here! For more information, please click on the banner above.

A Playful Day is also kindly sponsored by NorthboundKnitting, uniquely hand dyed yarn, spinning fibre and modern knitting designs. Please show your support for our playful friend by clicking on the link above.

A Playful Day is proudly sponsored by Candy Skein, hand dyed yarns sweet enough to eat! Please support our playful friend by supporting the banner above.

Show notes:

Subway Knits interview
-along, the playful group on Ravelry
 There will be a podcast next weekend, Sunday 11th 2012 as I miss chatting about knitting and food....


You join us at Unravel where I record the (very noisy) podcaster's meet and greet with lots of friends and podcasters:

Electric Sheep

Miss Elle Knits

Knit.Spin.Cake

Also at the meet and greet were some playful friends including Lollipop Stop and Lioness Arts.

Vendors I chat to:
John Arbon Textiles
Well Manor Farm

Nimu Yarns
Skein Queen  

The UnderCover Owl

One Hand Knits Ravelry Page

Purl Alpaca Designs

Songs:

Fly, Fly, Fly by Adrina Thorpe, available on Music Alley
Alive by The Dala Girls, available on Music Alley

Contact me at: aplayfulday@gmail.com
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Delay

There will be a slight delay in the podcast- today just didn't go to plan.

Expect a podcast up tomorrow afternoon once things settle down a bit

It's that time of year again!

I can't wait, the third annual Knitting and Crochet Blog week has been launched, hosted and organised by the wonderful Eskimimi. Thanks to this event, the podcast came into being and I had so much fun, made new internet friends and discovered a whole host of blogs to add to my GReader feed.

The event will be on the 23rd-29th April 2012 and further details can be found by clicking the link below.

Hope to see you there!