FO Friday: Helical striped cowl and matching mitts (2015 FOs #9 and #10)

My life is extremely boring at the moment - write, edit, rinse, repeat. Last night, however, I went out! I went to a screening of Dirty Laundry Live - on a school night! After 10pm! What a wild child. It was very funny and it really was great to get out of the house and away from my computer (on a side note, I encourage everyone to get tickets to sit in the audience for TV shows once in a while. It's fun to see how things are done, it's free and sometimes they give you wine. For me, it's something a bit different to what I usually do and different is good).

We had 10 minutes to kill before leaving so I decided to take the opportunity to take some photos of two of the projects I've just finished. This was a bad idea! These photos are terrible and odd - they capture a lot of detail but tell you nothing at all about the project. Let me illustrate this in more detail.

This shot tells you nothing about how the cowl sits (it falls to just above my belly button).

In this shot, it is possible to see the desperation and exhaustion of a week of thesis work in the giant bags under my eyes.

This one's okay. The pattern is Mitt Envy - it's free and it's excellent. I added 10 rows extra to the cuff to provide extra under-jumper warmth.

The cowl can be worn in a long loop or doubled for a really warm, snuggly wrap.

(Oh, those bags!)

I'm not even sure what this shot was trying to demonstrate!

The wool I used was Heirloom Easy Care 5ply, four balls exactly. It was a bit rough to work with but softened up a lot on blocking and I think it will be really warm and durable. Now that it's done, I'm going to drop this project off at my local Lincraft KOGO collection point and hopefully it will find a good home where it is of some use to somebody.

Till next week :)

WIP Wednesday: This is the scarf that never ends; it just goes on and on my friend!

This last week has been the coldest week in my city for many years. As anyone who has read this blog for any period of time knows, I hate the cold. There is nothing more likely to make me take to my bed like a Victorian maiden than a forecasted week of temperatures at 10 degrees. Urgh. This, combined with a wee lurgy I've had for the last few days have combined to make me pretty much the most disagreeable person on the planet in the last few days. I'm cranky, short tempered and likely to stab anyone who irritates me with the nearest knitting needle.

Fortunately for humanity, I have largely been working from home. Unfortunately for me, I still haven't finished the stupid stripy charity scarf. It is the scarf that never ends! Here is the latest progress:

It hardly looks different to last week :( I am seriously starting to feel like it may never get done.

Last week

Three weeks ago

To alleviate the boredom, I started a Magic Ball Monster Stock. A magic ball is a ball made up of short lengths of yarn tied together and wound into a ball, which is then knitted like a normal ball of wool. My lengths were 2.2 metres each and joined using a weaver's knot. That's probably a little short  for each length (each sock takes about 160m to knit, so that's a lot of ends!) but it was pretty fun to knit. I just did a little magic ball as a test run and used it all up in two days. Now the project goes on hold until I get some more scrappy ends, which means...

..I need to start another sock (my inability to finish my stripy scarf seems kind of more obvious now...)

These are for a requested Christmas present and I am excited to be knitting for someone who really wants what I am going to make. 

Now, to finish the damn scarf...