Saturday, February 14, 2009

Armhole Steeks (rather belated!), a pb and another clue





I've just been so busy this week that I'm way behind on my posting.

The first thing that needs to be addressed is the Oregon cardigan. I finished the body last week and grafted the shoulders.

I was very lucky in that Marina had very kindly emailed me to let me know that she'd heard from someone else that the pattern repeats meant that the shoulders weren't going to match.

As I was already nearly at the shoulders and I'm not confident enough to make major changes I had to accept it. Well, that's what I thought at first. Then I hummed and haha'd and chewed it over for a while and realised that if I added a couple more rows and adjusted the sleeves accordingly then it wouldn't look too bad - see? I am irritated by the mismatch but at least my long hair will cover it!

See how brave I am these days?! Cutting the steek presents no panic at all so I thought I'd show it as I know some people who read my blog just can't understand the mechanics of steeks. There are loads of sites that mention steeks out there on the web and they really aren't scary once you've done one.

Here's the armhole before I started picking up the stitches for the sleeve. When you're picking up the stitches, you create your new stitch through the loop of the first stitch of the steek which was knit in the background colour. It's all clever stuff!

On the running front, I bettered my 10k pb last weekend at the Ashford 10k, knocking 10 seconds off it to finish in 54:20 by my watch (the results show 55:39 but I took 1 minute 19 seconds to get over the start line 'cos I'm a good girl and start near the back so I don't impede the faster runners).

I was very pleased with this as I've only just started doing speed training and this route had a hill in it whereas my previous pb was on a completely flat course. I can't celebrate too much though as my challenge is to get a further 4 minutes 20 seconds off my time to get to 50 minutes (or thereabouts with the wind behind me!). I've got the Tunbridge Wells 1/2 marathon tomorrow which is a tester to see where I'm up to for that distance. I won't be racing it as I've got another one in 2 weeks at which I want to push the pace a bit more so I'll use it as a mid-length training run.

2009 Extra Challenge - Clue number 3:


Paul and Sarah came to see us again last weekend and Paul and I had another go at what we're going to attempt and Sarah came with us. We went out and travelled 5.5 miles, my knitting came too and I survived in one piece.

The 3rd clue is that I call Paul "Captain" (and no, I'm not telling you what he calls me!).

I really want to reveal all but I can't yet as our "event" hasn't been finalised.

I do wish the economic climate would brighten as I suspect fund-raising is going to be challenging, never mind what we're going to do!

2 comments:

Shan said...

Oh it looks so pretty!

And I've never understood why people make such a big deal about steeking - it's not as if anybody's asking you to cut your 100% mercerised cotton!

But then I come from a sewing background and am used to cutting fabric of all sorts. Knitting is fabric!

beanz said...

I love that knitting.

You're not doing something mad like canoing are you?