FO: Follow Your Arrow KAL

Not my latest finished object but it’s taken me awhile to get around to blogging about it. I mentioned before that I was partaking in Ysolda’s Follow Your Arrow knitalong this year. Project page here.

I used Sparkleduck Solo which is a lovely yarn. A very vivid sea green colour and has lovely stitch definition.

I managed to keep up with the KAL. I do like knitalongs, as each section is in a bitesize piece. I managed to complete the first 3 clues in an evening and the 4th and 5th in 2 evenings, so it didn’t take up too much of my knitting time.

Each clue has an arrow theme. I did clues BABBB plus the extension chart and 4 repeats of Rows 3 & 4. I liked the choices I made with the clues, though I think after seeing all the other shawls, I prefer the smocking chevrons on clue 3 instead of the little arrows. The little arrows are still very cute, I just think the design would have more cohesion with the chevron. At the time, I’d just completed the Rendevouz Shawl, which has quite a bit of smocking type stitches in it, so I went for something different.

Anyway, I took lots and lots of pictures of the shawl, so here is just a small selection.

FO: Woolly Wormhead Mystery Hat KAL 2012

There are some SPOILER photos here; so don't continue if you want the hat to be a surprise. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I've taken part in the Woolly Wormhead Mystery KAL 2012. This is the first time I've done this and I really enjoyed it. I normally steam through projects and I was kind of nice to be able to do a project in small portions; made me appreciate the experience more! Also, I'm not 100% sure I would have picked the hat had I seen it first. It's lovely but probably not something I would normally do. It's good to try different things.

It took an awful lot of effort to finally choose some yarn; I kept finding that everything I wanted to do would just go into a 2nd ball to fit the size I wanted. I finally found a yarn that would work with just 1 ball which is Louisa Harding, Amitola which is quite an unusual yarn. It's sold as a DK but it has 250m/50g which is an immense amount of yardage for a DK. It's a single ply yarn with long stripes.

My favourite part of the hat is the brim. I love a brim with a double thickness and it just fits great (well it did until I overblocked it!); I lost a bit of the negative ease with blocking but it still wears well.

Looking at the above photo, it looks like the brim is laying flat (which is what I thought when I sewed it down) but when I was picking up the stitches for the body of the hat, it started to twist. So I had to unpick the join and redo it.

I left the body of the hat a little shorter than recommended and waited to see what the final instalment would reveal. In the end I added an extra repeat (after a bit of frogging). I added some extra length in the crown too, as I had enough yarn left over.

So the finished hat, with my lovely stag button that I bought from Textile Garden and blogged about here.

Baa

I seem to have been really busy this last week or two but not a lot to show for it.

I've been sucked into the enthusiasm of the 2012 Woolly Wormhead KAL. I really enjoyed the Orchid Thief KAL. I've been very good recently and there has been an embargo on stash acquisition, which accidently came to an end yesterday when I bought this:

I've a feeling one ball won't be enough as I've got rather a large head. There is 250m on the ball so I'm crossing fingers.

There's plenty of knitting going on but nothing finished.

Here's a sneak peak of my Rams and Yowes blanket:

Hopefully it'll be finished shortly but I had a minor disaster with it last night. I'd sewn the border down to the inside and blindly did the whole thing without checking the tension of the sewing. When I'd finished I did my usual thing of pulling it into shape and proceeded to snap all the sewing that I'd done. I'd done it way too taut so I'm patching it back up at a much looser tension.

There's also a very cute surprise present for Mr., which I'm loving. It's a fabulous pattern. Here is the link for it if you're curious

Orchid Thief KAL

I got a little sidetracked recently. I've participated in my first KAL (knit-a-long). Ysolda Teague has recently self published Orchid Thief shawl - it was originally available in Brave New Knits.

To celebrate this, a KAL has been organised. 

I ummed and ahhed over doing it and suddenly remembered I had the perfect handspun for the project and it sort of tipped the balance. So off I trotted and bought the pattern and found my needles and wool.

It transformed from this...... to this....

And finally to this.....

I've included a few beads that I had in the edging and used a crochet cast off edge.