Louisa Harding Esquel Review

I’ve just finished a lovely poncho for a friend. The yarn is Louisa Harding’s Esquel and the pattern is Ivy  from the Esquel book. It’s the one on the cover. The colour I used was 16 Tomato, which isn’t really a very accurate colour name as it’s much more like a rust / burnt orange colour.

It turned out so beautifully and I loved the colour. I keep thinking I’d quite like one but not sure I’ve got it in me to make another at the moment. It’s a beautiful knit but essentially just two big rectangles plus sleeves, so I think another one would become monotonous. Plus, I have an ever growing mountain of projects to do - maybe I'll add it to the wish list.

I was very impressed with the yarn. On the ball, I wasn’t enamoured by it. It was nice but not anything exciting. I’m not a fan of single ply yarns and it didn’t feel particularly soft. I’m very glad I’ve used it now because it’s a pleasure to knit with and blocks to a beautifully soft and draping fabric.

It’s a mix of 60% merino, 20% llama and 20% silk. The merino gives it nice body and warmth, the llama gives it a bit of a halo and the silk gives the tweed like effect on the yarn.

I made two swatches. I did hang them on their sides with weights on for a day or two. I wanted to see if the weight of the yarn would change the gauge. 

5.50mm – 17 sts & 24 rows

6.00mm – 16 sts & 23 rows

The intended gauge was 16 sts by 22 rows. The row gauge was more important for this, as it was worked from side to side. The poncho is quite oversized, so as long as I wasn’t miles off it didn’t matter hugely which I used. I thought the looser gauge would give more drape, which would be particularly nice in a poncho.

Suffice to say, my friend was very happy with the poncho.

It was a huge thing to block and took up all the spare bed. I ended up pinning the edge instead of using wires. I tried the wires but it was making a bigger job of it and I had a bit more control with the pins. I did use the wires in the shoulders and sleeves to give a straight edge.

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