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.

Mustard & Yak

I've some finished objects to show you. I bought a new winter coat last week and thought it needed a new scarf to go with it. I chose a bright yellow to match the brass fittings on the coat.

The pattern is Hana Shawl by Kristina Vilimaite. The yarn is King Cole Bamboo Cotton. It's quite a different construction to other scarves and shawls I've made and I enjoyed the change. It's cast on a large number of stitches along the patterned edge and after the pattern, there is a section of short row shaping to give it a curved shape.

The suggested cast off is a Fake Tubular Cast Off which I've never used before and must say I'm enamoured with it. Very simple to do, not much more complicated than a regular knitted cast off and it gives an interesting edge. The instructions for it are from TECHknitter.

Also, I've finished my Yak hat. It's made from handspun yak/silk which I blogged about here. I just improvised a 2x2 ribbed hat. It's to fit a size 22" head with a little bit of negative ease. It fits me nicely and is lovely and snug. However, it's a christmas present for a friend. The photos might look a bit odd, the hat has a balloon inside it for blocking.

Rams and Yowes

Finally finished my Rams and Yowes blanket. It's such a beautiful design I really enjoyed the centre fair isle section.

Having a look at the beautiful blankets others have done, there seemed to be a bit of an issue with wavy borders which I definitely wanted to avoid. So…

When I cut the steek, I steam blocked a section of the blanket to get my gauge (I didn’t bother doing a swatch to begin with). My gauge was 28 sts by 32 rows in 4”. I also made a small garter stitch swatch which was 26 sts in 4”. With that sort of gauge difference, then a 1 to 1 pick up would definitely give a wavy edge.

On the cast on and cast off edges, I picked up at a rate of 13 in 14 sts and on the steeked edges 13 in 16 sts (pu 4, skip 1, pu5, skip 1, pu4). So in the end I picked up 684 sts instead of 780; which is a huge difference. I don’t have wavy edges, though. Hopefully you can see in the before blocking picture the borders look relatively flat.

Before blocking

After blocking

I did a w&t for the border so I was knitting all the time which sped things up. I considered doing the No-Purl Garter stitch which I would have done but didn’t really want to tie in double the amount of ends, especially since there was only 4 rows per colour.

Before sewing the border down, I added a little bit of embroidery in chain stitch. My first attempt was very dodgy, so I ended up writing out the pattern on some parchment and basted that to the border and embroidered through it. Then just pulled the paper out after and it worked well.

I had a big issue after sewing the border down to the inside. I just sat and did it and pulled my sewing tight without checking anything. So when I’d finished I pulled the blanket into shape and proceed to snap all my sewing. I had to redo it without pulling it as tight.

The I-cord border was definitely worth the effort. It really finished it off nicely. Now to place strategically over my favourite chair...

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

More Yardage

I've spent a few days recently on my spinning wheel. Here are my latest yarn-like creations:

Remember this? It was some of the Wensleydale/Silk roving I dyed recently - blogged here

It's changed into a 2 ply, 15 w.p.i., 157m/100g - sport weight.

I finished the Faux Cashmere I mentioned last week.

It's 18 w.p.i., 268m/100g.

I've finished the mate to the Teal Shetland - so it's all ready for some fair isle mittens.

It's a very pale green, BFL, 161m, 17 w.p.i. Not identical to it's mate but close enough for the mittens.

I've also made a couple of mini skeins. The sparkle will hopefully become a Christmas tree decoration; 

and the other two are the start of a larger lot of yarns for another fair isle project. The original idea was for some Bandelier socks, so the colours I have are similar but think I might use the same pattern and improvise something else. Don't think I really want make a pair of socks I have to handwash at the moment!

Spinning Yak

Among lots of other things, I've managed to fit in a little time for spinning.

Happened to drive past Wingham Woolworks a little while back (it was a 50 mile detour really!). Bought a few bits and on the way to the counter saw this gorgeous shiny fluff and it went into the basket. It's 50% yak, 50% silk and it really shines.

It changed from this to this...

It's  a 2ply, 178m, 12 w.p.i. DK. It's going to become a "Yak Hat"!

This is Shetland from Wheeldale and there's only 50g, 175m, 2ply and 18 w.p.i. So it's on the edge of being a fingering weight. I have another 50g in a light green in BFL to go with it and once that's spun, it'll be some handspun stranded mittens.

This is my first attempt at corespinning and I loved it.

141m, 10 w.p.i., Worsted Weight. Fibre mix: merino, BFL, sari silk, bamboo, baby alpaca and sparkle. My thinking at the moment it would make a lovely drawstring bag but don't really need one of those so not sure what to do with it.

This is the fibre on my wheel at the minute, it's Faux Cashmere (nice way of saying nylon) from FeltstudioUK 

It's super soft and attempting to make a 3ply quite thin. It tends to have a flyaway nature to it so it's sticking to everything but is quite interesting to spin.

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.

Weaving baskets

Mr. and I spent a day at The Basket Case recently and had a great time.
We made a willow basket each from scratch.

This is the only photo I managed while we were making the baskets

8 hours and many scratches and broken nails later; we had a willow basket each.

Mr.'s

Mine

Mr. very kindly made his so that it stacked with mine (just a happy coincidence)- makes storing them at home a lot easier.

The woman who taught us was a very good teacher and it was a nice relaxing day. They grow their own willow for weaving and we got to see it growing too.

FO: Watercolour Mitts

I had a lovely little thank you present the other week. It was a set of 4 mini skeins from Skein Queen, which in my excitement to knit with them, I forgot to photograph. I pondered a bit on what to do with them and thought they were too special to use as part of another project so I designed a little fingerless mitt pattern which I hope shows them off to their best.

I split each skein in half so I could use up as much of the yarn as possible. 3 of the colours were of a similar type and I've marked where the colour changes are on the photograph. 

The stitch pattern was just purling when I got to a darker bit of the pattern and a turned hem for the start, moss stitch cast off on the hand part and linen stitch on the thumb. There's a whole mix and match of stitch patterns going on but think it adds to the whole arty feel of the mitts. 

Just need some cool wintry weather to try them out, now!

Garden Song

Oooooo, pretty knitting goodies. 

Fell in love with this fabric recently and Nicsknots made me some lovely bags with it.

They've already been out and about with me and it's really nice to be able to separate my projects - stops a big jumble of yarn! Thanks Nic.

Miya Miya Bag

Small drawstring bag

Zipped purse