Catch Up #3

This time it’s shawls.

I’ve finished the 3rd Fine Donegal Shawl. I liked knitting with the yarn but 3 shawls meant over 3km of knitting the same thing. I'm glad I can have a bit of variety back in my knitting. I blogged about it last here. Ravelry project page.

The other shawl that I’ve recently finished is one I started last February and didn’t pick up again until December. It’s quite an intensive pattern – lace and twisted stitches on both sides. This make a beautifully intricate texture but not good for talking or watching TV. I think this might be the reason it's not been on the top of my to do list. The pattern is Rendevouz by Lily Go. The yarn was pure heaven - Gretchen Heavy Lace by Posh Yarn.

The only thing that I’d wished I’d done differently was make the next size up so I could have used the yarn up.

Catch Up #2

Ok, so the second instalment. Hands and feet this time.

The gloves have been on the go for awhile – on and off.

The pattern is Bobbie by Julia Mueller. When I started them, they were a paid for pattern (well worth every penny). I find it very sad that the new EU laws on VAT have forced her to make the decision to stop operating as a business. This means that all her patterns are now free.

The yarn is Toddy by Yarn Yard in a very zingy orange colour. They were a Christmas present for a good friend. Ravelry Project page.

The next ones were another Christmas present for my Mum. The pattern is Rumours by Lee Meredith, which I have to say is a genius pattern. It works for any weight of yarn and it’s all explained very well.

I did have one small issue in that I had only 1 skein of Quince and Co. Chickadee and had to squeeze the mitts into that. The first mitt I made came in a 27g and the skein is only 50g, so it got frogged and I made the hand portion shorter. It worked out perfectly after that. They didn’t take me long to whizz up at all, even though I made 3 mitts in the end. Ravelry Project Page.

I finished my long-time on the needles “travelling” socks. I wasn’t very happy with these. I have small feet but a very high instep. This was the first time I’d used the fish lips heel for myself and it didn’t work well. The socks were way too tight around the instep. There are recommendations in the pattern leaflet on how to work a heel for a high instep, so I ended up cutting out the heel and redoing it, then grafting it back into the sock. This made the instep fit better but the foot was then too long, so I ended up cutting that and removing an inch and a bit and grafting that back together. Frankensocks…

The photo was before all the sock surgery. They look fine now and fit well. Ravelry Project Page.

Catch Up

Sorry I’ve been a little quiet over the holiday period but been a bit hectic here. Hope you’ve all had a good time.

I’ll try and catch up. There was a lot of knitting going on over the Christmas break; plus I have a few projects I couldn’t show you as they were Christmas presents.

Starting off…. Hats

I initally made a Kernmantle hat for my Mum for Christmas. The pattern is a Woolly Wormhead one. Being a green kind of girl, she got Rowan Creative Focus Worsted in New Fern. Ravelry project page

It worked out perfectly and it suited me so I thought I’d make myself one in the recommended yarn.

Unfortunately, I learnt a lesson about swatching, even if you’re using the same hat pattern and needle size. The Malabrigo Merino Worsted behaved very differently to the Creative Focus. I thought since they both had a good proportion of wool there wouldn’t be much difference. I was wrong.

Upon blocking, the Malabrigo completely relaxed and grew hugely. I’ve added shirring elastic to the inside of the brim, so that it is wearable but it does make the hat far more slouchy than intended. Ravelry Project page.

The third hat off the needles was the Woolly Wormhead Mystery KAL 2014 which I finally got finished. Ravelry project page.

The yarn is Deeply Wicked by easyknits in Cranberry Kiss. I really, really love this yarn. The colour is just so vibrant and just so happens to go well with my Pop Spots shawl. Plus it seems to match nicely with my purple Christmas hair.

I have a fabulous new camera, which is just heaven to use. I can even connect it to my phone and use that as a remote control which helped a lot with this picture.

Well, that’s caught up with the hats. I’ll come back another day for the next instalment.

Montage

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas. I had a fabulous new camera, so for a change I'll just show you a photo post.

Lichen

I’ve finished the 2nd of the Fine Donegal shawls – that I started here.

This is the first one I made. I’ve got to make another one in this colourway, now that I’ve finished the pale green one.

The subtlety of the colours in this yarn are beautiful. This the 03 Soft Grey colourway but because of all the subtle flecks of tweed, it does look more like a soft green colour.

Pow!

When these gorgeous new colours of Rico Soft Merino Aran came into A Good Yarn - well I may have got slightly obsessed. It’s not the first time I’ve used this yarn, nor the last. There’s a beautiful array of colours, it’s supersoft, pure merino, good yardage and a decent price too.

I’ve got tons of knitting to do but they were beautiful and squishy and warm and well….

Last week, we had a lot of driving to do (he had a very nice birthday at Alton Towers Water Park) and Mr was happy to drive so over a few days I managed to get this lovely, squishy and colourful shawl finished. Can you tell I like it?

The pattern is the Betsey Shawl by Amy Miller. Here's my Ravelry project page.

It’s a very simple shawl and in my infinite wisdom, I thought I didn’t need stitch markers. Well, turns out I did.

I was fine until I started the stripes and just assumed the double decreases lined up on the middle stitch. They don’t. This meant I had an extra stitch on one edge and one less on the other. Once I realised what I had done (took awhile to figure that out), I just kept it as it was and did one less increase on one side and one less decrease on the other. You can’t tell.

Anyway, 4 days later, I’ve got a lovely shawl for winter. I love how the stripes lie when it’s on. The colours really sing.

I was playing about editing the photos and just love the effect of the one below. It looks like it’s been drawn with coloured pencils.

 

Spinning Again

I got my spinning wheel out last week. It’s been quite some time since I did any spinning because my schedule has gotten a bit hectic. I had a bit of a craving to spin though.

I finished what I had started – not good practice to leave singles for as long as I did but I didn’t have too many issues with it ( as long as you don’t look too close).

The fibre is Frog Prince roving from hilltopcloud – it’s a blend of BFL, merino, bamboo and sparkle. Using my new WPI tool from hilltopcloud, it’s about 10 wpi, which makes it worsted weight. It’s 3 plied. There’s about 172m, so probably enough for a hat.

I’ve started another lot of fibre. This one is from Countess Ablaze.It’s BFL and I got it quite some time ago.

I hoping to make this into a 3ply fingering weight yarn. There’s about 164g of fibre, so that should be plenty. I’m not sure at the moment whether I’m just going to go with the flow or navajo ply it. I’m just going to spin the singles first then decide.

Hats

The Woolly Wormhead Mystery Knitalong 2014 has started. I started mine as soon as it was out on Saturday morning – didn’t have a lot of knitting time Saturday but it was done by lunch on Sunday. I won’t post a picture, as I know some people like the surprise. If you are interested in seeing the progress so far then follow this link.

I think for a second there, I may have forgotten about the Mystery Hat Knitalong. It’s got a bit colder recently here and I was thinking about my winter wardrobe – so I thought I could knit a warm winter hat. Ahem… so bought yarn, then remembered I was already going to be making one! Oh well, they’re different colours, so I will have two new hats!

The pattern I’ve used is Kernmantle – another Woolly Wormhead pattern. I just takes one 100g skein of yarn for the largest size. I’ve used Malabrigo Merino Worsted in Vaa for this one. It's a beautiful deep bottle green colour which is quite hard to capture in the photograph.

Stripes

Sirdar’s Heart & Sole sock yarn is really lovely. I’ve made a pair of socks before. They’ve just brought out a new colour palette and the stripes aren’t quite as thick.

I used the Clever Clogs colourway (love the names of the colours – there is also a Pigeon Toes colour! I may just have to knit this just for the name).

I made a Puerperium by Kelly Brooker quite awhile ago from the free DK version. This time I used the Beyond Puerperium pattern, which covers 4 ply, DK and worsted weight and up to 2 years. I made it in 4 ply and size 45cm / 18” chest.

Again I used the mismatched buttons, which I think works wonderfully with striped yarn. It’s a great pattern and I definitely see another one in my future! Ravelry Project Page

I’m doing Woolly Wormhead’s Mystery Hat Knitalong this year. I particularly like this KAL because each clue is in bitesize pieces and doesn’t take up too much knitting time from other things. Anyone else doing it?

I’m using the Deeply Wicked by Easy Knits that I bought at Yarndale.

I’ve done my swatch. I went up to a 3mm and I’m very close to gauge - 30 1/2 sts x 42 1/2 rows. In the introduction, there is a very useful chart provided just in case your gauge is off – to guide you to the correct size.

The other project on my needles – or should I rephrase that “one” of my other projects – is another shawl in Fine Donegal. A friend saw the one I made here and wants two making – so that’s going to keep me busy for awhile. I just love the subtlety of colour in the yarn.

Aren’t those big dumpling balls of Fine Donegal just gorgeous?