Simple Autumn Sublime Evie Top Down Vneck Pullover

My sweater knitting mojo has continued into Autumn with my Sublime Evie "plume" (discontinued) version of Heidi Kirrmaier's "Simple Summer Tweed Top Down V-Neck Pullover" (rav only), started on 17 August and finished 2 October 2020. I have used this yarn before in an ice blue colour to knit a Findlay Sweater by Kate Heppell (Knit Now magazine issue 61) when I dressed my family up as emotions from Pixar's Inside Out for Halloween 2017 and I needed the perfect Sadness pullover. I loved knitting my Sadness jumper and I love wearing it, even though it's not a shade of blue that does me any favours, except for the fact that I have two small children, the smallest of whom always seems to be covered in something red, sticky, and probably tomato-based that, if it gets on me will never come out and it will definitely show. I don't particularly enjoy yelling "argh, no! don't touch me! Aah! What have you done?!?" at my children so I don't wear it very often.

When I saw that Sublime was discontinuing Evie I snapped up a SQ (sweater quantity) using what I bought for Findlay as a rough guide for quantity and gauge and I settled on SSTTDVn as a relaxed, comfy, slouchy pattern that I could just live in. I followed the instructions for a deeper v-neck and omitted the waist shaping and knit until I ran out of yarn. For top down jumpers, I usually split for the sleeves, finish the ball I'm knitting from and then go back to knit sleeves so I can just knit the body until I run out of yarn. And it is perfect. The magenta is one of my best colours, the yarn is so soft and cuddly, and the shape is a comfortable basic that I will wear until it falls apart.

I mentioned in my Abbyhill post that my left wrist was hurting too much to knit for a couple of weeks in September; I was on the 9th ball out of 10 of this. It was a particular frustration in a very painful and frustrating time, and was the first project I picked up again for a few stitches each day as my wrist started to feel better. I know it sounds super melodramatic to keep going on about an injury that 'only' kept me from knitting for two weeks, but it's not an injury that exists in a vaccuum - it had already happened for one week the month before and it is a chronic injury that has flared up off and on since I was 16 and it hurt in new and exciting excruciating ways, ways that felt like a future where the excruciating days would significantly outnumber that useable days. I've spent a lot of time thinking about what I want to make if I can only knit an hour or two a week instead of an hour or two a day and what will I do if I can't even knit that much.

AbbyHill Pullover

Hiya, sorry for the radio silence. I recorded another episode of my podcast (three more, now) and I wanted to do a blogpost for my notes and I also wanted to write a post about my Abbyhill pullover but I was going to wait until the pattern was launched so I could put in the appropriate links... And here we sit (I'm sitting, I presume you are too) over a month later. I also really hurt my wrist for the second time in as many months only this time I really did a number on it and, honestly, it was bad enough that I had to consider I might not have been able to knit again. Fortunately it looks like it will heal all the way, or at least as much as I normally consider "fully healed" but I'm still having to take things slower and not do things that hurt my wrist. Typing hurts my wrist. yay?

I cast on my test knit of the Abbyhill Pullover by Ysolda Teague on 16 July and finished it on 16 August which includes waiting for the pattern to be updated after an error was found across the sizes while Ms Teague was on holiday and we had to wait for her to return to fix it. Three things: 1) errors like this one are absolutely a part of test knitting and 2) I'm glad she didn't take the time to fix it while on her holiday. Even if it "only took a few hours", if you start doing work stuff for this, you'll start doing work stuff for that, and you won't get a proper rest. I very much want to be part of a culture that thinks being on holiday means not doing any work stuff and that everyone should take regular holiday. And finally 3), that means I actually knit an entire sportweight pullover in three weeks. Hot diggity.

I knit mine in the sadly discontinued Cochrane yarn from Ripples Crafts Yarns in the colour "Berry Picking". Cochrane was custom-spun for the 10th anniversary of Ripples Crafts yarn, a 50/50 blend of Scottish BFL and Bowmont and it was a really special yarn. I bought two skeins, one Berry Picking and one Moonlight, a silver with the slightest blush of purple, to knit the Nissolia Shawl by Martina Behm from the Arnall-Culliford Knitwear "Something New to Learn About Lace" collection. Only, because Cochrane is a "heavy fingering", which is to say a sportweight, that wasn't quite enough yarn. So I ordered a second skein of the purple to finish the shawl. And the yarn was lovely. And the shawl is beautiful. But it was also, because it was a plumper yarn, bigger than the original, in a way that makes it somewhat impractical to wear.

Not a problem, I thought, I love this yarn so much that I will just buy more to make it a Sweater Quantity. But it was expensive luxury yarn and I didn't have a sweater in mind for the SQ so I just....periodically bought more. Which meant I had a collection of yarn that was all dyed the same way, but some of which came out noticeably different. Helen offered to let me trade it back for a batch all done at the same time but every time we could have been in the same place something came up and I couldn't make it. And now I finally had a pattern in mind, the yarn had a similar compisition and the same meterage, and I had several dye lots to juggle.

Abbyhill is knit bottom up in the round to the arm holes, then the sleeves are knit cuff up, and the whole thing is knit together in an asymetrical yoke pattern that gives it a more set-in-sleeve fit. I took my darkest two skeins to start the ribbing, one for the body and one split for the sleeves, then added in the next two darkest in helical stripes, which got me up to the yoke striping skeins 3 and 4 and then half of skein 5 and whereas 1-4 were different only in how much of each skein was given to the darkest purple splodges vs the medium purple splodges. The 5th skein, and the three in my shawl, was a lot more pink and, really, I should have been spiraling that one with the darkest purple to mix it all together but, fortunately, because the top of the yoke is somewhat horizontal the light hits it completely different from the verticle body and it's really not noticeable.

I love my Cochrane AbbyHill. Because Scotland had an absolutely terrible summer (gorgeous spring, awful summer), I've been wearing it almost every day since I finished, if only on the morning school run when it was still cool and misty. It's my first slightly cropped, oversized knit and I can see why this style is so popular, it is very wearable. I knit mine entirely as written, in a size that gave me 7" of positive ease from my upper bust, which was only 2" of positive ease from my full bust. It may not be politic to admit it, but I also like the idea of knitting garments where I'm not paying twice as much and taking twice as long to knit the same pullover as "average" size people, because we might be knitting the same size.

Plum Incunabula Cardigan

Some years ago, I backed Karie Westermann's kickstarter to write a book of knitting patterns inspired by the evolution of book-making in Europe. If this sounds a bit niche, well, the concept may be but the resulting designs in This Thing of Paper have a broad appeal and classic sensibility that I associate with Ms Westermann's designs. Longtime readers already be aware that I knit a lot of designs by Karie Westermann, her name featuring heavily in my roundup of 2015 projects with links to some individual pattern write-ups. Ah, the days when I blogged a lot.

The Incunabula Cardigan went straight to the top of my queue but it took me a while to find the right yarn - and in the end I bought the recomended yarn, Blacker Classic DK, when it was discontinued last summer, in the colour "Plum", getting a SQ (sweater quantity) for less than £50 including shipping in a workhorse yarn that I knew would last. I used to be a big fan of Blacker Yarns but their management hurt someone I considered a friend and I went off them. But in a time when dyers are facing yarn shortages because the knock-on effect of lockdown overseas and british shepherds are burning or burying their fleeces because there's no domestic market, any local breeds of sheep is probably worth supporting. That said, my main problem with Blacker Yarns has always been that their colour pallet is usually muted in a way that doesn't work for me. "Plum" is...not an exception? It's on the border of colours that I like/look good in, a touch more rust than I would prefer. I can wear it, it doesn't make me look ill, but it doesn't make my skin glow the way blue-based jewel tones can. But the reduced price and knowing exactly how much to buy based on the pattern made it a sensible choice for an admittedly Autumn cardigan.

I knit it as written, after getting gauge on smaller needles, though I knit both sleeves before ading the cuffs as I was considering changing the length. It's just as well I did as I wound up with two different length sleeves, neither of which was the length suggested by the pattern. Oops. I mostly knit things as written, but clearly my written comprehension is, uh, variable, because this was not a unique occurance in my knitting journey. I liked the length of the shorter sleeve as a finished measurement so I ripped it back a few inches and knit the cuff, then ripped the other sleeve to the same point, knit the cuff, cut the buttons off my Red Rosemorran cardigan that I knit back in 2014. They were too heavy for the silk-blend lace cardigan and the buttonholes stretched out so they wouldn't stay in the holes, but they're perfect for my Incunabula.

After a glorious spring of gentle warm sunshine, our summer has been a dreich disapointment, rainy and overcast, not really warm but not cool and too humid for layers. Meh. There's a reason I list giving up on Summer as a reason Autumn is my favourite season. (Spoiler: they're all my favourite season if they actually happen, but Autumn is a nice, reliable season. The nights are going to draw in, the temperatures are going to drop, the leaves are going to fall.) And I am going to enjoy wearing my Incunabula as I crunch through the leaves with my little pumpkins.

AYoT: Pinhole Cast-On (May)

After not having much experience with the first two techniques, the third was one I have some experience with, the Pinhole Cast-On which is a way of casting on in the round without leaving a hole. It's the same cast-on used to make the blanket squares for the Vivid blanket by Tin Can Knits (they're having a summer sale on their patterns - no links because I blog from my pad and can't do much, sorry).  

May's project was an adorable plush toy called Alex the Mouse designed by Ella Austin, with stranded colourwork (surprising as two-handed colourwork is another project) body and ears. The head and arms (I think, it's been a while!) start with pinhole cast-ons. Because I had bought the spring kit, I had the Sock Yeah! light-fingering yarn the pattern called for and it is beautiful, soft and the colours have subtle heathers get that helps the colours blend together across the whole range. Because it's so soft, I'm not sure I'd want to knit socks in it, I worry they wouldn't be durable but I would use it for anything else you can wear. 

Kristina generously decided that Alex would be for Katherine and Katherine agreed. The ears have never been the same. I am also almost finished with my Vivid blanket, which is entirely West Yorkshire Spinners except the purple which is Opal. 

I just need two more purple squares (one is on the needles) and one more mustard. Unless, of course, I decide to make it bigger. 

AYoT: Intarsia (April)

The April project for A Year of Techniques was the Brambling Shawl, an Intarsia project by Bristol Ivy, knit in five colours of Fyberspates Cumulus yarn, and is the only project from AYoT where I have correctly guessed all of the elements of a month's project. Or any of them. Twelve techniques, twelve designers, infinite (small) projects and even just three choices of yarn in the quarterly kits is apparently just too much for me. 

The Brambling Shawl is a shallow, asymetrical triangle shawl knit side to side with different colour blocks swooping gently across it. The Cumulus yarn is a thin fuzzy strand of alpaca/silk that looks like light fingering (3ply) but is intended to knit up at a sportweight gauge for a light, soft, flowing (warm) fabric that drapes beautifully. The fuzz makes the stitches blend together, but also makes it really difficult to unpick mistakes. And I made just about every mistake one could: knitting a purl row, knitting the wrong colour, shifting the wrong direction, dropping stitches... It was definitely a case of making bigger mistakes, faster.

The one thing I never screwed up was the intarsia. A few rows after joining my second colour and I had it down. The stickiness of the yarn made tensioning the yarn a dream and the increases and decreases were all within the colours so the colour changes always happen at the same place(s). 

The big learning curve for myself and most of the KAL-ers was how to keep track of a long, written out pattern with different things happening at different rates. The KAL thread is full of pictures of row counters, spreadsheets, and notes in the margins. 

If you're considering joining the A Year of Techniques KAL, there's still time. July's technique and pattern have just been released (heel turn) or you can join any of the on-going threads for previous months. You don't need to buy the book, or the yarn kits; the tutorial videos are on YouTube and any project that uses the technique counts. Just join the group, tag your project, and post a picture of it in progress in the appropriate thread. 

My Platonic Ideal of Shawls: A Cowl

 

This cowl is everything I want in a shawl. I know that should be a colon followed by a list of all the attributes of a shawl that I'm looking for but now that I come to write this post, I can't think of anything to say except that unlike all the (beautiful) shawls I've knit in the past, I want to wear this one. Not because I want to show it off (I do) but because it wears effortlessly. I never have to tug it or spend five minutes trying to put it on "right", or worry it'll get caught on something. I just...put it on. And wear it.

The yarn is a self-made gradient of Old Maiden Aunt sparkle 4-ply in the colours Twu Luv, Berry Good, Bramble, and Midnight. The first three were leftovers from Havra, Gudrun Johnson's first MKAL two years ago. 

It's the Starshower Cowl by Hilary Smith Callis, and it starts off as a semi-circle knit flat and then you switch to knitting it in the round to make a cowl. The pattern is easy enough although she has you switch which direction you're knitting in the round to reduce purl rows and keep you from having to work the lace on a knit round but i found it much easier to knit the lace by working the passed-over stitch on the following round. If you have the pattern, that will make sense. 

Would I knit it again or another shawl/cowl hybrid by the same designer? Probably not. The pattern as written comes in one size with a 39" circumpherance at the bottom. Now, shawls don't generally need sizes, unless it's "small or huge", but the pictures show it pulled down over her shoulders with what looks like plenty of positive ease, which is the look that sold me on the pattern only to find there's no support for modifying it. She suggest that if it doesn't fit around your shoulders, you just wear it bunched up. At the time of my knitting mine, she had responded every question and comment on the pattern except the one about making it bigger which she ignored completely. I worked out how to do so for myself and it wasn't so difficult that her refusal to do so feels like body-shaming. 

And that's fine; if she doesn't want fat bodies wearing her designs then this fat body is more than capable of modifying shawls in a similar way and there are plenty of size-inclusive designers out there to give my money to.

A Year of Techniques: Helical Stripes (March)

Earlier this year knitwear designers and technical editors Jenn and Jim Arnall-Culliford announced that they would be running a year-long KAL in conjunction with their new book, A Year of Techniques. They offered a kit with the yarn used for the first three patterns, project bag, and either ebook or book +ebook. They offered a list of twelve designers and twelve techniques and promised patterns that could be completed in a month. And even though I have no need of new yarn or suggestions for projects, I thought that sounds like fun and signed up. 

The first technique was Helical stripes (which I've seen previously referred to as helix stripes) with a pattern from Jenn Arnall-Culliford, Hyacinthus Armwarmers, a pair of mitts in self-striping Zauberball fingering weight yarn. 

It took me the whole month to knit these around caring for a newborn and preschooler; if I can finish a project in the allotted time with those restrictions it's a reasonable target for even the slowest or most time-strapped knitters! I did do a lot of "yarn management" - ripping out sections of yarn to arrange the colours in a more pleasing way - starting when I hit a join in the yarn and my red abruptly turned into yellow!

Helical stripes were a strong opening act, for me, as the only technique on the list that I hadn't  tried before. I'd read about them in a TechKnitter blogpost on jogless stripes but never actually used them in a project. The other techniques, which include things like Judy's Magic Cast-On and turning a heel which I consider myself proficient at, and techniques that I've done but could use more practice at like grafting in garter stitch and steeks.

 I'm also having fun guessing which designers will be working with  which techniques. I am four for four on April's design, which comes out on Tuesday: Bristol Ivy (1) designed an Intarsia (2) shawl (3) in Fyberspates Cumulus (4). My guess for April is Rachel Coopy, after-thought heel socks, in her own Coop Socks Ya yarn (that last one is easy as it's the last yarn in the spring kit).

Progress Report: Knitting FO

Since getting my knitting mojo back in September and being semi-bedrested by my puffy feet since December, I have managed to get a fair amount of knitting done.  On the completed front:

Vanilla Socks, Opal 

These are toe-up with an afterthought heel, based largely on the numbers for Flexor by Clare Devine. This is my third skein of Opal Happy Sparkle from winter 2014/15, colourway "Surprise". I actually managed to knit up all three skeins this year is vanilla hand-bag project socks. If the swelling in my feet ever goes down (come out, baby, come out!) I'll even get to wear them. Oh, I started these in September as my holiday project and finished them yesterday. I've not had a great need for handbag knitting this half of the year.

Lush, Cascade 220

Lush by Tin Can Knits in Cascade 220 superwash worsted. I knit one of these for Sleepy Orchid back in the spring in pink, having knit a stockinet swatch I liked and found my gauge matched this pattern in stitch and row counts. So when the heat broke at work (on a snowy day) in April, I ordered 6 skeins for myself in black (uniform policy) and, with long sleeves, it was just enough. I used smaller needles for the lace yoke after sleepy Orchid's was too big, and still had to rip back the lace a bit to get the correct blocked measurements. I finished the lace panel, picked up and knit the collar, and had just picked up and started knitting down from the yoke when "morning sickness" made knitting a thing of the past. It took me a bit into my renewed interest in knitting to pick this back up - mostly because I'd bought two sweater quantities of yarn in September and I really wanted to knit with them but felt I should probably finish this first, if only to reclaim the needles. Also, starting sweaters when very pregnant seems silly. I picked the size for my 50" full bust, going down a size for my shoulders, and then knitting the 50" size from the bust down. It buttons over my very large tummy, so this will have lots of positive ease come baby, though probably not in the bust. I made the button bands slightly wider with the buttons and holes slightly offset away from the middle to prevent gaping and Sleepy Orchid picked blue "orchid" buttons from my limited stash. They're not what I would pick if I had a button shop to choose from but they do the job. Started 1 May, finished 31 December.

Flat foot Floogies, Knit Picks Wool of the Andes

 

This pattern is by Barbara Prime and includes both the bunny and the sheep (and can be adapted to use any of her toy heads). I reversed my two colours of Wool of the Andes bulky and went down a needle size from the rabbit, which I knit first, to the lamb. The rabbit does have a face embroidered on, honest, the pink just doesn't show up as well. I knit them for 2.0 but Sleepy Orchid loves them and keeps "borrowing" them. They were really fast knits and a good size in bulky wool, which has a pleasingly Sheephaven quality even in superwash. Started and finished in November. 

Excursion slippers, WYS Aire Valley Aran

Hunter Hammersen created these Aran weight slippers to start with the heel cuff and knit down to the toes. Would the other way be easier? Probably, but if you trust the pattern these take shape as if by magic. I used West Yorkshire Spinners in Denim as part of the Great British (yarn) Sock KAL in October. The pattern specifies more yardage than one skein holds, so I bought two but then knit a small enough size that one would have sufficed. Oops. Again, a really fast knit, even faster for the second one when I didn't have to check the pattern as often. Started in October, finished in October. 

Zapote, Ripplecrafts Merino DK

Sleepy Orchid lived in this jumper for a few weeks after knitting it, but alas rarely while holding still. Zapote, but Carol Feller, is supposed to have a hood so I bought 4 skeins but she didn't want one so I only used 2.5. Oh well. It has integrated pockets and toggle buttons which I put on wrong so it doesn't stay closed. The yarn is a buttery soft merino superwash DK from Ripplescrafts which Sleepy Orchid picked in Slice of Lime when we saw Helen at the Loch Ness Knit Fest. It has unfortunately been discontinued but there's still a few colours, including this one, discounted on her website. Started and finished in October.

Armley Beret, RC Merino DK 

I started Woolly Wormhead's annual mystery KAL with a skein of tonal blue "Stormy Seas" merino DK from RipplesCrafts which I also acquired at the LKNF (like I said, I went off the rails - I also got a gradient pack and a skein of sock yarn) but I felt the cables were being lost in the tonal shifts. As the cables worked out to look like Christmas Trees, I decided to make an ever so slightly smaller one in some leftover Slice of Lime to match Sleepy Orchid's jumper. As you can see, it was a success (she's holding still and smiling here because she thought I was taking a picture of ice on the railing behind her). Started and finished in November. 

I also knit a little cat for Sleepy Orchid, from a Barbara Prime pattern and kit from Knit Now; a Rosewater beret by Tin Can Knits in the leftover Blend No. 1 that I appear to not have recorded in Ravelry or ever taken a picture of; and two little beanie Christmas ornaments from a Hunter Hammersen pattern. But I've lost the will to keep blogging. I appear to favour certain designers. 

So Much to Knit, So Little Time

One of the things about me being pregnant is that, for the first half of it, I can't knit. Three first trimesters now and three periods of time when the thought of knitting just leaves me cold. I can read and this time I watched a fair amount of Netflix 'cause I couldn't just lay in bed all day but I also wasn't up to getting up and doing anything. So no knitting for the first three months and, this time around, I could and did knit a little in the fourth month but my heart wasn't in it.

Imagine my delight, in September, when I got my knitting mojo back! Except I didn't particularly want to knit any of those boring projects I'd been working on before, no,I wanted shiny new knitting projects and bouncy new yarns to knit them in! I, uh, went way off the rails. For the most part I am aware that I have a bountiful stash with a huge variety of wools and colours, but in September that simply Would Not Do.

It started innocently enough, with the purchase of Ysolda Teague's Inglis mitts which were originally publish in the Edinburgh Yarn Festival magazine back in March, to showcase her new British wool, Blend no. 1. I loved the look of the pattern (and one other in the magazine) but it was only available in dead tree format, not digitally, and I really don't need more Stuff so I didn't buy it, nor did I buy the (small batch) yarn in the hope that I would find something to do with it. Well, having bought the pattern, when Ms Teague announced that she was getting another delivery of Bn1 and it would be available on her website as of this time and date, I was right there (on our holiday), ordering a skein. Chris wanted something to keep his hands warm when typing; I'll knit these for him, I told myself. 

Oh, my goodness! Blend no. 1 seems like a nice enough yarn in the skein and even the cake, but once I started to knit with it and had a few rows of ribbing....wow. Heavenly amounts of squish. I gave the just-started cuff to Chris to squish and he went online to see how many more skeins were available to purchase and started requesting intimate items I could knit for him so he could spend every waking minute figuratively rolling around naked in it. Me, I hoped the mitts would come out small and, darn it, I guess I'd just have to keep them. They didn't. 

The pattern is not overly complicated and has lovely details like the way the ribbing slants across the palm from the thumb gusset and the cuff that can be worn up or down depending on temperature and if you need to use your fingers. The only tricky bit is that, because the patten never repeats and is asymetrical you have to keep checking the charts for both mitts. I could knit while talking to people or watching telly -just glancing at the chart at the start of each round- but it wasn't suitable as a handbag project.

Then, right after I started the Inglis mitts, Ms Teague released the first pattern in her annual Knitworthy series, the Belyse fingerless gloves. It was love at first sight! Which unfortunately wasn't in time to get any of the kits she'd released to knit them in her wool and EasyKnit's Squidge, which is a similar blend of sheepies. I decided that, rather than order from two shops I'd just try to skeins of Squidge. My first several contrast colour choices were sold out (blue and silver again? Me?) but got one I liked and joined the mailing list...and the day my order arrived I got an email saying "wow, we had no idea our wool would be featured in this popular pattern, but we've restocked and even made kits!" Sigh. I still haven't started these, but looking at the pattern again, they're certainly top of the queue. 

I also bought a gradient set on the Big Boy base, as long as I was trying a new-to-me dyer, to make something from Carol Feller's new book "Knitting with Rainbows" which I also bought in September. Only I hadn't looked closely enough at the meterage and it's a bit short for what I had in mind but might work for a hat or mix with a contrast colour for an easy gradient colourwork project. I caked two of the colours together to start and I was surprised how course the yarn is. Will have to plan accordingly.

My other accomplishment in early September was finishing my vanilla, after-thought heel purple stripey socks. One sock appears to have two more stitches than the other as they start off at the same point in the colour sequence and they're the same length, but they end at a very different point. Oops. This is not my bothered face. I've not worn them much as I dropped a stitch picking up one of the heels and it's secured with a safety pin until I get around to sewing it down. They're knit in Opal's "happy" range, "sweet & spicy" colourway on a sparkle base which I ordered last year with two self-striping rainbow colours. I have a lot of sock yarn but I'd have to be dead to pass up sparkly, self-striping rainbows.

Lies Knitters Tell Themselves

A little over a year ago, Blacker Yarns, a small wool producer with their own mill known for championing wool from British breeds of sheep, put out their limited edition 10th anniversary wool, Cornish Tin. It's a blend of their favourite things, and to say it went like hot cakes is to vastly overinflate the popularity of hot cakes. I was lucky enough to get two skeins of the DK, one in a beautiful rich blue and  the other in the undyed silver-grey in the hopes of knitting a stranded colourwork hat, Pleiades by Ann Kingstone. I knew that the yarn she used was a "light" DK - which is to say more of a sport weight except the UK is only just starting to acknowledge a sportweight category - but I was okay with having a large beret. Unfortunately, what I knew I would have a different stitch gauge, I hadn't thought through the implications of the different row gauges and my beautiful beret came out as a pixi hat. It was, ah, unfortunate. 

So I frogged it and put it back in my stash while I looked for just the right project for my two very special skeins of Cornish Tin. Two-colour, two-skein projects for fingering weight, the other weight Cornish Tin came in, are a dime a dozen but DK projects are a bit thinner on the ground. Then, just about a month ago (around the same time Blacker yarns announced their 11th anniversary blend, Tin II and this time I bought a sweater quantity in a soft teal), Ann Kingstone released another stranded colourwork collection featuring sheep, and I pounced on the Dewlap cowl pattern with a not-too-dissimilar meterage/weight ratio. Yeah. My stitch gauge is not too far off, but my row gauge...well, instead of being 24"x9.5", my cowl is more like 25"x24". That's a, um, slight difference. I can use it as a cowl if I don't mind either smooshing it up so no-one can see the sheepies or having it stretched out proudly and completely cover my head. Neither option is ideal.

 

So I've changed my search criteria and I'm going to think of my Cornish Tin as being a light worsted rather than a heavy DK (there's no standard for categories and it's more an art than a science) and I think I found The Pattern this time - third time lucky, right? It's a split-brim beanie with a snowflake design and pompom and while beanies and pompoms aren't my usual cup of tea, Wooly Wormhead's MKAL last year, Skelter, turned out to be a split-brim beanie with a pompom and I will admit that I spent most of last winter borrowing it every time I was going out and he wasn't. Cross your fingers and wish me luck!

February Is All About Colour

February's theme certainly looks to be colour and beautiful colours they are!

I decided, the last week in January that I want to knit myself a throw blanket using TinCanKnits pattern. I love how it looks like a quilt and the variation with the squares having a variety of centres and one border is my favourite. I really wanted to knit this in DK or heavier weight wool so it would knit up super quick and be lovely and warm, but I decided that stash diving is the better part of valour and went with my collection of solid colour WYS sock yarn. I was originally going to hold the yarn double but I was having trouble with the pin-hole cast on (CO) and a single-strand made it easier. The WYS sock yarn has the added advantage of being superwash which is useful for something large like a blanket. 

My first colour was Blueberry Bonbon, a lovely saturated medium blue just edging towards teal, and I knit four centres whilst waiting for the cream I ordered to arrive. Yes, I decided to knit from stash and then immediately ordered more yarn. Well, I had to: I only had two colours, Blueberry Bonbon and Cherry Drop (blueish-red, same saturation as BB), neither of which was the cream for the borders. So I ordered two skeins of Milk Bottle (cream) and one each Raspberry (bluish-pink) and (light teal). And stitch markers to qualify the order for free shipping (and because I can't find my small ring-os).

I finished adding the cream borders to the four blueberry squares, lightly blocked (washing and stretching out the lace) the first square and they look wonderful. If I do 4 squares a month I'll have 48 squares, 49 gives me 7x7. If I do one a week, I can do 49 squares and still have three weeks to sew them together. I need to properly block (wash and pin out) my squares to see how big they are and decide if I'm happy with that size blanket. 

I also signed up for Bombella's colour-work KAL which runs 1 Feb-10 Mar. Any colourwork project would work so I decided to finally CO Pleadias Hat by Ann Kingstone in the special limited edition Cornish Tin in (blue) and (silver) I purchased over the summer. I didn't realise at the time that the Rowan Felted Tweed That the patten suggests calls itself DK but is actually sportweight, casualty to the UK not yet having embraced sportweight. My yarn is thicker than the pattern's, so I CO a smaller size (and then the smallest when I realised one round in that it would still be too big). I added an increase round to emphasise tam/beret rather than beanie. This is my first time working a corrugated rib, so yay for new skills. 

Speaking of Ann Kingstone, I also signed up for her joint "on the other hand" Mystery KAL which started on Friday. I am using some stashed Ripples Crafts 100% BFL 4-ply in teal and cream. I finished the first cuff that day and only then realised I would need to knit the second cuff before the next clue if I want to finish on time so I pulled from the other end of each ball to make a second set of balls, moved the first cuff to a smaller needle and knit a second cuff. I don't really see myself doing fraternal mitts.  Picture shows the "wrong side" as I'm knitting them inside out and it's generally considered polite not to post a lot of "spoiler" photos.

New skills here include corrugated rib and lice stitch (prettier than it sounds, though it would have to be, n'est pas?) and Norwegian purl. I'm doing them slightly different in a way that's faster for me but means wrapping my yarn the other way. I can live with that.

2015 Knitting Round-Up: Selfish Knitting

I am, primarily, a selfish knitter. I knit for me and I'm not ashamed or embarrassed to admit it. I find things I want to knit or knit with much much faster than I finish knitting things. I knit a bunch of haps for other people because I wanted to knit haps and the colours I was knitting them in didn't suit me. I knit things for Chris and Little Djinn because I love them and spending my knitting time to make things for them is a way to demonstrate that love. But mostly I knit because I like to knit and I want lots of beautiful knit things to wear and show off.

Shawls
Byatt Shawl:I blogged about my Byatt shawl back in March after I wore it to EYF. I said it was starting a trend for two colour shawls but instead it was the start of a blue and silver trend in projects (some of which are still waiting to be knit). Pattern by Karie Westermann, yarn from Ripples Crafts.

Headwear
Baskerville Hat and Strada Headband
I blogged about these as well, waxing rhapsodic about the new-to-me superwash BFL from Old Maiden Aunt. I got two finished objects I love out one skein and wore them a lot in the spring, summer, and autumn.

Tryghed Hat: Another hat, another Karie Westermann pattern. I blogged about this back in October. I like the hat: the shape suits me and it's big enough. I never wear the hat: the colour is wrong. It's a beautiful colour and I picked it because it's beautiful, but you only see the beautiful highlights in the sun. The rest of the time it looks like a dark khaki green and that doesn't suit me. This is a hat in search of a new home.

Mithral Hat: I didn't blog about this project, I don't think. The pattern was offered as a chance to swatch the pattern for the sweater of the same name. I actually knit it twice, frogging the first go and reknitting it when, despite getting stitch gauge, it was way too short (row gauge). I've worn it a few times, but I haven't woven in the ends as the style doesn't much suit me and I may need the wool for the sweater in question.

Sweaters
Miette Cardigan: I don't think I ever blogged about this one, last year's big disappointment. The whole time I was knitting it I knew it wasn't going to fit but I knit it anyway and sure enough it didn't fit. If I knit it again, and I may very well do as Miette is a lovely pattern, I'll add another couple of inches across the bust as it fit in across the shoulders and through the arms, it just didn't close in the front. This is the second time I've knit a cardigan with J C Rennie's wool and both have been, ah, disappointing. This is coincidence as the wool is lovely. But my understanding of how to knit a jumper increases so third time will be the charm.

Scollay: This was the big success of the year, my Scollay cardigan. I wear it almost every day and still haven't gone back to re-knit the button bands to be wider. It's big enough - it'll stretch around me and Little Djinn in a pinch - but the button bands pull and I think part of that is being reverse stockingette and part of that is not being wide enough. At some point I will fix the button bands and then it'll be even more my favourite cardigan.

O W L S: I didn't have a chance to blog about O W L S. A friend was having a knitting slump so I went through her queue on Ravelry and found that the only thing we had queued in common is O W L S (there are two kinds of knitters - those who have knit O W L S and those who want to) so I proposed a KAL of our very own. We both ordered wool from New Lanark Mill, the same as my Scollay cardigan though a different weight - she chose "pebble" and I got "blueberry" and she had a number of problems getting started, like the wool not showing up and then not having the size needle she'd need and, um, I knit mine in about a week before she even had her wool. Oops. So I kinda kept quiet about finishing but here it is. I did the math for the number of stitches verses my hips and found the pattern had 9" of negative ease (smaller than my body) so I added 5" worth of stitches and...now I have about 5" of positive ease (larger than my body). Um, oops. Really not sure how that went wrong except, in this case I should have trusted the pattern. The extra increases I added for my sleeves was perfect though. Anyway, instead of being fitted (which I didn't want), it's quite baggy (which is more than I wanted) but still has curves and it's very comfy and I love it.

Socks
Cotton Brainless: I cast these on in April and finished them in August. They were my "follow Little Djinn around the Floral Hall" project and she went through a "Mama, carry me!" phase. Is still in it, actually. Cotton sock yarn from Opal in my then-default pattern, Brainless.

Pheasant in the Road: WYS socks in the colourway Pheasant with aferthought round heels. I love my autumnal rainbows. I bought a pair of their ready-made socks in this colourway for Chris and knit the leftovers into socks for Little Djinn. I think I'll like the round heels more than the wedge heels in the pair of socks I'm currently working on.

Hands
Skovtur Mitts: Another unblogged pattern by Karie Westermann. I knit these towards the end of October when I was poorly and watching Switched at Birth. These were the second of my blue and silver projects to get knit up (the third, with the leftovers from this was the Skelter Hat for Chris). I love them and I wear them a lot, but they're in a kinds of weird place for knitwear. They're very warm, which is great for cold days, but they're fingerless which is more of a transitional element. I probably should have gone with my first instinct, to turn them into mittens.

Lindgren Mittens: If these look a bit like the Skovtur Mitts, well, it's Karie Westerman again. I only just finished these this month but still haven't woven the ends in. Oops. They're actually not as warm as the Skovtur ones - thick Aran wool vs smooth DK wool/alpaca blend - but they do cover my fingers so that's a plus. The picture is from before I finished knitting them.

Post-Holiday Knitting Ennui

I haven't even been home from our holiday for a day and already I'm finding it hard to remember what I was knitting before I left, let alone why I was enthusiastic about those projects.

I took my current pair of socks (the ones for me, not the Bullfinch Socks of Never Fitting for Chris), and made good progress on them, considering travel time is decidedly not knitting time when traveling just with a toddler). I was 2/3rds the way through the first sock and I'm currently 3/5ths the way through the sEconomic sock, which is almost one full sock knit. They're "vanilla" socks with an afterthought heel, like my partridge ones but toe-up and a wedge toe and heel rather than cuff-down with a round toe and heel. I don't know which heel I'll prefer, but I know I like toe-up socks and I think I like wedge toes, and I love rainbow stripes however they come, especially when they sparkle.

Chris wanted to visit the Apple Store in Glasgow on the way back, only to learn that they closed for refurbishment this week so we stopped by John Lewis instead (actually showing up before they opened!) so I took Little Djinn to the haberdashery and looked at fabric for a dress a few internet knitter friends and I want to sew up (LoveSewingMag Threadcount 1501/Butterick 5982) and wear to the Edinburgh Yarn Festival in March. They had a lot of clearance fabrics, but nothing - clearance or full price - that particularly appealed to me. I don't feel ready for a lot of pattern matching and pretty much everything was obvious patterns (I prefer solids and weaves) in colours that don't suit my complexion. I eventually picked a red fabric with pink heart/cherry clusters with green leaves and stems. The greens are wrong, but the red isn't too yellow for me and that's the main thing. 

Now, as it's the Edinbugh Yarn Festival, not the Edinburgh Sewing Festival, the other part of the goal is to make a coordinating cardigan to match. Green is the obvious choice for the fabric - assuming the dress is at least a wearable toile - but not something I have a lot of in my stash. I have a sweater quantity of New Lanark Wool Aran in "tartan", an emerald green, and Aran knits up quickly, but I already have two sweaters in NLW: my Scollay in the DK and my OWLS in chunky. It's not exactly a next-to-the-skin wool, nor would it be my first choice for a "transitional" garment. I'll look at patterns for crop/vintage cardigans in Aran or Worsted and see if anything seems suitable...

And I just realized that a green cardigan over a red dress would make me look like a Christmas Tree. Pants. White or pink then. Of course, black would match my shoes. (I love coordinating as much as the next gal but I've got one style of comfortable shoes in two colours - black or oxblood - and those are the ones I'll be wearing.)

Meanwhile, I have the baby sweater I mentioned in my 2015 Gift Knitting Roundup, which I started on NYE. I have one sleeve to finish, blocking, weaving in ends, and buttons to attach and that'll be finished. Easy-peasy, right?

The current issue of Knit Now magazine came with yarn to knit a selection of small items and Little Djinn and Chris both wanted the Owl from the cover (I was leaning towards the zebra, even though that one is crochet and I'm not good at crochet). I knit the body before we left, still need to block it, sew it up, stuff it, knit the beak, wings and eyes (crochet those?) and sew them on. Easy-peasy, right?

I need to weave the ends in on my Lindgren mitts and block them. They're otherwise done. And it's cold so I could really use a pair of stranded colourwork mittens. Easy-peasy, right?

Instead, between loads of laundry and being a climbing structure for a small child (who is very happy to be reunited with all her toys and intends to play with all of them first thing) I am knitting a bright pink cat-bobble hat for that child. We'll see if this is enough to keep her head covered.