Mr Fancy

Fin requested an earflap hat and chose some bulky blue wool that has been in my stash for ages: Curious Creeks Tsavo. I made up a pattern based loosely on Kerstins almost pattern earflap hat.

He loves it although it badly needs blocking - maybe I can get it off his head once the winter finally leaves!

Two made things

I have Fin here modeling 2 made items:  The waistcoat I made him for Christmas with the intent that he should be able to wear it to the Maker Faire.  Last year at the Faire we saw lots of people dressed up: in all kinds of steampunk/vaguely victorian/costume wear and Fin was especially taken to see some boys dressed up.  At the time he asked if I could make him something special to wear and here it is:

The pattern is McCalls M6229 view F without the pockets or back strap. Its made in a black/red wool tweed that I bought somewhere online. The pattern is so simple that it probably took me less than an hour to make.  I chose 4 mis-matched gold metal buttons for a slightly steampunk look.  We was delighted and especially pleased to wear it with the striped tie that Santa bought him.

Fin is also modelling another finished item: legwarmers:

I decided I needed some legwarmers for the purely practical purpose of keeping my legs warm (duh) while working at home. I have wool slippers so wool socks as well is somewhat overkill - hence the legwarmers.
I used the free Mellow legwarmers pattern knitted in black cascade 220.  The pattern uses almost the entirety of one skein.

Toast

I saw this cowl on Ravelry and immediately had to cast on. Its the Toast wrap pattern Ravelry Link.  I wanted a red and grey combination but had quite specific ideas about the grey so I visited my local wool shop: Yarndogs, and came away with a skein of Dream in Colour Smooshy in Cocoa Kiss, and a skein of Madeline Tosh sock in Scarlet.

Both yarns were really nice to knit with and gave a good definition of the pattern.  The pattern itself was easy enough to motor through, but interesting enough to want to keep knitting.

I was really pleased with the result - my feline model on the other hand was less thrilled with it as a garment and liked it more as bedding.

(Silly face as a result of 11-year old photographer)

Hitch a ride

So, I have been spinning, knitting, and weaving but none of it has made it to the blog for a while. I also have not even taken photographs of some of the things that have been and gone!  This one I kept for myself.  It's the Hitchhiker Scarf Ravelry link knitted in Madeline Tosh Pashmina.

Pashmina is a blend of 75/15/10 Merino/Silk/Cashmere and was a lovely to knit as it sounds.  The colour is Kelp. I only did 36 points rather than the recommended 42 and have about 3 yards of yarn left.

The yarn is a lovely, gently variegated brown and has been very wearable just as a regular scarf. More useful really than the lace shawls I like to knit!

Tulips for Eloise

Adam's tutor just had a baby: her second girl. I thought it was an ideal opportunity to knit the baby sweater that is popular on the internet right now. This is the Dream in Colour Baby Tulips Sweater which I bought as a kit from Yarndogs.



The pattern is pretty simple, but effective: the seed stitch transition between the colours is really pretty. However, the main appeal of the sweater is the lovely colours. DIC yarn is also machine washable which is good for babies.



I did wait to see if she had a girl or boy, as I would probably have substituted something for the lightest pink if the baby had been male - but the sweater is so pretty as designed.

While I was at it, I also knitted a 'soaker': a wool knitted cover for nappies. Crissy does cloth diapering and wool covers are supposedly very effective.



The soaker looks a bit odd as the waist is very heavily ribbed - but I think it will fit well over the bulk of cloth nappies.

Off the needles: Mystery Shawl

I finished the Mystery Shawl pretty quickly. That's the nice thing about starting on the long edge and decreasing. However I realized that I had made an error in the set-up repeat of the shawl which is obvious now - but I'm clearly not going to go back and fix. I am going to work on the principle that if I move fast enough while wearing it, no one will notice.


The miracle of blocking...

It was really fun to knit a shawl in parts without knowing what the final item would look like, the pattern is pretty but not terribly exciting - but it was easy and quick. The best thing though is the marriage of yarn to pattern - the cashmere fingering weight Nimu yarn that Christina gave me is just lovely in this shawl - the simple pattern and the slight colour variegation work well together and this is a shawl I will certainly wear (but maybe not for a little while!).

On the needles: Mystery Shawl

I decided to sign up for the Mystery Shawl knit-along at the library. We are all knitting the Wendy Knits Summer Shawlette pattern available from Wendy's website. The pattern is released in parts (or 'clues') over several weeks. I'm a bit behind the other knitters - but hopefully will catch up before too long.

I'm knitting it in the lovely Nimu Yarns Helvellyn yarn that Christina gave me for my birthday. This lovely red/orange yarn is a 65% cashmere/35% silk mix and is very soft to work with.

Collective cardigans

Is there a collective noun for one-button short-sleeved cardigans? If so, I need it since that seems to be what I'm knitting currently!

First up: Shalom cardigan by Meghan McFarlane. This is a free pattern that is made available in one-size, so I am adjusting the stitch counts based on other projects on Ravelry.

I'm knitting it in Rowan Cocoon which was a birthday present from Eileen.

Newest project: Silverbell Cardigan from the Classic Elite booklet "Magnolia". I saw this knitted as a sample at Bobbin's Nest on the 'field trip' that I made with Kerstin last weekend. It's a lovely yarn store with lots of samples - which I always like to see. They also have fabric and I bought some to make a dress.


The yarn is the Madeline Tosh Laceweight in Kelp that I bought at Imagiknit when Christina was visiting. I had planned to knit a whisper cardigan - but didn't like the knitted fabric so I frogged that project. I'm using the yarn held double to get gauge, which I don't usually like to do - but the yarn seems to be quite sticky and I'm not losing stitches as much as I thought I would. I'm really liking the knitted fabric and the colours are lovely and saturated.

Stitches Scabbard

I finished my first project knitted from Stitches West 2011 yarn!



The pattern is Silken Scabbard from Stitch Diva, designed Jennifer Hansen. I knitted the summer neckline variation. The yarn is Kollage Yarns Riveting which is made from recycled blue jeans. I chose the colour Night Denim (7903). Surprisingly for a 100% cotton yarn it was pretty soft and flexible to work with and actually was a good choice for this pattern.

The design of the sweater is very nice - especially the details. Where the horseshoe cable morphs into a braided cable in the armpit - and where the braided/horseshoe cable creates some shaping in the side.

However, the actual pattern, while technically well written, is laid out in a rather confusing way. I think because it's a printed pattern, the layout tries to keep the pattern onto 2 A4 sides - but in my opinion, at the cost of clarity. I spent a lot of time flipping the pattern back and forth to follow the instructions, and some of the short-cuts in the explanation were not clear. I consider that I am an experienced knitter and pattern reader and some of the pattern sections took my multiple readings to understand. Which is a shame because this is a lovely pattern with enough clever detail to keep the knitting interesting, but quick enough that you get a sweater before too long.

Old skirt

I knitted this skirt last summer, I tried it on as I knitted it to ensure a good fit, but it was very unflattering somehow so I put it away and didn't think about it.

I found it in my sweater drawer recently and tried it on again - I think the running is making a difference to my shape because I think it looks a lot better now. I wore it on Friday and got Adam to take a photo for me.



It's knitted in Elann Limited Edition Cottone-Lin yarn in colour 4, I think I used 8 balls. The pattern is 118-14 skirt with lace pattern from Drops Designs Book 118. Link is here. I modified the pattern to knit a casing for a 1" elastic instead of using a drawstring. I also knitted 3 repeats of the lace pattern because I thought an odd number of repeats looks better.

The hat: a story

Those of you who are not knitters are probably blissfully unaware of the Ravelry website. Its a huge Web 3.0 application: part database, part project/knitting diary, part facebook-for-knitters. I document most of my knitting projects on the website, with a photo or two, and links to the pattern and yarn used.

A couple of weeks ago I got a message via Ravelry from fellow knitter "Strikkelise" in Bergen in Norway asking whether I had lost a knitted tam with dolls on. My first thought was 'of course not' but then I remembered that my parents were in Norway on holiday and maybe the found hat was the tam I knitted for my mother. I called Gill who confirmed that my parents had stopped in Bergen at the beginning of their vacation - maybe they were there also at the end.

There are 40 projects on Ravelry for the Dollheid pattern, but only one with bright blue dolls. After a few more messages to Norway, and a photo, we confirmed that this was indeed the blue tam I gave to Mammie for Christmas.

Gill and I were not sure whether M&F were still in Bergen, but we obtained the hotel address and the intrepid "Strikkelise" confirmed that they had been staying in the same hotel, but checked out that morning.

She kindly took the hat back to her home in Oslo, and posted it to Mammie where it safely arrived last week. By the time M&F arrived back home the arrangements had already been made for the return of the hat before Mammie had even realized that it was lost. Thank you so much "Strikkelise" for tracking us down and returning the hat. She has documented her side of the story here (in Norwegian and English).

Some might say that this proves that no-matter-what, you can't get rid of an unwanted handknit - so let that be a lesson to all my family members who regularly receive handknit gifts!

Gus's Sweater

Fin's current teacher returned from maternity leave as he first term teacher left to have her baby. Having knitted the baby surprise jacket I had a lot of the Drops Fabel yarn left over so decided to knit a sweater for the little lad.


He is now 6 months old, so I needed to knit something both age and season appropriate. The pattern is a free pattern from an Australian company called Carnival yarns. Edited April 2012: Link to the pattern is no longer active but it would be fairly easy to improvise a hooded vest if you are looking to create something similar.


I didn't make any changes to the pattern - just knitted it at a smaller gauge. I really like the pattern and may have to try to make one in worsted to get a larger garment. This used 2 balls of the Drops Fabel sock yarn. I used 2.5mm needles and got about 6 stitches to the inch.

Baby Surprise

Fin's teacher is currently on maternity leave and I wanted to knit something for her newest little boy. I like the coat-like quality of the Baby Surprise Jacket which makes it so suitable for our California climate.


I bought the Drops Fabel sock yarn from Nordic Mart at Stitches 2011. The Baby Surprise is a good pattern for a self-striping yarn as it shows off the unusual construction of the garment. As I discussed last time I knitted this pattern, this is not apparently a baby jacket until the very last minute when you sew it up.

If you are not familiar with Drops yarn it's good quality, at great prices, and really excellent pattern support. This jacket used just over 100g of yarn, for which I paid about $4 - and it's lovely yarn. I bought some other Fabel sock yarn at Stitches which I am looking forward to knitting. I suspect my Dad is going to see some Fabel sock yarn up close before too long!

Spinning and knitting and blocking

For Christmas 2009 the boys gave me 4oz of this lovely merino/silk fibre from Curious Creek. The colours were so lovely that I felt it was above my spinning capability and just kept it to pet and admire for a while.


At the LG Library Knitting Retreat in January I spun half of it into a fine single, and spun the other half over the following few weeks. The colours in the singles were lovely, but I didn't really do anything other than just ply the 2 singles, rather than attempt any colour matching. Actually I didn't do a good job with plying; the plies were loose and I was concerned that I would not be able to knit with the resulting yarn. The colours also seemed rather muted - not like the vibrant colours of the fibre.

However, the knitting was not as bad as I feared and I knitted the yarn into a Travelling Woman shawl. The colours developed into lovely soft stripes and the loosely plied yarn resulted in a really soft knitted fabric.



The colours are actually more accurate in the photo below - it's a really rich golden orange colour with flecks of green and purple.

I used my new Knitpicks blocking wires which made it really easy to get a nice shape to the shawl and to get the scalloped edge. Travelling Woman is a good pattern for handspun, or any time when you don't have much yarn as the yardage requirements are pretty small.

Off the needles: on the hands

When I saw Spilly Jane's beer mitten pattern I knew I had a willing recipient for some mitts. Nigel actually requested fingerless mitts, and we agreed on a guinness-only design.



These are knitted in Knitpicks Palette yarn in grey, dark brown, and cream. They were a really quick knit, and pretty easy as there is little shaping in the mitt, so the only thing requiring concentration is manipulating 2 colours at a time.

On the needles: Silken Scabbard

Whilst at Stitches I saw a sample sweater hanging in a booth that caught my eye. I bought the pattern for Silken Scabbard and set about looking for yarn. I wanted a smooth finish yarn to show off the cables, and something summery as I planned to knit the short-sleeved version.



I selected Kollage Yarn's Riveting which is made from recycled blue jeans. It's a light worsted/fingering weight and lovely and soft.

After casting on and knitting the raised collar twice, and ripping it out, I started on the summer neckline variation. I dispute the comment on the pattern that "it almost knits itself"!!

Stitches West 2011

To round out a lovely week off in Yosemite I got to go to Stitches West on Saturday with Kerstin.



We had a very successful and enjoyable day surrounded by 'our people'. Kerstin wore a new shawl she had knitted and was stopped multiple times by people asking her about it, and in one case taking a photo.


Here is my haul. Clockwise from the top:

Red baby camel/silk batt from Redfish dyeworks. Small secret bundle. Pattern and yarn for Silken Scabbard, yarn is Kollage Riveting which is made from recycled jeans. Next: green and purple sock yarn from Drops, and turquoise Drops sock yarn for a baby sweater from Nordic Mart. Then the rest of the fibre: Blue merino/yak/silk from A Verb for Keeping Warm (intended for a hat for Nigel), undyed camel/silk, and undyed yak/merino from Tactile.

I have already cast on the sweater, but I think the fibre will keep me busy for a little while, until Stitches West 2012 anyway.

Off the needles: Jess

There has been a dearth of knitting on the blog recently - partly because I knitted a secret project and forgot to take any photos of it - but partly because I knitted the back of a sweater and then had to frog it.

I cast on for Jess last year but the warm weather got the better of me and I put it aside until it was cool enough to knit a lapful of alpaca. I have been knitting the back and the yarn is just lovely, soft and warm. However, I am also terribly allergic to it - so I'm officially abandoning the project.



Christina did offer to knit it for me, but I suspect that the allergies would prevent me from wearing the cardi as well as knitting on it. So, she can take possession of a bag of red alpaca!

Legs of Nigel*

I have been turning out socks rather consistently without any documentation. Here is my recent output for Nigel:

From the top:



Cream socks from some heavy german sock yarn I got in a swap. Shown is the second sock - having successfully completed one sock from one ball of wool, the second ball ran out during the toe decreases. I used the spare wool to finish the sock. Short ribbed fold-down sock specially requested to wear with his desert boots.

Nigel chose this hand-dyed yarn from Chameleon Colorworks while we were at Lambtown, I added the black toe and heel to tone down what I though was a rather lurid sock.

Another short ribbed boot sock knitted from Cascade Heritage yarn. I was so impressed with this yarn - it's really cheap and seems to wash and wear really well too. Quite a lot of colours and reasonably soft. I got this from Purlescence Yarns.

*For American readers not familiar with the triskellion symbol of the Isle of man details are here: Legs of Man

More dolls

I have had my eye on the PaperDolls sweater from Needled designer Kate Davis for a while but thought I would warm up by knitting my two Dollheid tams as I was not sure I would have the patience for a sweaters worth of dolls. However the tams were so much fun to knit that I started the sweater. On 2.75mm needles it was rather time consuming, but actually I had more trouble with the black stockinette than I did with the colourwork.



I didn't knit the corrugated rib around the bottom of the sweater as I didn't feel I needed a horizontal band around my hips. I would have knitted the i-cord cast-on, but I was afraid I would run short of wool so knitted a plain 1 x 1 rib. I had thoughts of an applied i-cord hem, but this has not materialized and the sweater does not seem the worse for it.

It's knitted in Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift which has the authentic scratchiness of real shetland wool. I used Black, Grey, and Chartreuse colours. I got the black from a Ravelry sale, and ordered the other colours from Schoolhouse Press.

Part of my desire to knit a yoked shetland sweater was based on the sweaters my Nana knitted for us when we were children. I particularly remember one with maple leaves around the yoke - so this was partly a sentimental project.


I knitted it for the pleasure of knitting rather than in expectation that it would suit me, however I actually love it and have already worn it twice. I had no plans for more dolls, but after being afraid of running out of wool, I actually have 3 balls of black, 1.5 grey and 1 green left - so maybe an other doll tam is in my future. I could knit those little dolls in my sleep now!