More FO's from the archives...

Well, I've found my camera - it's amazing what ends up in one's knicker drawer, but of course, the battery was totally flat so still no photos of my current works in progress. It's on to charge now so hopefully I'll be able to get some good shots over the weekend of the socks I'm on at the moment. I've finished the first one and cast on the second one last night. They're my first attempt at after-thought heels and I'm pretty pleased with them. I had heard about the concept a while ago, but just continued with my usual heel-flap pattern until now. The first sock was slightly tricky as I had no reference point for measuring the foot length from and I ended up ripping out the toe once I had the heel in and lengthening it a bit. From now on though, things should be fine as I can use the first sock for reference. I think this might become my favoured sock pattern for a while as the fit is really good.

For your immediate delictation, another couple of items for the archive:


This is Jessie, from the Rowan website. I knitted her in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran and Noro Silk Garden (Colour 84). Given that I didn't really know anything about guage at the time, and swatching was an alien concept, I was pretty lucky with how this turned out. I also hadn't heard of intarsia at the time (and didn't realise that this was what I was attempting). Due to this, I didn't consistantly twist the strands together at the edges of the heart, was left with some gaping holes, and had to sew some of the edges together afterwards. It does show a bit, but we live and learn. Jessie is now keeping my sister warm near Edinburgh.





This is the hooded top from Debbie Bliss Special Knits for Babies, with a few alterations as usual. I didn't cast off at the shoulders and top of the hood before seaming the edges together, but left the stitches live and did a three needle bind off. This is my preferred method of grafting these kinds of seams, especially on small items, as it makes the seams far less bulky. I also introduced some decreases towards the top and back of the hood to prevent it being too 'pointy' and give it a softer shape. I knitted this hoodie five times last year (lots of friends all had babies within a few months of one another) and worked out these refinements one by one. After the first one, I think I picked up an error in the pattern. When casting on stitches for the back of the hood, the pattern indicates to pick up twice as many at were cast off at the corresponding back of the neck. When it came to sewing these together, they didn't fit. From then on, I only picked up half the number indicated by the pattern and the pieces went together beautifully. Perhaps I was missing something in the sewing up, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it. This version was knitted in Cashmerino Aran as recommended in the pattern, but I've also knitted it in other aran yarns and it's come out just as well.