A hit and a miss

After receiving a hint that I needed a new beret and cowl set, I went looking for patterns. There are several lovely beret patterns in my Ravelry queue - Gretel, Ishbel  and Snapdragon, all by Ysolda Teague, but it was Beret de Printemps by Jeni Chase that really caught my attention.

I had two balls of Rowan Felted Tweed DK in my stash in a lovely spring green that seemed just right for a spring beret, so off I knitted.

I didn't find the pattern very well written, there are a couple of points in the chart when the next step is not altogether clear, but after a false-start or two, I got there.

The miracle of blocking turned a rather unpromising looking blob into a respectable looking beret.

I had yarn left over, so I used the stitch pattern to make a little cowl to match.

Details:
Pattern: Beret de Printemps by Jeni Chase,
Yarn: Rowan Felted Tweed DK in colour 146 (Herb)
Needles: 3.5mm and 4mm DPNs

The beret is a real hit - it fits well, the colour is lovely and it's warm. The cowl is sadly a miss. It's too short and tends to roll down and end up as a round knitted  band around my neck. I think it could have done with being a few pattern repeats bigger. It will be frogged and returned to stash.

Yarn, Glorious Yarn

Amazing, the fun that can be had, winding up fresh balls of yarn and distracting myself from the never-ending farce that is the tank top!

I think that the tank top is over, at least for the moment. I've knitted myself back to the point where I tried it on last time and found that it was too big, and once again (despite being 30 stitches shorter in the round) it's still the same size. I'm beginnning to suspect that the length of the circular needle is having a major role in dictating the gauge I'm getting. Anyway - regardless of anything else, the baby alpaca is for the frog pond once again.



In the midst of this realisation, there was some solace... new, unripped, still-skeined yarn to wind and a new project on the horizon. This is my unbloggable project so these are probably the last pictures you'll see of it for a while, but suffice to say that it was cast on last night (well - the foundation row was laid, I'm not sure if cast on is appropriate in crochet), and progress was made. The yarn is Rowanspun 4 ply that I won in Ali's blog competition back in April. The colours immediately suggested a design to me and I've been saving them for this project ever since.


Newsflash - all is not lost for the baby alpaca. I've just come across a pattern I've been meaning to knit for ages and it would be perfect in this yarn. I've even got all the right needles, it's as if it's meant to be!

Little things

Well, it's Friday again and I couldn't honestly tell you where the time has gone. My working weeks seem to just get eaten out from under me - I think it might be the new students, they sap my strength, my resilience and my will to live in their first couple of months.

Some knitting has been achieved this week - the resident radiologist's socks were finished but they're a little too snug in the toes so I'm going to have to rip back a little and knit them a little longer.

The alpaca tank top has also had a trip to the frog-pond. My suspicions about its girth were correct and at The Big Knit Out, I put it on to an extra needle so I could try it on and it came up too big (by about 5 inches!). So it was ripped and restarted with 30 fewer stitches in the round. The problem I now have is that the gauge has changed, so where before I was getting 6 stitches per inch over 200 stitches (= 33.3 inches approx) , I'm now getting 5 stitches per inch over 170 stitches (=34 inches) so if anything it's getting bigger! I'm going to carry on for another few inches and if it doesn't look any better, then it's back for another dip in the frog pond.

There have been a couple of little sucesses:

A little knitted voodoo doll for the Big Knit Out...

And a little flower crocheted out of some left-over Koigu that seemed to stitch itself in a few idle minutes.

The difference half a millimetre makes!

I've been spending a fair bit of my weekend doing this.....










That's right, frogging and re-knitting, all for the sake of a half-millimetre difference in needles. I originally knitted these socks in January on 2.75mm DPNs with 64 stitches as usual. They were far too big - really baggy round my feet. I normally use 2.25mm DPNs, so ripped back to the ankle and used the smaller needles from there.

You can see the difference this needle change makes in this photo taken after the first sock had been re-knitted.










I also decided to put afterthought heels in this time, instead of heel-flaps. This also tends to give me a better fit. I knit a piece of scrap yarn where I want the heels, then continue with the foot and toe. I then pick up the stitches either side of the scrap yarn, remove the scrap and knit the heel.











And the final outcome - socks that fit properly!