Winter Warmer

I love cuddling up with a hot-water bottle and over the last year, hot water bottles have become a permenant fixture for me in the colder months. Last November, the Resident Radiologist and I moved into an oldish house which had been sitting empty for the best part of a year. There was no residual warmth in the place from the comings and goings of previous owners, the boiler was inefficient and expensive to run, and to top it all we had to get woodworm and damp-rot treated in the attic which necessitated the removal of all the loft insulation (not that there was much) in early January and we didn't manage to install more until the spring.

There were quite a few evenings in the first year when I would be sitting with my feet on a hot-water bottle, hugging another go try to get a bit warmer. While we have made several improvements for this winter, including more insulation and a super-efficient boiler, the house is always going to be on the cool side and I still love my hot water bottle.

My favorite hot water bottle only had a temporary cover which I'd made from a bit of polar fleece about five years ago, and which was very effective but was getting a bit tatty. Finally I've got round to making it a new jumper:


The pattern, as I mentioned in my last post, is based on Jessie by Kim Hargreaves for Rowan. I've looked for a link to this pattern on the Rowan website but can't find it any more but here's a Ravelry link. I've used some left-over Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran (not quite two balls) in a grass green with pale yellow for contrast.

The cashmerino aran comes up perfectly to gauge but I know from a cover I knitted for my sister that it was a tendency to grow, so I took a couple of stitches off the totals for the front and back.

I also fancied a cabled cover so I ditched the intarsia heart motif and added four chunky cables down the front. These should also pull in a bit and help the cover stay snug.


I've yet to get round to finding the right buttons, but the cover has already been pressed into service.

Startitis

Apologies for the break in service - I've spent the last week trying to get my head around Proteomics Bioinformatics on one of the Wellcome Trust's Advanced Courses at Hinxton Hall in Cambridgeshire. Needless to say my head now hurts but I think I've learned some useful stuff.

Before I left, I suffered from a spate of Startitis, something I don't usually succumb to but which I have a bad case of at the moment.

First I cast on with the Fyberspates Aran for a February Lady Sweater...


This is a great pattern and I think that I will adapt the top-down raglan for my own patterns in the future as it ensures a great fit with little guess work.


I also cast on for a hot water bottle cover with Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran...


The pattern is loosely based on Jessie by Rowan (which I've used before as written) but I've ditched the intarsia heart this time and added some cables. I'm also using a contrasting colour for the edges.

Finally I cast on for some baby socks for a friend...


The yarn is some left-over Regia Bamboo Colour sock yarn.

Not content with this plethora of projects, I took some yarn and needles with me on the course and started (and finished) a forth project - but more on that another time.

A little after-thought... an incident from the course I went on just goes to show how universal patterns have become due to the internet. I was walking from the dining room to the teaching room one morning thinking that the sweater being worn by the girl in front of me (a scientist from New Zealand) looked very like a Central Park Hoodie and that her hat looked pretty like Odessa. The more I looked, the more I was sure, but was unwilling to ask as non-knitters can take it pretty badly if you ask if their jumper is hand-knitted. The next lunchtime, I had just resolved to ask her when she came up to me to ask if the scarf I was wearing two days earlier was Clapotis! Apparently I'm not the only knitter to go round pattern spotting!

Brown Paper packages...

... not quite tied up with string in this case. Brown paper nevertheless.

I was very excited collecting this from the post office a few Saturdays back - I wasn't expecting it to be quite so big. I had taken advantage of the Fyberspates sale (Jen was clearing out old stock before her house move) enjoyed the following beautiful sight when I opened the packaging...

Ooooh yummy!


There was some aran weight Blue Faced Leicester in the Spring Greens colourway,


Some Blue Faced Leicester sock yarn in the Lagoon colourway for the resident radiologist,


And some Blue Faced Leicester sock yarn in the Fiesta colourway (fabulous name - really captures the look of the yarn perfectly) for me.

I've been pretty good with knitting from stashed yarn lately so I didn't feel too guilty about this little haul. Also, the aran weight was bought with a particular project in mind and is on the needles already so it's not even going to make it upstairs to the stash storage drawers!

His and Hers...

... new socks for winter. (And most definitely not matching! The Resident Radiologist and I are not really matching sorts of people.)


In this case, the only real overlap (besides both items being hand-knitted socks) is the pattern, my standard fall-back, top-down, heel-flap sock pattern.


Hers: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in 'Girly Stripe'. 68 stitches around on 2.25mm needles to fit a UK6.5 foot. A fantastic injection of colour to combat a very dark Glasgow November.



His: Schoeller + Stahl Fortissima Colori Socka Color. 68 stitches around on 2.25mm needles to fit a UK11 foot. A lovely soft heathered colourway chosen by the resident radiologist himself.

Knitted Bangle

Sadly, I can't remember where I first came across this idea so I can't give proper credit, but needless to say that the original idea was not mine.

What I do remember, though, was seeing a photo in an up-market magazine (possibly Scottish Field) and thinking '£70 for a cashmere-covered bangle - what a rip-off'. So I, in turn, ripped off the idea and made this alpaca-covered bangle for about £3.50.


The core bangle is a cheap plastic one from Claire's Accessories. I then cast on 64 stitches with Artesano Alpaca Inca Cloud yarn on 2.25mm DPNs and away I went. I had thought about grafting the end to the beginning, but to get enough tension to keep the cover taught, I ended up casting off all the stitches, then using a varient on mattress stitch to bring the ends together.


I really like this (and it keeps my wrist lovely and warm) and am now on the look-out for other old bangles of various width to cover.

French Market Bag Redux

This is a bag I've been hankering after for a while now - a big, squashy, bright version of the dinky one I made about a year ago.


The pattern is French Market Bag and this time I knitted it in Debbie Bliss Soho. I used almost nine balls of yarn and the pre-felted bag occupied the whole width of my dining room table.


I knitted it on 5.5mm needles ( and would have prefered 6.5mm if I'd had them as circs), and felted in a standard cycle at 40C.


The handles are long enough to go comfortably over my shoulder (diagonally if needs be) so I can distribute the weight of my shopping.

The colour is a real pick-me-up in a fairly dreary Glasgow November and will be invaluable at the Farmer's Market.

Irish Jig

This is mainly a visual post. The yarn is the latest installment of the the Lorna's Laces Sock Club from Get Knitted 'Irish Jig'.



It's probably not going to be my favorite LL colourway as the yellow is a bit muddy, but it's nice and spring-like so makes a good stash addition. I suspect that once it matures in the stash for a while, the perfect pattern will make itself known and it will all work out well.