Clearing the Backlog # 4 - Mittens

 Mittens have been a bit of a theme in my knitting over the last couple of years. I've already blogged about the Calaveras and Chrysanthemum mittens that I knitted way back when, but since then, I've gravitated towards slightly simpler (easier?) designs.

First up are two pairs of fingerless mitts for DD. She has dreadful circulation to her hands so these were knitted with autumn in mind, just to keep her hands warm in the car (or house) or on mild days.

The first pair were knitted with my handspun on 3mm needles.

The second pair were knitted with some Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in the Fandango colourway that I had left over from her sock-yarn hat. Also knitted on 3mm needles.

Both pairs were knitted to improvised patterns and had deliberately short cuffs as DD was not very tolerant of mittens at first. Now that she loves putting her mittens on, I'd knit future pairs with much longer cuffs and possibly with flip-over tops.

Moving on to adult mitts, this year I took part in the Yarn Yard Shed Swap on Ravelry. The theme of the swap was hand coverings, with each participant completing a questionnaire on their likes, dislikes and hand-covering preferences.
My recipient requested fingerless mitts, so I got to try out a pattern I've had my eye on for a while - Vancouver Fog Mitts.

I used Dream in Colour Classy yarn in the colourway 'Seaflower'.

I liked these so much that I knitted a second pair for myself using Manos de Uruguay Silk Blend in colourway 'Pisces'.

Both times I knitted the longer versions with the extra repeat of the cable on the cuffs for really warm coverage on the wrists. The pattern is lovely and well-written, but I made a minor modification to move the end of the round to the middle of the palms instead of starting right beside the pattern on the backs.

Clearing the backlog #3 - A pair of shawls

These shawls have nothing much in common except for the fact that they're both for me and both knitted in 4ply, but in the interests of clearing the backlog before the baby arrives, I'm pairing them up for this post.

The first shawl was knitted in the aftermath of the first Glasgow School of Yarn. Stephen West was one of the tutors and brought a selection of his samples with him. I'd seen the pattern before and not really given it a second glance, but having seen it in person, I absolutely loved it.

The pattern is Akimbo by Stephen West and I knitted it in Old Maiden Aunt Merino-Nylon-Cashmere 4ply in the colourway 'Seen the Ocean' and Fyberspates Sheila's Sock in the colourway Violet on 3.5mm needles.

All the way through I was worried that I was going to run out of the Sheila's sock, but in the end I had a few metres left - enough for a few hexipuffs!

The second shawl was something that I fell for at first glance, but didn't get round to knitting for a while. It is also the source of the biggest ever knitting mistake I've ever made (but more on that later).

The pattern is Colour Affection by Veera Välimäki and I've knitted it in three different colourways of Clan by the Yarn Yard. They don't have names, but one is a darkish grey (that I was lucky enough to buy for a song as it had been dropped and badly tangled, and then lucky again as it wasn't too bad to untangle), one is a beige and the last is a dusky mulberry. I wanted shades that would tone well and give a muted but classy look. I think that the Yarn Yard shades are perfect for this as they are always slightly understated.

I knew a few folk who had knitted this piece and all had said that the process was long and very boring, but it was worth persevering as I wanted the finished shawl. With this in mind, once I reached the third colour section, I stopped counting as such and just kept knitting on the basis that if I counted, I’d only realise how much further I had to go. One Thursday at knit night, a friend sitting next to me commented that I might be further on than I realised, so maybe I should count… Not really believing this, I counted at the end of the row… I was 54 rows over… at almost 400 stitches per row… that’s almost 20 000 stitches extra! By far and away the biggest knitting mistake I've ever made and it added to the dull knitting by slightly over two weeks!

There was no way on earth that I was going to rip all the extra, so my colour affection is slightly larger than most (and I actually find that it's quite a nice size, so maybe it wasn't such a bad mistake after all).

I modified the published pattern slightly by working a yarn-over two stitches into every row, then dropping it in the next row to make the edge slightly less tight and relax the curve a bit. I also carried the non-working colours up the edge of the work instead of cutting and weaving in every two rows. Unfortunately, I've carried them with a little too much tension, so once side of the edge is tighter than the other, but it doesn't look to bad once its on.

Clearing the backlog #2 - Little Hats

These all started when DD needed a new hat for the winter. She's getting to the stage where she has an opinion about what she wears (especially the colour) and would generally prefer pink. I'd generally prefer anything but pink (especially in large quantities), so I reckoned that a compromise could be reached.

Years ago, I signed up to a Lorna's Laces sock yarn club from Get Knitted for a year. Two skeins every month... and at the very most I've used a couple of those skeins. I keep saving them for special. One of the colourways, Fandango, struck me as the perfect compromise for this hat. It contained pink, but was nicely balanced by purple and a white/pale grey.

I chose the Charlie's Sock Yarn Hat pattern by Aimee Alexander and knitted the toddler size in the round on 3mm needles.

The pompoms were made on my new pompom makers ( I decided that two circles of cardboard like I used to do as a child was way too fiddley for adult fingers, especially when the pompoms are only 1.5 inches in diameter). These pompom makers are definitely the way to go and I now own a collection of them from minute to huge.

Shortly after I made the DD's hat, a good friend of mine had a little boy who obviously needed  a hand-knit hat, so I knit another in the baby size using Regia Galaxy in the Saturn colourway...

and then I made another toddler one in Regia Sock Yarn in the Zanzibar colourway for his big brother who is a little older than DD because his little brother couldn't have all the fun.

This pattern is excellent. It sizes up well, and the turned brim is lovely  and warm over the ears. I also think that it looks better than ribbing. I made a minor modification in that I used a three needle bind-off at the crown instead of lots and lots of kitchener stitch.

Clearing the backlog #1

I had an idea that I would spend the week between Christmas and New Year getting to grips with blogging from my tablet and simultaneously clearing the backlog of knits I have from the last couple of years that I've not got round to blogging about. I was sucessful on neither count and here I am on my laptop, well into January. Nevertheless, the backlog will be cleared and as I look at my list, I realise that my projects fall nicely into pairs, or sometimes threes...

Today we have his and hers jumpers...

The resident radiologist was the recipient of a new jumper last Christmas (2011).

The pattern was Ben by Norah Gaughan and the yarn  is New Lanark Donegal Silk Tweed Aran in the colourway Forest. I knitted it almost entirely in the round on 5mm needles.

Sadly, it wasn't quite done for Christmas, but got finished up in January 2012 and has been work plenty since then.

The other jumper was for me.

The pattern was Beatnik by Norah Gaughan again (and blogging about this today is the first time that I've noticed that both jumpers were by the same designer!), and the yarn is Drops Nepal in a lovely apple green shade (the first picture gives the best reproduction of the colour). Again, I knitted in it almost entirely in the round on 5mm needles and used Carol Fellor's method for knitting top-down set in sleeves in the round with no need to seam.

 Sadly, this hasn't really been worn much yet. I finished knitting it in May 2012 by which time it was too warm for a heavily cabled alpaca jumper and now my growing bump is stopping it fitting to well. Hopefully I'll get some good use out of it next winter!

New skills

In the middle of July, something new came into my life.

A lovely Ashford Traditional wheel.
I've not had a great deal of time to really play on it yet as I went on holiday a few days later and have had plenty of other demands on my time recently, but in addition to playing a bit to get the feel for it, I've completed one spinning project.

This yarn came together as a bit of an accident. I got a lovely pink and blue 100% bamboo Yarn Yard roving in a p/hop offer and bought the dark grey Jacob roving from HillTop Cloud.  I didn't intend to ply them together, but it worked out well.

I originally tried to spin the bamboo on a drop spindle, but the very long staple was killing me and the yarn kept drifting apart. Once I got the wheel, I tried on that and as the wheel provides a 'spare hand' of sorts, the spinning was much easier.

The jacob spun up beautifully on the wheel and really quickly.

I plied the two together and realised that I had loads of bamboo single left, so I spun up some cream 100% merino roving that I had in stash to ply with the remainder of the bamboo.

The finished yarn is a light DK weight and has a lovely sheen from the bamboo without being to shiney. I'd like to make something for my daughter with it. I think that the cream/bamboo ply will make a good accent or edging.  I think that I have about 500m all told.

 Just need to find the right pattern now - possibly a dress...

Tour de Fleece

No knitting of any meaningful nature took place for me between April and August this year. I just lost interest for a while and life (and tennis) took over.

I did however manage to keep my interest in spinning going and took part in the Tour de Fleece this year for the first time...

I cleared the decks of spinning already started, plying up a couple of experiments I'd been playing with:

Some fractal-plied BLF (top) and a sampler of grey BFL plied with 100% bamboo.

I then cracked on with the main event: a sample pack of British Breeds from Hill Top Cloud.

These were spun on my modular spindle and plied on my heavy bottom whorl.

From l - r: White Shetland, grey North Ronaldsay, grey Shetland, oatmeal BFL, brown North Ronaldsay, moorit Shetland, brown BFL, grey Jacob, Black Shetland.

 The finished yarns are all approximately 15g and 30m of fingering weight. I hope to knit a SheepHeid with these in the future.

Finding myself with several days to go before the end of the tour, I dug out a beautiful braid of gradient dyed BFL from The Yarn Yard.

  I split this down the middle then spun each half onto my modular spindle. I plyed to try to maintain the gradient and ended up with approximately 300m of sport weight.

Easter Bonnet

I'm a bit behind on my posts as will become evident - forgive me!

The week before Easter, I took a week off from work to kick back a bit, relax and generally catch up with non-work life. The first day was fantastic, the weather was beautiful and I spent the entire day working in the garden. The next day was awful - raining and cold with no sign of a let up. Mid-morning the Resident Radiologist called me to say that he'd noticed a sign and DDs nursery that morning requiring parents to provide and Easter bonnet for two days time... In addition to this he wasn't sure what constituted an Easter bonnet...

I took a deep breath, gathered the crafty materials I had in the house, made a cup of tea and reflected that it wasn't a bad way to spend a revoltingly wet day off work!

Since time was short and DD is still too young to have (or at least to express) and opinion on what she wanted, I decided to make a near-replica (materials allowing) of a bonnet my mother made for me about 30 years ago.

Little rectangles of tissue paper were stacked, concertina'd and teased out into roses, with bright button centres peaking out,

A large piece of card was cut to form the brim, then covered with more tissue paper,

The crown was a bit of a problem. When my mum made this bonnet for me, she cut a circle of crepe paper and (I think) eased it into the head circle pleating it slightly and securing with staples. I didn't have crepe paper and the tissue paper was too delicate to use in the same way, so I improvised.

I cut lengths of cheap silver ribbon that had been tied round a bale of towels when I got them (I never throw this sort of stuff out) and fastened them loosely cross-wise accross the head hole to form a loose cage. I put a stitch through the centre point where all the ribbons crossed to stop them sliding about.

I then got out some good pink organza ribbon and wove it in and out of the silver ribbon 'spokes' to fill in the crown. I used some good blue organza ribbon to make the ties to hold the bonnet on and them secured the pink and blue ribbons in place with a stitch every time them crossed the silver spokes.

Finally I attached the roses to the brim with wire freezer ties.

DD wore her hat to nursery on the required day, looked really sweet in it and happened to win first prize in the bonnet parade. Proud mummy!

After easter, the stitches holding the good ribbon in place were unpicked and the ribbon reclaimed and carefully rewound for the next project (I deliberately didn't cut either of the good ribbons) and the roses have been reused as decoration on birthday presents, so all in all, it was a pretty green project in more ways than one.