a knitting and crochet blog
I started and finished a new cardigan this week. It’s a new design and the pattern is currently being tested. Hopefully I will have the pattern ready to publish here within the next couple of weeks
The photos isn’t great, and I haven’t blocked it or added a button yet, but I am really pleased with it.
It’s a top down seamless pattern which uses DK weight yarn. I used about 225g of New Lanark DK weight Donegal Silk tweed. The stitch pattern is the same as I used for the one row lace cowl.
I decided to start another Eva’s shawl with the Kauni yarn I bought at the Knitting and Stitching Show. This provided me with the perfect opportunity to finally putting the pattern together into a PDF file. I changed the instructions to make them clearer (I hope!). I also changed the terminology from UK to US. I thought long and hard about this – as I am British, I wanted the original instructions to be in UK terms, but quite a few people have commented that this was confusing. I toyed with making separate UK and US versions, but decided it was easier to go with the US terminology – as most available patterns use US terminolgy, British crocheters are probably more used to converting than US crocheters – I hope this is OK, and would welcome further comments!
I have also updated the Spanish translation as there was an error in row three.
I am really enjoying working with the Kauni Yarn – the colour changes are fascinating. I have some reservations about the brightness of the colours (I usually go for more muted tones), but I love the way it looks so far.
I’ve been thinking about crocheting myself a cowl for the past couple of weeks. I started swatching today and came up with this.
It’s a really simple one row lace pattern. I have written the pattern up for several different yarn weights (see here or link in side bar). Please bear in mind that this pattern has not been tested (except by me!). I think it would be nice in a subtley variagated sock weight yarn (e.g. malabrigo sock).
Silvia Insaurralde of the Argentinian blog http://curupisa.blogspot.com/ has very kindly translated my Eva’s Shawl pattern into Spanish. You can find a copy here. There is also a link to the pattern in the side bar.
Had a great day at the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace yesterday. There were lots of yarn stall this year ( the number seems to be increasing every year). It’s great being able to see and feel yarn, that isn’t available locally. I was very pleased with my purchases – should keep bme busy for the next few months at least. This year I came away with some heavy laceweight cashmere from KnitWitches, 2 balls of kauni yarn, some Jamieson and Smith jumper weight and best of all, some beautiful malabrigo sock yarn from Socktopus. I also bought some very nice buttons and a shawl pin from a the One World Button Supply Company.
I’ve now started two of my planned cardigans. The first one is Liesl from Ysolda.com.
This is a really nice, simple pattern, but I’m not really too happy with my yarn choice (Wendy aran with wool). I really wish I had chosen a nicer yarn, but at least this will be easy care (i.e. won’t felt if it accidently finds itself in the machine!)
The second cardigan is the Rayne Wrap Cardigan from Cosmicpluto knits.
I’m using the New Lanark aran yarn for this one. I love working with this yarn, and will definitely buy more for future projects.
I’ve been searching Ravelry to decide what to make with the Alexandra Palace yarns. The Kauni will become a shawl – either another Eva’s shawl or Revontuli huivi I haven’t decided which yet. I think the Jamieson and Smith will also be a shawl, probably knitted. I’m looking for a nice garter stitch based pattern (thinking of this one).
Autumn is well and truly here. The days are getting shorter and the weather has suddenly turned much colder. At around this time of year, my enthusiam for all things yarn realated increases dramatically.
I’ve been busy knitting and crocheting away of the past few weeks. I’ve finally finished the olive cardigan.
I’m pleased with it, but it’s really a spring/ summer cardigan so It probably won’t see much wear until next year.
I also finished the charcoal wallaby. This is lovely, warm and cosy, and will definitely get a lot of wear over the next few months.
I have three or four more cardigans planned, two will be machine washable, and I wll be using a wool acrylic blend for those (wendy aran with wool - comes in a big 400g ball and is very reasonably priced) and I have ordered some lovely wool and wool/silk blends from New Lanark Yarn Shop for the other two. More details in my next post!
We finally got our campervan after months of waiting for the conversion to be finished and we have had several trips away over the summer. I have been taking my projects with me, and although I didn’t get a lot finished, I have really enjoyed knitting and crocheting whilst relaxing at various campsites. I did however finish one of the colourful socks
And the hemp summer top
The “Oops!” in the title refers to the fact that two of my favourite cardigans met with a felting accident after my very helpful husband put them in the washing machine (the original top down round yoke and my shell stitch wrap around cardigan). I must admit I was very upset at the time, and vowed never to make anything wearable out of hand wash only yarn again.
I have started on two more seamless garments – this time knit rather than crochet, and worked from the bottom up. The first will be a basic cardigan with either a crew neck or a ribbed collar in Texere Troon Tweed (not machine washable!)
And the second will be an adult sized wonderful wallaby in Wendy Serenity ( a very soft alpaca/wool/synthetic mix)
it’s interesting working on the two projects at the same time. The texere tweed is a little bit rough compared to the synthetic blend, but it’s so much more enjoyable to work with. Although the Wendy yarn is very soft, it does have a synthetic, slightly squeaky feel, but I probably wouldn’t have noticed so much if I hadn’t been working with the Tweed yarn as well. I think in future I will probably stick to working with non-synthethic yarns but just be more careful about ensuring that they do not end up in the washing machine!
It’s been well over a month since my last post. I haven’t had much crocheting and knitting time over the past few weeks, but I have been plugging away, working on several of my unfinished projects. I’ve completed several more sock yarn squares and I’ve also made quite a bit of progress on the malabrigo lace shawl (remember that?).
I haven’t really felt like working on my larger projects, but I did pick the the hemp cardigan the over evening, and I’m going to try to finish it this week, so that I get at least some wear out of it this summer
I’ve seen many more beautiful versions of Eva’s shawl of the past few weeks. My current favourites are those in self striping yarn (particularly this one by mettetation).
A quick post to show my progress with the Hemp summer cardigan. It’s coming along quite nicely. 
I haven’t worked on it for about a week, so I’m not sure when it will be finished. I’ve actually got a grand total of ten unfinished projects at the moment – 2 blankets, 2 toys, one pair of socks, two shawls, 2 cardigans and one cowl. I’m going to try not to start anything else until I’ve finished 2 or three more things.
I haven’t made much progress on the olive cardigan this week, partly because I went wrong, and had to rip back quite a few rows, and partly because I’ve started a couple of new projects.
In my last post, I mentioned that I was thinking of crocheting a summer top out of the lanaknits hemp yarn. I decided to try my own design in the end, so I’ve started swatching with the yarn. I’ve never worked with hemp before, and I was surprised at how tough and string like it is. My swatch was initially quite rough and stiff…
… but after washing it softened up, and the drape improved considerably.
I’ve written a rough pattern, and will post progress photos as I go along.
I’ve also started yet another pair of socks. In this picture you can also see my little index card with my basic sock pattern instructions which I have attached to my sock bag.
I really enjoy having a pair of simple stocking stitch socks on the go -they’re easy to travel with and require minimal concentration!
