Knitting Round-Up 1/2020

Hello hello! How are you all? Staying safe and well I hope! In these strange times, with significant parts of the world in lockdown trying to curb the spread of COVID-19, I'm finding that all my various crafty projects are providing even more comfort than they usually do. So I thought it would be a good time to come and share some of the knitting projects that I've been working on since the start of the year.

First up is a project that I started last year, but which got put on hold for a couple of months while I was working on various Christmas presents. It's the Tank Top pattern from the book Simple Chic Knits by Karen Miller and Susan Ritchie and the yarn I used is West Yorkshire Spinners Colour Lab DK in the colour Deep Teal.

It's a really simple pattern - lots of stocking stitch knit in two pieces with ribbing at the waist, armholes and neckline. I made the medium size and followed the pattern exactly, apart from knitting 8 rows of ribbing on the neckline instead of 4 to raise the neckline up a bit. I'm glad I did that because it would have been a bit low otherwise. As it is, I'm pleased with how it turned out and it's a nice extra layer for added warmth on a chilly day!

Another project that got carried over from last year is my Siren Song socks. The pattern is by Vikki Bird and I really enjoyed knitting it! It's mostly a fairly plain sock with an interesting slipped stitch detail running in a panel along one edge of each foot. It's designed to work well with variegated yarns, and I think it does a good job of that with the gorgeous yarn that I used, which is "You Do Something To Me" by Mr B's Yarns.

Next up is my Minimania shawl. This is a project that I've been wanting to make for a while, and I'm glad that I finally got around to it! The pattern is by Lisa Hannes, and is really nice to knit. With the different sections being worked in different colours and textures, you're never doing the same thing for too long and you always have an incentive to keep going to get to the next section.

The mini skeins that I used for the middle coloured section are all by Mothy and the Squid and were part of a set that I was lucky enough to win in a giveaway a while ago. The off-white at either end is an undyed skein from Chester Wool. Happily the mix of colours are a really good match for most of my coats!

I also used a couple more of the mini skeins from my Mothy and the Squid winnings, combined with another one by Vicki Brown Designs, to make a Choose Colour Cowl by Maddie Harvey. This is a really lovely pattern designed specifically to use mini skeins or scrap yarn of varying quantities to give you various cowl size options (this is the wide single loop version, made using 3 x 20g mini skeins). You're always striping two colours together throughout the cowl, and it's interesting to see how the different colours play together.

It's a very relaxing pattern to knit, and the finished cowl sits perfectly inside my winter waterproof coat to keep my neck nice and cosy. I'm so pleased with this one that I'm already knitting a second version of the pattern using the leftovers from my Minimania shawl!

One of my Make Nine projects for this year is to try some more colourwork knitting, and I made a start on that with my first attempt at mosaic knitting. These are the Mosaic Mitts from the book Beginner's Guide to Colourwork Knitting by Ella Austin. My main yarn is Coop Knits Socks Yeah in the colour Benitoite, and the contrast is 'Taste the Rainbow' by Glendale Fibres (left over from my Kia socks). This is a fairly economical project - I only used about 25g of my main colour and just 5g of my contrast colour.

I love how they turned out, and really enjoyed watching the pattern emerge as I knitted the mosaic section.

Last but not least is another project from my Make Nine list - and another pattern by Ella Austin. This pattern is the Teign Poncho, and I included it in my Make Nine plans because I wanted to use this as an opportunity to use up the leftover yarn from my Lace Hearts cardi. It worked out perfectly on that front - I had only the tiniest scraps left when I finished!

It was another nice pattern to knit with alternating sections of stocking stitch and simple-but-effective texture. It's also already proving to be very useful at keeping my shoulders and upper back warm when I'm at my desk - they always end up cold, and this little poncho gives me a lovely bit of extra warmth just where I need it without being too bulky.

So I think we can say that my knitting has got off to a fairly successful start this year! And with extra time at home due to social distancing, I think the next couple of weeks/months will be fairly productive for knitting and crafting in general as well. Are you using creativity to keep you calm too?

Final 2019 knitting (& a little crochet)

Hello hello! It's been a little while since my last post, hasn't it?! Most of my creative time at the end of last year was spent making Christmas presents for my family that needed to be kept secret so I didn't have anything to share here. I'm back to making for myself again now, so expect normal blogging service to resume too! My first projects of the year are almost done, but for now I thought I'd pop in to share some of the things that I knitted in the last four months of 2019.

Having said that, this first project is actually crocheted! This is the first crochet that I've done for quite a while - I decided to give it a try again it give my hands something a bit different to do as a break from knitting. I do like crochet every now and then, but I don't enjoy it as much as knitting and also my tension is slightly crazy so everything turns out smaller than it's meant to be no matter what I do. That makes it a bit limiting because it means that I tend to stick to projects where final size isn't too critical.

Thankfully this shawl falls into that category, and was a nice way to put a pretty skein of yarn (from Woolly Mama Yarns) that had been in my stash for a while to good use. The pattern is the Movie Night Shawl by Purple Iguana Designs. It was easy to work up and it's nice light shawl to wear - what more could you want?!

Next up is a Blooming Bandana Cowl - a pattern by Molly Klein Design. This is a really great pattern for using up leftovers from sock projects as the pattern only calls for about 35 grams of each colourway (I think I may have used even less than that). I have plenty of yarn left over from my sock projects so I can definitely see myself making more of these.

It was another easy pattern to knit (that's a bit of a theme with most of these projects, partly because they have been my easy knitting that I've been working on alongside a more complicated sweater/jumper that's still a work in progress), and I've enjoyed wearing it. I always used to stay away from cowls because I didn't think they'd be as cosy as a shawl/scarf because you can't wrap them as snugly round your neck, but I've found that this is nice to wear when I'm at my desk and my shoulders/neck feel a bit chilly. Another winner!

Now we have some socks, specifically the Kia socks. This is a pattern by Dawn Henderson/dawn.landix, and deserves to be appreciated because it was inspired by the important conversations within the knitting community surrounding race, diversity, inclusion and representation.

It's a lovely relaxing pattern to knit. I used a slightly different toe (just my personal preference - I've found that the rounded toe from Helen Stewart's Magnolia Socks fits my feet really well so I tend to use that on all my socks now), but other than that followed the pattern and they knit up beautifully. This would be a good pattern to use for presents because it's speedy but more interesting than plain vanilla socks. The yarn I used is 'Taste the rainbow' by Glendale Fibres - it's lovely and colourful!

My next project was a Rayon de Soleil shawl. This is a pattern by Francoise Danoy/Aroha Knits. It's a simple shawlette made up of alternating sections of stocking stitch and garter eyelet rows - a simple but effective pattern that was enjoyable to knit.

I made this using more sock yarn leftovers - the variegated colour is 'Hendriks' by Vicki Brown Designs, and the pink is 'Orchid' by Lamington Lass. I love how these two yarns work together - pink and green is such a nice colour combination, which I didn't really appreciate until a couple of years ago.

Now we move on to a few presents that I knitted towards the end of the year. First, a super simple and speedy baby knit - a Tegan hat with top knot that I made for a friend who had a baby in early December. It's DK weight so knits up nice and quickly, and felt lovely and cosy in the yarn that I used - a mini skein of John Arbon Knit by Numbers DK in colourway 17. I'd happily knit more of these for future baby gifts!

There was a new addition to my family just before Christmas and I gained a new nephew, so obviously he needed an auntie-made present too! This time I chose to knit a little cardi - specifically 'The Gift' by kiddiwinksknits. This is a lovely pattern (and it's free!) -  the only change I made was to use normal  1x1 rib on the cuffs and waistband instead of the eyelet rib in the pattern - mainly because I knit most of it not knowing whether I'd be gaining a niece or a nephew and plain rib seemed a bit more unisex than the pretty eyelet rib.

I don't often knit garments seamlessly as the one time I tried it made my wrists really sore, but I want to give it another go and this was a nice way to experiment and see how it went. Thankfully no wrist pain this time, although it has to be said that obviously a baby cardi is a lot smaller and lighter than a garment for me would be!

I also knitted up a quick hat for my brother. It's the Violet Waffles hat by Halldora J - another freebie (I do pay for knitting patterns most of the time I assure you - I like to support knitting designers!) and another easy peasy project, and excellent gift knit. This project was mainly determined by the yarn (Blue Sky Alpacas Eco-Cashmere in the colour Black Rose), which I was lucky enough to win in a giveaway earlier in 2019. It's beautiful yarn and felt lovely, but it really isn't my colour so I knew all along that it would be used for a gift. Thankfully my brother wears much darker colours than I do so it suited him perfectly!

Once Christmas was over, I switched back to knitting for me - yay! My first completed project was a very practical one - dishcloths. I've been wanting to give knitted dishcloths a try for a while now, and knitting this super simple pattern (Gramma's Dishcloth by PJ Allen) was a good way to spend car journeys visiting family members over the Christmas period. I used Lily Sugar n Cream in the colour Psychedelic Ombre, which has given me possibly the most colourful dishcloths in the world! I've been using them for about a week now and they're doing well so far so I may be making some more so that I can have some in use while others are in the wash.

And last but not least, a hat for me! It's the Trellis Beret by Woolly Wormhead. I've had this pattern in my Ravelry queue for a while and chose to knit it now because I realised I already had the perfect yarn for it already waiting in my stash in the form of the leftovers from a top I made about two years ago (the yarn is Tivoli New Celtic Aran in shade 981). I really enjoyed knitting this pattern - it's well written, and I particularly like how the eyelet sections taper with the crown decreases.

Congratulations if you've made it through all of that! I think that's about all I have to share for now. I've got a sewing project almost finished though, so I'll hopefully be back again to share that soon - I definitely won't be leaving it as long between posts as I did last time anyway. See you soon!

Knitting: socks and shawls

I've finished a few smaller knitting projects since my last round-up post, so I thought it was probably time for another review. I never seem to have as much to say about knitting projects (especially accessories as opposed to garments) as I do about sewing, but I still want them all to have their place on the blog so it seems sensible to group them all together. I hope that's OK?

So, we'll start off with a shawl (Ravelry project here)! This is the Reyna shawl by Noora Backlund, which is a free pattern on Ravelry. The yarn that I used was a birthday present from my parents and came from Woolly Mama Yarns.

The Reyna shawl is a lovely relaxing pattern to knit, with alternating sections of garter stitch and a simple mesh stitch. It's specially designed for using single skeins of beautifully colourful sock yarn so it's no surprise that it worked out as a great match for my yarn. I enjoyed making this shawl and could see myself making more because it could look very different depending on the yarn you used.

Next up we have a handy little cowl. This was made solely based on the yarn, which was one of three different skeins that I was lucky enough to win in a giveaway from Mina of the Knitting Expat podcast. When it arrived, the Blue Sky Fibers cotton felt so lovely that I wanted to use it immediately. A quick Ravelry search revealed that the main viable options for the single skein that I had would be a dishcloth/washcloth or a cowl, and the yarn felt too nice to be used for washing so it had to be a cowl. I chose the Cha Cha Cowl by Jody McKinley - another freebie and another simple but effective pattern. It was a speedy project so worked up quickly, which meant I got to wear it a couple of times before the weather warmed up.

The final neckwear item for this post is my Amulet shawl. It's a pattern from The Shawl Society (I was given the book for Christmas) by Helen Stewart. I've used Helen's patterns before and really like the format that she uses - in case you're not familiar, she has a percentage checklist system so you know just how much progress you've made. It makes knitting them a real pleasure, and that was true again for the Amulet. I liked the fact that there are four different textures to knit so you get a bit of variety throughout the shawl.

The yarns I used this time both came from Little Stone Cottage Yarns (the colourways are 'I'm Blue' and 'Ocean') and I love how they work together. A blue shawl will definitely be a very useful addition to my wardrobe once the temperatures cool down.

Now onto some socks! First up we have the Precious Metal socks. This is a pattern by Louise Tilbrook, which I got free as a newsletter subscriber. It seemed to take me longer to knit these than socks would normally take me, mainly because I did have to keep referring to the pattern/chart, but it was still an enjoyable project.

I used John Arbon Exmoor Sock in the colour Mackerel Sky. I'm not entirely sure whether I'm going to be able to wear these (it's been too warm really since I finished them) because they felt a bit itchy when I put them on to take photos, but we'll see how they are once it's colder. And if I can't wear them then I'm sure they'll be gratefully received by someone with similarly sized feet and less sensitive skin!

The second pair of socks I have to share today are the Fernweh socks - a pattern by Mina of Knitting Expat. I used two yarns left over from other projects - Bert by Tracey Mustard (from my Sockhead Hat) and some West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4 ply in Blueberry Bonbon (which I've used in several projects already). I really enjoyed knitting these socks and I love how they turned out - they're a welcome addition to my box of socks.

And, last but not least, my Nemesis socks. This is a pattern by Ambrose Smith, and I think it's actually surprisingly simple compared with what I thought it was going to be. It's not a mindless knit exactly, but you can memorise the pattern easily enough and that means that knitting them isn't too taxing. This time I used Coop Knits Socks Yeah in the colour Larimar. I really enjoyed knitting with this yarn and it feels really nice so I'd like to use it again at some point.

So that's all the knitting I have to share for now! There are more photos of each project (in case that interests you!) on my Ravelry project pages, which I've linked for in each case.

Have you been enjoying any knitting projects lately?

A little knitting round-up

After realising in the middle of writing my post about my coat last week that I hadn't yet blogged my Land of Sweets cowl, it quickly occurred to me that there were a few other knitting projects that I hadn't shared here too, so I thought I'd do a little round-up of them for you. Let's start with my cowl being as it's what inspired this post in the first place.

The Land of Sweets cowl is a pattern by Helen Stewart that's designed to use the mini skeins from a yarn advent calendar. Instead of doing that, I used 10 mini skeins from a variety of UK indie dyers (they're listed on my Ravelry project page) that I collected together gradually over the course of a year or so. As I had 10 colours, I used each one twice and omitted four of the sections in the pattern so I have 20 stripes instead of the intended 24.

It was a really fun pattern to knit, and became slightly addictive as I was always wanting to get to the next colour change. If you're thinking about knitting this pattern and wondering about how much yarn you'll need, it's worth mentioning that having used each of my mini skeins twice I still had about half of each one left so my Mum is currently in the middle of knitting another cowl for herself using my leftovers.

Going back in time a bit further, last autumn I knitted a Sockhead Slouch Hat for my sister for her birthday. The Sockhead hat is a free pattern by Kelly McClure. It's super simple so was nice and relaxing to knit. The yarn that I used for this one was from Lamington Lass. It's on her Soft Sock base in the Swirling Flock Splash colourway, and I loved it so much that I was "forced" to buy another skein so I'd have some to knit for myself (more on that later!).

I really liked the feel of the hat and decided I'd like one for myself. I don't wear hats that are too slouchy though, so I made mine significantly shorter - I knitted 3 inches of rib, then 5 inches of stocking stitch before starting the decreases. It worked out really nicely and it's a very useful hat - warm enough to keep me cosy, but small enough to be easy to shove in my bag when it's not needed.

The yarn that I used is from What Mustard Made - it's her Bert the Yarn colourway. It's super fun with all the colourful speckles, and the good news for me is that this hat used less than half of the skein so I think I've got enough left for some socks if I combine it with a contrast colour for the heels/toes/cuffs.

Speaking of socks, last year I decided that it would be a good idea to knit socks as Christmas presents for my Dad, siblings and siblings-in-law. I'm not a quick knitter, so thankfully I had the foresight to get started early! I cast on the first pair in August so I effectively had to knit a pair of socks per month to meet my deadline - definitely do-able! In the end I actually managed to finish them well ahead of schedule, which is rare for me as I'm often making Christmas presents right up until the last minute.

I used different patterns for all of them (because knitting the same pattern five times in a row would have been a bit tedious!). Working clockwise from the top left, the patterns for the four above are Vanilla Latte, Atlantic Current, Riverbend and Rockpool. The final ones, which are in the foreground of the first sock photo, were Staggered Path socks.

Once I'd finished knitting all of those socks, I was definitely ready to make something for myself again! As I mentioned earlier, I'd ordered myself a skein of the yarn from Lamington Lass that I used to knit my sister's hat and I decided to combine that with a semi-solid skein from Woolly Mama Yarns to make the Right Around The Corner shawl by Lisa Hannes.

This pattern is beautifully simple but effective, and it was the perfect pattern for me to have to knit on whilst still being sociable when I was with family over the Christmas period. The two yarns that I used also work perfectly together, which is a happy coincidence being as they came from different dyers!

I think that's about all I have to share for today! I really enjoyed knitting all of these projects. In fact I've been really enjoying knitting in general recently. I've got a cardigan almost complete and another shawl and two pairs of socks on the needles, so hopefully I'll have some more finished projects to share with you soon. Have you been knitting anything recently?

Knitting: Lots of Socks!

Without doubt, one of my biggest crafting successes last year was discovering the joy of sock knitting. From a practical perspective, my feet get cold really easily so having some lovely wooly socks to keep them cosy is never going to be a bad thing. More than that though, I just really love the process of sock knitting - those rounds of stitches seem to fly off my needles. And, of course, it also helps that there are so many beautifully coloured skeins of sock yarn out there to tempt me!

Since finishing my first socks, I've now knit another three pairs. The ones above are the only one of those pairs that were for me, and they're my most recent pair. I cast them on while enjoying the festivities of Christmas Eve, and have been merrily knitting away on them ever since.

The pattern for these socks was Hermione's Everyday Socks by Erica Lueder. They're a free pattern on Ravelry, and before I cast these on I was beginning to feel like I was the only knitter in the world who hadn't used this pattern. I'm really glad that I followed the crowd and gave the pattern a try - it's well written, easy to follow and the simple texture provides a bit of interest without demanding too much concentration.

Isn't the yarn that I used gorgeous? It's by Pixie Yarns and is called "Kitty Ate the Tinsel" (a Christmas colour so not available at the moment, but there are many other pretty colours in her shop!). I love all the speckles of different colours, and the merino/nylon blend was nice to knit and is feels lovely on my feet. These socks are definite winners!

These are the second pair of socks that I have to share with you today. They're the Atlantic Current Socks by Melissa Tuttle Sibley, and I knit them up for my Dad for Christmas. I enjoyed knitting these socks too - I would say though that I think the pattern assumed a bit of prior knowledge about sock knitting so I wouldn't recommend them if you're brand new to knitting socks.

Also, unless I was being completely silly (entirely possible), in the pattern as written for the larger size you end up with a bigger gap between the slipped stitch lines at the beginning/end of a row than you have between the lines in the middle of the row. I adjusted the spacing of the slipped stitches slightly so that they're even around the whole sock, which was easy to do but I just feel like it should have been even in the pattern anyway.

The yarn for these socks is Schoppel Wolle Crazy Zauberball, which I got from Loop. It was fun watching the colours change as I knit my way through the yarn, although the darker sections of the yarn possibly aren't the best for showing off the texture pattern in these socks. The wool/nylon blend definitely isn't as soft as the yarn I used for my socks, but it feels like it should be warm and sturdy.

And lastly, these socks were for my sister-in-law's birthday present. Being as I had a deadline (which wasn't too far off!) and they were only going to be the second pair of socks that I'd knit, I decided to use the same pattern as for my first ones. My thoughts on that pattern (My First Socks by Sandra Paul) are still the same as when I knit them for myself, so check out my blog post if you want all the details. The yarn I used this time is from Lamington Lass - it's the Mountain Pass colour on the soft socks base. Another lovely yarn! Can you tell that half of the reason I like sock knitting is because of all the pretty indie dyed sock yarn that's out there?!

You can be sure that these won't be the last socks that I'll be knitting! For my next pair, I'm planning to venture into the world of self-striping yarn and afterthought heels. Wish me luck!