Tag Archives: scarf

Scarves and elephants and pattern writing, oh my!

Ralph's scarf

I finished Ralph’s scarf (pattern: Clincher by Ash Kearns; yarn: Malabrigo sock in Ravelry Red and Knit Picks Palette in black), and he’s been wearing it around the house even though the weather is warm :-)

Green elephants on parade Purple elephants on parade

And off the back of publishing the one-size version of the Dylan’s Elephants pattern, I’ve written the sized-up version (four sizes: 0-3m, 6-12m, 12-24m and 2-3y) and am test knitting one of them in an assortment of bits of left over sock yarn. If anyone reading this knows doubleknitting (or wants to learn) and has someone in their life who’s under 3 and would like an elephant cardigan, email me – I could do with another test knitter.

 

Longer time no blog!

This is mostly going to be a photo post rather than a words post, because I’m so far behind ;-) First, Christmas presents for other people…

A scarf for my dad, which seemed to take ages and got very, very boring. But it was worth it because I found out after I’d started that he’d asked my mum for a hat and scarf, and she hadn’t been able to find a scarf to fit his exacting requirements, but had bought him a navy hat. And he loves it :-)
Dad's staggered rib Christmas scarf

A hat with ears for my friend V’s baby. Ears to please mummy, goth black to pacify daddy ;-)
Lucas's hat with ears

And four identical pairs of cable mittens, for three of my best friends and me, with a deeply symbolic four-strand cable design.
ACLV mitts

And a finished birthday-and-Christmas present to myself (because apparently you can never have too many pairs of fingerless mittens), the modified reading mitts, which I’ve been wearing all the time:
Modified reading mitts

These aren’t technically a Christmas present, but I knit them over Christmas after I realised Ralph had no gloves, and I had some spare black yarn left over from the hat-with-ears. (They’re loosely inspired by pictures of Dashing, but not knit to that pattern.)
Ralph's gloves

In fibrey gifts, my parents gave me some spinning wheel bobbins and a rather steam-punky bobbin winder, which I haven’t photographed yet, and my in-laws gave me this lovely fibre:
Fibrey gift

I’m now making a third attempt to knit this lovely purple merino into a jumper. The picture is actually a lie, because something went wrong with my gauge calculations and I had to frog, but the second go is going much better, and is nearly at the armholes (bottom-up) at which point I’m going to have to make a decision about what kind of sleeves to have. It’s deliberately plain (no cables on the second version, though there were on the first), so I can knit without looking at it, and therefore read academic papers at the same time, and doesn’t mind being put down in the middle of a row (and the harmony needles are grippy enough that I don’t need to slide them through) so I can stop to make a note whenever I need to. This means I’m getting through it quite quickly :-)
Purple picot hem

And finally, the first FO of 2010! Felted slippers, to an improvised design with stripy double-knit soles, and felted to exactly the right dimensions so they fit perfectly!
Felted slippers

Long time no blog

Over a month ago, I was half-heartedly whining about having only one thing on the needles, and the need to go and cast on for something else. Now I once again only have one thing on the needles (the same thing – selbu modern, which I’ve hardly touched in the meantime), but in between I have knit lots of things. My course kindly provides the required reading in A4-photocopies, which are conveniently flat, making it easy to knit and read at the same time as long as I choose my knitting carefully, and I’ve been doing a lot of reading since I last blogged. Sadly, I haven’t yet worked out how to blog and read at the same time.

Immediately after hitting ‘publish post’ on my last post, I did indeed go and start preparing to start something else – I wound some handspun yarn (peacock) into a ball and started swatching. I’d been thinking for a while that this wanted to be a scarf in a peacock-tail lace pattern, and now it is! (Although it still needs blocking…)

Peacock scarf, unblocked

While knitting the scarf, I decided that I really needed a new hat. This is my own design, although I misjudged the width of the ribbing – it’s this wide so I can fold back the hem, but I don’t like how it looks folded, so I wear it unfolded and covering most of my face ;-) I’m planning to make another, with less ribbing, and then perhaps publish the pattern (heh, I’m always saying that and never do. Eventually!) The hat got christened on a very rainy Reclaim the Night march, and kept my head warm and toasty and dry throughout, so I am declaring it a success!

Pink pixie hat

When I said I only had one thing on the needles, I was using a rather strict definition of the term, because one of the off-the-needles things is a single mitten, the pair for which I’m going to cast on next. This is a modified version of Susie’s reading mitts, worked upside down, with a different gauge and thumb gusset, and with the hem edges knit into the fabric rather than sewed down later. The lace pattern, which was drew me to the mitts in the first place, is unaltered :-)

One finished modified reading mitt

I spun the yarn for this over my birthday weekend, having given myself the weekend off all study-work and work-work (I’m still behind on both kinds of work because of this, but it’s an article of faith that I don’t work on my birthday). The yarn is rather more brown than I usually like, but I think the colours suit the pattern, and I’m enjoying how the colour shifts in different kinds of light, looking sometimes more purple, sometimes more brown, and sometimes more grey. This is chain-plyed to keep the colour changes intact, but I’ve got half of the fibre still unspun, so I think I’ll two- or three-ply that to see the difference in finished colours. I’m getting quite interested in achieving different colour effects in finished yarn from the same fibre, and I’ve got some ideas about other ways to play with this, which I’ll blog about if I get round to doing it before I lose interest in the idea!

If this doesn’t sound like quite enough knitting in a month to be called ‘lots’, it’s because about half of my November knitting has been on gifts for people who might conceivably read this blog, so the rest will have to stay unblogged until after Christmas!

Not enough to knit!

I currently only have one thing on the needles! And unfortunately, it requires too much looking-at to be practical to knit while watching TV or reading, but it’s moving along slowly:

Selbu modern in progress, favoured side

What had brought about this strange state of affairs is finishing off two things in the last week: the dragon’s breath scarf, and the swimming coriolis. This is the scarf in its unblocked state:
Unblocked dragon's breath scarf

And this is it held taut-ish to show the pattern off:
Dragon's breath scarf held taut
(That’s the edge of my Wisteria sleeve visible on the left, and the edge of Making Money by Terry Pratchett (which I haven’t yet read) on the right.)

I’m planning to only lightly block this – I like how it looks like very complex cables as it is now, and I think blocking it completely flat would lose some of its charm.

These are the swimming coriolis:

Finished swimming coriolis
They look rather more leftovery (which they are) than I hoped, because the roll of the cast-off edge obscures most of the second band of the variegated yarn, so I’m rethinking my original intention of giving these as a gift – I don’t think they’re nice enough :-/

I’ve got various other projects (all gifts) wandering around in my head, but I haven’t got round to doing anything concrete like swatching or sketching or even winding the yarn into balls. Unusually, I want to be already knitting rather than starting to knit, which is a bit of a problem when most of my knitting time isn’t well suited to my sole current project. I’m hoping that writing this post will serve as a kind of catalyst, and prompt me to go and do one of those things, but I’m sufficiently distrustful of today’s energy levels (I’m coming down with a cold) to avoid saying that I’m going to go and start something as soon as I click “publish post” ;-)

Catching up

This is Ella blocking, all flat! I’ve worn her a couple of times, and she’s nice and warm, and I’m pleased I paid attention to alternating the more- and less-variegated skeins in knitting her.

This is the Zauberball I mentioned in my last post, in the process of becoming the dragon’s breath scarf (so named because this is an adaptation of the flickering flames pattern, and red). I’m a lot further on now than in this picture – I just haven’t taken any photos for ages.

I’ve finally finished both Lucas’s Tomten and the red cardigan, both of which were waiting for fastenings, and I’d failed to find the green toggles and reddish-purple ribbon, respectively, I wanted, so in the end I plied some yarn (orange for tomten and the silk mix edging yarn for the red cardigan) against itself twice to make cord ties. The double plying means the cord is stable, and it’s four times thicker than the working yarn, which is a good thickness.

I’ve now got three knitting projects on the go, and they’re all actually in progress: yesterday I worked on all three of them, depending on how much my eyes were free to look at them:

  • Coriolis socks (almost no looking-at required) while working through some of the reading for the first week of my course

  • Dragon’s breath scarf (some looking-at required) while watching TV

  • Selbu modern hat (lots of looking-at required) while listening to music