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Kaffe progress

I'm so excited about this project. I've nearly finished the second band of poppies:

I'm cheating a little with the colour changes. When I first wound up my 'magic balls' I didn't know how long to make each piece to adjust for knitting in one piece rather than three (KF's vague instruction was 'about two arms' length). I've found I need to add quite a bit on to my original lengths, so I've been knitting from the single balls until I feel like changing rather than winding up mixed balls. I'm spit-splicing them together and I've discovered that you can successfully splice cotton to wool or silk to wool. Haven't tried cotton to cotton or silk and suspect that wouldn't work. Here is my selection of reds, pinks and purples (not quite intense enough in this photo):

The shiny pink in the bottom of the photo is the most gorgeous yarn ever: Louisa Harding's Grace (50/50 merino and silk).

un-birthday birth day presents

Recently I won a competition at Dawn's blog. I had to guess the time of her birth. I didn't get it exactly right, but I was the closest. For this display of skill and judgement she has sent me the most over-the-top generous prize:

Just look at all that gorgeous sock yarn. From the left (sorry, I didn't turn the labels outwards): Trekking in a blinding red, pink, orange and purple mixture (col. 36); Mega Boots Stretch in turquoise, blue and green (col. 704); Trekking again in a darker blue and green mix (col. 184) and two skeins of my absolute favourite, Lorna's Laces Shepherd sock yarn in Mountain Creek (col. 56). Dawn, thank you so much. I will have such fun knitting socks out of these. I'm thinking that the Mega Boots Stretch will be first because I've got some boots which definitely need thicker socks and I'm looking ahead to a trip to Chicago in early April, when it may still be very cold.

I'm having great fun knitting the Kaffe Fasset waistcoat. Pictures to come over the weekend when I can work out a way of flattening it out to be photographed.

scarf and waistcoat

Well, I have enjoyed the accounts of the famous opening of Get Knitted's retail shop and wished I could have gone, but my weekend has not been empty of interest and enjoyment.

The scarf from La Droguerie is a simple stocking stitch (hmm...) rectangle knitted with the two larger balls of yarn held together. The deeper peacock blue is bamboo and it's slightly variegated or heathered. Then large and small leaves are knitted separately, sewn on and the stalks are crocheted or duplicate-stitched on. I didn't notice in the shop how long the model one was, but I imagine it can't be all that long. I'm not starting it just yet.

The waistcoat idea has been preoccupying me most of the weekend. I saw a Kaffe Fasset pattern for 'Winter Cones Waistcoat' in an old Rowan magazine. The motif is also included in KF's pattern library. I experimented with colours in J&S shetland 2-ply and even  knitted the hem. I decided to knit in the round and do steeks for the front and the armholes. Then I wasn't so sure about it and looked through my two Kaffe Fasset books, Glorious Knitting and the pattern library. I remembered that I'd always wanted to try Persian Poppies, so I went ahead and swatched for it.

The idea is that the colours for the poppies and for the background are wound into two balls consisting of short lengths of the yarns you are using (I didn't adjust for the smaller size of a swatch and so my colour changes aren't as frequent as they should be). The centres are separate lengths. I'm going to spit-splice the main yarns together so there shouldn't be too many ends to darn in. Kaffe recommends that you try to combine different textures and I'm rather lacking in that area. I'm thinking I might be able to find some silk in shades of gold for the centres.

I've nearly finished the second sleeve on the Perfect Sweater.

In my knitting basket

Mary asks what we all have in our knitting baskets this January. Well, here's mine.

And its contents.

On the sofa back: swatches for a long-abandoned sleeveless pullover idea; current main project, the Perfect Sweater (Mason-Dixon); long-standing ribbed alpaca scarf. Are you beginning to detect a theme here (hint: colour)? On the sofa: notebook (not used much now I have the blog, but actually it would be good to get back into using it again); Janet's gloves still not sewn in; little tool bag; green alpaca swatches for my Lift and Separate cardigan; the remains of the Kureyon after finishing the raglan jumper (note the two large turquoise balls); more odds and ends; and last but not least - my tape measure! Thank you, Mary, for getting me to dig right down and find it. It will now be put safely in the little tool bag.

Of course, this is a big cheat, because by the side of my chair there are also about three large bags of ongoing projects: the L&S cardigan; T's old-school scarf; and my latest idea, a Kaffe Fasset waistcoat (more on that anon). I also have a pair of socks on the go for commuting, etc. (they're sort of turquoise, too).

Lastly, because there is obviously something about me and turquoise and related shades of green and blue, here's the scarf kit I bought at Le Bon Marché in Paris last weekend.

The stripes

I'll answer Dawn's question about how the stripes on the Kureyon raglan jersey aren't wider on the arms than on the body and don't change in width as the knitting increases or decreases. The reason is that I was knitting with fairly short lengths of yarn, partly left over from frogging another project and partly because I took out all the dark green. I wound the lengths up into balls and then knitted them, picking colours randomly and generally working from light at the top to dark at the bottom. I broke off the yarn when a colour was going on too long and spit spliced it to another length. There were no ends to darn in except the obvious ones on sleeves and hems.

It's always disturbed me that variegated yarns give you wide stripes on the sleeves and thin ones on the body of a garment. This was one way round that.

I wore the jersey today and decided I liked the turquoise hems, so they're staying.

There's a beautiful mitred squares blanket on the Mason-Dixon blog today. It's made from a striping yarn I haven't heard of before: Jojoland Rhythm. I'm going to have to get some of that!

FO-07

Yes, a real finished object AND it's a garment AND it fits AND I like it! I don't think it's particularly flattering, but then nothing could be at the moment...

It is a top-down raglan jumper with no seams. I followed Barbara Walker's Knitting from the Top using Noro Kureyon. I don't know when I started it, but it was definitely before Christmas 2006 because there's a reference to it in an early blog entry. I had already started another project with this yarn and when I ripped it out was left with lots of shortish lengths. I didn't like the sludge green that appeared (but didn't seem to be present in the original balls!) so I stripped all that out. I also separated the bright turquoise. Then I wound the yarn into roughly light and roughly dark balls because I wanted to try to shade the jumper from light to dark. As I was knitting top-down I didn't have to decide on the sleeve and lower hems until the end and I decided to use some of the turquoise. I'm still not sure about this - I'll wear it a few times and decide.

Here's one of the raglan 'seams'. Because I was knitting from the top I had to make increases rather than the more usual decreases. It is harder to increase tidily than decrease. I'm reasonably happy with the seams, but I prefer the look of decreases.

Gratuitous picture of neck (garter stitch)

Cuffs (also garter stitch)

New year, new yarns

We spent New Year in Monmouth (Welsh/English border country) and I visited the knitting shop there, B's Hive. It's a very good shop, with a wide variety of yarns and patterns and haberdashery. Next door, belonging, I think, to the same owner, is a quilting shop, Cloth Angel. It is stuffed full with fabrics and other crafty items. So, the people of Monmouth are well served! Here's my haul.

I picked up several yarns I haven't used before. Two for socks: the St Ives sock yarn and the King Cole anti tickle merino blend (I know this may not make very strong socks, but I loved the colour). I'm inclinding towards textured patterns for socks these days! I thought I'd try the Lang Merino+ superwash aran out in a pair of mittens. This yarn appears almost tubular and has a lovely sheen, so I should think it will have good stitch definition. Lastly, I got some Twilley's Freedom Spirit and a pattern leaflet. I thought I would make the beret. It's disappointing to see, however that the beret and the gloves in this book are knitting flat and seamed (I can't imagine sewing up ten fingers and thumbs!).

What's cooking?

After drawing up my list of completed projects I let things simmer quietly. Now I am pretty sure I want to return to my Kureyon top-down raglan that I haven't worked on for ages (16 Jan 06). It really shouldn't take very long to finish!

There was a funny Blue Peter moment at Liberty's last week. I was working on my Conwy socks and Polly produced 'the pair I'd made earlier'. Mine haven't grown much since then. I got to the foot of the first one knowing that decreasing to 60 stitches round the ankle wasn't really a good idea for my hefty pins. I also wasn't very happy with the way the cables joined the heel flap. So I ripped back and redid some of the decreasing, ending at 66 (it's a six-stitch pattern). I have some thoughts about how to deal with the heel flap later. In the picture the fifth needles marks the end of the decreasing. I had to make it end in a cable column rather than in a single rib, if that makes sense. I like this yarn (Cherry Tree Hill) so much that it was worth making things right.

I've been buying a lot of books lately with some Christmas money. None is particularly new or outre but I'll have a round-up in another post.

Look back at 2006

I've been writing this blog for nearly a year, so I thought it would be sensible to check back over what I have completed in that time. It's not too bad, although there is an obvious omission: no finished garments at all!

Socks
6 pairs

Mittens and gloves
7 pairs

Scarves
4

Shawls
2

Babies' clothes
2

Hats
2

We had a great few days in Monmouth but, I tell you, the country is definitely colder than London! I actually do feel inspired to finish my Kureyon top-down jersey. Perhaps if/when we move there I'll actually become a proper knitter i.e. a knitter of cardigans and jerseys!