Yarn Along........Shwook Fair Isle Hat

Hello, my friends, normal service has resumed, I'm back home after spending nearly four weeks with my daughter and grandson. I'm missing them like crazy but thank goodness for Skype and FaceTime.

This week I've cast on the Shwook Hat by Hazel Tindall in honour of Shetland Wool Week and is a free pattern which you can find here. Melody has created a Ravelry group for a Shwook Hat KAL which started on the 1st October so I'm a little bit late starting but better late than never.

I did a Fair Isle workshop a few months ago and really enjoyed this traditional form of knitting and couldn't wait to cast on this project. It's not as complicated as it looks, it maybe a bit off putting when you see all the different colours that make up the pattern but traditionally only two colours are used in a row. I also find it a lot easier to knit Fair Isle in the round, I was taught to purl but I was very caggy handed and prefer to just knit if I can.

I'm using Jamieson & Smith 2ply Jumper weight in Light Aqua (75), Dark Brown (5), Mustard (121), Dark Aqua (FC34) and Off White (202).

I think the hardest part of Fair Isle is choosing the colours, this pattern calls for three dark and two light or three light and two dark. They can't be too close in colour tone as the pattern won't show up, I knew I wanted aqua, brown and mustard in my colour scheme. I looked at the colour range and looked to see what would work with these colours and decided on off white and a dark aqua, which seemed to work well together.

I picked up a great tip to make sure the colours would work for Fair Isle knitting over on Jared Flood's blog, you take a photo of your yarn and change it to mono with photo editing, as I did in the above photo. If you can see that they are all different shades on the black and white photo, the pattern will show up nicely, if the colours are too similar the pattern will fade into one.

Coincidently, I listened to Curious Handmade's latest podcast episode, yesterday and it was all about colour theory. If you want to learn more about choosing colours that work well together and a more in depth lesson about colour, check it out, it's very informative, I learnt a lot so definitely worth a listen.

This is the inside of my hat, you don't want the floats between the colours too tight as it will pucker but you don't want them too loose either. Practice makes perfect and I think the tension and how tight you hold the yarn becomes second nature after a few rows, if its your first time doing Fair Isle try knitting a swatch first just to get the feel for the tension.

I've been reading The Very Easy Guide To Fair Isle Knitting by Lynne Watterson, it's full of great techniques and photo tutorials broken into bite size lessons. There are Fair Isle designs starting from very simple to the more complicated that you can practice before starting a full size pattern, though there are some gorgeous projects too. I would highly recommend it if you wanted to try your hand at Fair Isle knitting.

I've also cast on the Leaf Collectors Mitts by Sarah Knight, a pretty, delicate fingerless mitt pattern. I'm using Skein Queen Blush in Dipped Rosewater, a beautifully soft merino and cashmere blend. They are knit flat and then seamed rather than the traditional knitting in the round.

I'm taking part in Little Bobbins first KAL which is a Mitt Along, Dani has just started video podcasting, she is such a sweet person and I love all her projects, she has very similar tastes to me. I really recommend you check out her podcast, she's on episode 7 but she keeps them quite short so can quickly be caught up with.

I'm also going to cast on another pair of the Global Nomad Handwarmers as part of the Mitt Along, this time in two tone colours. I've decided to knit them in black and grey as part of my niece's Christmas present, she's going through the teenage faze of wearing everything black so I'm sure she'll like them.

In the knitting world, Anne of Green Gables seems very popular at the moment with lots of references and patterns relating to this story. I never read it as a child so decided to buy the collection for my Kindle, the ten books cost 77p, it also has links to the audio version so I've been switching between the two. I'm only a few chapters in but really enjoying the simplicity of the story, it's comfort reading and the vivid descriptions of Avonlea transports me to a place of times gone by, just beautiful.

I'm linking to Ginny's Yarn Along and Nicole's KCCO.

Here's my little man wearing the Small Cable Cardigan by Vibe Ulrik Somdergaard, that I knit for him, isn't he a cutie?

Thank you for stopping by, have a great week.

xxxxDebxxxx

 

Curious Collective 2014 Shawl.

Do you remember this photo from last month, this is all that I could show you at the time as I was test knitting for Helen Stewart, the pattern was released yesterday so here's what I was working on.

It's the Curious Collective 2014 Shawl as I explained on yesterday's post, this design is a little bit different, as part of the Curious Handmade Group on Ravelry we had some input into the design of the shawl, we got to chose the colour, the shape, and stitch patterns.

It's a fairly large crescent shape shawl using two colours, starting off with a simple garter stitch body with some lace and cable stitches.

I used 70g of Artesano 100% Alpaca 4ply for the main colour and 40g Juno Fibre Arts Alice in Second Sight, the Juno was actually leftover from a previous project so is a great way to use up a part skein. Again this pattern was really well written and simple to follow as are all of Helen's designs.

It's only a two stich cable so there's not really any need to use a cable needle which makes it much quicker, you can find a good tutorial here, for knitting cables without a cable needle.

I also mentioned there's a fun Knit Along going on over on the group called Curious Collective 2014 DKAL, it's a little bit different from your usual KAL, as all the colour choices were very popular and it was very close on the voting, Helen thought it would be fun to pick your colour combo and chose a tribe which best suits your colours.

The choice of tribes are Space Chic, French Vintage, English Rose, Enchanted Forest, and Art Deco, you can find out more about the colours and which tribe to join, here and here. Once you've picked your colours, which don't have to be the colours suggested, you can use any brand or colour yarn that takes your fancy, for instance the colours I've chosen would go well as part of the French Vintage tribe so I could request that team and get started chatting and interacting with my fellow team mates. There are some great prizes to be won including a Social Media Maven prize so whenever you show photos/talk about your project on social media use the hashtag #CCDKAL to be in with a chance of winning. The pattern is available to purchase here.

I also wanted to show you how I blocked mine to get the beautiful scalloped picot edge, after soaking for 30 minutes, lay your shawl out onto your bed or foam squares pinning the top to get the crescent shape, then pin every picot bind off point, it is time consuming but worth the effort to get the nice sharp points.

I'm linking to KCCO over on Nicole's blog Frontier Dreams.

Happy Knitting

xxxxDebxxxx

Yarn Along.........a wedding but not much knitting

Hello my friends, I hope you had a good weekend and if you're in the UK a good Bank Holiday. I went to a beautiful wedding on Sunday, it was my first outdoor wedding and it was perfect, the weather kept nice for them and the bride looked stunning. I will share some photos with you soon but my daughter has took my gadget to load the photos onto my iPad, on holiday with her!!!!! It was the wedding I made the invitations for, you can see them here and they gave me this beautiful bouquet of flowers at the reception.

Here I am all ready to go, my lovely friends trekked the shops of Chester with me, trying to find a little gold jacket but couldn't find what I was looking for but they'll be happy to know I found one at the local shopping centre!!!!

I've had a busy weekend so I didn't get much knitting done and what I did do I can't share just yet as it's a test knit but this is the yarn I'm using. If you want a little clue of what I'm knitting check out this Ravelry Group thread.

I've knit a few rows on my Mini Cable Jumper and now on the front. What I'm reading this week, I've just finished Fresh Doubt by Eva Hudson and haven't decided what to read next, what I have been flicking through is this little book Keep Calm and Cast on. It's a fab little book full of helpful tips and knitting quotes. I'm linking to Yarn Along, WIP Wednesday and Keep Calm, Craft On.

I have been buying yarn this week, I bought some Jamieson & Smith 2ply a 100% Shetland wool, to join in with Melody, who is running a Shwook hat KAL on her Ravelry Group. It is part of Shetland Wool Week that runs from the 4th October-12th October, you can find the free pattern on the website. I had trouble choosing these colours as there were so many gorgeous shades to chose from!!!!

Have a great week.

xxxxDebxxxx

FO Friday......Pebble Beach Shawlette.

Hello my friends, how was your week? I've finished my Pebble Beach Shawlette by Helen Stewart as I've said before I love this pattern and this is the second one I've knit. This one is special though, I cast it on with a wonderful group of ladies at Unwind Brighton including Helen, the designer. I bought the yarn from the Unwind Market Place, we sat under a big shady tree in the Brighton Pavilion Gardens, cast on and just sat chatting and knitting for the afternoon. I also spent time on it all over the weekend, knitting on Brighton beach, it holds some special memories from a fabulous weekend,

I used two sets of Five Moons, Mini Phases in Fade to Grey, they also sell 20g mini skeins so you could make up any colour gradient you like. I made this slightly bigger by repeating some sections. I repeated rows 92-96 once and rows 105-108 once.

I also added beads to every other stitch on rows 91, 95 and 99 then every fifth stitch along the very last right side row and along the picot bind off edge. I buy my beads from The Bead Merchant, I use size 6 beads and a .75mm crochet hook.

Thank you for stopping by, have a great weekend.

xxxxDebxxxx

Yarn Along......a little bit of sock knitting.

Hello there, I hope you're having a good week. I've actually been knitting on my Calla Socks by Rachel Coopey this week, the pattern is from issue 4 of Pom Pom Quarterly, my favourite knitting magazine. I haven't knit on these for a while now but this week I picked them up and I'm very nearly at the toe. I'm using Artesano Definition sock yarn in Azure, I love the colour.

My Pebble Beach Shawlette by Helen Stewart is at the 50% point of the pattern, I need to work on this more this week to keep up with the KAL.

I might add some beads to my shawl, I've got these gorgeous grey beads that match, I will try adding them near the bottom of the shawl and see what it looks like.

On Friday afternoon whilst sitting in my garden under shady tree, I started this sweet tank top by Debbie Bliss. I had some yarn in my stash and wanted to knit something my soon to be grandson.

It was such a quick knit that I has it finished by Sunday, so I'll show you the finished item on Friday.

I also had a small amount of leftover yarn so knit a pair of bootees to match.

This week I'm reading In Broad Daylight by Seth Harwood, a fast paced, hard to put down thriller. Check out Tami's WIP Wednesday, Ginny's Yarn Along and Nicole's KCCO for more crafty WIPs.

I'll leave you with a few photos from our Saturday afternoon in Bewdley, a beautiful riverside town. The regatta was on so we sat by the river with a Pimms, live music and watched all the action.

Have a great week.

xxxxDebxxxx

 

Yarn Along.....Wee Envelope Jumper.

Hello my friends, how are you all? I'm back to show you what's on my needles this week. I've mainly been working on a test knit so this is all I can show you at the moment. The pattern is released at the beginning of August so will tell you more about it then.

What I can show you though is my Pebble Beach by Helen Stewart, I'm using mini skeins from Five Moons in Fade to Grey and I've reached the 40% point of the pattern. There is a Pebble Beach Knit A Long going on at the moment in the Curious Handmade Group, you've still got plenty time to join in.

After a few false starts I've nearly completed the top half of the Wee Envelope Jumper, it is an easy pattern but I think because I've never done a construction like this before and wasn't sure how it was suppose to look, I confused myself. I emailed the pattern support and got a very quick response on what I was doing wrong. After that it all made sense and if I had read the pattern properly in the first place it wouldn't have been a problem. Do you ever do that, read something but not take it in properly and knit what you think it should be? Word of advice, trust the pattern, lol!!!

What I'm reading at the moment, I've just finished Secrets of the Lighthouse by Santa Montifore and have started The Zookeepers Wife again but I'm also reading The Paris Journal by Evan Robertson and Nichole Robertson. I originally bought it on my Kindle but after flicking through it on there, I wanted the linen cover edition. It's a fabulous book full of wonderful photography, I ordered it from the US and it took less than a week to arrive to the UK!!!

I'm linking to Yarn Along, KCCO and WIP Wednesday.

It was my birthday on Friday, I was very spoilt and received some gorgeous gifts. I'm still not well so havent taken photos of everything as I just don't have the energy but wanted to share these from two of my non-crafty friends. The yarn is gorgeous and I was so touched and surprised that she'd gone out of her way to find me this luxurious skein of yarn. My other friend knows me so well too, I love the locally handmade teacup pincushion and look at the wall hanging, so special. I have the bestest friends!!!!

Thanks for stopping by, enjoy your week.

xxxxDebxxxx

 

 

On My Needles....and the winners of the Curious Handmade Giveaway.

Hello my friends, today we will start with the winners of the Curious Handmade pattern giveaway........ Drum Roll.........

Reinventing Mother said...

Slip stitches are so much fun! I would love to add this pattern to my growing list! Thanks for the gmiveaway!

Caffeine Girl said...

I love Helen's designs. Afternoon Tea is one of my favorite shawls and I've knit a couple. Last week I bought Global Nomad. I would love to add Red Robin to my list!

And that baby blanket is charming.

Sarah said...

I'd love to enter the giveaway! I love the Twinkle Twinkle pattern (in fact, I think I've said so in a comment here for several weeks in a row, haha!!) but she also has some gorgeous shawl patterns! She's a new favorite on my ravelry!

Congratulations to the three winners, if you could email, please with your Ravelry name and the Helen Stewart pattern you would like, my email address is on the sidebar

My first project I've been working on this week is my Pebble Beach II by Helen Stewart, this little shawl will have lots of sentimental value as I explained in yesterday's post. I cast it on with a wonderful group of people at Unwind Brighton, there's a Pebble Beach KAL going on at the moment which is running until the 10th August. It's on for 4 weeks and each week is set out with a goal, I've reached this weeks goal of 25%, I love it when you have targets to meet, though saying that you can work at your own pace.

These are three of my purchases from Unwind Brighton, a Ysolda Teague pattern, the designer was on the stand and was so lovely and very helpful. I bought some Kettle Yarn Wimbledon Sport in Blue Pictsies. It's a 100% superwash merino in a sport weight and is very soft and squishy, perfect for babies.

I actually got to purchase some Signature needles, I've heard so many good things about them. They are as every bit as good as people say, they are comfortable to hold, lightweight and a dream to knit with. My husband asked me why they were so different from other needles, he laughed when I said they were the "Bugatti of Knitting Needles". I ended up going back to the show the following day to purchase another pair, after knitting my Pebble Beach on them!!!

I cast on last night and have finished the sleeve and front yoke, the sleeves and yoke are knit in one piece then you pick up stitches for the front and back. I've never knit a construction like this before, it's a simple knit with no seaming.

The last thing on my needles is some bunting, I got together with Mel and Sarah as part of Camp Aloha Friends , we thought this would be perfect summer knitting project. It is a free pattern called Knitted Bunting by Faye Perriam. I using some leftover Rowan Handknit Cotton.

I've started reading Secrets of the Lighthouse by Santa Montefiore as one of my favourite authors, it hasn't disappointed. I will carry on with the Zookeepers Wife but it was to big to carry around with me when I was away, also it's a library book and was worried about losing it.

I'm linking to Ginny's Yarn Along and Nicole's KCCO, I'm not sure whether I'll be back on Friday with any FO's so have a good weekend.

Happy Crafting

xxxxDebxxxx