There are a few things I’ve been wearing recently that I finished making aaaaaagggeees ago, but which I haven’t blogged about at all. Blogging requires brain space and motivation I rarely have after work these days and the weekends have been pretty full.
Lots of people will have seen little snaps of these items on instagramm already, because I can’t help myself. So here they are…
Little fingerless mitts, knitted over the Easter weekend from Spud & Chloe Outer, bought from Woolarium.
The pattern is from Knitbot Yoked, which I bought on a whim when I saw this version of the willard fair isle pullover (jumper) online .
Mitts
This is the mitts while blocking. As you can see, I made some ridiculous mistakes.
1. Missed an entire pattern repeat. Didn’t even notice till it was all done.
2. Got the pips pattern somehow mixed up on glove two so the pattern doesn’t actually match up at the end of the round. Madness.
For something so little and simple I just couldn’t be bothered re-knitting them. And as it happened I have had a heap of wear out of them. The mistakes annoy me, but it’s ok!
A couple of points about the pattern I would like to mention:
- I have large man-hands and these are still a little on the big side!
- The ‘pips’ pattern (my husband’s much nicer name for lice stitch) results in long floats carried across six stitches in each fair isle row – and an even longer float carried across the thumb increases. Yikes! Lots of long strands to stick your fingers through. On the second pair I tried to twist up the floats every few stitches, which definitely helped with the long floats issue, but doesn’t look as neat from the front really.
- The pattern calls for a tubular cast on. I struggled to follow the pattern directions, so I looked up a few different instructions online and trialled some. In the end I settled on Ysolda Teague’s tubular cast-on method, which didn’t require cutting away any spare yarn.
Amazing that I could learn so much and stuff up so much in as little and speedy a project as this one. I have a lot to learn about knitting!
Another long-term project which I finished just before winter and totally LOVE is my Andi Satterlund Hetty. I’ve posted about it before – here . It was knit in Melbourne, Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Shiga Kogen and Yamanouchi Town in Nagano. It’s been knit sitting on the couch, over the Pacific, in the car and probably in a few pubs and cafes. It took a good while and I think some parts are better knit than other parts. The buttons are vintage glass buttons, from the Buttonmania sale last year. It’s extremely warm, so it won’t be long before it’s too warm for Australian weather. I made it in pure wool too, not cotton, and added full length to the sleeves, to make it properly warm.
I adore the Quince & Co Osprey wool. Not itchy at all, which surprised me because I have historically found all wool, including merino, to be very irritating. I took a bit of a gamble buying this wool and the low irritation levels from it prove to me that there is wool out there I’ll be able to wear – it just depends on the type of wool and I suppose the methods used to manufacture and dye the yarn.
So here’s the finished item. I love her.
Embarrassing photo experimentation
Is this timer working?
Nerdy camera face
And here’s a few close ups of the finished cardigan while blocking. You’ll have to excuse the photos. I’m really taking a very long time to figure out how to use the camera properly.
The little white bonnet that’s blocking is the Jane Richmond Earflap Baby Bonnet pattern. I’ve made it three times now! So quick, so easy and very cute.
And the little intarsia sample also blocking in the picture below are from a recent colourwork class I took at Woolarium.
Manas 