Cranford mitts and Felicity hat

Cranford mitts, knit in Yarn Yard Hug (organic merino). A great pattern, very well written and with a very elegant solution to thumb shaping! The gloves fit like, well, a glove, I'm sure there will be another pair of these somewhere in my future.



Another Felicity hat, knit as a gift in Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece. I modified the pattern by casting on 90 rather than 70, keeping the same needle sizes, and increasing up to 140 stitches. I also carried on the decrease rounds further than the pattern suggests. I'm very pleased with the end result and think I will make another for myself this time, in some brown Lambs' Pride in my stash. I am definitely on a hat kick at the moment, my current WIP is a sock yarn slouch hat using the grey Hug as seen in the Cranford edging.

The Cranfords mark my "24 in 2009", now exceeded! Next year I am planning to participate in the sock yarn challenge on the CTnY forum - any item knit using sock yarn each month. I may not make one every month but I do have lots of lovely hat, glove and shawl patterns queued up as well as socks.

Feather scarf

This blog is starting to resemble buses - nothing for ages then two turn up at once.

My latest FO is the Feather Scarf, knit in Artesano Alpaca Inca Cloud. This is a dream to knit with, it's so soft. It does shed a little though! The fabric opened up a lot on blocking, going from 44" to 52" long. I used a little less than two skeins, and the scarf was knit on 4mm needles.



Last night I cast on for a pair of Cranford Mitts. This is now a p/hop pattern so I will be sure to make a donation once I've finished them. Not much progress to show but I do love these colours - Mysteron (grey) and Smile in Yarn Yard Hug organic merino (something like a sport weight).

Woolfest or bust

This year will be my first visit to Woolfest (along with the Mr), I'm looking forward to it very much! I've wanted to go for the past couple of years but it has tended to coincide with holidays elsewhere.

We'll be visiting on the Friday, thankfully this is one fibre festival that is within reasonable driving distance for us (still 2 hours though!). I will be wearing my Ravelry badge with my Rav/blog name knittyinpink. Please feel free to say hello if you so wish (or indeed skedaddle in the opposite direction). If I spot any of my blog/Rav/forum pals I will do likewise, I am mostly depending upon name badges though!

My Tempest cardigan is currently pinned out and blocking, and may be finished in time for Friday. I may even wear it if the weather is on the cool side. I ended up frogging Ishbel though, as I had made some mistakes and after starting the wrong section and not realising until the centre of the row, it seemed the best thing to do. I really must try to knit lace in (a)daylight, and (b) peace and quiet. No TV! It's a pity to have to frog it this time, I don't have a problem with lace per se (and the charts for this are excellent), but do need to concentrate :-)

In lieu of knitting photos, here's a picture of one of my moth orchids, I love the pale yellow.

Of WIPs and knitting

I've been casting on for more projects as the mood takes me, most recently Tempest in this lovely Violet Green Socrates 4ply I originally bought for Shoalwater:



I'll have a WIP photo soon, as I only started this last night and am about 20 rows in to the back. It's a cardigan I've been wanting to make ever since I saw it, but I'm doing a non-striped version instead. There is plenty of the Seascape, and I love the colours without adding any toning stripes. Thanks are due to pictish for suggesting this as I hadn't considered this option before.

Shawl That Jazz is on a mini-hiatus, about half way through the first section. I generally like the colours in the yarn but have a small bee in my bonnet about the dark bottle-ish green elements. This is one of the very very few colours/shades I don't really like. That said I like it overall, and thankfully the rows are getting shorter!



I've also been working on Ishbel this week, heading towards starting the lace section. The WIP photo isn't terribly exciting but it's on Ravelry should you wish to see it. The red Eva is showing its semi-solid nature, when observed in daylight you can see quite a variation in depth of shade. More interesting than a true solid shade, I think.

There is also my first ever sock! I had to learn the long tail cast-on for this, having never bothered with it in the past. Once I watched the video on Knitting Help I "got" it, I do seem to learn much more readily from demos rather than pictures in books. It doesn't help that I can't often make out what goes where in the diagrams in books, despite how clearly they are drawn. Photos are easier, and I learned how to knit in the round with 2 circs from a very helpful tutorial I'd printed out (which now seems to have disappeared online). My "join" stitches are a little loose so far (not helped by plumping for plain stockinette for the main sock body!), but I'm getting there!



This is the yarn I dyed with Kool Aid a couple of weeks ago, I rather like how it is knitting up!

Ms Marigold

Pattern: Ms Marigold by ZephyrStyle
Yarn: Rowan Calmer shade Kiwi
Yardage: 188g (less than four standard balls)
Needles: 4.5mm Addi circ & 4mm for the neck and arm edgings

This turned out very well indeed, the combination of a stretchy yarn and making a size smaller gave a good figure-hugging fit. This tank/top is knit top-down, and surprisingly I didn't have to make any mods to the pattern as written - I was expecting to have to add extra before I rejoined the armholes, for example. My only real mod was to finish the arm edgings with 3 rows of rib, rather than the crochet edging and ruffle. I'd look a bit of a numpty with ruffles at the top of my square shoulders!

I would definitely make this again, the Calmer is a delightful yarn to work with. The top was hand washed, then spun in the machine inside a mesh laundry bag, and line dried as the weather is so lovely. No stretching out of shape or any other problems. My next version may well be in a wool yarn, although I'm tempted to make one in deep pink Calmer too.

Last weekend I started a mini shawl in variegated DK on large needles, and that has now been frogged. I realised I wouldn't really have enough to finish it in that shade alone, and decided a toning border/ruffle just wouldn't be quite right. It had been a choice between that and Ishbel, so I cast on the latter a couple of nights ago. I'm using Posh Yarn Eva 2ply, in a deep red which according to my records was the PY Lace Club November 2006 yarn. About time it was knitted with!



This is the larger version of the shawl, and I'm hoping to have enough yarn left over to make the beret too.

Alhambra

Pattern: Alhambra by Anne Hanson
Yarn: Posh Yarn Eva 2ply shade Rhyme
Yardage: just under 40g of a 55g skein
Size: 39" x 12.5" after blocking - 15 pattern repeats
Needles: 3.25mm bamboo straights

Very pleased with the finished result! The scrolls are such a striking design, and well worth the lace pattern on both sides (no purl "rest" rows!).

The KSH knitting is going well (thanks for asking CA!), and I've also started a more summery cardi in Rowan Wool Cotton. This is yarn that I've had in stash for a couple of years so again, nice to use it. The pattern is Tea Time from the RYC Classic Summer book.

Progress

Alhambra is the next project to finish, and the only one left over from 2008. I've completed 10 pattern repeats so far, and based on the yardage of the Eva, I should be able to do 20.



It's amazing the difference time makes. When I started this, I'd not really knit with any form of laceweight yarn before, and found it a little difficult to use. The project was soon put to one side, as I was increasingly busy at work and didn't have the patience or concentration to knit the lace pattern.

Recently I've been knitting with KSH, which is a much finer laceweight than the Eva. Having got to grips with that, and knitting away at more-or-less my normal speed with it, I switched back to Alhambra. The practice with the KSH has really paid off. Even the p2togtbl moves are flowing very easily. At one point I had really thought I couldn't cope with fine laceweight, so I'm counting it as a definite achievement.

Yesterday I received a nice surprise in the post. When I was knitting the latest Clapotis, I started off with Brittany 5mm straights. One evening I suddenly found the yarn catching on every stitch on one of the needle tips. Closer inspection revealed what looked like a small chip out of the wood, which we believe to be one of those natural "flaws" in the wood grain. It certainly wasn't anything that you could see beforehand, and probably just revealed itself after much use. I was reminded that Brittany operate a guarantee scheme and sent off an email explaining the problem, and asking for one replacement needle. Yesterday I received a whole new pair of 5mm straights from Artesano UK! I certainly didn't expect a complete pair and am most impressed with the customer service from Brittany/Artesano.

Ocean Waves shawl, and mitts

Two posts in one week, whatever next!

Ocean Waves shawl in Posh Yarn Emily:





More details on ravelry.

Also made this week, a pair of fingerless mitts in New Lanark Donegal Silk Aran, for my husband.



Again more details on ravelry.

I'm now part way through the Marble Muffin hat in Araucania Aysen, gorgeous yarn to knit with!

It's official ...

... I have startitis at the moment. I've kept it reasonably under control so far but I can't guarantee that will continue. It must be Spring and the extra daylight adding a little more va-va-voom in the knitting department :-)

My first WIP is Alhambra mentioned in my last post. I had a 55g skein of Eva 2-ply in stash that I decided to use for this, as it only really asks for 350-ish yards. I think a solid colour would be better for this pattern but I like the way the Eva is knitting up into curvy diagonal stripes of colour.



I'm quite pleased with my progress on this, as previously I'd been a little put off knitting with finer yarns. This was down to using KSH, which is of course incredibly fine AND fluffy. The Eva is lovely to knit with and I think I've now grasped the various directions of yarnovers. Not to mention doing the p2togtbl correctly. It seems I was not doing it correctly at first, and I struggled away, and ended up messing up the stitch counts by one on a few rows in the first repeats. It doesn't look disastrous though andI decided to leave it as something that showed a learning curve. Strangely I had looked up p2togtbl some time ago, and found some directions, but when I checked the video on Knitting Help I found it was being done differently - and more importantly in an easier way!

I finished off the second sleeve on Alexandra on Friday night, and that is now blocking. I did short slightly puffed sleeves in the end, as I thought I'd get more use from it to wear over a long sleeved top in the colder months. Besides the fact I don't have 6.5mm DPNs, or even 2 circs, and using one Denise set wasn't exactly fun!

Having done the above I happily cast on for the Flutter Sleeve Cardigan from Spring 08 IK. I'd originally wondered about using DB Cathay but I should have remembered this really is a thinner DK yarn and doesn't make a suitable fabric on 4.5mm needles. The swatch confirmed this, so I had another think and finally hit upon Rowan Calmer, from stash. The swatch performed perfectly and I'm now up to the ribbing at the waist on the back piece:



I'm still trying to find time to sew up CPH, and am keeping my fingers crossed for this coming Bank Holiday weekend.

I could really have done with blogging last weekend too, after our week off, but it turned out fairly busy and I reluctantly deferred it a week. We did get plenty done around the house though, and managed a couple of days out too.

The first trip was to Coldspring Mill and Haworth:



You can see some cones of yarn through the windows in the picture. As usual there was plenty of temptation to hand inside. I came away with 2 packs around the 500g mark of Twilleys Freedom Spirit, and a cone of DB Cathay in pink. The latter was intended for Flutter Sleeve but as noted above, wasn't suitable. I've got plenty of alternatives to use it for though.

It was a lovely day weather-wise, quite breezy but not overly cold. You can see how bright and Spring-like it was in these photos of Haworth:



The Parsonage, taken from the churchyard



The main street

There was a lovely exhibition of historic photographs of Haworth and its environs, in the old school rooms near the parsonage. This was the original school built by the Rev. Bronte. One photo showed the day the Parsonage opened as a museum, in 1928 I think. The narrow street leading to it was literally jam packed with people, and everyone was wearing a hat. Well, I did spot one man in the middle of the picture who wasn't!

A couple of days later we went to Farfield Mill near Sedbergh, on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. This was originally recommended by Donna, and we thoroughly enjoyed our visit. The mill was rescued some yeas ago and some of the original looms were also saved. They now weave on those very same looms as a commercial venture, and you can watch them in action.



The building is divided into four floors, and we started on the top floor, which is a lovely exhibition of hand looms and spinning wheels. On all of the floors there are studios for craftspeople, there was no-one working or demonstrating there that day though. I didn't get any photos of the looms up there, too busy looking at them!

On level 2 there is a big display of the history of the mill, and some of the older looms that were used to weave cloth:



Level 1 houses a lovely cafe, and also the commercial weaving rooms. We sat next to the window through to the weaving room and watched the weaver winding yarns from large cones onto smaller ones. I managed to snag a photo through the glass doors as were were leaving:



Apologies for the slightly blurry photo as I was using the camera on "museum" setting, this is in the room next to the looms, but I'm not 100% sure what was being wound onto what!



They use yarn made from the fleece of the local Rough Fell sheep. I believe this next picture, taken of the field just outside the mill, is of those same breed of sheep. They were not at all impressed at someone getting out of a car to take their photo, and set up quite a noise!



We've not long since finished watching the Spanish Grand Prix, quite an interesting race and another one with a high level of attrition. I'm somewhat gutted for Nick Heidfeld having to serve a 10 second stop/start penalty, as he had no choice but to pit during a safety car phase. I guess that is a risk they run if they leave pitting until the last possible moment, but all the same he did manage to regain a reasonable placing. Well done to the winners, and all the best to Heikki Kovalainen who had an awful crash due to what sounded like a foreign object that caused a tyre to blow out.