A Finished Object and lots of plans.

Been enjoying doing lots of painting and having all the lovely Christmas decorations out, the little smoking man in particular!

I finished my Juveler cardigan! I'm really pleased with it, it's an open-fronted cardi, reminds me of a bolero or shrug, something to pop on over dresses in the Summer or if you're a bit chilly.
It was really quick to knit and took less than 5 balls of Noro Silk Garden (on 5mm needles). I knit the medium but could easily have made the large and been comfortable, I didn't do any sleeve decreases till I was past my elbow as I worried my sleeves would end up too tight.

I'm currently working on a testknit for a knitter whose work I love. It's going ok, I was really worried it wasn't going to fit how I want it to but it seems to be alright now. I'm working hard on this testknit as I'm keen to cast on a couple of cardigans... The first is Leitzel by Alison Green (pattern from Twist Collective, Fall 2015).

I fell in love with this one afternoon while I was idly trawling Ravelry... I then spent a fun evening looking at yarn and chose Jamieson's Shetland Heather in the end, and after much debate over colour I went for Mist.

Mist! It's a subtle lilac/grey/blue with pink flecks - I LOVE it. I was saying to Rich that I wanted to get back to buying yarn for a project, then knitting it up fairly quickly (he raised an eyebrow when yarn arrived the other day!).

Another pattern I decided I want to cast on soon is a pretty colourwork cardigan. I was watching The Box of Delights with Rich (a family tradition, every Christmas!) and Miss Maria was wearing a corgeous colourwork cardigan, it had moss green, dark blue and red... BBC production so I'd not be surprised if the cardi lives in their wardrobe department and has made an appearance in other 1930s/40s period programmes. I've had a bit of a google and I can't find any images so I'll snap one on my phone this evening when we watch episode 5. Here is the cardigan I chose last night...

I like the fit on this one, also the fact that the sleeves are knit separately and seamed, I'm not keen on steeked sleeves. I think that I'll not make the shoulders quite so wide, I'll make it more like my colourwork cardi (below). Most of the versions on Ravelry have fairly big shoulders (true to the pattern and the style of the time), there are some fab versions on there - here if you're a Raveller.

By the way, I bought the pattern from this lovely lady - the Vintage Knitting Lady - she has so many gorgeous patterns to choose from, her site is a real treasure trove!

The other pattern I've been resisting (because it is massive) is Find your Fade by Andrea Mowry. Definitely a good pattern for subscribers to yarn clubs! There's a lot of knitting in it though, I think about 1400 metres which is nearly the amount I used for my colourwork cardigan above. A month's solid knitting for me as I'm slow, also, I have 3 shawls and don't wear them as much as I wear all my cardigans. Sorry, this is me telling myself that I don't need to cast on Find Your Fade (although I have enough pre-wound Life in the Long Grass yarn)...

It's so pretty though!!!! Let's see how I do over the Christmas period, like I've said before, I really don't do so well with multilpe WIPs...

Colourwork Blanket

Last year I had a long night in hospital after a painful minor operation. It was fairly grim and I spent a lot of my night lying awake staring at the celing tiles and thinking about Marie Wallin's Fair Isle Club. With Marie's club you get a pattern a month to knit a square of a stunning blanket, it runs over 12 months and I was lying there trying to think of ways to justify the price of the patterns to myself (around £120 I think, this year's is cheaper but still out of my price range). I kept returning to the conclusion that although it looked as though it would be fantastic to make, I couldn't do it. I ended up buying her other gorgeous pattern, Sage Throw, which I will make at some point (Sage Throw isn't on Ravelry).

Anyway! I'm a massive Kate Davies fan and had the happy thought (while I stared at those celing tiles), that I could make a Kate Davies colourwork blanket! Yes! I was very excited, it really helped as I tried to get myself to go off to sleep, I played a game trying to remember how many colourwork designs Kate had on her pattern page on Ravelry.

As always, I had a backlog of WIPs and I made myself clear as many as possible before I finally cast on the blanket. Had a fun few months of working on it and then took a break at 6 and a half squares. I decided to try and finish it during this year's run of the Great British Bake Off. I like a challenge, just to help keep me focussed when I become distracted by other new projects! I managed to stick to it and got it finished a few days after the final episode was shown.

It's really difficult to get a photo of the entire blanket in one piece - I'll try changing to the wide lens on my camera and will add more photos tomorrow.

The response to this blanket from Ravellers has been absolutely amazing, everyone has been so lovely!

Spindrift Shawl again

I made another Spindrift Shawl (pattern by Helen Stewart). This is for my mum's birthday because she hinted that she would like one after she saw mine. She also hinted that mohair might not be a fibre she wanted me to use! I saw an amazing shawl knit by Tinkhickman on Ravelry - here. I really loved the gradient yarn she had used and promptly bought two cakes of similar from the Etsy shop Bilum. It was lovely yarn to knit with but I was worried about the colours and about the shawl possibly coming out too small. I blocked it really aggressively and was thrilled with the result, the colour and the drape are perfect.
It is a bit wafty and floaty and looks perfect with my wafty floaty fancy frock (an ebay bargain at £12 - it was £130 new!). Mum likes wafty scarfy shawly things and will wear it well.

Hedgehog Fibres Blanket Photo Overload

 Sometimes all I need is a deadline and I'll get things finished. This blanket was pure joy to work on from start to finish, all down to the yarn of course! I love Hedgehog Fibres so much (as does James!).

 It's entirely knit in Hedgehog Fibres Twist Sock held doubled with a strand of laceweight (BFL & Merino Lace, HF again). James calls it his rainbow blanket, his favourite colour in it is the pink shade (mine too, colourway is Kitsch, June 2015 Twist Club).
The photos below were taken just after I had given it to him; he wouldn't wait for a wet block so I gave it a light steam.

I wrote a decent amount of notes on my Ravelry project page, here. The main issue I encountered with this project (apart from my basic crochet knowledge being entirely wrong!) is detailed below.

So, I managed to gradually ‘lose’ about 5 stitches (10 in total) either end of the blanket between the first lot of grannies and section 5 (Fill the Gap). At that point I realised I’d lost said stitches and hastily added them back in, then carried on (taking great care not to lose any again). I got near to finishing the blanket, but the section with the missing stitches was bothering me with its hourglass shape, I was quite sure I wouldn't be able to block my way out of it.
After a lot of research (and finding nothing to fix the loss of so many stitches) I sat down with my hook and my yarn and simply started at the bottom of the grannies (where it began to curve inwards) and crocheted my way up along the edge vertically, following the pattern as set and working the 1, then 2, then 3, then, 4, finally 5, stitches back and forth, joining each row to the existing edge using slip stitch. I decreased back down by eye and ended up with a straight edge.
You can see this visible mend in the front-facing photo where James is wrapped up. The section I’m taking about is visible on both front-facing edges in the photo and is worked in orange.
After the edges had been squared off this way, I worked the finishing edging.

Wisteria cardigans

I signed up to test knit the new pattern by East London KNits, Wisteria Blossoms. It was my first top-down cardigan and a fun and quick knit. I had a couple of issues with gauge (which changed from what I had swatched as I was knitting it), that's why the cardigan is pictured 'buttoned' at the neckline - it pulled too much across my bust.
The yarn is Hedgehog Fibres Merino Aran, the colourway is Construct.

My lovely Rav friend Herbscat said my photos & grey cardigan reminded her of the film Howard's End (a modern version), such a kind comment! I was making do with the camera's timer and had the camera itself propped up on a pile of boxes.

So I made a second one, in Hedgehog Fibres again, but in Silk/Merino Singles, on larger needles, also cropped due to yarn constraints! I'm really pleased with both of these, they're both really wearable and pretty.

The pattern will be released next week, I'll link to it if I remember!

Watching the rain

I'm sitting in my studio just watching the rain as I do a bit of procrastinating, James is watching a programme about the history of the diesel engine (on BBC4 last week, it's fascinating!). He turned 5 yesterday and we had a nice quiet day with the family. James had asked for a fish after seeing them used as props in Sweaterspotter's Pengiun knitting book.

Couldn't find an image via google so I did a screen shot. You can look at and buy her lovely wares here - Jo Waterhouse. I'm very taken with her beautiful lino prints and her cushions. LOVE.

I recently finished a pattern from the Penguin collection, the Aptenodytes Cardigan. I still haven't repositioned the buttons, I do need to do that as it's pulling because of where I placed them in haste, also they make one side appear longer than the other. Here are some dodgy photos of me wearing it, dodgy because I took them myself and my self-taken photos don't often come out very well. The garden fences look so rough but just imagine them as they will be in a few months' time when all my flowers have grown (hidden!).

It's so pretty and was a really interesting garment to knit, I loved its construction. I'm back to working on my small WIP mountain, there are 4 blankets which Will Be Done. I mean that, I'm doing it. I'll post some photos of these soon.

Ásta Sóllilja

It's a Finished Object. Over a year in the making (most of that time it was hidden away), but it's finally finished and I'm so pleased with it.
Last year, or perhaps it was in 2014 (when Kate Davies first published teasers of the Yokes patterns prior to the book's release), I had decided that I wanted to make a dress version of this design. I'm not sure what possessed me, it certainly would make a lovely tunic dress with short sleeves but the fitted version I was dreaming of might not have worked very well. Clearly it didn't, as this is where my tinkering ended up! I had gauge problems and a serious reluctance to go down the several needle sizes I should have in order to knit the dress nice and fitted and not get a 'saggy bottom' - the knitting version of Paul Hollywood's famous saying on the GBBO.
I have quite the terror of a saggy bottom after something Rich's mum Jane told me years ago when I had bought a lovely knitted pinafore dress from TopShop. I wore that dress to death and was so affected by Jane's warning that I used to hoik it up whenever I could as I sat down in it (company permitting). I'm going to find a picture of the TopShop dress in my photos actually, I quite fancy reverse-engineering it, it was so versatile. A bit itchy as it had some alpaca in it, I'm ok with wool but find alpaca gets me a bit squirmy.. Not a good look!

I hadn't blocked it here and the edges were rolling in a little in that delightful stocking stitch way. They've settled down a bit now.

I was planning on knitting a version of Miss Rachel's Yoke but I can't find the spark of 'must knit this right now' that I need to cast on, I did try but I unravelled my progress. I think I'm going to continue with my plan to finish my WIPs because they're still doing my head in (that phrase makes me sound like my 14 year old self).
What's on the list? There are 4 blankets... I am slightly appalled that I have 4 blankets on the needles!! I'm certain that one of these was cast on in 2012.
Then there is a grey cardigan that was going to be a dress but I changed my mind and left it to languish. There are two sleeves and a body piece. I have reinforced the front ready for cutting and will knit the bust area in pieces, separating from the fronts and the back. I was going to edit this so it could become an Effervescence cardigan but the ribbing/waist/pattern placement will be ridiculously off. I might add a lace bib to it like the Audrey in Unst cardigan (I want to make another of these but WIPs first!).
What else? My Bohus yoked cardi (Blue Flower) which had been edited by me in an attempt to fit the pattern to Coraline by Ysolda. This worked (or it would have done if I was the size of a 10 year old), the yoke depth I ended up with was far too shallow and while it was wearable it really wasn't right and did no justice to the original design. I spend an evening ripping it all out and picking up the live stitches and have begun to knit it as written, albeit in the wrong direction.
A surprise addition to my WIP pile was the Aptenodytes cardigan by Kristen Blom and Anna Maltz, I had seen a two-colour version of this pattern on Instagram and I had to have one. I am on the final section of ribbing after ripping it back this morning because I had lazily picked up too few stitches - not like me, I always pick up extra for ribbing. I think I was having a lazy evening.

So, that's 7 items, 4 of those are large items. I will hopefully have another FO post very soon as I'm hoping to get my Aptenodytes finished today. That is the plan!!

 Here's that dress I was on about, I'm musing on it now...