Because Diane is escaping the cold weather and going back to Australia for Christmas, we had an early gift exchange yesterday.

I gave her these:

Pattern: Fancy Silk Sock for a Child of 5 or 6 years from Knitting Vintage Socks
Yarn: Middle Earth Yarns Luxury Superwash Merino (360yds per 100g), “Devil in Blue Jeans” colourway
Needles: 2.25mm Susan Bates Silvalume dpns

and she gave me this:

It’s the snuggliest alpaca cowl imaginable and in the best colour. And just so I don’t get chilly while she’s sunning herself on the beach. Very thoughtful.

Cookie, anyone?

The hot air vibes worked! Thanks, Kai.

Pattern: Skull Illusion Scarf by Ysolda Teague
Yarn: Rowan Pure Wool Aran, 2 x 100g balls – 1 in #685 (Noir), 1 in #682 (Amethyst)
Needles: 4mm Addi Bamboo circs

This makes a long scarf. I mean LONG. Looooooooooooooong. It’s as tall as me and I’m 5′ 8″. Not quite a Doctor Who scarf, but a long scarf nonetheless.

I’m glad that I chose to knit it with 4mm needles. The pattern says to knit it at a fairly dense gauge and being a loose knitter, I erred on the side of caution and it was a good job, because the yarn softened and grew after washing and became a lot floppier.

Speaking of the pattern, I am eternally grateful to Sairyknits, whose Ravelry notes on her own version of the scarf helped me work out just how to reverse the pattern. A tip for you: trying to invert a chart at 11.30 at night is never a good idea.

And I’m very pleased with the fringe. I was worried that it would be a bit on the short side because I had to be economical with the yarn to ensure that I had enough, but even that grew with blocking.

I only did four pattern repeats, and made the centre section plain garter stitch stripes. Even after blocking, the ends have a tendency to curl, so this will help a bit with that.

Now I just have to wrap it, and another present is done!

Please send drying vibes to my house. I’ve got an electric fan running now to try and dry the Skull Illusion Scarf before the end of the day. The spare room/blocking room floor needs to be clear so we can actually store things (!) in there while we paint the walls in the rest of the house in preparation for new carpets (such organisational skills we have at Gypsy Towers – redecorating a month before Christmas!) and I don’t want to have to move my soggy scarf.

This is how much yarn I have left over from two 100g balls of Rowan Pure Wool Aran, after completing the Skull Illusion Scarf for my sister today:

On a scale of 1 to 10, just how nervous was I that I’d run out before I even finished the scarf?! Fortunately, I had just enough to finish and make a nice fringe on either end. Of course, if I was a more sensible knitter, I’d have knit one pattern repeat, weighed it and worked out from that just how many repeats I could do. But that’s far too organised. I’m more into Extreme Knitting, where there’s the risk of running out of yarn and the thrill when I just make it.

Photos when the scarf is blocked!

I forgot to mention another exciting part of getting my lovely new hat. My nephews came to visit!

They’re very well behaved and don’t eat much at all. And they’re happy to hang around while I knit and help me keep track of my sock rounds. I hope they stay for a while. My festive knitting is a lot more enjoyable now they’re here.

(For more of my relatives and other stitch markers, visit Cairi’s Etsy shop.)

So far all the mansize socks I have ever knit have been plain stocking stitch, using a varigated or self-striping yarn to make them interesting and stop me going mad with boredom. But I’ve discovered Regia Silk sock yarn (machine washable and can be tumble dried – result!) and it comes in some lovely manly shades just asking to be knitted into textured socks.

The pattern is my own, based on several diamond patterns that you can find in any stitch dictionary. The problem is that it has a repeat of 20 stitches. 60 stitches is too few, so I’m working with 80 stitches, only on 2mm needles so that I don’t end up with something big enough to fill with presents from Santa. It’s going to take slightly longer, but the result so far is completely worthwhile:

Though the yarn is soft, I’m still getting good stitch definition

and though I’m not likely to meet my hoped-for deadline of all festive knits being done by 1st December (this is the current progress on the first sock, and I still have the scarf to finish) hopefully I won’t be far behind.

Now there’s a title! I speak only of yarn, though. Although some people have storage boxes purely to store their Koigu stash, I have never bought any at all. Ever. While I think the colours are pretty, it isn’t the cheapest of yarns and there are so many other pretty varigated yarns to try and I am only one small red-hatted bunny.

Anyway, I bought an odd skein of Koigu from Cairi last week because it was various shades of my favourite colour and I was curious. There’s not a lot a person can do with one small skein of yarn other than admire it:

but the Koigu Addict came to the resuce again with this pattern. I bought some dried lavender at my local farmers’ market at the weekend, too, so assuming that I can somehow stretch time, I will knit a couple of these sachets as Christmas presents.

So far it hasn’t had any strange effect on me, but maybe I have to start knitting with it to get the Koigu Bug. I shall report back!

It’s been raining solidly for the last few days. Which is my excuse for being a bad blogger and hat recipient. That and Saturday morning, when it wasn’t actually raining, my camera battery decided that it was the perfect time to need recharging. Basically, this is a long-winded way of posting about the gorgeous hat that Cairi sent me as part of our tiny, three person hat swap.

The pattern I chose was the Art Deco Beret from the Fall 2007 issue of Knitscene (Ravelry link). I decided on a gorgeous pale pink shade of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino and my favourite Jaeger (*sniff*) pearl beads and sent the whole lot off to Cairi who was a complete star.

Sadly, until the rain stops, this very ropey, pre-battery deadness photo will have to do:

I took this as a test shot and straight afterwards my camera started bleeping and telling me to change the battery and refused to do another thing.

I now have a couple of indoor pics, though, which show just how splendid and beautiful my new hat is:

It is so snug and the nicest hat I have ever had.

But I don’t think this one will fit over my bunny ears, somehow.

In case anyone doesn’t know, for the past couple of years, the lovely people at Innocent have asked people to knit tiny hats for their smoothie bottles to raise funds for Age Concern. For every hat-wearing bottle that is sold, they donate 50p to the charity.

I am a bad knitter and never get around to making some, but this year I did manage to find a bottle wearing a hat to buy. Just on the very slim offchance that the person that knit it is reading this blog, your hat ended up in Surrey!

My needle bending incident yesterday was partly due to me taking arty photos in an attempt to persuade myself that the sock I was knitting was worth continuing. It wasn’t a hard pattern, but I couldn’t memorise it and it was bothering me knowing that I was two thirds through the first sock and already dreading knitting the next one. I want to be able to pick a sock up at odd moments, glance at the sock and know which pattern row I’m on. Considering that I’m planning to knit a Princess Shawl which I doubt is going to be at all suitable for picking up at odd moments, this might seem a contradiction. But with a shawl – especially that one! – I’m not knitting it as a quick and portable project. A sock, on the other hand, is for knitting on the bus or tram (if I can get a seat!) as well as in odd snatched moments when I’m not trying to launch a website, and therefore I can’t be doing with balancing charts and crossing off rows.

Click below to see what happened next. Unless you are a certain wizardy yarn dyer who doesn’t want to spoil a surprise.

Read the rest of this entry »

…one of my trusty Susan Bates Silvalume dpns is no more.

In an attempt to get more interesting photos, I over stretched my current WIP and this was the result. Or rather, the result was a horseshoe-shaped dpn and I thought I could bend it back and no harm would be done. Result? Kinked needle. Fortunately I’m only working with four dpns for this sock, but I’m usually I’m a five-dpn knitter.

I just hope that a kinky needle doesn’t meen kinky knitting. I think there’s enough of that about already!

ETA: Can anyone recommend me some dpns that are the same as the Susan Bates ones but don’t have to be bought with three other sizes? I love the slipperyness and lightness of these needles. Bamboo are too sticky and metal are too heavy.

Okay, I promise – no more post titling in French just because the finished items have “French” in the pattern name.

Pattern: Child’s French Sock from Knitting Vintage Socks
Yarn: Jaeger Matchmaker Merino 4ply, Strawberry, 2 x 50g balls (discontinued, *sobs*)
Needles: My trusty 2.25mm Susan Bates Silvalume dpns

I love this pattern. It was one of the ones that really “grabbed” me when I first looked at the book, though as is usual, it’s taken me nearly two years to get around to knitting them! I like the contrast of the fairly manly knit and purl pattern compared to the sweeping lace panels that run down the sock. The rest of the pattern is very simple – no fancy heels or toes – and it’s just a lovely pattern to knit. The Jaeger yarn (*sniffle*) is perfect for special socks. I doubt it will be that hardwearing, but it shows the stitches beautifully and is soft and delicious after blocking.

And now back to the scarf, thick needles and hopefully a quick result!

Well a lot of you will have already seen the announcement, but Diane and I are launching our own online knitting magazine, The Inside Loop, dedicated exclusively to knitting and other fibre arts in the United Kingdom. We feel that there is a definite need for a UK based online magazine that actively promotes designers and yarns in the UK. The first issue is planned for February next year so in between now and then there is a lot to be done! It’s going to take away a fair chunk of my knitting time as well, so I hope this blog won’t be too boring in the coming months! Though I’m designing for the first issue too, so maybe a sneaky peak will be possible.

Please pop over to the blog to say hello, and sign up to our Yahoo! mailing list so that you’re in with a chance to win lovely yarny prizes. We’re also on Ravelry, for those of you on there as well.

There’ll be an update on my festive knitting tomorrow, when it’s light enough to take good photos.