Last week we had glorious blue skies and fluffy white clouds. Today we’ve had hail and rain and gloom. But there are green leaves on my needles, so there’s still a little bit of spring somewhere.

Still no eyes: the ones I bought are too small, but there are still other bits to sew on while I wait. Can you tell what it is yet?

One of the many things I love about the huge number of knitting blogs I read is that there is always new yarn to discover. And when I’m in the market for the perfect yarn for a design, my radar is going beep-beep-beep at the merest sniff of something fibre-related.

It was because of this that when Rubbishknitter linked to Skeins I was off ogling yarn like a madwoman. I’d been looking for a while for a yarn I’d had in my head. Something DK weight in a leafy sort of green. And voila!

This is their DK Shetland in Moss Cottage, which is soft and squishy and I can’t wait to start knitting with it.

Almost two years ago, I got an email asking for submissions for a new sock pattern book so I duly submitted a design, was thrilled to be accepted and then had the loooong wait until the book was published. And then, just as I was about to reveal my socks to the world, I went and had a baby four weeks early. So the book has now been out ages and some people have even knitted my socks which is brilliant, but I’ve never actually blogged about the design.

The book is called The Joy of Sox and these are my socks as they appear in the book:

The brief for the book was that it was a slightly risqué play on a book with a similar title and the patterns and book style is slightly tongue in cheek, but not rude so I can still show it to my grandmother. My socks are cute rather than sexy, and more in mind for wearing on a cool evening, curled up on the sofa with a loved one watching DVDs, which is what I tend to do a lot anyway.

Thanks for the comments on the last post’s mysterious knitted thing. It is indeed a toy, but what it is can’t be revealed just yet, in part because I am awaiting eyes and a nose, so it currently has no expression and looks rather pathetic (if something without a face can have any expression, that is).

So instead of creating interesting knitted widgets over the weekend, I pulled out my old design notebooks which had been gathering dust over the past year while I was growing a baby. I’ve been mulling over a few ideas of late and intended to make a start after Christmas, but I’ve mentioned before how a certain person had other ideas about me having any free time. Now all that’s stopping me are the normal baby interruptions, apparently they’re most likely to occur just when I’ve just had an eureka moment and need to get it on paper IMMEDIATELY before it falls out of my brain never to return.

I always knew there was a reason why I kept all the little oddments of yarn from old projects, even the tiniest bits. I used to design using the project yearn, but when it’s been frogged in disgust several times, it ends up looking very tired and sorry for itself. So using random yarn in the right weight to work out the technical part of a pattern is very clever and is a good reason to have bags of tiny balls of yarn. Now the project yarn is saved for “best” and only ripped out if it doesn’t suit the pattern or – and this is quite common – I make a cock up mistake.

Currently my designing is making me wish I’d paid more attention in maths and not spent my time doodling all over my workbook. But it’s lovely to play with yarn again and setting myself another challenge after my Olympic knitting.

Only another million little pieces to go..!

Pattern: Whirligig Shrug by Stefanie Japel
Yarn: Rowan Pure Wool DK, 1½ x 50g in colour: #028 Raspberry
Needles: 3.75mm circs and dpns

After the high concentration needed for my last project, I felt like knitting something quick that didn’t involve anything too complicated.:-) I’ve been planning to knit this shrug for a while. I saw the previews for the Interweave Weekend magazine and just fell in love with it. It’s possibly one of the girliest things I’ve knitted for Rose so far!

The pattern is very simple, just a top-down raglan with no front, just the back and sleeves. The little cable detail is cute and very easy to do without a cable needle and I actually managed to get the whole back done in one evening and then spent days finishing the sleeves and edging.

If I’d bothered to read other people’s notes on Ravelry, I’d have seen that the yarn quantities for the pattern are highly over-estimated. I bought three balls of Rowan Pure Wool DK (from Lana Pura, who always give great service and free delivery which isn’t to be sniffed at) and used barely half of the second. I wonder if this is a cunning ploy to get me to increase my stash. But the leftovers will make a lovely hat next winter, so I’m not too grumpy.

Now this is done, the world is my oyster again and I just need to decide what on earth to knit first!

I found out about Bobbins magazine through reading rubbishknitter’s blog. It’s a (currently) one-off craft magazine and is really rather brilliant. I bought a copy the other week and read it in the bath during some precious baby-free time.

I don’t read many UK magazines, partly because the patterns don’t appeal to me but also because many of them are overly commercial or have a faux-chummy style which grates somewhat after a while. Bobbins is just a really good read. It doesn’t have the commercial edge, doesn’t claim to be your bestest friend and everything in the magazine is there because it is tasty or pretty or interesting.

The book reviews, for example are honest and a decent length; not just a paragraph about how great every new craft book is and you must buy them all and have no money left to buy the yarn to knit the items in them. I was actually put off buying one book after reading the review that I might otherwise have bought at some point. This is A Good Thing for a person who has bought many books over the years that she has never knitted from, purely because of a review.

My favourite pattern in the magazine is (are?) the Two Hoots socks. I really want to knit these for my handknitted sock- and owl-loving Grandma’s birthday.

My only complaint is the magazine hasn’t even more in it, and that it is only a one-off at present. Actually, that’s two complaints, isn’t it? But it’s rare that I sit down and read anything from cover to cover these days, and I’m just greedy.

Yes, sock. Not socks, which ironically would be better, but one shrunken sock. You see, I’d been scrupulously ensuring that I washed Mr B’s Mini Mochi socks on a 30 degree wool cycle because I was concerned about them shrinking. It’s not the most convenient thing to do as I usually favour the “bung everything in and wash at 40″ method and only bother to separate white and dark colours. But I started having a once or twice weekly wool wash for all Mr B’s socks and Rose’s knitted clothes so it wasn’t too bad. Until the weekend and when I was rushing to bundle a dark washload together, a sock managed to sneak its way into the pile. Possibly hidden up a trouser leg. And this was the result:

It’s like cardboard. If it was any stiffer, I could use it as a sock blocker itself. The other sock which escaped the machine is fine, but unless Mr B suddenly develops a rare, foot-shrinking illness, or only ever has one cold foot, he has a pair of unwearable socks. Socks knitted from a not inexpensive yarn which I was on a waiting list to buy. Socks which took forever to knit while I was perma-feeding a tiny baby. There may have been swearing.

So it’s back to Trekking, Regia and Opal 75% wool sock yarns for this household. I will never again be swayed by pretty colours, no matter how much they taunt me. I am immune.

Pattern: Baby’s First Fair Isle Sweater by Susan Gutpearl
Yarn: Opal Uni 4ply, two-thirds of 100g in colour: #1999 Magenta and Zitron Trekking XXL, two-thirds of 100g in colour: #76 maroon-mauve
Needles: 2.5mm circs and dpns

Hand me that gold medal right now – I am a winner. Finished neatening the steeks on Saturday evening and then left it to block on Sunday. The photos had to wait til this morning due to the model needing her beauty sleep.

I am really thrilled with the end result. It has been a bit of a slog. Pre-baby I could have finished this in a week, easily, but having a small person interrupting at random times makes everything so much harder and at the beginning I honestly did think that I’d be posting today with half a sleeve done and a vague promise to finish it off before stuffing the whole sweater into a Tesco bag and hiding it at the back of my wardrobe.

This is the first fair isle sweater I have ever knitted. To date, the biggest project has been the Deep V Argyle Vest, but that at least didn’t have sleeves to bother me. All the other stranded projects I’ve done were mitts or hats, so it was even more of a challenge.

I like the pattern and I’ve said before that there were a couple of problems which I queried and worked out. I didn’t swatch because of time constraints. I wanted a slightly bigger sweater than the small, so I just used the stated needle size and ended up with a chest width of 25cm which gives lots of wriggle room.

The sock yarns aren’t great for steeking as they don’t stick together, but they make for a lovely soft sweater. The colours of the Trekking change ever so subtly throughout so it looks as if I’ve done clever shading with a million different colours, a la Kaffe Fassett. It also means I can put the sweater in the washing machine without fear of it shrinking as they’re my two favourite workhorse sock yarns.

All in all, I am a very happy knitter today.

I don’t know. It’s coming to something when a girl has to bake her own birthday cakes! But it means I get to choose the exact flavour and as it’s my birthday, no one is allowed to complain.

The end is in sight! I am halfway through the patterning on the second sleeve, the collar is done and now I need to turn my attention to the insides, which need a good tidy up.

Before that, I just wanted to mention that I decided to Magic Loop the second sleeve instead of using dpns, to see if it was easier. I’m wary about pulling the floats too tight when using this method, but so far it seems to be working and is proving to be quicker as there are half the number of needle changes per round.

So, the inside of the sweater. The crochet has held up well for the most part, but a few threads are sneakily slipping out and I think it needs tidying up. I was planning on knitting facings but firstly I am going to try reinforcing the edges with cross stitch. Mainly it’s going to be quicker than knitting facings and time is of the essence. But having a sweater that doesn’t unravel is kind of important as well, I know.

It’s a horrible grey day today, so the light indoors in pretty rubbish, hence the duff lighting on today’s pics. However, that doesn’t stop me doing a happy dance at the progress made over the weekend.

The steeks have been crocheted and cut. Unfortunately, they’re looking a bit messy and will definitely need facings added. But let’s concentrate on the outside of the sweater for today, as it is much better looking. The actual crocheting took the best part of my knitting time on Saturday. I’m not a natural crocheter, but I can work functional stuff and it does its job, most of the time, even if I’m very slow.

Now the neck steek is cut, you can see that it’s not actually designed for a pin headed baby, but will fit nicely over Rose’s noggin. I’m planning to knit the neck ribbing after the first sleeve so that I don’t get bogged down with sleeve knitting which is what usually leads to knitting boredom for me.

I did have a moment of panic after picking up the sleeve stitches when I thought I’d misread the directions and was merrily knitting away on too many stitches. But after contacting Susan, the designer – who I have to say has already answered one stupid question from me about the pattern with friendliness and politeness and without calling me an idiot, which I was – discovered what was wrong and am now back on track. I will be adding an extra pattern repeat to the sleeves for my orang-utan baby, so I’ve about 15 more rounds plus the ribbing left to go on the first sleeve. I don’t want to tempt fate, so I won’t say anything about possibly actually making the deadline at all.

*waits for fanfare*

Yep, the whole body is done. It looks like the neck opening is absolutely tiny, but that’s because the back and front neck stitches are on holders and the front neck steek is only 11 stitches which pulls it in. Once they’re cut, it’ll be easier to see the shape.

For Marji and Vikki who asked (and anyone else who’s interested), I’ve put a 30cm/12 inch ruler next to the body to help with scale. I’m knitting the smallest pattern size, but on the specified needles. I knit looser than almost everyone in the entire world, it seems, so the sweater will end up slightly bigger than the smallest size, which is perfect. I was concerned that it would be too small otherwise, and I’m sure Rose will get plenty of wear from it in the next few months, knowing what the British weather is like!

Lakaya asked what steeking is. The short answer is a pained scream. The long answer is that it’s a way of knitting fair isle in the round to avoid having to work the wrong side – you just insert an extra strip of stitches which are cut to make an opening. I will write a post with my favourite steeking resources in at some point. I’ve gleaned bits and pieces from all over the place and they all come in useful at various points.

So all I have left to do is:

Crochet the steeks

Cut the steeks

Pick up the neck stitches and work the neckline

Pick up the sleeve stitches and knit a sleeve – twice

Knit steek facings (possibly)

Wash and block the whole sweater

And there’s just 10 days left? So much for relaxing!

A quick, in the car seat, photo for Rose’s five month update.

The recent growth spurt is over, thankfully, though it won’t be long before there’s another. It also won’t be long until she starts getting to taste different things other than milk which is quite a scary thought; it was only yesterday that she was a tiny baby, surely?!

She’s discovered that she can blow raspberries now, as well as being quite a nifty little mover. Put her on her play mat, and she’s turned 180 degrees in a matter of minutes. And she’s had her first “proper” laugh, a real chuckle. I don’t know what triggered it – I was getting her dressed and suddenly she laughed. Now of course it’s a favourite game of her brothers to try to get her to do it again.

The steeks are in place! I now have just under 3 more pattern repeats until the neck steek is added, the shaping worked and then the whole body cast off and ready for cutting.

I have adjusted the steek width to an odd number of stitches to allow for a crocheted steek. I’m not brave enough to cut my knitting without reinforcements yet – maybe the next steeked project! – and a crocheted steek is worked over the 3 centre stitches of the steek panel so it needs an odd number.

I am also thinking about how I will tidy up the inside of this sweater. With the Deep V Argyle Vest, after having to unravel the shoulders, I couldn’t be bothered just left the ends of the crochet dangling. But with this being worn by a wriggly small person, it will need securing. I could possibly just sew over the crochet, but think this might be bulky and am thinking about adding some knitted facings instead. It all depends on how long it takes to get the main sweater finished..!

Progress today has been slow. I know it looks like I’m fairly whizzing along right now, but only because Rose has been in a cooperative mood so far and I’m also knitting pretty much every spare minute I have. But it’s supposed to be a challenge; if it was just “knit something during the Olympics” I could’ve done a dishcloth and then twiddled my thumbs for the rest of the time.

I confess I didn’t cast on during the opening ceremony. I haven’t seen that hour of the morning for a long time: once Rose is asleep in the evening, I’m pretty much nodding off straight after. So instead I cast on on Friday evening before bed and hope that won’t get me accused of being a big fat cheat and thus disqualified.

Progress is good as of this morning. I have knitted three pattern repeats, so that’s halfway to placing the sleeve steeks and almost a third of the entire body completed. I should do some mathematical doodad to work out just how long it will take to knit the entire sweater based on my current pace but a) that will eat into my knitting time and b) babies are unpredictable.

This weekend, for example, was a rare occasion where Rose wanted to snooze and snack a lot, so with the assistance of some cunningly placed cushions, she could eat with my hands free and I knitted merrily for several hours yesterday afternoon.

The sweater is looking great so far. The hardest slog was the corrugated ribbing. I have only tried this once before and it took forever because I had to drop one yarn and pick up the other as I couldn’t purl with my left hand. But I’m wiser now: I’ve discovered Norweigan Purl. There are good photos explaining how to do it on this site. It’s simply a way of purling with the left hand that doesn’t need the yarn to be moved from the back to the front and back again each time. It was tricksy at first and my left index finger got stabbed a fair bit, but by the final few rounds, I was whizzing along and it was, without a doubt, miles easier than purling in the old way.

Though I’m using Opal and Trekking sock yarns which are superwash, they are both developing a nice hairy halo, a bit like traditional Shetland yarns. I’ve no fear of steeking, anyway, and as I’ll be reinforcing the steeks with crochet like before, they’d have to try very hard indeed to unravel.

I’m in. And what am I knitting? Remember this?

Bearing in mind that it took me the best part of a week to finish a moss stitch baby hat, I think the only excuse for me choosing this project can be the fact I’ve got a raging cold and throat infection and am slightly delirious with it all. But stranger things have happened. Watch this space.

First published in The Inside Loop, Spring 2008

So you’ve found the perfect jumper/cardigan/legwarmer pattern and you just HAVE to knit it. But the yarn in the pattern is discontinued, not easy to buy where you live, makes you itch, or is just too expensive. The answer is to substitute. It can seem confusing and complex, but a little bit of extra work is all that’s needed.

Firstly, research the yarn used in the pattern. Although the pattern will have some information about the yarn, it’s useful to know what the normal tension is and to check the meterage and fibre content.

Is the yarn being knitted at the manufacturers recommended tension, or is it being knitted more tightly or loosely to create a specific effect? As an example, say the yarn used in a pattern is an aran weight, but the pattern tension is 24 sts to 10cm because the designer wanted a firmer fabric. Substituting with a yarn that normally knits at the pattern tension would mean the intended texture would be lost.

The same applies if you’re changing fibres because of allergies or other reasons. Your substitute yarn needs to give the same effect as the one in the pattern. So if you want to substitute for a silk yarn that drapes and creates a fluid fabric, look at other fibres that give the same result, such as bamboo or linen, rather than choosing a crisp fibre like cotton.

Colour also can have an effect on how a pattern looks. An intricate stitch pattern can be lost if a yarn has too many different colours dominating the stitches.

So when you’ve chosen your yarn, how much do you need? Even if you’re substituting two seemingly identical yarns, don’t simply buy ten 50g balls of your substitute yarn just because your pattern calls for ten 50g balls of the original yarn. Although the meterage of the two yarns may vary by only a few metres, over several balls this can equal almost one extra ball needed. And if you don’t buy enough yarn, that raises its own problems!

For example, if the yarn used in the pattern has 120 metres per 50g, and the pattern requires twelve balls for your size, that’s a total of 1440 metres of yarn for the whole garment. Your substitute yarn, however, has 112 metres per 50g. To find out how many balls you need, divide the total meterage by the meterage per 50g of your substitute yarn. 1440 ÷ 112 = 12.8 balls – almost one more ball of yarn than the original pattern.

Finally, although it’s tedious, the greatest advice I can give is to SWATCH! Swatch with your new yarn to get the pattern tension, even if both yarns claim to have the same tension on the ball band. When you’re making a drastic deviation from the pattern yarn, it’s well worth buying just one ball of your substitute yarn to swatch with before committing to buying a whole pack of a yarn that doesn’t work. Make a swatch to check that any stitch patterns are showing up clearly.

Spending a bit of time before you start a project will make your substitution successful. A little bit of extra work at the beginning is all that’s needed to save a lot of disappointment at the end.

I have finally made my Matilda shawl pattern available as a free Ravelry download.

This took a lot longer to reformat than the sock patterns as I wanted to redo the charts to make them clearer and – because I am clearly a glutton for punishment – wanted to provide written directions as well.

Pattern: Waltzer from Wee Woolly Toppers by Woolly Wormhead
Yarn: Jaeger Matchmaker Merino DK, less than 1 x 50g in color: Navy (discontinued! )
Needles: 3.5mm Addi Bamboo dpns

First FO of 2010! It took almost a week to knit this tiny hat, but I can now say I’ve started this year’s knitting.

Not much to say about this project, except it was a fun knit, despite being all moss stitch (!) and it makes for a very cute noggin warmer.

Very hard to take a photo of an excitable baby, though!

…to everyone who bought one of my patterns before 31st January. I am now able to donate £80 to UNICEF’s Haiti Earthquake Children’s Appeal.

So with days to spare, I manage to squeak in with some knitting in the first month of 2010. It’s been a “difficult” month, and I’ll be glad to see the back of it.

I hadn’t picked up the needles since I finished my Evangeline Armwarmers. I had plans, though. Plans for lace and socks and lots of creative stuff that would flow from my needles. And then my baby had a personality transplant and the only time I am free is when I am having a bath. I even have an audience when I’m having a wee – had forgotten about that part of having babies.

But we’re turning a corner and yesterday I tentatively delved into the deepest recesses of my stash for an oddment of soft pure wool yarn, pulled out some soothing bamboo needles and cast on for another baby hat. The plans will still be in my brain next week or next month, after all, ready for when I can finally turn them into reality.

The combination of baby brain and post-Christmas confusion means that I have no idea what the date is at the moment. When I posted a couple of days ago, it didn’t register that it was an important date. Which it was, being Rose’s 4th monthiversary.

The days are going so fast right now. I’ve found it’s best to go with the flow and not hope to achieve anything other than get through the day without collapsing in a wailing heap of misery. Such is the delight of the four month growth spurt. But each day is also filled with magic as Rose discovers new things. A few weeks back it was her hands and then discovering that she could use her hands to put things in her mouth. Now after spending a few days suddenly stopping what she was doing and staring transfixed at her toes, she grabbed hold of them this morning. There are also signs that she’ll be able to roll over on her own soon, although currently she just gets halfway and then cries.

* * * * *

I also wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who has bought one of my patterns since Tuesday. So far enough patterns have been bought to pay for 3 families to have basic water kits, which is just brilliant. I will post a final total after 31st January.

Just a quick post to say that 100% of all sales of my Rosamond and Trillian patterns until 31st January will be donated to UNICEF’s Haiti Earthquake Children’s Appeal. If you already have one (or both!) of these patterns, you can buy one for a friend through Ravelry’s gifting system.