Fibre Friday #31

My work week seems to have sped by this week - so I'm not entirely convinced that it actually is Friday! haha. I thought today was going to be a short post, until I sat down to photograph everything - it turns out I actually did quite a lot this week!

Firstly, I'm on to the foot of my first Dyad sock. Dyad is a pattern from Sock Architecture by Lara Neel, I'm knitting the top down version of the pattern, out of Malabrigo Sock in the 'Abril' colourway. I'm not sure what the heel used in the pattern is called - this could probably be remedied by me actually reading the book properly rather than just skimming it, but I'll go back and look at some point, as I love how the heel knits up - all the shaping is done with increasing and decreasing instead of a normal heel turn. I'm trying to challenge myself to use different techniques and I'm looking forward to the sideways toe that compliments this heel.

Please excuse the photography quality of my Pianissimo Scarf - trying to photograph the ribbed pattern without it being blocked is very difficult! Also the burgundy colour played havoc with my camera. Anyway. Enough excuses. I have knit a fifth of my Pianissimo Scarf by Thien-Kieu Lam from the Autumn 2015 issue of Pom Pom Quarterly.  I've just started the main cable section and I have four skeins of Cascade 220 sport left and I intend to keep knitting this section until I have one skein remaining - because I'd like to use up as much of the yarn as I can. Whilst knitting this I'm trying to learn how to cable without a cable needle - as slipping one stitch onto a cable needle every other stitch is seriously slowing me down - so I'll report back on how that works out...

My first Prickly Thistle Mitten - sans thumb - is done! The thumbs are afterthought and I'd like them to match, so I'm going to wait until both mittens are done before adding them in. These are being knit out of Eden Cottage Yarns in Bowland DK and Oakworth DK in 'Steel' and 'Midnight' respectively. The Prickly Thistle Mittens are a pattern by SpillyJane and I love how the first one looks. I'm hoping to get them finished in the next month, as I bought this yarn from the Knitting and Stitching show last year, and the show is coming up again soon!

On a bigger project front - I finished the swatches for my Pomme de Pin cardigan by Amy Christoffers and blocked them both. I'm using Madeline Tosh Pashmina in the 'Leopard' colourway and I got gauge with the needle size the pattern recommended so I cast on last night and have knit the grand total of 4 rows of ribbing done so far - darn work for getting in the way!

Now, because I really need more projects, I started a new granny square blanket. The last crochet blanket I made was fabulous (if I say so myself) and I gave it away to someone who did not deserve it - but I learned my lesson and I will not make that mistake again! So my mum and I decided to start blanket projects for the winter, we went halves on a big order of Cascade 220 and found a granny square pattern that is slightly more interesting than the basic squares I'm used to making. It's the Starburst Granny Square and I used this tutorial from SimplyDaisy to create the above tester, and the finished and work in progress squares pictured below. I am an amateur crocheter - I can only make blankets, but that works for me.

Spinning-wise I'm still working on my rainbow Polwarth, I put a few hours into it this week while finishing up Orphan Black season 3. I'm hoping to get the singles done this weekend and maybe start plying next week...

A little stash acquisition has happened lately - the above yarn doesn't really count - I ordered 6 balls of Sirdar Divine which is a polyester acrylic mix yarn, to knit a commission for one of my mum's friends. I'm not sure how much fun this is going to be to work with, but it shouldn't take too long. I'll talk more about the pattern when I cast it on.

Now for some stashing that's more my speed - I bought Coop Knits Socks vol II by Rachel Coopey and a skein of Life In The Long Grass 'Weathered' in the 'Estate' colourway from YAK in Brighton a couple of weeks ago. I also picked up a ball of Sirdar Heart & Sole sock yarn last week from a local yarn and fabric store in town - I'd gone in for emergency needles after my Knit Pro Symfonies snapped on me at work and they had a minimum card spend and this was the only yarn they sold that I was slightly interested in, so I bought it to push my spend up a little!

I did a little dyeing this week - I have three skeins of fingering weight merino nylon in the above colour - I'm not sure what it's going to grow up to be, I'll probably knit another pair of Dyad socks out of one skein, but who knows!

Okay. I'm going to go and work on a cardigan - not sure which cardigan, but a cardigan! Have a lovely weekend everyone!

♥

Eye Candy Knits - Orphan Black

Can I fangirl for a minute? A couple of weeks back I discovered Orphan Black and became instantly addicted. I'm not really a television person, I'm more of an audiobook person, but lately as I've been doing more spinning and have become a more competent knitter I've found myself watching more Netflix, as I don't need to pay as much attention to what my hands are doing. 

Hold tight - I'm bringing it back to knitting, I promise ;)

If you haven't seen it, you've probably heard about it - I'm always late to the party! It's a show about human clones - being hunted by a variety of organisations and the lead role is played by Tatiana Maslany, as are her clone 'sisters'. It's worth watching alone for Maslany's performance, each character is incredible. Warning: this is not a family friendly show! There's violence and death and lots of squeal worthy moments, but it's an incredible show, full of strong, empowered female characters - and goodness knows we need more of those on television.

The icing on the cake of what is already one of the best shows I've ever seen (am I selling it to you yet?!) is the amount of knitwear the cast wears. Not since Catching Fire have I squealed this much over knits on screen. There are some fabulous hats and several sweaters - and one of the characters is a knitter - it's only referenced fleetingly, but I'll take my knitting references where I can get them!

Here are some spoiler-free examples from season one...

Wurm by Katharina Nopp and Luuk by Annis Jones are patterns for hats similar to the one Kira is wearing above - both available as free downloads on Ravelry.

Felix's mustard yellow jumper is a favourite of mine - a simple stockinette jumper in Donegal Tweed maybe?

I finished the third season last night and they continue to up their knitwear game on par with their storylines!

There are so many good hats in the show - which may be why I've been on a hat knitting kick recently. It definitely inspired my Slable Hat of a couple of weeks back and I have several other hats lined up to cast on in the not too distant future. After all, autumn is coming and you can never have too many hats.

♥

Fibre Friday #30 (written over the course of Thursday, Friday and Saturday...)

I've decided that the length of this week's update makes up for the slight delay in my posting it - I ran out of daylight hours to photograph projects! Oops. Anyway, onwards...

Let me start this week's post by saying I am on fire! It's the first week of September and I have finished knitting three Christmas presents. Three. (Aside from one Christmas a few years back, where I knit gifts for everyone, I don't tend to knit presents very often. However I have had a whole host of upheaval this year that's left finances tight, but I do have a healthy stash to dip in to - so knit gifts it is!)

First up is my second handspun Cocoon Hat by La Maison Rililie. Knitted out of yarn spun from Nunoco batts in the 'Oudh' colourway. This is less slouchy than the green version I knit for myself a few weeks back - but I think it's perfect for the recipient I have in mind!

I decided to knit up my grey practise yarn from my Matchless - the second skein, not the horrid curly first attempt - into a Little Fair Isle Hat, which is a free pattern from the Purl Bee blog, combining it with some mystery navajo plied gradient yarn I spun in the 2014 Tour de Fleece. I am really pleased with this little hat - I knit the toddler size, for my 'honorary niece' Robyn - it'll probably be too big, but I hear that kids grow! ;) This and my second Cocoon hat are the sixth and seventh projects knit out of my handspun yarn this year - only three to go until I hit my ten project target!

My eighth handspun project is my Hitchhiker shawl by Martina Behm, that I'm knitting out of my 'Little Owls Play Sweet Music' yarn. I currently have twenty four points knit and I love how the yarn is striping so far. I'm planning to keep going until I run out of yarn, so it could end up being a very long shawl indeed!

I finished my Strie socks from Sock Architecture by Lara Neel. These are knitted out of some yarn I hand dyed and will be a Christmas gift.

After finishing my Strie socks, I needed a new on-the-go project, so I cast on another pattern from Sock Architecture by Lara Neel. The Dyad socks, top down version, out of Malabrigo Sock in the 'Abril' colourway. I have been devouring the TV show Orphan Black on Netflix and if you've watched the show, you'll know that 'Dyad' play a very big part in it. I learnt from Lara's introduction on the pattern, that Dyad means 'sets of two' which makes perfect sense with regards to Orphan Black. Anyway, the pattern is predominantly vanilla, but with a different heel and toe. I also added a tubular cast on - because I love the way it looks.

I put a few rows on my Prickly Thistle Mittens by SpillyJane. I'm still on the first mitten as I haven't really worked on them much recently! (I'm knitting them inside out - hence the above photograph - to help stop the floats becoming too tight and distorting the knit fabric). I'm knitting these out of Eden Cottage Yarns 'Bowland DK' in the 'Steel' colourway and 'Oakworth DK' in the 'Midnight' colourway.

As I seem to be obsessed with hats recently, I've cast on for the Hinagiku Hat which is a free pattern on ravelry by 87knit. This is being knit out of some deep stash Manos Del Uruguay Silk Blend in colourway '7032'. I picked this up from the Knitting & Stitching Show at Ally Pally a few years ago, and seeing as this years show is coming up, I thought I should knit something out of it!

I swatched for the Pianissimo scarf from the Autumn 2015 issue of Pom Pom Quarterly, designed by Thien-Kieu Lam. I wouldn't usually swatch for a scarf but I had some Cascade 220 Sport in my stash and I wanted to see if it had a nice handle knit up at the gauge the pattern requires, before ordering some skeins in the Burgundy '2401' colour I was after!
After actually casting on the scarf late last night, I realised I hadn't read the pattern properly and had swatched with the wrong needle size - I'm knitting the larger size of the pattern, which requires a 4mm (US 6) needle - so that's what I've cast on with, and I think it looks okay so far. Incidentally, there are some lovely patterns in this issue of Pom Pom - I recommend picking it up if you get the chance.

Spinning wise, I'm still working on my rainbow braid - which is some Polwarth fibre I handpainted a while back. The first half of the fibre is finished and I'm making progress on the second. I'm being kept company while I spin by the season 3 boxset of Orphan Black, which is making my heart race!

I managed to get a little dyeing done on my day off - two braids of Polwarth - the autumnal oranges and the grey, and one braid of BFL in the blues and purples. These will sit in my fibre stash for a while, as it's looking a little depleted!

Okay. Now I need to go and try and finish a few of the things I keep casting on! Have a lovely weekend everyone. My weekend starts at 4pm tomorrow - so I'll kick back and relax then!

♥

Fibre Friday #29

Happy Friday everyone! Fibre Friday looks a little less grey this week - I made a conscious effort to use more colour! Haha.

Firstly - I finished my Slable Hat by Woolly Wormhead. I used Madeline Tosh 'Tosh Merino Light' in the 'Charcoal' colourway. Like the pattern suggested, I knitted an extra chart repeat to add slouch - as I love a slouchy hat! This is the first pattern by Woolly Wormhead that I've knit and I'll definitely be making more!

I've made a little progress on my Strie Socks - the first sock is finished and I've started the second sock. This is a pattern from Sock Architecture by Lara Neel, that I'm knitting out of my handspun. I love the little pops of navy and fuchsia that are coming through the blues and greens. These are going to be put by for a Christmas gift.

I cast on for my handspun Hitchhiker shawl by Martina Behm. I'm really enjoying knitting on this - partly because I love using handspun, partly because each little 'tooth' is so addictive!

I have also started swatching for my Pomme de Pin cardigan by Amy Christoffers. I'm using Madeline Tosh Pashmina in the 'Leopard' colourway. I'm knitting an enormous swatch - it's probably 9 or 10 inches wide - because where swatches are concerned, the bigger the better, right?! I need to do a swatch in pattern too, so it'll be a while before this actually gets started!

I spun my 'Oudh' batts by Nunoco in just over an evening - on my Traditional, as the Matchless was full - and chain plied the following day. I got 100yds of a worsted-bulky weight and I cast it on as soon as the skein was dry!

I knit my last Nunoco yarn into a Cocoon hat and I thought the blue-purple gradient of the yarn would make a lovely hat and Christmas gift for a friend of mine. So I cast on for another Cocoon hat by La Maison Rililie - this is the second attempt, as I knit the larger size the first time and ran out of yarn! Fingers crossed I have enough left for the crown decreases this time...

I finished spinning my grey practise fibre on the Matchless, and chain plied it - it's a lot better than last week's attempt! Less coiled, less overplied and a lot, lot softer and loftier. I got 146yds of a chain plied 3ply - this probably won't get used for anything anytime soon, so I've tucked it into my handspun yarn stash.

At this point I was so tired of spinning grey, that I put some rainbow hand painted Polwarth roving on the Matchless. I split the fibre vertically and predrafted it within an inch of it's life. Here's the first half of the fibre on the wheel, in two different stages. This should, fingers crossed, wind up as a chain ply fingering weight sock yarn - I'm hoping that by splitting the fibre lengthways down the middle, that I should end up with two vaguely matching socks! But we shall see.


It's been a fairly busy week both knitting-wise and life-wise and I'm looking forward to the weekend - which starts tomorrow evening for me! I hope you enjoy the bank holiday if you're in the UK.

♥

Fibre Friday #28

Last week I had three FO's and this week I have none! Instead I was too preoccupied with casting on all the things after Stash Dash - and looking at everything here, clearly it was the Week of Grey (no Fifty Shades jokes please, this is a highbrow place! :p )

Last week I talked about wanting to cast on for a Slable hat by Woolly Wormhead - which I started this week - out of Madeline Tosh 'Tosh Merino Light' in the 'Charcoal' colourway, that I picked up when I was in New York City about 18 months ago (from the lovely Purl Soho). I'm onto the second repeat of the cable chart and I love how it's knitting up so far - the stitch definition is beautiful. I think I'm going to knit three repeats of the cable pattern before I start the decreases, so it's nice and slouchy.

I cast on for the Strie socks from Sock Architecture by Lara Neel. I'm knitting the toe up version, out of some hand dyed sock yarn from earlier in the year. I changed the heel to a short row heel, as I was knitting it on my lunch break at work and didn't have the instructions for any of Lara's fancier heels! This will be the third project knit from a book I own, which was a 2015 Knitting Resolution. Only 7 more things until I'm done(!?!). This particular pair of socks is going to be a Christmas gift for a very good friend of mine.

I had a bit of a low moment the other night, when I realised that despite being an avid knitter, my Old Romance cardigan is the only knit sweater I have that actually looks decent on me. My body shape has changed quite a lot of the past two years and I'm very much a rounder person, not quite plus-size anymore, but there is still plenty of me to go around, if you get my drift! So lots of the jumpers I've knit in the past just don't work for my figure.
What I'm really trying to do here is justify that I spent over a £100 on Madeline Tosh Pashmina yarn to knit a Pomme de Pin cardigan by Amy Christoffers. I'm at a stage where I think cardigans will flatter me more than big sweaters, and the Pomme de Pin has been in my ravelry queue for a long while now, so I'll be swatching for that this weekend. The colourway I went for was 'Leopard' - as grey goes with everything!

I've caked up my Little Owls Play Sweet Music handspun from last week, which is going to grow up to be a Hitchhiker by Martina Behm - and may also be a Christmas gift, as pinks and purples aren't really colours I wear a whole lot!

Spinning wise - and get ready for a laugh folks - I chain plied the singles I'd been spinning on my Matchless - using mystery grey fibre from deep stash, that I think might've had some alpaca in it - and wound it off the bobbin yesterday. I spun and plied this in double drive, which is the first time I've ever used double drive, as my Ashford Traditional uses Scotch tension - and goodness me you can tell I had no idea what I was doing. It was a nightmare to ply, the singles were like corkscrews and it's full of hard lumps where I couldn't untangle them and it's incredibly over-twisted (see below). The result is very, very curly rope. It hasn't been soaked and I haven't counted the yardage, because it will never get used! But it was practise and practise is never a waste. I have however, converted my wheel to Scotch tension, which was remarkably easy to do, and I'm spinning another bobbin of the grey 'practise' fibre - which will hopefully work out better! I don't have any photos of it, as it looks identical to last weeks spinning at this point! Haha.

So - a very grey week of knitting and spinning, but it does feel good to start new projects. I have four days off this weekend - a rarity in retail - so hopefully next Friday I'll have loads of things to share. Enjoy the weekend everyone!

♥

Stash Dash 2015 Finish Line

So Stash Dash finished for another year on Friday - and if you follow me on instagram then you saw my slightly panicked posts in the run up to Friday as to whether or not I'd get my last three WIPs finished. This in itself was slightly ridiculous because I was already well over my 5km goal - but I do love a challenge and I was adamant I wasn't going to finish with more projects on the needles (or bobbins) than I started with! I stuck to a very tight knitting schedule last week, but everything got done in time!

In the weeks between May 22nd and August 14th, I finished: 1 adult cardigan, 2 adult hats, 8 baby hats, 11 pairs of socks and spun (and plied) over 2,250m of yarn. I ended up with 7460.5m of yarn under my belt and I'm ridiculously pleased. If you're interested in the details of the projects I finished - you can find them here.

I still have a couple of projects on the needles - a shawl that needs to be frogged and another that has around 400m of knitting left on it, but I knit through a lot of the yarn that I've been hoarding - which is a great excuse to buy more, I think ;) I'm currently in that happy place where I've finished a lot of projects and am free to cast on whatever I want! So expect to see a handful of new projects in Friday's post...

I can't wait for next year's dash - I'm going to aim for 10km I think - go big or go home! In the meantime, I think I need a new arbitrary goal...

♥

Fibre Friday (on Saturday!) #27

Hi everyone. I promise Fibre Friday won't be posted on a Saturday every week, last week I fell asleep at my computer, this week I was hampered by technical difficulties! Anyway, I managed to get a fair amount of knitting done this week - in time to count yardage for Stash Dash!

The first thing I finished were my Seaweed Socks by Wendy D. Johnson. Last week I was only a couple of repeats into the foot of the second sock, but the lace pattern knits up fairly quickly and they're quite short socks so it didn't take too long to get them done. These were knitted out of yarn v
by Hand Dyed by Kate in the 'Midnight Sparkle' colourway - you can't really see here, but the 5% Stellina content gives them such a twinkly effect in the sunlight.

I also finished my affectionately named 'Hot Coals Socks', I put the second afterthought heel in last night and kitchenered the heel closed at just gone 10pm British-Summer-Time. I always forget that afterthought heels take so much longer than I think! These were knitted out of Fortissimo Mexico in the colourway '252'. I'm hoping the yarn will soften a little after washing, as it's very sturdy and hard at the moment, but even if it doesn't, I think these socks will wear like iron!

You can be forgiven for not noticing any progress on the Prickly Thistle Mittens by SpillyJane - I put four rows on the first mitten in bed this morning, as I finished everything else last night! These are being knit out of Eden Cottage Yarns - the Oakworth DK in the 'Midnight' colourway and the Bowland DK in the 'Steel' colourway. Now that Stash Dash is over, these will be getting a lot more love.

Speaking of Stash Dash being over, I'm currently in the mood to cast on ALL THE THINGS. Haha. I've pulled yarn and needles to knit a Slable hat by Woolly Wormhead - more details when it's cast on, but I'm excited to use my KnitPicks Caspian needles for the first time!

Spinning-wise I monogamously worked on my Playsweetmusic-Little Owl Crafts 2ply this week - I finished spinning on Monday, started plying on Tuesday and wound it off and counted yardage on Thurday. I got 685m of a 2ply fingering weight, initially I was planning to knit a Baby Surprise Jacket out of this fibre, but I spun it too thin (the perils of spinning so much sock yarn!) so it'll probably be a shawl.

This morning I decided to start re-blocking some of my older shawls, starting with the Ishbel by Ysolda Teague, that I knit last summer out of a skein of Treskilion Yarns. It'd got so tiny over time that I didn't wear it anymore, so blocking should remedy that. My mum's seen it on the mats in our living room and claimed it for herself, so I guess that's one thing less to put back in the wardrobe!

I also did a little bit of stash enhancing this week - obviously I need things to spin on my new wheel! Above there's a braid of Merino from Shunklies (and Joanne was nice enough to include 50g of rainbow Trilobal Nylon as there was a shipping mix up with my order). And below there's two braids from Spin Pretty, the blue is a 50% Merino, 25% BFL, 25% Nylon blend (perfect for socks!) and the pinky-red is a 50/50 Merino and Baby Camel.


Right. I'm off to cast on my Slable hat and fetch my blocking Seaweed Socks in from the garden as it looks like rain! Again, apologies for the delay. I cannot wait to have a working laptop again!


♥