Something lacy. . . .

On my most recent visit to our younger daughter she brought out some knitting that she had started a while ago but found that she no longer has the time to continue.  I said I would be happy to knit it for her but my knitting tension is different to hers so it meant I had to unravel the bit of knitting that she had done.

I have now got started on the knitting which is from Patons Booklet 1225.

The shrug is knitted in a beautiful teal colour but unfortunately in my photos the colour doesn’t show well in the close-up shot.

I am hoping there will be enough wool as I have no idea where we would find the same wool if more is needed.

I am enjoying doing the lacy part, not so much the endless ribbing.

Experience is a great teacher.

Recently I posted about a beanie I made using brioche stitch. You can find the post here.

I had entitled the post “I forgot to put my brain into gear.” I had lots of issues when I knitted that particular beanie but eventually it turned out fine.  I saw some beautiful wool recently when I visited our local wool shop, Stitches ‘n’ Things in Lakes Entrance, and thought I should try my hand at the same beanie but having a bit of experience behind me.

I am pleased to say that I had no problems whatsoever this time.

This is before I started the decreases.  You can see the pattern better when it is flat.

Here is the finished article.

The wool is extremely soft but I am a bit worried that it is going to pill.  It already looks as though it will.

A new cable jumper on the go

While I was in Canberra my younger daughter had a couple of jumpers that she no longer wears and wondered if I would like to re-purpose the wool.  As you can no doubt imagine I was delighted with the idea.  Very kindly she did the bulk of the frogging of the jumpers as my arm is not quite up to doing that just yet.The first lot of wool was from a wrap I made a few years ago and you can read about it here.

She had already chosen a pattern that she would like made up so it was just a case of getting on to Ravelry and buying the pattern to download.

This is a top down jumper and the first time I have knitted a top down.  It is seamless so in a way it is similar to when I knitted the yoke jumper for my elder daughter.

The pattern is Baby cables and Big ones too by Suvi Simola

If you click on the photo above it will take you to the pattern link.The pattern required lots of stitch markers to show where the cable patterns were to be placed.

I have now reached the point where the sleeves are separated from the body.

Now the bulk of the knitting is stocking stitch apart from a cable down the sleeves so it is easy knitting from now on.

 

 

 

 

A different knitting project

I have been busily working on another knitting project while doing the various swatches for the skull jumper.  I am knitting a cardigan for one of my granddaughters.  The wool is lovely and soft and I am really enjoying knitting with it.  It is a very simple classic cardigan pattern taken from this booklet.

I have just added a little bit of colour with left over wool as a band around the base of the cardigan.  I have knitted this pattern before but I am doing it in the next size up this time.

I just have the band to do now.  I even have the buttons at the ready.

Look what arrived in the mail.

I can now start work on the actual jumper instead of swatches.  I had done a practice of the pattern with brioche stitch on either side of the large cable but was not happy with the result so unravelled it.

I then knitted it up with a single chain instead of brioche stitch and that is what I will do on the actual jumper as I found the brioche stitch was pulling up too much of the jumper as it is created over two rows.

The sample is on the brown cardigan which I am using as the basis for the pattern size.

When the wool parcel arrived I was delighted to find that the dyelot was the same as the two balls I had bought for trying out the pattern this meant that I could now just continue knitting rather than having to start afresh.  Bonus!

Progress so far.  I have reached the point to cast off to shape for inserting the raglan sleeves.

Further developments in my “skull project”.

Further to our working on pattern ideas for the skull jumper we visited Stitches ‘n’ Things in Lakes Entrance to choose wool that would be suitable for the project.  Initially we were going to use Cleckheaton Country 8 ply and I did a swatch in some left over wool I had.

We were happy with the motif and the cable extending into the cuff but the wool felt a bit scratchy and we figured if we were going to all this trouble it would be better to spend more money on soft wool so we bought some Bellissimo 8 ply to do a swatch.

I did a swatch first to check gauge and then I started with a practice front panel.

I then skipped up to just below the nose in the actual skull part to see how that looked.

This is the first attempt.

You can see that the cables are not correct as they should be twisted at the beginning of the eye sockets.  The nose is also too high up beside the eye sockets.  I then unravelled and tried again.

I am happier with this version although I think the nose needs to be longer.

I then went ahead and ordered the wool. I received an email saying that they didn’t have the number of balls I wanted and would have to see if their wholesaler could get me the required number.  Since then I received notice that the wholesaler did have the wool and would send it directly to me so it should arrive sometime this week.

I have done a bit more trialing of several aspects of the pattern.

I tried the crossovers on the back panel and I think I prefer the top crossovers rather than the bottom ones.  I also am happy with the extension of the cable into the cuff.  My daughter came up with that idea and I really like it.

I also trialed what we called the big chain.

It is a bit tricky to see here but on either side of the chain is a single brioche stitch and on the right hand side is a double moss stitch. I wasn’t happy with the way the brioche stitch was sitting so I did another sample of just the chain and the chain extending into the cuff.

I tried the small cable first and then the big chain.  I will go with the big chain into the cuff not the small cable.  The brioche works much better with an extra stitch on either side of the big chain.

When the wool arrives I will be able to start work on the back as I have now worked out where in the rib section the extended cables fit.  It took a fair bit of working out as there are so many increases in the last row of rib.  It was satisfying when it all worked out on the practice piece.  It is all squashed up here on the needle but it looks good when extended.