Knitting time already?

It can’t be, surely? I haven’t finished knitting the socks from last month’s Simply Knitting, and Issue 44 has just dropped through my door!

Actually it didn’t so much drop through the door as fight with the postman to be wrestled through the letterbox, as the free gift this issue was a set of butterfly clips. (The down side of subscribing? You don’t get a choice of gift colour. I’d have chosen the pink ones!) You’re supposed to use them for holding the seams of your knitting together as you sew it up. Of course, the first thing I did was try one out in my hair!

There are two patterns this month which immediately make me want to rush out and buy yarn.

The first is a child’s cardigan, called “Just Peachy”.

The pattern goes up to age 11-12, but it has quite a lot of design ease (see how the cardigan is quite loose in the picture?), so the age 7-8 years is actually a perfectly snug fit for me! I’m very short-waisted so the back is already the ideal length, and all I’d have to do is lengthen the sleeves by about four inches. A single sparkly button or a silky ribbon at the top, and you’ve got a pretty summer cardi. I wonder whether John Lewis has any Kidsilk Night left in the sale…?

I also fell in love with the cardigan on the cover, and was wondering whether I might have just enough of my poor neglected Debbie Bliss Cathay to make this in light pink.

My favourite thing about this pattern? Right there on the picture – “Pattern in sizes 8-32!” The smallest size fits a 32″ chest, and the largest is 54″. I know that a few of the American knitting magazines include larger sizes, but their patterns often look like an enormous woolly sack. It’s so nice to see a pretty knitting pattern in such a wide range of sizes.

Mind you, it isn’t half complicated!

I received a survey last week, regarding a potential new knitting magazine aimed at intermediate or experienced knitters. I enthusiastically answered all of the questions saying, “yes! I would love to knit more complicated and adventurous things!”.

Then I looked at this cardigan, and my brain fell out of my ear.

The front panels are a twelve-row pattern, featuring twisted stitches for which I didn’t even recognise the abbreviations! Thankfully there is a helpful key to explain how you work “tw2, P4, tw2, twF, P1, twF, P5, tw2, P4, tw2”, which is the first row!

 

Perhaps I’ll start with the children’s cardigan. A four-row lace pattern I can probably manage, if I sit down and concentrate on it properly. (Lace is not my strong point.)

Maybe I ought to finish my socks first. Or my summer jumper.

I might even get around to sewing the zip into my green cardigan, taking a photo and actually publishing the pattern for you, one of these days…

Read Full Post »

Silk socks and a passionflower.

I have a confession to make.

I am in love with my new socks. And they’re not even socks yet!

I honestly thought I’d be bored by the monotony of knitting every single row, but the self-striping yarn is absolutely fascinating to watch. How wide will my stripes be? Which colour’s coming next? I also thought I’d get cross with faffing about half way through every row, but I’m so relieved not to be wrestling with a set of double-pointed needles that Magic Loop is wondrous by comparison! The yarn is beautiful, the little needles don’t hurt my hands, and I believe I may have found my new vocation. Sock knitting is brilliant.

 

My knitting friends are turning out to be such a bad influence. Who’d have thought it?

We’ve been talking about socks, and hyperbolic crochet, and lace patterns knitted in aran weight wool, and teasing one another with links to the most beautiful yarns you’ve ever seen.

I have a comparatively small yarn stash, thanks to a comparatively small yarn budget, but I am now fighting a desperate urge to buy ALL THE SOCK YARN. You know, in case there’s a shortage, or something.

And, of course, you don’t have to use sock yarn just for knitting socks! I went to have a look through the pattern archives at Knitty, and stumbled across this amazingly beautiful pattern that I hadn’t spotted before.  Reversible lacy cables. Knitted in sock yarn. Wow.

I might need some help to decipher the chart, but that one’s definitely going in my Ravelry queue.

I knitted on my sock yesterday while I was waiting at the hospital to have some scans and x-rays done. When I sat down I realised that I’d forgotten my cable needle, and my next row was full of cables! Being a resourceful type of person, I pulled out the toothpick from my Swiss Army Card, and cabled with that.

In the course of two waiting rooms I overheard at least six older ladies talking about how on earth I was knitting a sock on such a peculiar needle, yet not one person came over to ask me about it. Usually people are keen to chat about knitting, especially when they see a strange woman with pink hair doing it. Perhaps it was the look of intense concentration and the toothpick that put them off…

Read Full Post »

Get Knitted!

I would like to take a moment to sing the praises of Get Knitted. I ordered some yarn and needles from them on Friday, and they’ve arrived today. (Tuesday.) Their postage rates were extremely reasonable, and they threw in a free pen and a sweetie!

I ordered from Get knitted because they’re a UK supplier of Addi Turbo knitting needles, something impossible to find in any of my local yarn shops. I needed a 2.5mm needle with a 100cm cable, and Addi are the only brand I’m aware of who make this size. I needed the needle to knit a pair of socks.

Yes, that’s the yarn for the socks!
The toes and heels are cabled in the plain red, and the rest is self-striping in the bright colours.

The pattern is in the current issue of Simply Knitting magazine (Issue 43), and thanks to the generosity of a friend I am actually using the exact yarn specified in the pattern. This is something of a rarity for me, as I usually like to make things up as I go along.

This will be the first time I’ve used the Magic Loop technique (although I did spend Friday evening learning it with a spare ball of cheap acrylic and a big needle), and the first time I’ve knitted anything in 4-ply yarn, I think. If I can properly get the hang of Magic Loop and it doesn’t drive me as crazy as DPNs, I’ll be thrilled to bits. Bring on the socks!

I also treated myself to a little something:

The colours aren’t the greatest in this picture, but the ball of yarn that I’m holding is Rowan Cashsoft DK. 57% merino, 33% microfibre, 10% cashmere. Mmmmmm, soft. What I’m planning to do is unravel these Fetching mittens (also in Cashsoft), and combine these two colours to make something soft and stripey. Probably gloves or arm-warmers of some description, so I’ll probably save that project for a bit later in the year.

Now, do I wait until I’ve finished my Colinette Madelene jumper in Neptune Banyan, or start on the socks straight away…

Read Full Post »