Kerchief Scarf

Kerchief Scarf finished. A pattern from Last Minute Knitted Gifts by Jonelle Hoverson. Knitted in one skein of a hand painted cashmere from A L de Sauveterre.

Clasp from The Embroiderer's Guild. Verdict: soft, warming, comforting, simple, sweet.

Barrow

A new project. Barrow by Kristen Kapur for Three Irish Girls. A learning curve: knitting socks on two circular needles (one steel, one bamboo) and cable on socks. The yarn: Lorna's Laces Shepherds Sock in Bucks Bar - a melange of colours reminding me of this beautiful island where I live. Inspiringly blogged about by Juliet here.

Cotton and Cloud knocks me over

This week I have been shopping over on Etsy and found this seller after seeing her work on Lime & Violet's Daily Chum. I sent off for the two smaller pouches which are perfect for knitters. They arrived the next day and were absolutely beautifully made. The smaller one I will use for stitch markers. It has a metal clip which will make it perfect for clipping onto jeans or my workbag so that it is always there ready to be used. The larger pouch has all my accessories for the current project: scissors, row counter, nail file, hand cream and other bits.
Then as I was so pleased I went back and saw this perfect small project bag and had no hesitation in hitting the put in cart button. When it arrived it was every bit as good as I had hoped.
You must go and see her etsy shop and visit her blog at www.cottonandcloud.blogspot.com - what a great bit of online shopping this week.

::Cupcake Fingerless Mitts::

::Pattern Karendipity Serendipitous designs::

::Sublime extra fine merino wool double knit::

Loved this quick and easy pattern. The only thing I'm not too sure about is my embroidery. It is extremely difficult to embroider onto a knitted surface.

These fingerless mitts would be a great idea for gifts when you haven't got long to make something.

Picot Eyelet Socks

::Picot Eyelet Socks::

::Pattern from Black Dog Designs::

::Natural Dye Studio August Sock Yarn - Natural Merino::

::Grey Velvet ribbon from The Ribbon Jar::

I absolutely loved knitting these socks using such a beautiful pattern and such lovely yarn. I made some modifications to the pattern by adding some stitches after the eyelet row to allow more positive ease around the instep. I also used eye of pheasant pattern for the heel flap as I think it is pretty and gives the feeling it will help an area that has most wear.

I used a grafted toe ending and not the one given with the pattern.

I am really looking forward to the arrival of the next delivery of sock yarn.

Cupcake Fingerless Mitts

I finished two projects so it was time to cast on again. I have chosen to make a pair of fingerless mittens in bright, cheerful colours. The wool is Sublime extra fine merino wool double knit and it is knit on 3.75mm dpns. I have had the pattern for some time now but you have to wait for that moment when you get inspired. The pattern was from Karendipity and will eventually have some embellishments in the form of embroidery. I am enjoying this project so much.

'Isobel' Gilet by Ruth Cross

I started this project from the Susan Cropper's book 'Pretty Knits' knowing that it would be a difficult project. I decided that it would be my 'long term' exercise in increasing my skill by knitting in the round.

There are over 200 stitches to be cast on and the pattern divides up into sections of patterns. So far, so good. None of the knitting stitches are new to me so but I wasn't quite sure why it was necessary to knit into the back of stitches so I haven't bothered with that and it has made no difference to the finished look. However, what has been my nemesis is the abandonment of written instructions after row 32 and an instruction to read through the do this whilst doing that section of the pattern writing. The pattern is meant to repeat from row 9 to 32 but it clearly does not and it needs sheer genius to work out how the shaping and cable shifting is working. Obviously not me then.

My gripe with this sort of thing is that I have spent a lot of money on the wool for this project and read through the instructions to begin with but have only found the actual knitting stage to show up what a badly written pattern, in my opinion, this is. I want my knitting to be challenging at times but not to the point where it is sheer hell. Why on earth could they not use a graph or just give you every row as they did for row 1 - 32 - so it would take up some extra pages but have I not paid enough for the book for it to be user friendly?

So far on Ravelry I have not found anyone else knitting this and so I have to continue alone. This design by Ruth Cross is beautiful but deserves a better pattern writing.

Kerchief Scarf

Kerchief Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson

The wool is from A L de Sauveterre and is 100% italian cashmere.
My favourite needles, Lantern Moon Ebony -

a simple, pleasing project.

August Knitting Purchases

As well as membership of The Natural Dye Studio Sock Club which is detailed in the previous post, I bought a set of Pattern Tamers in the chocolate colourway as you can see above. They are magnetic strips covered in material which you place either side of the page of your pattern book and that way you can easily keep your place. They feel slightly unwieldy to use but I think they will become easier the more they are used.

The second purchase was a beautiful set of Destiny Ebony circular knitting needles by Lantern Moon. I adore using Lantern Moon needles and decided to add to my collection as these were in a summer sale.

The Natural Dye Studio Sock Club

I have joined The Natural Dye Studio's Sock Club and my first yarn arrived for the August sock. It is a beautiful merino 4 ply called NINO.

Here you can see the colours inspired by August flowers and foliage. I think it is so evocative of the August heat haze with the ripening of fruits such as blackberries and the golden wheat fields together with the muted summer greens. I am more than happy with this yarn and have decided to use a pattern I downloaded a few months ago from Black Dog Designs by Nora called Picot Eyelet socks. The yarn is soft and easy to knit. The wool came with a set of Surina Wooden Double Pointed-Knitting Needles in size 2.5mm (7 inch length).

I will try to get some coffee or mocha coloured ribbon to thread through as I love socks with ribbons. The progress of the socks as you can see below is very pleasing.

Italian Fineknits

Well, the heat was on in Italy during my wonderful vacation. So I really didn't feel like knitting anywhere except in the beautifully air-conditioned room in the hotel on the edge of Lake Garda.

Here you can see that I attempted to knit a few rows of the knitted pouch from Last Minute Knitted Gifts each time I had a rest from the heat.

One interesting thing I did note was the lack of yarn stores both in Milan where we spent the first few days of our holiday and whilst we stayed in the Lake Garda area. I saw neither yarn stores nor anyone knitting at all. Yet I was wearing some of the finest knitted summer tops made in Italy so I'm guessing that the yarn all goes for manufacturing or maybe export.

Anyway, it seems that although there was not much knitting done there was a lot of listening to knitting podcasts and knitting books on my ipod nano whilst working on delicious Italian drinks and eating icecreams (all in the cause of colour research, of course).