Thursday 4 April 2019

Seeing Red



Weather!

What a Winter it has been. We have had temperatures in February reaching 18 degrees Celsius and now in April we have snow showers and sharp frosts here in some parts of the UK. 

One thing that will always come in useful during the cold spells in the winter months are some bright, warm accessories and I have been experimenting with yarns and reds. 

I had already started, and wanted to finish, Veiled which is by Martin Storey and was in Rowan Magazine 62. It is a scarf in moss stitch which buttons up to create a continuous loop. It uses Rowan Kid Classic in 847 Cherry Red. The Kid Classic is made up of loosely woven strands which can split easily when knitting. I found the recommended beads fit very snuggly when strung on the yarn and was causing damage to the wool so I opted for applying them with a thin crochet hook as I went along instead. The wool does give a good stitch definition and the scarf is very warm and pretty to wear.



Next I decided to try some Di Gilpin wool and she had a pattern for Seol Gansey Mittens which used one ball of the Lalland 100% Scottish wool in 50gram balls. The pattern was easy to follow (except for the times I kept going wrong because I have terrible powers of concentration) and the finished mittens were absolutely beautiful. I loved using the wool although I know lots of people found it very splitty (much like the Rowan) as it is made up of loosely woven threads but blunt ended knitting needles will help with that problem. The pattern definition this wool gives is superb.

Pattern, 100% Scottish Lambswool and shade card all from Di Gilpin




My final foray into red yarn was also to try a new, to me, wool which was Rowan Moordale  and I made The Buckler Hat also by Martin Storey. This was a beautiful traditional wool with an added softness achieved by blending it with  very soft alpaca. Technically then it  would be described as a skein yarn rather than a skein of wool.   70% wool and 30% alpaca in 100g skeins. The hat took one skein of yarn and I used smaller than recommended needles to achieve a tighter gauge and I also knitted a deeper ribbed section which I folded back on itself to make a less slouchy bobble hat. I used a Toft Alpaca pom pom which I bought at the Knitting & Stitching Show at Olympia. I loved knitting this hat and am so pleased with the finish. You have to pay attention to the stitch Martin uses which is similar to brioche where you knit one below because unravelling will be very difficult if you go wrong. 







I thoroughly enjoyed exploring some British yarns and wools and the lovely cheerful reds have resulted in some gorgeous Winter accessories. 

It is good to finally get back to blogging as Instagram seems to have overtaken how I have been sharing my crafting life but there is no time for more detail there so I have enjoyed sharing in a little more depth with you some of my finishes so far in 2019.



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