Thursday 30 April 2009

Beanies and Mitts

Here we are at the end of the first full month of the Winter of Textured Knits and the kntting continues apace. Apart from the Tomten jacket which I showed you last week, I have knitted a few pairs of fingerless mitts and I have enough beanies here to "sink a battle ship" [as my mum would say].

So first, the mitts:

Three pairs of fingerless mitts knitted in a K2 P2 rib pattern I modified from a book called Handknits to Wrap and Adorn [Cleckheaton]. There are only two mitts shown; the third pair were navy and the same as the first pair only smaller [being knitted in thinner yarn and with less rows at the wrist].




Plus one pair knitted in ribbing and moss [seed] stitch.

Stripes in ribbing never look good in photos; they look a little better in real-life!

And so, on to the beanies:

Six more from the Moda Vera "Caravella" - this yarn knits up quickly but I'm glad I've used it all up; I don't like the feel of it very much - it's a harsh yarn although it knits into soft warm beanies on relatively big [6mm] needles [US size 10]


Beanies look better on a model but I've been home alone - it's been holiday [vacation] time for me and WM has been at work so the remainder of the photos are model-less; sorry!

Here is an over-sized beanie in a variation of 'Aboriginal colours' - I was using up odd balls of yarn. This is DD's favourite of all my current beanies but, of course, it's too big for her!


Two more slipped stitched beanies knitted in very thin, so-called 8ply acrylic from Saleutions - this particular brand is called Knitwise.


This blue one is my favourite. It's knitted from the same yarn as the "Sad Bumble Bee" Tomten I showed last week.


And two more slipped stitch patterns using a thicker 8ply yarn.


Finally, two patterned beanies: the first is my own design - it didn't come out anything like I intended but it's rather nice anyway.


The second is the old lace standby - Feather and Fan - the yarn was such a pretty colour that I couldn't resist using a lacy pattern: lace gives texture too!

This one reminds me of the swimming caps of the 1960s - tee hee!

All of these beanies and mitts will be going to Australian Inland Ministries which is one of this month's projects over at Knit4Charities.

I've given up putting beanies and mitts on my progress bars - generally I finish them in one or two days so I spend more time fiddling with my progress bars than is really necessary! If you really want to know how many beanies/mitts I've knitted, scroll down the sidebar to "At the Terminus 2009".

Wednesday 29 April 2009

two more books came yesterday

My extended birthday continues:

Aren't the colours in that bedspread amazing?

An Australian book which will require a few hours of reading followed by a few more hours of playing!!

Tuesday 28 April 2009

birthday gifts 2009

It was my birthday on Saturday and WM was a bit disappointed. He had been late in ordering books from the Book Depository in the United Kingdom and only one had arrived.

I think I'd like to make the wrap in the top left corner. It's done in filet crochet [a technique I've never tried]. You can see a bigger picture here; look under the "book" for the word copyright and click, you should get the page with the wrap.

Apparently I have three more books to wait for - my birthday will extend over several days I think!

Monday 27 April 2009

a letter to KAL participants

Dear fellow members of "Winter of Textured Knitting"
[except Jan who read my mind and has already let me know - thank you]

Please don't feel I'm nagging - the month is drawing to a close and to save me some time now that I am back at work, I would really appreciate it if you could either email me or leave a comment if you have something to contribute to this month's round up. It can be a WIP or an FO - or even a pattern yet to be started! ;-)

Thanking you so much
The Nag
Lynne

Saturday 25 April 2009

Lest we forget

Today is ANZAC* Day. It is the day we commemorate all those who have served in wars.

Probably the most often told story when I was a child was that of "Simpson and His Donkey". Simpson served at Gallipoli in 1915.

photo copied from http://www.convictcreations.com/history/simpson.htm

Here is his story as told briefly at anzacday.org.au
Simpson and his donkey became famous among the Australian soldiers at Gallipoli because of their bravery. Day after day, and week after week Simpson and his donkey would wind their way through the hills and valleys looking for wounded soldiers. Even though it was very dangerous, Simpson would crawl on his belly and drag soldiers back to safety. He would then put the injured soldier on the donkey’s back and lead him down to the beach.

One day Duffy came down to the beach with a soldier on his back, but without Simpson. Simpson had been killed trying to save another soldier. The donkey somehow knew that even though his friend was dead, Simpson would have wanted him to take the injured man to safety.

To the memory of John Simpson Kirkpatrick and other fallen: lest we forget.




*Australian and New Zealand Army Corps

Thursday 23 April 2009

EZ Jackets

I finished knitting this Baby Surprise Jacket some time last year but it was only last month that I finally got around to sewing the buttons on! It's knitted from 5ply acrylic bought at the Australian Country Spinners Mill Shop in Wangaratta in July last year. It is incredibly soft, especially compared to the harsher acrylics I used in the blue Tomten below.

This is the first Tomten I ever knitted [February '08]. I had no idea how much 8ply yarn it would take to knit so it is an interesting concoction from my own hand dyed acrylic. I was going to rip it all out but I've decided it's not that bad; someone will like it! It's still waiting for a zipper but it will be finished by the next Guild meeting - that's when I anticipate handing over a heap of knitted items to my contact for Australian Inland Ministries.

And finally, the jacket just off the needles - another Tomten. I had two 50g balls of Saluetations Knitwise in navy and another three balls in a variegated blue. The 'pink' Tomten above weighed in at a little under 250g so I figured that I had enough of the Knitwise to knit another Tomten. I started with stripes - four rows of navy, six of the variegated, in keeping with the ratio of yarn that I had. It looked good when I first started but by the time I finished the body I was sick of the striping. I called it my "Sad Bumble Bee Jacket" - sad as in 'blue'. I decided to knit the hood and the sleeves in the variegated then trim the jacket with the navy. Ultimately I used less than one ball of the navy and less than two balls of the variegated yarn. DD thinks it's 'so cute' - I'm not too sure. But, working on the premise that one woman's 'so-so' is another woman's 'cute', I'm sure someone will like it. That's one of the advantages of knitting for charity - someone will like it even if I don't, and it will always fit someone! I would never knit something badly just because it's going to charity but I remind myself that I don't have to love it! [In fact, it's better if I don't, it's easier to give away!]

The leftover yarn [of which there is rather more navy than I had expected] will, probably, be used in a beanie or a pair of wrist-warmers/fingerless mitts!!

In our knit4charities forum, someone said that washing acrylics with creme shampoo and conditioner would soften them; they also suggested tumbling them in the dryer on warm. I know from experience that dyeing acrylic makes it softer so the heat must have some effect! I'm off to give it a try!!

Tuesday 21 April 2009

...and Guild friends

On Sunday I gave four good reasons for enjoying my local group of the Knitters' Guild of NSW. In that post I really wanted to focus on the benefits of having access to someone else's knitting library.

Today I want to share another reason [related to reason #1]: friends take photos because they like what they see.



Thanks Diane for taking a photo of DD actually wearing her stole [albeit posing for a photo]! It has been severely cropped [i.e. DD has no head] to eliminate as many distracting details from the background as possible - it would be impossible to avoid them all given that there are 50+ people in the room!!

I need to reblock that border!!

Monday 20 April 2009

Bendigo shade cards

I had a phone call from my mum this evening. She received her shade card from Bendigo Woollen Mills today. She looked at it carefully; there were several more shades of the new Luxury yarn listed than coloured yarn samples. She counted again. Still wrong! So she called Bendigo.

The person who answered the phone was very nice. The cards are put together by hand and mum's had been put together wrongly. She promised to send mum a new shade card immediately. So, for all of you who've received your cards, please check them carefully and call Bendigo if you find an error.

I'm still waiting for mine - boo hoo!! I want to see the new Luxury yarn. :-(

Sunday 19 April 2009

Guild Library

Yesterday was our monthly Knitters' Guild meeting. I enjoy these meetings for many reasons.

  1. Knitting with like minded people. Most of the people in our group are friendly and there's an increasing number of computer savvy attendees!

  2. Workshops - even though I'm an experienced knitter and occasionally tutor myself, I attend every workshop I can because I might learn something!

  3. Show and Tell - I love seeing what other people are [or have been] knitting.

  4. The Guild Library - members can borrow books or a limited supply of DVDs for up to two months with no limit on the number borrowed!
So, yesterday I borrowed these two books:

I'm the very first to have this one!!

I wish I'd seen this one before I started on my latest Tomtem; there are some very cute patterns inside!!



I also borrowed this:


And DD has even more reasons to love it - yesterday she won the raffle: a $25 gift voucher at our local LYS - The Wool Inn.

Thursday 9 April 2009

Happy Easter

To all who celebrate, Happy Easter. Keep in mind what He did for us while enjoying the four day weekend!

To all blogging pals, enjoy the break!

I'll be away from now till Monday but I'm taking plenty of knitting with me.

See you soon.

Saturday 4 April 2009

socky textures to inspire
and beanies that probably don't!

I've been trying to catch up with all the blogs I read before I go away to my parents' place for Easter and get another five days behind.

Jan, you asked me for ideas [not that you need any with those gorgeous wristwarmers] so, for all participants of WoTK who may be looking for ideas for socks [or new blogs to visit], here are three ideas I found while blog-reading:

I came across these socks on Donna's blog. Gorgeous texture and what an amazing colour. I don't usually go for pink but this is really nice.


And over on Rose Red's blog, I found these socks - I have that magazine so I may have to knit a pair of Buried Treasure socks in the not-too-distant future. So, Rose Red, are you going to join in now? LOL

Knitting Linguist who has a passion for lace and socks is knitting these socks. The textured pattern works well even though the yarn is self striping.


And then there are my beanies. Not exciting, not from patterns, not written down as I went; but warm and hopefully soon to be gratefully received in a small town in fire-ravaged Victoria. I ended up sending one scarf [not knitted by me], three pairs of fingerless mitts and sixteen beanies [one knitted by mum oh-so-long-ago]. Here are some of the beanies you haven't seen:

Twisted Moss Stitch [in a very soft 50% tencel/acrylic blend] made by Yarn Bee [#087] and bought on sale at Spotlight. I made three beanies from this yarn, all with knit below stitch patterns, but this is the only one for which I managed to get a decent photo. I have a couple of balls left which is great - I like working with this very soft, thickish yarn.

Although this is knitted in the round, it has a pseudo seam up the back because the K1B occurs on the first stitch in the second row and the second stitch in the fourth row - thus setting up this seam-like effect. I tried to do away with it by knitting on an odd number of stitches but that required more concentration and I kept getting lost! [Remember I knit beanies for non-thinking knitting].

I also made three beanies in Moda Vera Caravella. After working with the tencel I found this 85% acrylic, 25% virgin wool harsh to work with but later found the finished beanies to be quite soft! Everything is relative, isn't it? Because this yarn had its own built-in texture in the form of the black thread running through it and the underspun bits that kept popping up [show as white stitches in this photo] I kept the beanies simple and made them in ribbing of various kinds.

Then there was this little slip stitched ribbed beanie; I knew I was going to run out of yarn - I was using ends of other projects and experimenting with slip stitching in rib: but WM thinks it's cute and some child will probably like it! Of course, being for a child it was too small for anyone to model - this photo is taken on my fist. I'm fairly confident the top won't pucker like that when on someone's head - it's knitted the same way I do a lot of other beanies so I'm sure it'll be okay!

And finally a cheat - a beanie made from a thick and thin yarn [40% wool/30& acrylic/30% ramie - Yarn Bee #072] that created its own texture. The yarn was also on special at Spotlight and I'm glad they only had one ball - I didn't like knitting it at all. Its redeeming feature: an adult sized beanie in about two hours! It was knitted flat on 7mm needles because it was too tight on 6mm [US size 10] which is the largest Knitpick Options I have. I thought I'd get away with it as my tension/gauge is usually loose but not this time! WM took this photo using a flash so the lustre from the ramie makes it look shiny - it wasn't but it did have different flecks of colour in the 'eggplant' shade.



So, C. are you happy? Two photo filled posts in two days - and many leading you off to other blogs to explore!! LOL

Thursday 2 April 2009

Winter of Textured Knitting
March summary

This post has been edited to add an apology to participants and to change some of the photos. Edited again [Saturday 4 April] because I forgot Delighted Hands contribution! A thousand apologies, C!
~~~~~~~~

Well, it certainly doesn't feel like winter yet. The first month of autumn has passed but the temperature remains relatively warm - still in the low twenties [that's about the low seventies for those still using the 'old' measures!] Daylight saving finally comes to an end this weekend - I'm certainly not against the idea but keeping it going until the second month of autumn is a tad ridiculous. The sun doesn't even rise until after 7am. Poor WM said the other day that he'd like just one week of getting up when it wasn't dark [he starts work at 5.30am]. He was deprived of that small pleasure by the extension of daylight saving for an extra month!

I've been knitting - mostly beanies* - as explained in the previous post. Most, but not all of them have been textured: so far I've tried a number of different stitch patterns from The Harmony Guide to Knitting Stitches. There have been cables [seen here and here] but also various types of slip stitches and 'knit below' patterns.

It has been a great pleasure to have participants in the KAL from both hemispheres; one heading towards winter and one gratefully escaping from winter [judging by Deniasha's latest post] so here is what I've found as I've scoured their blogs [hey, fellow participants, could you please explicitly state when you are knitting something for the KAL instead of keeping me guessing! LOL] I have included here anything textured that I found on the participants' sites since the KAL started; the knitter may not have intended them to be part of the KAL and if that's the case, please accept my apologies for 'jumping the gun'.

Now, in almost no particular order we have some knitted goodies. I have cropped the photos so that you have to go to their blogs to see the articles - so much more interesting than seeing it all here! I apologise in advance for the different sizes of the photos; obviously different formats are saved in different sizes and I can only work with what I know [which isn't much, sorry]. Still, my inability to get it right makes it [hopefully] more likely that you'll go over to the original blog...

First is Jan, because she emailed me to say she had finished an item for the KAL. Well done Jan. Wristwarmers with "cables, moss stitch and cross over diamonds". Jan, you're tempting me to join Ravelry, something I've been seriously avoiding because I spend too much time on the 'Net. But it's so, so tempting...

Anyway, go over to Jan's blog and look at the wrist warmers. They look warm and such a lovely subtle colour too. While you're there take a peek at the beautiful socks and cardigan she finished recently [lace is textured too!! LOL]

Lilypily is knitting a pair of Child's First Socks by Nancy Bush. This photo shows beautiful texture and gorgeous colour but I suspect they'll be lace when they're finished and blocked! Hey, lace gives texture and I did say "whatever stitch pattern you choose". I'd rather people join in and are free to do whatever they want than feel excluded for some minor quibble over what constitutes 'texture'. Heck, I may want to knit some lace myself before winter is over!! LOL

It was Lilypily's owls that inspired me to knit cables and other textures this winter. I had been avoiding cables because of the inconvenience of using a cable needle but after seeing Lilypily's jumper [while it was still in progress], I fell in love with cables all over again - and these are particularly cute, especially since I have a very large collection of owls [in boxes]. One day I might tell the story...

Paisley Womble has finished a cardigan called Mr Greyjeans - it looks so snug and warm I bet she's longing for winter to really get here so she can wear it! Or perhaps she's wearing it already and hang the heat! She is also teasing us with a very colourful swatch for Hanne; can't wait to see the finished item.
Over in the US, Delighted Hand's mom has been busy knitting a "lap robe" in what looks like mitred garter stitch squares. I love the way all the different sizes and colours are coming together. Delighted Hands is living through a renovation being undertaken by her ever-patient and hard-working husband. You can read about one day in their lives here.
Delighted Hands herself has recently finished some socks for her daughter M who was recuperating after surgery. I love the colour of these socks and their simple looking pattern [were they simple to knit, C? You finished them very quickly.]

Back in Oz, Bells won't have much time for knitting this month - she's celebrating her blogiversary by challenging herself to post every day for the month! Happy Blogiversary Bells. Bells knitted a cardigan in a beautiful shade of blue but she wasn't happy with it so she bravely asked people to leave comments. What I found interesting was that she wrote to the designer and got an answer - Ravelry is an amazing place [but we're not going there, are we?]

On a smaller but none-the-less textured scale, Bells made two Ipod sock covers, you can see one here. Go to her blog for the story.

Sue is going through a tough time at the moment with the forced sale of her home. I hope she's finding some solace in her knitting and her blogging friends. She has recently finished the cutest pixie jacket. All the texture is in the band and the gorgeous and unusual hood.
And so ends this first part-month of our KAL. I hope the participants have had fun knitting textures of various kinds and continue to do so. If you'd like to join in, it's not too late - leave a comment or send me an email.

*photos in a forthcoming post