Damn, Knit & Blast It

I am guilty of one of the seven deadly sins…Envy.

Ever since I made Ben his Man-Scarf, I have been secretly coveting it…

As I didn’t want to” endanger my mortal soul” I took steps to alleviate my envy.

Did I steal Ben’s scarf and wear it in secret?

Ummm, No. -that would be silly! I resolved to make an even better scarf for myself.

I rummaged in my stash and came up with some of the yarn left from my Purple Flower Blanket – I have always loved those three colours together.

Remember the flower blanket?

From

A couple of evenings knitting garter stitch on those 320 stitches and I have my own beautiful Envy Scarf

From Scarf Envy

I even like the reverse side where the colour breaks …

From Scarf Envy

I now have my own lovely stripy scarf. So is that enough? Am I now contented?

Hmmmmmm….

I was still harboring some resentment that Ben wasn’t interested in matching gloves and hat (and optional underpants) to match his enviable man-scarf…..
Clearly, the best was to dispel these negative thoughts, would be to make myself the matching gloves and hat (but I decided I  could live without the underpants!)

I rummaged and found a fave old hat pattern That I used for one of the hats I made my sister when she had a “Hat Need”…

Remember this one?

From

I Loved, loved, loved the way the shaping worked on this hat – it’s a basic bobble hat but very versatile.

From Scarf Envy

Do you like the version I came up with to match the new scarf??

From Scarf Envy

All that left were the gloves…

I used a pattern from Louisa Harding’s Hat, Scarf Gloves book – This one…

From

It was OK but it was knit on two needles – the method where you sew up each finger before you knit the next one. I struggled to get the seams neat and had to sew up lots of gappy holes at the base of the fingers. This was made worse by me insisting on taking the grey stripe up into the first few rows of the finger to keep the stripe progression correct ( It’s not always fun being a perfectionist!)

Another time I’d try and find a 4 needle pattern or convert this one. But I think they tuned out OK??

From

So all that’s left is to show you some goofy pictures of me getting carried away with the modelling of the whole set And finally cured of my Scarf Envy.

From Scarf Envy

From Scarf Envy

From Scarf Envy

From Scarf Envy

So what do I knit after declaring so loudly that I don’t like variegated yarn?

Hmmmm…..

Something in Rowan Colourscape maybe? A chunky variegated yarn?

It wasn’t my fault! Ben made me do it!

After the success of Ben’s Man scarf, I was keen to keep the momentum going and swathe Ben in more knitted loveliness. Ben was duly dragged  to the Oxford Street John Lewis at sale time (acheived only with the promise of lunch at Wagamamas if he played nice) and flung headlong into heaps of lovely sale yarns to see if he liked anything to make a pattern he had seen and actually liked.

After I waved several promising yarns at him, he quite firmly attached himself to this yarn, Rowan Colourscape in shade 439 – Storm. A really good combo of steely greys and teals….actually not that different to the colours Ben chose for his man scarf!

From

To be fair – colourscape knits up in large colour blocks rather than the messy little splodges of colour that make a garment look busy and put me off variegated yarns.

So what was this pattern that the lovely Ben liked?

It was this…

From Ben Hoodie

The Hooded Sweatshirt from Knits Men Want by Bruce Weinstein ===>Click here to see this great book on Amazon

This is a super book – only £7.66 too   All the patterns are graded so you can knit in a number of different sizes AND DIFFERENT GAUGE YARNS! I’ve never seen that before The only problem I had was that the charts in the book don’t have a key to say what those numbers down the right hand side mean… (It’s actually stitches per inch – most yarns show gauge in stitches to 4 inches or 10 cm so easy to do the arithmetic) Just circle your chosen size and gauge and off you go…

From Ben Hoodie

The book is quite a funny read too – each chapter has an explanation about why men might or might not like a certain element of your knitting that you are trying to foist on him – my fave was Not All Men are Worthy of Cashmere”  in which a boyfriend, on receiving a fine gauge cashmere hat, promptly used it to clear up some cat sick then innocently said, “but it’ll wash won’t it??”….

So, how was it to knit? Did Ben like it? Has Ben worn it?

The pattern was very straight forward and easy to follow once I had got used to being faced with a huge array of numbers for each instruction (I knit the 44″ chest on 3.5 stitches gauge so there really is only one number to look at in each array) . The hard part for me was trying to make the huge blocks of colour in the Colourscape kinda match up. I really didn’t want the shading to jar when I changed ball or for one sleeve to be teal and the other grey.  There was a fair bit of rewinding of skeins on my ball winder to get to just the right point in a blob of colour.

So what do you think? Did I match it up OK?

From Ben Hoodie

Here’s a close up of the neck….

From Ben Hoodie

and the nice 2 x 1 rib, repeated around the neck and hood and all knitted as you go – no nasty picking up stitches

From Ben Hoodie

And a back view, showing the hood…

From Ben Hoodie

Hmmm, Yes. About that hood. I think it’s a bit pointy but Ben says he likes it…What do you think?

From Ben Hoodie

I think he likes it because he can muck about and pretend to be an “evil druid”!…

From Ben Hoodie

I suppose the acid test is, “Does Ben wear it?”…this action shot shows that the odds are looking quite favorable

From

I spent most of the last week under a duvet, fighting a horrible cold. Could my week get any worse?

It did, however, give me the perfect opportunity to finally finish off sewing up my last outstanding WIP – Beatriz in the Louisa Harding Silkwool. I also managed to knit another entire garment but that’s for another post!

I blogged about the lovely, bargainous yarn purchase of the Silkwool here - Irresistible Yarn

• I’ve finished her.
• She fits.
• The yarn is soft and lovely to work with.
• I had just enough yarn (2 meters left!).
• The pattern is well written and worked well with the yarn.

So whats wrong??

I just don’t like variegated yarns when they are knit up! And I really don’t like this one on me

Wanna see?

From Beatriz Silkwool

I think Ben summed it up. He said it looked like “partially flayed flesh”! It does look a bit “raw meat” doesn’t it?

There is nothing essentially wrong with this garment but nothing that says “WOW!” to me either.

I think there is a really big lesson for me here – not to be seduced by how lovely hand dyed yarns look in the skein, even if they are a fabulous bargain, because I don’t like the effect when they are knit up! I guess it doesn’t help that I’m quite petite too. I start to disappear behind all that extra visual “noise” – I’m not one for wearing busy patterns either…

Beatriz is actually a very nice pattern, well written, easy to follow and with a pretty eyelet detail in the neckband…

From Beatriz Silkwool

The back is straight forward (I always feel I have to show you!) and looks unsurprisingly similar to the front!

From Beatriz Silkwool

I’m going to fold my Silky Beatriz up and put her away in the back of the wardrobe until the weather is warmer and I haven’t had such a horrible week. I may just change my mind…

Mewsley needed a treat. A big knitted treat…

What I haven’t shared with you yet is that Mewsley has been poorly. The day before we got back from honeymoon, she went blind.. We came down from the joy of the honeymoon pretty fast, I can tell you. Thug coped really well with being blind, Mewsley was another story – she’s much older than Thug was when he went blind. She was distraught and depressed – heartbreaking. But don’t fret – there is a happy outcome.

Vets appointments, diagnosis of retinal detachment due to  high blood pressure, drugs, cuddles, prayers and a mighty large bill and I’m happy to say her retinas have BOTH reattached and she can see again She’s still too skinny and a little fragile but very well in herself. We’re mightily relived.

So what do you knit a recovering, vintage cat??

Well, she loves to curl up on the sofa on a cushion with us in the evenings and frankly, my old knitted cushions were well past their best.

I decided on a Debbie Bliss pattern from her Winter 2011 Magazine…

This one..

No, not the tiger’s head! That would scare her! (And I think it would look a bit naff in my house…and I don’t want THAT much intarsia!!)

I’ve made her the one on the left – the giant paw print. It’s supposed to be a tiger paw print but all I saw was Mewsley’s little pink paddy paws – awww.

I chose Mewsley-fur grey for the main colour and pink for the paw.

You want to see it don’t you??

The cushion is in aran weight so it’s nice and quick. The back is two slightly overlapping flaps with buttons to hold it shut and the whole thing is knit in one peice with a reverse stocking stitch row where you fold. Very neat and easy.

This is the edge…

And I found the perfect buttons for a cat cushion in my button box (I think I got them at hobbycraft)…

The intarsia of the paw print was fun. (Yes, I used “intarsia” and “fun” in the same sentance!) They are nice big blobbs of colour but at one point you do have 9 bobbins on the go when you’re working all 4 toe pads…

The nice part about this intarsia is that you don’t have to be 100% accurate – paws vary! That was actually quite fortunate as the chart in the magazine was pretty poorly printed – you couldn’t count the squares. Fortunately, I found a PDF of the chart on the Debbie Bliss Facebook page – Here if you need a copy –> Paw Chart

So did Mewsley like it? She is a cat and it’s cat-law to ignore anything special made or bought for you…..

But my lovely Mewsley ignored that She was on it the second I finished….you can see that from the pin tin and the trimmings in the photo!!

Ten minutes later I had inserted the cushion pad and a certain grey cat was very happily curled up….. Awwww

The long awaited Ben scarf was all over in 3 days

I really enjoyed the mindless long rows of knit and the regular gratification of finishing a stripe.

I cast off with a 4.5mm needle (was knit on 4mm) and made sure it wasn’t too tight (I used a cable cast on BTW – in case you were wondering!) and it didn’t even seem to need blocking once I was done.

I promised to let you know about yarn usage – I used less than one ball of each colour! I have no idea why the pattern implys, with it’s ambiguous wording, 3x 50g  balls of each colour?? So now you know what to knit to use up some of those odd balls from your stash

I did try and persuade Ben that I should use the excess to make him matching gloves, hat and possibly underpants but that was a step too far. He wasn’t interested , strangely, so I’ll have to be pleased if he wears the scarf. The excess yarn has now been returned to the shop and I feel virtuous for doing a little “unshopping”.

So here’s close up of the scarf and all it’s stripy glory…

From Ben Scarf

Ben did his best “Grumpy Ben doesn’t want a pooie old scarf!” routine for the photo shoot at first..

From Ben Scarf

Then I caught him admiring himself and arranging his new scarf 2 mins later (He wasn’t really grumpy)

From Ben Scarf

So here’s a happy Ben who is actually quite pleased with his scarf!

From Ben Scarf

…And a shot of it under his big winter coat…

From Ben Scarf

And lastly a shot of it flung over the banister, waiting for the weather to be cold enough for him to wear it!

From Ben Scarf

Do you remember Liliana?

This is the picture from the pattern book…

From Lilianna

I had finished knitting her and just had the neckband and sewing up to do last February when I was overwhelmed by my beautiful furry ginger boy, Thug dying.  I couldn’t face the fiddly sewing up and Liliana was flug to one side and forgotten. Poor Liliana…

I’m now in a,

” I want to start new things and get all the old WIPS out of the way!“

kind of mood so Liliana has had the finishing treatment and actually – I wish I’d finished her sooner – she’s rather a warm and snuzzley success!

So without further ado – I present the finished Liliana…

From Lilianna

A shot of the back (you can see where it’s quite fitted and a little snug – probably because of Christmas excesses!)…

From Lilianna

And a close up of the neck band – which is a thin strip of rib, sewn on sideways and tied in a bow….not sure I’d do that again – gapes a bit but I think it looks ok??

From Lilianna

She is a very warm jumper although the Aura is a little irritating on my skin if I’m honest – and I’m not usually that sensitive to itchy yarns.

There were lots of previous blog posts talking about Liliana so I’ll just give you the completed knit report containg the list of previous posts and leave you to click away if wish
Happy reading!

I have learnt from bitter experience that some yarns are not for knitting on the beach.

Suncream and silk? … disastrous. Kidsilk Haze and hot sweaty hands? … tangled, sticky and unpleasant. Shetland wool and sea water?….. you get the picture huh?

So what did I take to Africa?

I thought that the perfect yarn would be Rowan Denim. Why? because it’s cotton, so doesn’t get hot or hairy or sticky and, most importantly…when it’s done you bung it in the washing machine to shrink it to size and wash out any suncream, sea water, perspiration and drunkenly split cocktails!

I chose Joy from Kim Hargreaves’ book Nectar.

This book and this pattern…

From Joy

I confess I didn’t knit at all on safari – too much to see! I did knit on the beach in Zanzibar though – here’s the evidence…

From Joy

And in all the airport (there were several!) This is Zanzibar airport….

From Joy

One of the nicest things to happen was that one of the chaps working handing out towels on the beach in Zanzibar very shyly asked me what I was doing? He and his friends were facinated and had never seen knitting before – I ended up giving a short master class and letting them all have a go! It was totally surreal

So what about the garment? Want to see the finished object? Course you do….

From Joy

Like the buttons? I was going to use cream coloured shell ones but I’d just bought a red top and I fell in love with these heart buttons and the necklace…

From Joy

There is a cute picot edging (knit 3, cast off 3) and bands of alternating stocking stitch, and reverse stocking stitch and some “yarn overish lace” to break it up.

From Joy

Nothing difficult but you had to pay attention not to knit a row when you should be purling!

I always feel I have to show you the back, even though, after a month of holiday indulgence my bum is trying to fill the view finder of the camera!

From Joy

Any problems? well, if I’m honest – it has come up a bit smaller than I had hoped. I knit the 34″ size and it’s snug and pulling a bit if buttoned. On the plus side – it’s a summer jackety kind of thing so I doubt I’d wear it buttoned anyway

All in all, I’m pretty pleased with my “Honeymoon knit” – now maybe one in blue Denim???

From Joy

Excitement this week – My copy of A Stitch in Time Volume 2 arrived. Susan Crawford even signed it for me – Thanks Susan!

It’s this book

From Top Secret 2

It is a HUGE book, ram packed with 120 fantastic patterns from 1930s – 1959. All graded and made with modern yarns. Some are not to my taste but others are definately on my wish list. Even if you didn’t knit, it’s a facinating coffee table book to flick through.

Do you  remember that I knitted “To Wear in the Evenings” (or Top Secret as I called it) for the first volume? I blogged it here –>> Top Secret – Declassified

This was the garment…

From Top Secret

Well, told you in my “Where have you been?” post that I had knit a garment for Volume two and here it is!!

From Top Secret 2

It’s a fabulous lace top from the 1950′s called The Ribbon Threaded Jumper. It’s on page 310 if you have the book.  Here’s the original picture from the 1950′s…

From Top Secret 2

Do you like??

It really was an absolute pleasure to knit. Knitshop Pima Cotton and a pretty straight forward lace pattern. Very “my kinda knit”! The yoke is interesting – the back, front and both sleeves are put on a circular needle and yoke is knitted in one piece. Strangely, it’s knit back and forth with an opening at the back that you sew up later. I would knit it in the round if I wasn’t making a sample strictly to the pattern!

Wanna see some more piccies?
Here are some, just before I sent my “Ribbon Threaded jumper” back to the publishers.

How the sleeve and yoke attach…

From Top Secret 2

The completed jumper before sewing up (I send it back without sewing it)…

From Top Secret 2

Some yoke detail….

From Top Secret 2

And from the book – a cute sleeve picture…

From Top Secret 2

And that neck – all beribboned and finished

From Top Secret 2

So did I get a mention in this fantastic book?

Naturally, at the front in the acknowledgement – a list of all us brave knitters…

From Top Secret 2

So all that’s missing from this post now is a completed knit report and a picture of Mewsley, refusing to get off the knitting!

From Top Secret 2

Oh WOW!!!

I’ve finished the Modern Quilt Wrap and I am beside myself with the results. It definitely one of my favorite things I’ve made in a long time. (Yep the knitting mojo is back!)

It has been finished quickly, mainly because it has that “I’ll just finish this stripe before making dinner, I’ll just finish this block before bed” kinda  hook that made me a total progress junkie.

I may have mentioned before that I’m not a massive blocking fan – I can reliably ruin knitted fabric, particularly when armed with an iron! It this case I took a huge leap forward in my knitterly experience….

I bought blocking wires…..

From Modern Quilt Wrap

These are the “Block-It kit” I got mine from HuluCrafts. I’ve never had blocking wires before because I’m not really a shawl knitter (except the lovely Birch which I marmalised with an iron because, back then, I didn’t know any better about blocking shawls!!) Oh, I just noticed the rulers in that picture – the kit comes with a ruler in inches only – the cm one is mine from years ago – wouldn’t want to mislead you.

I carefully threaded the wires through my shawl and pinned it out on the sofa bed in my knitroom/guestroom on some towels….I was impressed how easy that process was and how much better it looked even befor the steaming, even though this is the back of the wrap….

From Modern Quilt Wrap

I hovered the steam iron over it without squashing it until it was good and damp then left it alone for several hours. Mewsley was under strict instructions not to sleep on the wrap. Something she had taken to doing in the guise of “helping”..

From Modern Quilt Wrap

So how does it look???

Well, I made this wrap to cheer up a big, thick unflattering grey wool winter coat so I guess I had better model it with that…

From Modern Quilt Wrap

From Modern Quilt Wrap

And a shot with the whole thing? Of course!

From Modern Quilt Wrap

Even my office chair looks good wearing it

From Modern Quilt Wrap

As you can tell I love this wrap. If you possibly can, in Kidsilk Haze or any other lovely yarn, try making this wrap. It’s easy, addictive and massively rewarding