#knit1000g: It's cold outside

A couple of week's ago the weather suddenly turned cold. As a knitter, my cupboard is well-stocked with woolly hats, gloves and scarves, but as soon as the cold snap hit I realised a large gap in my winter wardrobe: I shawl that goes with any of my coats!

Before I had children, I had coats in several colours, mostly cosy woollen coats, with a waterproof for cycling and damp spring days. And since I've had children my coat wardrobe has been reduced to a ski jacket and a waterproof, both purple, and a smarter jacket which is black, but only appropriate when the weather is rather warmer. When I looked in the cupboard to get a scarf out I discovered that all my current scarves are blue.

My solution to my mismatched scarf problem was an obvious one: knit a new scarf. So a couple of weeks ago I spent the morning wandering round my house with a skein of purple chunky weight yarn draped round my neck. The yarn was Artesano British Wool (long since discontinued), a chunky weight yarn in a solid purple that was just the right colour, but I was a little concerned it might not be soft enough to wear around my neck. After an hour of having the yarn around my neck, with no itching, I decided that the yarn would be great for a big, chunky shawl to get me through the colder months.

Yarn testing: an unusual necklace

The next step was to hunt Ravelry for a chunky weight shawl pattern, and I came up with two likely contenders: Offhand Lace by Caitlin ffrench and Maya's shawl by Justyna Lorkowska. Both were what I was looking for: a straightforward, quick knit that I could have knitted before the weather got any colder.

I cast on Offhand Lace, and made several mistakes in the first few rows. I have no idea why (possibly the stinking cold I had at the time), but I just couldn't follow the pattern, so gave up and cast on Maya's shawl instead, with much more successful results.

The body of Maya's shawl is a simple stocking stitch triangular, so I worked away on the shawl happily on the train to London, and at various points over that weekend. Several Ravelry projects had noted that the shawl came it smaller than they'd like, so I increased until I had 161 sts before starting the lace.

The lace border went well at  first, with the leaves being just challenging enough to be interesting to knit, while not being too slow. I did struggle with the simple lace border though, for some reason I find I am prone to messing up simple stitch patterns that involve a lot of repetition, and that was certainly the case here, with the seven rows of simple lace taking me several sittings.

The pattern suggested going up a couple of needle sizes for the cast off, but I was being lazy and just did Jeny's surprisingly stretchy bind off as it saved going to hunt for another set of needles. I then darned in the ends and admired my new shawl.

Before blocking the shawl, I wrapped it round my neck bandana-style, which is how I wear shawls, and immediately had a panic about it not being big enough. I always do this with shawls; I pay little attention to gauge or finished dimensions (though I do often hold the centre of the shawl at my chin and see if half the shalw is about the same length as my arm - if it is, then the shawl should be a good length for wrapping), and am then concerned that the shawl will be too small. Rather than dwell on sizing issues, I put the shawl in the washing machine on a hand wash cycle and went out for the day.

When I got in later in the day, I pulled the shawl out of the washing machine and realised there had been no need to worry, the shawl is huge! I pinned it out to block and the span is over two metres.

And here it is, my finished shawl. The colour is perfect, and it definitely goes with all my outerwear, I just hope the weather is cold enough that I actually get to wear it this winter.

 

Beautiful lace

 

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I wrote the text for this post before I had worn the shawl out. There is a problem: even after my testing for itch, it is too itchy! I am very wool-sensitive, so I knew it was a risk. I am now trying to decide what to do with the shawl. Step one will be to take it to my knitting group on Monday night and see whether it's just me that finds it too scratchy... 

Huge, wonderful, but rather itchy

Antler cardigan: Quitting while you're ahead

A few weeks ago I posted a progress shot for my Antler cardigan, and it was going well. I had very nearly a whole sleeve and was looking forward to speeding through the whole cardigan as fast as I could. And then I stopped, and then I thought. In the summer I wear a lot of cardigans, and they're all lovely, but they're all lightweight, shop-purchased cardigans (mostly from Debenhams and H&M) that I throw on over little tops when it's a bit cool for bare shoulders. And in the winter, I throw on heavier weight jumpers, nothing too crazy, but a DK or aran weight jumper is always welcome. The Antler cardigan is going to fall somewhere between the two camps: it's a cardigan, perfect for summer, but too heavy to wear in the summer months, and it's the perfect weight for winter, but I never wear cardigans in the winter as I find them a little draughty.

The progress so far: almost a whole sleeve

I'd also been having doubts about the fit. I had gone for the size closest to my chest size, which had 1 inch of negative ease. But having worn my winter jumpers in the past couple of weeks, I realised that I like my winter garments to have a bit of positive ease, so the cardigan is going to be a bit small. And even while knitting the sleeve I was questioning the rate of increase in the sleeves - every 6 rows is great on a baby-sized sweater, but I kept thinking it was a little fast for an adult cardigan (and yet still I carried on to the end of the sleeve; one day I will learn).

And so my conclusion is to rip it out and start again. A size bigger, with slower sleeve increases (every 8 or 10 rounds, I'm still undecided on that one), and I might try and convert the body to a jumper (which no one in the first 20 pages of projects on Ravelry has tried; how hard can it be?!). And then I think it will be a garment I love. But for now it can sit on the naughty step for a bit; selfish knitting can wait until after Christmas.

#knit1000g: Where does all the dark red chunky yarn come from?

Most of my yarn stash is there for sensible reasons: a toddler jumper, a baby blanket, a jumper for me, sock yarn in assorted colours and weights for socks (obviously), baby yarn for gifts when people announce they're expecting, a lot of DK oddments that are leftovers from blankets and are destined for toys, blanket squares, intarsia and children's crafts; but there's also quite a lot of dark red chunky weight yarn. To my knowledge, I have never knitted anything is burgundy chunky, so when I decided earlier in week that I was going to make a pair of Bella's mittens in chunky weight yarn for a friend's birthday (having seen my friend Sam's pair) and went to hunt in my stash I was a little surprised to find 500g of dark red chunky weight yarn. It's not the same brand, fibre or dye lot, so it's not as though it can all be used in one project, and I suspect has been purchased on impulse when visiting little yarn shops (although at least one ball was a gift), added to the stash and forgotten about.

The mittens require two balls of chunky weight yarn (chunky yarn doesn't go far), and the recipient loves dark red, so I finally have a use for some of this collection in my stash. Fortunately I did have two balls of Hayfield Bonus Chunky in the same shade (876, which I believe is called Firecracker, but is discontinued, and may have been for some time) and dye lot, and I know the person these mittens are for would prefer something machine washable and easy care, so I cast on immediately.

The pattern is not the best written: the instructions are all there, and in the right order, but some stitch counts occasionally would be nice, and it's a freebie, so I can't complain too much. I whizzed through the first mitten, getting the whole thing (minus the thumb) done in one evening. I started off working the cables without a cable needle, but for the second half of the first mitten, when I was a bit tired, it was much easier to use a cable needle.

Chunky yarn is speedy to knit with!

The second mitten took a rather longer as I misread an instruction, missing a decrease, so had to pull back 6 rows (not the easiest thing to do when you're working in ribbing with cables), and when I went to thread the yarn through the final stitches to fasten the tip of the mitten, I somehow managed to get in a tangle and had to unravel another 12 rows to get it to a point where I could easily fix it (at which point it got put firmly to one side and I went to do something else for a bit), but both mittens were done over the course of three days, and they look great (so much so that I might knit another pair in the future, but I will annotate the pattern with stitch counts and highlight the decreases before I do). They're a tad snug on me, but my friend is smaller than me, so I'm sure they'll be fine on her.

And that's two balls of the dark red chunky gone; I wonder what I'll do with the rest of it... If you ever see me in a yarn shop clutching a ball or two of dark red chunky weight yarn, remind me that I already have plenty! Does anyone else have a blind spot in their stash?

#knit1000g: The first 1000g

A few weeks ago my friend Leigh said that she had decided some stashbusting was in order, and that she wasn't going to buy any more yarn until she had knitted 1000g from her stash. What an excellent idea, I thought; stashbusting has been on my mind recently as I have what could be considered too much wool (is there such a thing? I am almost out of cupboard space). So I decided that I would join Leigh in her challenge. Leigh put up the call on both Instagram (using the hashtag #knit1000g) and on her podcast and pretty soon we were joined by a small group of knitters all eager to make the most of their stash.

The #knit1000g challenge is very much a personal one, where everyone involved has decided what they want their rules to be; I decided that WIPs would count, and that I would only be counting personal projects, not third party commissions, although self-published projects would count (there is a backlog!). And with those rules set out, I started knitting.

The first project was easy - a baby cardigan for a friend's new baby, which was on the needles and very nearly finished. The cardigan is a slightly scaled up version of the Barley Twist cardigan published in issue 65 of Knit Now, and I'm aiming to have the pattern available in ages 3 months to 12 years early next year. 87g

The second project was another WIP - socks for my son in the wonderful West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4 ply. The yarn is from their cocktails range and this colourway is called Mojito. WYS 4 ply is one of my favourite sock yarns; it's excellent value and I love all the colourways in the cocktail stripes range that was launched this summer. 47g

One final WIP made up project three: a baby blanket featuring buttons. This is a project that has been in my head for a long time, and I was delighted to finally get it committed to yarn! I'm in the process of getting the pattern finalised, and hope to have it published in the next few weeks. 603g

My fourth project was an urgent one: a hat for my daughter. In the past week the weather has turned from late summer to proper autumn. I decided on a cute seasonal hat, Harvest's Bounty, and the finished hat is adorable (it's getting lots of compliments on the school run too)! 40g

Project five was something new, and rather festive: a cushion featuring a large intarsia snowflake. Another project that I'd been planning for a while, and the #knit1000g  challenge was the impetus I needed to get it on the needles. I was really cutting the amount of yarn fine on this one, and had only a scrap of blue yarn left at the end. The pattern is now available in my Ravelry store, allowing anyone else who wants a go plenty of time to knit one in time for Christmas. 307g

And there we have it, 1084g of yarn used! I'm not stopping there though. I mostly use heavier weight yarns, so my personal challenge will be to use 3000g, ideally by Christmas. This may even include a cardigan for me! Do you want to join in the #knit1000g challenge? Set your own targets and join the fun! And as a reward, you can buy some more yarn when you reach your target!