New design: Triangulation hat and mitts set

Is summer over already? As I stare out of the window at the falling rain I'm starting to think it might be! Even if it's not, August is a good time to start thinking about winter knits, and my latest pattern: Triangulation hat and mitts might be just what you're looking for.

I've always been a fan of simple geometric patterns, and spent hours colouring books full of them when I was little. Now I like to knit them, and find their repetitive nature meditative to knit. Add a bright contrast pop and you have a real stand-out item of knitwear!

The hat is knitted in the round from the bottom up, starting with a section of ribbing that is folded back on itself (perfect for keeping your ears cosy when the cold weather arrives). The main body of the hat is knitted using stranded colourwork, and the colourwork pattern is continued right into the crown decreases. The hat pattern is written for 3 adult sizes, and is designed to fit as a beanie with 2.5 cm negative ease.

The pattern contains instructions for both the hat and mitts. The mitts are knitted in the round from the cuff up, starting with a deep ribbed section, then the main mitt is knitted in the same colourwork pattern as the hat. The thumbs are added using the afterthought method with waste yarn added during the knitting of the mitt. The mitt is finished with a ribbed cuff that can be folded back on itself or worn unfolded for extra warmth. The mitts is written for 4 adult sizes, each with 1 cm negative ease.

One of the things I enjoyed most about this project was the yarn. The hat and mitts are both knitted using Find Me Knitting Mary, a beautiful light aran alpaca/wool blend in deep saturated colours. I had originally planned to knit the set using the green for the ribbing and the pink as the second colour for the colourwork, but after a couple of swatches had changed my mind as the yarn seemed to request to be the other way round. All the items in the set can be knitted quite quickly, making them great for gift knitting (I'm planning on knitting a hat for a friend for Christmas). 

Want to get your hands on the pattern? They can be found in Issue 92 of Knit Now magazine, which is available in the UK today, or can be ordered online via the More Mags website. 

All images copyright Practical Publishing.

#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?