Knit and Natter

 Hi there folks. Just popping in for a knit and natter. Today we had a glorious day at Wonderwool at the Welsh showground. There was sunshine, lambs of course and lots and lots of lovely wool.

I bought some wool - I knew I would. I had run down all the stash from the basket and was ready for a splurge.

I spotted a Debbie Bliss pattern book in a bargain box for £3. My mum and I both liked quite a few patterns in it so we are going to share it. We both loved the sweater on the cover.

I bought some yarn to make a tank top.

The choice of sock yarn was phenomenal. My choice was this flecked green in a range of beautiful greens. I am going to have a go at some sock patterns from 'Socktacular' which I found on the Welsh Air Ambulance charity stand. It is an interesting book - a sort of pick and mix of sock components where you choose a knit pattern, heel style and toe technique. Looks good.

My next purchase may be in my stash for some time. It was a soft and squishy little bundle of mini skeins which I will use for colourwork when the right pattern and matching yarn comes along. In the meantime it is welcome to sit in my basket and look at me every time I lift the lid.

Finally, I bought a huge skein of yarn for £5. I have ABOLSUTELY no idea what it is but it will be be fun winding it, making a gauge square and possibly making this graceful cardigan.

I have this sweater in my Ravelry library ready for when I have left overs from all of the projects above. It is a beauty.😊

  

Here are a few more snaps of my finished blanket which I managed to complete by doing a few rows every night.

As ever I used up some of the scraps to make a hat. It used up the ball ends of some colours but I still seam to have some left - probably enough for a baby blanket.

Leaving you with a photo of our little cade lamb. He has had a play out in the field today and loved chasing our dog more than the other lambs!

Thanks for popping in. Jo xxx

Preparing for Impulse Buys!

There is a slight juxtaposition in my title but read on and all will become clear. My girls and I are on the countdown to the Wonderwool yarn festival on the 24th April, 18 days to go!! Leading up the the festival, for me, means using up any scrap yarn or unfinished balls already in the basket so that I can enjoy guilt free shopping and browsing. 

I started a blanket in 4ply cotton but the yarn was too fine and the blanket was too lacy. I decided a baby would inevitably get snared up in it and it would be a thing of beauty but not cherished. 

The crochet morphed into a summer weight cowl/neck thingy instead.

I had couple of balls of macrame yarn and a pattern from 2019 when we last went to Wonderwool so I made my bestie a macrame pot hanger. I  grew on some spider plant cuttings;she absolutely loved it. It was impressive that I could find one A4 piece of paper after moving house and reshuffling my studio a couple of times since last using it. It was in a magazine folder called 'Crochet'. Just saying.

If I see this company again at Wondewool this year I will buy more of their kits because they were great. The Hobbycraft yarn was given to me later and I carried on making hangers after the kits had ran out.

My sample piece of double sided knitting was a success. At first I found it slow going having two balls of yarn on the go but I got into the rhythm of it. One side is variegated and the other is plain. I am building up to a colourwork/reversible headband as a Christmas gift for my flower grower pal.

I am also making some progress on my huge chunky throw. I still have an aching arm but I manage a couple of rows a night then put it down. This is particularly useful to get finished because both the yarn for it and the blanket itself is really bulky and takes up a lot of space. 

My mum is also beating the same drum. She has finished this moon phase cardigan and is knitting up a few baby cardigans to empty her basket for the big day. (She didn't want her face on the photo!) Simply admire her cardigan and her will to learn a new technique. She wanted a better finish on the button band and learnt to make an I-cord. It really makes it look professional.

Anyway, I haven't caught up with much blogging of late because we are lambing and time just runs away. But today, I am going to visit you all for a catch up. 

Thanks for dropping by. Jo x

The Completion of Avena

My Avena sweater by Jennifer Steingass is complete. It has been a trial but as one of my new years resolutions was not to knowingly knit anything that I knew to be wrong; I had some unpicking to do.

I did not jeapordise my project by having a dangerously low amount of yarn which I normally do to myself. The trials of this project were that I had chosen the wrong yarn. More specifically, a poor yarn combination. I knit the whole yoke and always knew that the colourwork was sinking into the brown wool because really it was too thin. 

I took he whole lot out and started again.

The second yarn choice was a combination of Drops Nepal and King Cole Bramble in the colourway goldenberry. The bramble held its own with the Drops Nepal DK and the project was back on.

I love the way the variegated yarn creates an ombre through the yoke design and really recommend this as a way to create colour without juggling lots of different coloured balls (cheaper too).

It finishes at the high hip point as this is how I like to wear my sweaters. It was fine on me but I would say if you are small chested or small in the shoulders the yoke might be too deep for you.

I have a sore arm at the moment so knitting is out of bounds but there is always lots of other things to make. I tripped over a step in the garden and fell like a sack of spuds onto my right shoulder. Ouch!  Check out some other patterns from Jennifer Steingass, they are awesome. My mum has made a lovely Aurealis in grey stylecraft DK and a glitter yarn called Cabaret. Until next time... Thanks for dropping in. Jo x 

Getting it right

On my new quest to get knitting right, without the mistakes I ignore and put down to my excessive creativity, I have continued to be a serial unpicker. I loved knitting this hat in 4ply leftovers which now has no mistakes. The crown was not working out well with the decreases not matching up with the colourwork but I got there in the end. I feel better for knowing it is right.

but oh the ends... once it was complete, I popped it in my present box for next Christmas. I enjoyed working this pattern and hope to make some more.

After the hat, just before Christmas, I had a run of bad knitting luck. I started my new Avena sweater by Jennifer Steingass but my yarn choices were not a good match. I ordered a chestnut brown for the main body and a ball of king Cole riot to use as a graduated colour section. There were several problems, none of which stopped a capricorn like me from knitting on, the coloured yarn was too hairy and kept dragging on the brown working yarn making the twists for colourwork impossibly hard. I ploughed on. The next problem was that the coloured yarn was a much thinner DK gauge than the Drops Lima producing a very pixelated patterned section. 

It was when I stopped loving the yarn that the mistakes crept in. I knew a few rows were not right and I thought I could fudge the stitch count back to the correct number and use a crochet hook to turn any stitches from brown to the colour as I spotted them. But alas it was not working. It then felt an incredible waste of yarn and time not to make this beautiful jumper properly so I frogged the whole yoke which, by now, was only 4 rows from completion.

I ordered what I think will be a better colourway yarn and this time I will do a test square to check first. Because I knit every evening, I wanted to start a little filler knit while I waited for my new yarn to arrive. Step in this little baby waistcoat but even this was not without its woes. I knit two thirds of the back from a hand rolled ball of dark green yarn from the knitting basket, started a brand new ball of stylecraft to continue and found that the first bit I had used was not the same!!!!! It must have been a spare bit from one of the girls crochet bags that had been picked up off the floor and dropped in the nasket for hoovering purposes.

Frogged it. Swore a bit. Emptied the dishwasher. Went to bed.

Annnnyyway, this is the completed waistcoat which is for a friend of a friend who has paid me to knit it for her little boy. 

I dare not cast on my new Avena until I have a few successful makes under my belt so presently I am knitting another sheep hat because they give me such joy. Friends always offer to buy them from me when they see Andy wearing his so I thought I would get one on the needles. It is not profitable but it pays for my yarn or sometimes my yarn buying mistakes!

Are you knitting at the moment?

Jo xxxxx

Happy New Year! I like to make three crafting resolutions each year to keep my hobby interesting and challenging. Last year I decided to:

1) Learn to use the ruffler foot for my sewing machine... and do you know what? I still didn't use it so I guess in a whole year of sewing clothes for all of us, I just don't need it. I think maybe I have had it for so long that now my girls are in their teens, I have possibly missed that gathered-pretty-phase of their clothing choices. I can put this one to bed I reckon and never speak of such a thing again.

No regrets.

2)Make a dent in my fabric scraps especially the thin strips... this is actually going very well in the background although not to completion. I have made a strip quilt topper but it is a shade off a single bed size and now that I like the concept of it so much I want to make it into a double bed topper to store as a future wedding present. 

3)To sew a raincoat... Total success here, I made three. One for me, my mum and my youngest. It is the Eden raincoat by Tilly and the Buttons and Meg's was from a vintage pattern.

For 2022, I would like to improve some of my making.

1) To work with different fabrics. I have never used silk before because I am frightened of cutting it out so I would like to overcome this fear and of course have something beautiful to wear.

2) To stop knitting on when I know that something has gone wrong. I am an absolute sucker for it. Fudging each row until it gets right never happens but then I am always a little disappointed when I know there is a mistake. I am going to become a frogger starting with this yoked sweater. The black dots are all the mistakes. The one massive mistake is that the coloured yarn is too thin against the brown so I started making mistakes and not loving it enough to unpick them. 

3)To Crochet a chunky throw that has straight sides. I have been gifted some lovely yarn and I would like to use it well and keep my stitch count correct for each row. Sometimes I do slapdash crochet too!

Generally this year my sewing has improved in quality massively because I have been recording my makes for Minerva for freelance media content which will be released later this year. There is nothing better than videoing yourself sewing for others to learn from for making you sew properly! It has been my dream job and I am so looking forward to sewing more. 

Has it made you think of something you would like to finish, start or improve?

Happy New Year! Jo xxxx