It has been so long since my last entry that I have finished knitting blanket #148 and I have started crocheting the edging. It is the next dark blanket, very similar to blanket #142, because a lot of the yarns are the same, but it is brighter with more and brighter reds and some bright blues. This one is knitted in aran weight too. I used the dark grey angora in this one too, and some random coloured navy mohair, and it makes it so soft. (The colours in the pictures are too light.)
The next Kaffe Fassett jumper in turn to be unravelled was the Lattice patten from Glorious Knitting. It is knitted exactly as in the book. The problem with this kind of regular pattern is that all the yarns are the same lengths and there are a limited number of them. The yarns are nice anyway, Rowan Spun Tweed and Fine Tweed and some fine chenille. I like chenille yarns, but the thicker ones are inflexible to knit with.
The second garment was a Per Una zip front cardigan from the time when they did 100% wool clothes. I bought this several years ago aiming it for a bus knitted blanket, but then I had second thoughts. I thought it was shetland yarn but it is not. The yarn came out quite well anyway, after washing. The fronts were cut so I discarded them. I have so much yarn now that I no longer have patience to deal with a lot of short ends in indifferent yarns. I threw away the thick yarn in the collar and cuffs, too. I could have split it, but I did not have a mind to.
My guidelines for choosing yarn for blanket #147 were simple - medium colours and no reds. This blanket is knitted in double knitting weight and I enjoy knitting with smaller needles. For want of red it became blue and green as well as my favourite neutral beige grey brown shades.
I added some yarns that I had rejected for the previous blanket #146 as too dark.
And some bright blue and greens. I keep saying that I don't like these because it is so difficult to avoid them spoiling the look. From now on I would like to reserve them for the dark blankets, if I can only remember.
For softness I added these. The grey on the left is from a charity shop. I bought some five balls without labels. I like to think that they are mohair. There may be some acrylic content, but they smell animal. The next is the angora yarn from blanket #138, and the blue is a Pingoiun yarn, d'Esprit Angora. It feels like angora, but the label buried deep inside says that it is only 10% angora, the rest acrylic and nylon.
The two garments that I unpicked were also soft.
The first is a Peruvian Connection picture sweater. This was lovely, and such a work that has gone into knitting it. It was so difficult to unravel, though. The ends, and there were thousands of ends, had not been woven in, but sewn in, into themselves two or three times. I wondered why I wanted to unpick it. The only way to cope was to forget about time, and take it slowly getting into the rhythm of unpicking. The yarn is alpaca, 4 ply, knitted double, and the sweater yielded lots of nice wool in lovely colours, all in different lengths, some even very long. I am pleased with the yarn. It will last a long time.
The second is an M&S cashmere cardigan, tied with a silk sash. The colour is a nice light brown and the yarn very soft. I have included in on every row, and I like the sheen the colour adds as well as the softness. I am pleased that there will be enough to do the whole blanket.
I succumbed to the temptation of Noro Blossom when it was remaindered in the July sales nearly two years ago. I remembered liking the picture of the Acton cushion in Jane Ellison's booklet Simply Noro. It was the garter stitch stripes that appealed to me. Judging by the measurements in the Acton pattern I worked out that 1 kg would be enough for a blanket. That was expensive enough, as the yarn was just reduced by a third, not half. But it nagged at me that it wasn't enough yarn, and when I did some more calculations I realised I would need another bag of 500 gr. Luckily I could still get one of the same shade and dye lot.
After all of that, and quite disgusted with myself for spending so much money, I put the yarn away safely because I was no longer minded to start knitting with it. Now, with the Geo Modern Throw finished I got the yarn out again.
I was surprised. This must be the first time that I have bought a Noro yarn without any turquoise or bright green. The pink I like because it is nice with the lavender and blue shades. I don't even mind the apricot coloured red.
I had in mind to knit a log cabin pattern. For this purpose I bought another two hanks of Noro Blossom last autumn; this time in a bright pink shade. I didn't like the block. It seemed to me that the yarn was too busy for the pattern, with the colour changes and the boucle. I tried another way of garter stitch blocks knitted together, but I didn't like that either. But, this method I will bear in mind for some future project. So it was back to plain garter stitch stripes. That's what attracted me to the yarn in the first place, but it does seem simple.
I use my method of one row stripes by three yarns, to avoid abrupt colour changes with a new hank. I decided not to match shades at all. So I cut the first hank when I had knitted approximately one third and the second after two thirds. This way I avoid joining new hanks for all three at the same time. The only decision on shades is which end to start knitting from with a new hank. Sometimes I avoid a shade, other times I look for one.
As a result the shades are all over the place. In some places there are distinct stripes, in others the shades merge nicely. In other words, precisely like my standards blankets. I have no idea at all how the shades are arranged, if they are symmetrical or not. I suspect the runs are unequal lengths.
I'm surprised that I don't enjoy the knitting very much. I can't get on with the boucle, the needles are too thick and the yarn slippery, nice and soft but still slippery. I am impatient to get ahead with it so that I can continue with the next non-standard blanket, and I force myself to keep knitting. I would be happy knitting two or three rows per day, but that way it would take months to finish. I do like the end result though. It is going to be a blanket that I like very much, both the colours and the texture.
The next standard blanket is a light coloured one. Again I decided to knit aran weight on 4.5 mm needles. This time it was because I decided to include a lot of the white wool from the granny square blanket I unpicked, and I thought that knitting it double with another 4 ply yarn would make the white less obvious. And it has, so it was successful. This is shows how much nicer the wool became after washing.
I finally got round to tackle finishing this blanket. I was surprised how quick it was in the end. I think I had in mind other blankets with some 270 blocks - it is much easier with only 20 blocks.
I lay the blocks out on the bed, trying for a pleasing arrangement, so that similar blocks were not adjacent. I left them on the bed for several days, moving a couple now and again. I came to the conclusion that any arrangement had to do, because it was impossible to make it perfect. The patterns gave two different ways of joining the blocks. I liked the one where you pick up stitches along one side of block A, with circular needles, turn the work round and pick up stitches along one side of block B, turn it round again and do a three needle cast off. Then you are in the right place to pick up stitches from block C etc. It worked well. I used safety pins to hold the blocks together while I was doing it. I first joined the blocks horizontally, and then all were in place for joining vertically. The only thing that I am unhappy about is the ridge that the three needle cast off makes. I tried putting it on the reverse, but a ridge on the underside of a blanket did not seem a good idea, although it looked fine from the top. Now there is a ditch but it is only noticeable if you pull on it.
The second way of joining the blocks involved picking up stitches and purling one row before the three needle cast off. I rejected this method, because it would have meant cutting the yarn, and fastening it, for every block.
Cashmere Island is one of the Noro yarns in the wool store, and last autumn I decided to cast on for a jumper. I bought the yarn in the John Lewis sale when it was discontinued, and I bought what was left, 9 skeins of a purplish colour and 2 in less bright shades. So there was more than enough for a jumper.
The style I aimed for was the one that you see in the shops now, loose with narrow sleeves. I cast on with a crochet provisional cast on, because I had not decided if I wanted ribbing. Also, starting a project with several cms of ribbing is soul destroying. You have no idea what the knitting will look like and how large it is going to be. And I would be able to do the ribbing in the other shade, if necessary.
Tension: 22 st
Size: Small
Pattern: own
Knitted: 21 September 2010 to 21 January 2012
The third hat took me three and a half weeks to finish - that is my normal knitting speed, so it was quite a feat to finish the first two in five days. The pattern for my own hat came from the same issue of Vogue Knitting as the second hat, Fall 2009. This time it was Cathy Carron's eyelet hat that caught my eye. I wanted a slouchy hat with a brim that could be folded double for warmth and with an uncomplicated pattern.
I had already decided on the yarn, Zauberball 4 ply sock yarn in a dark red colour, but the yarn shop did not stock it, so I looked for something else. I had read a lot about Madeleine Tosh sock yarn, so I chose a dark brown shade, William Morris. It was expensive.
I omitted the eyelets because I did not want open holes in the hat. I knew from experience with my previous knitted hat that my head is sensitive to cold winds. (By the way, now I know that Debbie Bliss was involved in the book Wild Knitting. I could not guess from her subsequent pattern.) So it became an eyelet hat without eyelets. I liked the ridge pattern, just right for a slouch hat. The pattern was easy, but I had to resort to pen and paper to keep track of knit and purl rows. I wanted a deeper crown so I added an extra repeat of the pattern. The ribbing on the other hand I shortened keeping it long enough to be folded double. I didn't sew it down as per the pattern because I prefer to adjust it according to the weather.
I like the hat. From the side and the back the shape looks odd, a bit pointed, but from the front it is fine. I have worn it daily since I finished it. It stays put - a great advantage for a knitted hat - so I can push it up so that my fringe shows or pull it down.
I am not that taken by the Madeleine Tosh yarn. Perhaps it works better for socks. It is warm, and I like the texture. The shade is my favourite brown, but the lighter sections look like my own failed attempts at dyeing yarn, a dirty grey. I find it difficult to see that I would buy it again.
I used double pointed needles, and I was lucky to find a fifth needle from a second set to add to my set of 4 needles. Most of my knitting needles are bought in charity shops and I buy second and third copies, because you never know when they will come in useful. I find it impossible to divide my circular knitting onto 3 needles because it seems so contrary and unnatural. It is impossible to fold your knitting in half when you put it away. If you try to, you end up stretching one third of the knitting.
It has been so long since my last entry that I have finished knitting blanket #148 and I have started crocheting the edging. It is the next dark blanket, very similar to blanket #142, because a lot of the yarns are the same, but it is brighter with more and brighter reds and some bright blues. This one is knitted in aran weight too. I used the dark grey angora in this one too, and some random coloured navy mohair, and it makes it so soft. (The colours in the pictures are too light.)
I added some yarns that I had rejected for the previous blanket #146 as too dark.
And some bright blue and greens. I keep saying that I don't like these because it is so difficult to avoid them spoiling the look. From now on I would like to reserve them for the dark blankets, if I can only remember.
For softness I added these. The grey on the left is from a charity shop. I bought some five balls without labels. I like to think that they are mohair. There may be some acrylic content, but they smell animal. The next is the angora yarn from blanket #138, and the blue is a Pingoiun yarn, d'Esprit Angora. It feels like angora, but the label buried deep inside says that it is only 10% angora, the rest acrylic and nylon.
The first is a Peruvian Connection picture sweater. This was lovely, and such a work that has gone into knitting it. It was so difficult to unravel, though. The ends, and there were thousands of ends, had not been woven in, but sewn in, into themselves two or three times. I wondered why I wanted to unpick it. The only way to cope was to forget about time, and take it slowly getting into the rhythm of unpicking. The yarn is alpaca, 4 ply, knitted double, and the sweater yielded lots of nice wool in lovely colours, all in different lengths, some even very long. I am pleased with the yarn. It will last a long time.
The second is an M&S cashmere cardigan, tied with a silk sash. The colour is a nice light brown and the yarn very soft. I have included in on every row, and I like the sheen the colour adds as well as the softness. I am pleased that there will be enough to do the whole blanket.
