Catching up, and Unwinding in Brighton...

Well it's been an age, and to think my last post was berating myself for missing a month. Not been very dedicated unfortunately. You'll be happy to know though that I finished Grey Matter Cardigan, though I didn't succeed at any of the KAL's except Aidez, and I fell out of love with Carpino. I did on the other hand find some yarn for Millwater that should be lovely so I will likely be knitting that soon.

My Aidez was a bit of a roller coaster in all honesty, I started it in Crelando Meli in teal which is a lovely springy Superwash merino wool. I just didn't love it for my Aidez. I adored the cables in that yarn, just not the Stockinette for the pattern. After working on that iteration up to past the pocket join (I added pockets and a hood to my version), I had to put it down as it wasn't quite right for me. So began the hunt for more yarn, fortunately after much disappointment commercially, I hunted through my stash and came up with some navy aran tweed. I swatched this yarn a lot as the pattern called for a super bulky. In any case it worked out in the end.

More information about the trials and tribulations of my Aidez are available on my project page, so check that out if your interested and would like the chart for the back cable that I created. If you would like to use it and would like a key for the chart let me know in the comments and I'll put one together and add it.

Since then I have been #knitting a Drangey (by Stephen West) for my wonderful but equally grumpy Bf, that buys me yarn so in the eyes of my knitting friend's is a keeper :) Also a new t-shirt, which originally was being knit as a long floaty t-shirt for summer, after much urging was kept at a shorter length and improvised a lot! I have to say I only used the pattern to figure out how many stitches to cast on. I finished this little top on Saturday, which meant that I got to wear it to Unwind! Feast your eyes :)

#Unwind Brighton was absolutely lovely, though my journey there was hell and unfortunately made an unplanned start in Leeds at 3:30 in the morning! We won't talk about that though. We got there to be greeted by visions of knitted creations, probably not quite as many as you would expect mind, it was only the few people that had, had the presence of mind to knit for the summer, as believe me the weather was incredibly hot! I took well over an hour to do my first circuit, in which time I fell for some gorgeous Madeline tosh which was then totally eclipsed from my regard, by some delicious Old Maiden Aunt yarn. Lilith definitely knows her stuff, there was a trunk of her scrumptious superwash merino 4ply on the floor and after 5 minutes of looking, I knew I was in it for the long hall and promptly parked myself on my ass in front of that trunk and dived in. Oh the Colours! Oh the Squishyness! Oh the wonderful Sci- Fi Inspired Colourways. Truly a woman after my own heart, don't tell my boyfriend!

Two hours to the end of the day

That trunk was now empty

Alas I was short of funds and it took me nearly two hours to settle on two of her colourways, 'To the black' a sumptuous ode to a wonderful series and 'Selkie' which is earmarked for Balmy by Alicia Plummer. I showed remarkable restraint in only getting four, as a wonderful friend of mine may have spend £120 there alone! There were 600 skeins of yarn at the Old Maiden Aunt stall at the beginning of the show, and after just one day, well I felt sorry for the ladies turning up on the Sunday. We positively cleared her out, leaving perhaps 50 tops skeins left, she even gave myself and my friend a skein each free!!!! On top of all that and incredible patience from her and her partner, Lilith let me try on her Raiun, which is  a pattern I own, but as with all knitting patterns rarely do you get the chance to see if it suits you before you go to the effort of knitting it. So muchos thanks to her for that and I love it, I'm scrambling around in my stash for the yarn to do it in, but it may very well be an Old Maiden Aunt Merino silk which will be saved up for.

One of each colour in our haul (there were four of us)

Speaking of saving up though I have been going through my stash and have decided to sell some of it off, little by little. If you get a chance please check out the auction for 200g of Noro Kureyon  in shade 260. Along with those I'm selling some of my hand dyed bumper sized (250g) skeins in the colourway riot pink. There are 2 of them for £15 each in a lovely 100% British wool. I will be selling more of my hand dyed yarn, but this will likely be when I get all the pictures done to add to my Etsy store. If you are interested in any hand dyes, send me a message on Google +

Stylish Knits and blocking

I talked about it in my last post, and I'm talking about it again. This will be the last one of the Salt City Cardi, because it's done!

Blocked and ready to wear!

I spent most of Saturday knitting my heart out to get it finished. I decided to add another repeat for the shawl collar, which is probably what took the most time but I think it was probably worth it as it crosses over a lot better now. I debated a bit about what cast off to use for the collar, as I wanted to make sure it wouldn't impede the blocking. In the end with the help of a few YouTube videos (don't you just love YouTube!), and Stitch Diva studios. I chose the Lacey bind off. Now I know it isn't the stretchiest of the four shown, but from the swatches I thought it looked to be the most uniform with the stretchy cast on and I really didn't want the bind off to be too stretchy.

For reasons entirely unknown, I kept having issues with the sleeves and knitting them up. Though from other peoples comments I think that was entirely just me. I bound of the ribbing on the sleeves with a stretchy twisted cast off as seen here, serious thanks to Lorraine L for that as I've been looking for a bind off that gives stretch but doesn't flare. It is a mite fiddly though.

Enough of the finishing/knitting discussion though, I know you want to see it! I took some pictures unblocked as I just wanted to get it on and see how it fitted. please excuse the cropping but I was making some seriously strange faces, due to general silliness on mine and my mother's part.

I'm thinking that I will probably need to pick up a shawl pin to hold it together. As you can probably see the shawl collar is a bit stiff and doesn't fall as smoothly as it should. That is mostly because the yarn I used for the collar specifically was still oiled and needs a good wash to soften it up. 

After that there was one more step to do, BLOCKING!

Obligatory blocking pic

Who needs blocking wires, not me! I just took some of my acrylic yarn, threaded it through and secured it tautly to achieve straight lines. I'm blocking it on top of a mattress, plastic to protect the mattress (by mother's request) and towels. It looks a lot more gorgeous up close but i'm not going to spam you with pictures.

Now that the cardi is done, I can move on to doing my Christmas knits. Pressies here I come!

I've got quite a few people to knit for so I'm looking for quick knits and yarn that won't break the bank so let me know if you have any suggestions!

I Knit, Test Knits and Yarn

Fairly recently I started going to a knitting group in Waterloo at the I Knit London store. It is very different to the Stitch 'n' Bitch that I used to be part of back in Leeds, though it is a good group. The age ranges and people are much more diverse, which is always a good thing for a well rounded group. The past few times I've been I took along my test knitting project.

The item I am test knitting is a gorgeous cardigan by Sheila Toy Stromberg on Ravelry called the Salt City Cardi, it uses three different types of lace stitch and they flow really well together. Though I'm finding time wise, it has taken me a fair bit.  I started it on the 17th and I'm still working on it, I have had less time this week however. The yarn pictured below is the Merino Silk blend I talked about before from Kingcraig fabrics on eBay, it's been pretty good to work with and has got me load of compliments at I Knit.

From balls like this

One of the great things about having a more diverse group with a crowd generally older than me is nice varied levels of experience. This came in pretty handy when it came to figuring out what to do about washing my  yarn before knitting it. I wouldn't have thought about the possible ramifications of skeining and washing the oiled balls of yarn individually. Each skein would likely have been washed at slightly differing temperatures and also with varying degrees of roughness which affects how much of the oil is washed out. Knitting them all together like this would then impact blocking as different parts of the garment used different skeins, with different amounts of all and could therefore when completely wash skew the shape because of the tension changes etc.

What this meant I did in the end was use the skein I had already washed, but only for the back piece, and then I used the unwashed yarn for the shawl collar and I plan to use the remainder of the washed yarn for the sleeves. As each of these sections are blocked separately the different levels of oil will not affect the final look and structure of the garment.

   

To this

Taken at I Knit, London

As I am knitting to a deadline I take my project with me everywhere, I've been knitting on all my journeys and whenever I have a spare moment. I even took my knitting to Blues Fest at the Royal Albert hall last night to see Greg Porter and Natalie Cole, which was amazing. Greg Porter really blew my mind with his smooth voice, I will definitely be listening to more of his songs. It took me a little while to warm up to Natalie Cole, though in the end she was great too.

How would you recommend treating oiled yarn? I know some people are adamant either way, washing it thoroughly before knitting or washing as a garment. Let me know, also if you have any tips for treating it, I would love to know for future projects.

Yarning around

So a bit of a change of pace.

Before last week I haven't been knitting for about a month or two as I just haven't felt up to it. Right now though I've thrown myself into it with a vengeance. However with more knitting means more yarn buying. My full stash and I are separated, I'm in London and my stash is in Leeds. So of course I have to buy yarn for my new projects. Nevermind that I have undyed yarn for a specific project that I haven't planned the dyeing and or started yet.

On Saturday I had a bit of an eBay buying spree with yarn. All of it from Kingcraig fabrics. Which is based in Brora in the Scottish highlands. This isn't the first time I've ordered yarn from them, but the first one was more of a test to see what their yarns were like as they are made and produced by the company themselves rather than a known large yarn brand such as as Rowan or Debbie bliss.
This time I bought some Supersoft Lambswool in a purple/blue marl 4ply. When i say some i really mean 820g of it. It looks absolutely gorgeous in person, and I can't wait to get stuck into it (even though it's not really earmarked for anything yet).

I had thought I might use it for a project I'm designing for my boyfriend, but it's far to gorgeous for that and also not quite the colours I was envisioning. I know have something else that unfortunately perfect looking for his project you guessed it, on eBay. I swear though once I get it I'm on a yarn diet with what I have here.

I can't wait till Christmas because I get reunited with some of my stash. It'll be like getting loads of new yarn!



The picture on the right it's probably the truest to the actual colour. I'm thinking I might use it in a design I dreamed up today. Though with the way my first knitting pattern design is going that likely means I'll get to it next year around now.

Whilst I still have my battleship on the go, I've decided to test knit a different pattern for SheilaToy. It's a really lovely summer style cardigan, which when I saw it I had to have it. which brings me to my next eBay yarn buy from Saturday.

Ta Dah! It's a 90%-10% Merino Silk mix in a Dark brown multifleck, again from Kingcraig. I've started swatching it already in my eagerness to get started with this wonderful knit Salt City Cardi by Sheila Toy Stromberg. Part of the reason I'm swatching is that I know that KingCraig yarns are generally oiled yarns and will be completely different washed. So I'm trying to see if I will need to wash all my yarn before I knit it. I still can't wait to get started.

If your interested in any of the projects I'm knitting or have already knitted check my projects out on Ravelry my username is Thaliya . Are any of you Knitters or crocheters? Or do you have a better idea for my Lambswool? Let me know.