Today's the Day!

Remember when I said that I was working on a pattern for my Jumper? Well my jumper pattern is all written, tested by two lovely ladies to iron out all the kinks and ready for you to knit.

Having spent time knitting and writing the pattern, I now understand how much hard work goes into writing a knitting pattern that is clear and detailed, so I really thank all the designers for the patterns that they've written and I've found easy to use. So much work goes into the process.

I want to thank my wonderful testers, who have both created lovely versions of my jumper pattern, and given me advice on how to present the pattern to you. The pattern was originally going to be released as is, with the detailed calculations within the pattern for each person to do to ensure they make a size tailored to them, now the pattern will be released with a spreadsheet that does all those calculations for you. So all you have to do is take your measurements as shown by the schematic and add them to the spreadsheet. Then you'll have all your numbers returned ready for you to start knitting the pattern.

Swing Me Right Round pullover

The pattern is available for download and purchase from Ravelry here, you do not have to be a member of Ravelry to purchase, however if you are, it is best to be logged in when you purchase so that the purchase and download is associated with your account. For a limited time the pattern is discounted by £2 with the coupon code: thevaultisopen . I will be providing help and support from my Ravelry group Third Vault on the Left.  Let me know what you think in the comments.

Having finished and published this one, I've been bitten by the designing bug and i'm working on another pattern which will be ready for testing in the next few weeks, details will be available about this on my group.

If you thought that was all the big news I alluded to last post, there's more! The rest will be revealed soon so stay tuned!

I told a big fat lie...

When I said I didn't see any lace in my future I lied, Once my Sandshore was finished I was given the opportunity to test one of Atelier Alfa's patterns in a fingering weight yarn but as the rows were very long and it was a long cardigan, I tucked my tail between my legs and hid in a corner. I promised I would test the DK version, I look back at the fingering weight version and everyone's lovely tests and kick myself for it. After that decision I thought I need to knit something and i want to try something new, nevermind my Funky Grandpa yarn finally being picked out and languishing in a corner. Ooooh look at this lovely jumper, test knit? why not? I have so much 3ply stash it'll be perfect.....

My finished Sandshore

Wait WHAT? You don't want to knit a 4ply cardigan because you've never knit that thin before and aren't sure you'll be able to knit it fast enough, and you've decided to knit a thinner 3ply jumper in less than the time allotted for the 4ply?  I'm definitely a little crazy. Anyway this past month (April) i've been having my first experience with  3ply knitting.

PROS:

• Creates a light fabric
• Requires less balls of yarn
• Can destash some of my (rather large?) lace/3ply stash
• I'll be less gunshy of 4ply for funky grandpa

CONS:

• It takes a very long time
• I want to burn my project because it takes so long even though I love the way it looks....

I'm finally working on the sleeves of my Jumper which i'm managing because even though i'm ready to chuck it out of the window in frustration I dyed some pretty yarn for it, and it's a pleasure to watch it grow in those colours. My only issue is it's not growing fast enough.

My sleeves are being knit in these lovelies!

As I worked through the body part of the pattern I went with bad jumper practice for me and whilst I added some shaping to better fit my shape I refused to do short rows for my bust. Massive mistake, I have a bust and I need to accommodate it. Now even though the jumper body is pretty lovely in most ways, it rides up in the centre front. *face palm* Still i'm not changing it, I don't have the time or inclination to rip out the 10+ inches I knit afterwards. I did however add in lifelines near the waist area where a I joined a new ball of yarn thinking I might go back and change the shape a bit with a contrast colour and rib stitch band at the waist. That part won't happen but I might go back there and add an extra inch overall.  Experimental edits for the win. I've added in two lifelines and hope I can rip out the centre, Knit and extra inch and graft like my life depends on it.

To compound the insanity because I love the shape so much i'm considering knitting another one without sleeves in a summer weight with stripes, short rows and other joyful stuff. This project has seriously driven me insane. This time however it will be a project much tempered by my other lovely projects. As soon as this baby (it's been a punishing labour) is done I'll be casting on for Funky Grandpa and Blue sand cardigan both by La Maison Rililie. Maybe I'll also cast on the summer version of this jumper but I doubt it'll be ready by this summer. In the meantime if you aren't a 3ply scaredy cat then check out the wonderful pattern by Ela Torrente of Modish Knits

It is very well laid out and clearly written, it even got me trying out a few new techniques which really work for the pattern.

If all that excitement wasn't enough I wrote up the pattern for my Jumper and it's currently being tested. So hopefully my next post will be about the Jumper pattern being released! The pattern is one size, but that one size is your size, i'm hoping to integrate the pattern with my blog so that you guys can get the pattern customised for you at no extra cost.

In the meantime though i need a name! So i'm going to scamper off back to my rabbit hole and have a think, if you have any ideas for the jumper let me know :)

New Year, New projects and what's this about a newspaper article?

So now that most of my Christmas knits are finished (I was a little too ambitious at short notice), I've moved on to other projects and have enjoyed selecting some fun projects for this year.

The Finished Christmas Knits, The middle scarf ended up being nearly 2 metre long!

I've finally acknowledged the full on fail that my first ever jumper was and I've 'frogged' most of it and re-purposed the yarn for a much more beautiful and hopefully much better cardigan. A test knit courtesy of playsweetmusic on Ravelry. The lovely Grey Matter Cardigan, which I am knitting in a Ben Nevis Aran (ugh, that's the thing about re-purposing, you reuse yarn that you fell out of love with an age ago).

As I've been reunited with most of my stash I thought a quick stash busting exercise was in order a week or two back and I used up some of my Wendy pampas chunky, and one of my Stylecraft Swift Knit to make the lovely Acer shawl by Kourtney Robinson of Dollybird Workshop (She has some amazing patterns, of which I snapped up 8,  so you could be seeing more of her designs here)

My version in serious need of blocking

The Acer shawl makes for a really quick and really warm knit. I just need my brother to disappear back to Uni so that I can use his bed for blocking again :).

As part of the stash busting/de-stashing exercise I'm getting rid of some of the yarns I have desperately tried to find a purpose for but can't. Yes 8 Colinette point 5 balls that is you, your going to a better home! If your interested take a look at the ebay listing.

As I said I've been planning out projects for this year, which is obviously subject to flights of fancy and queue change up. A few of this year's definite knits are

• Grey Matter Cardigan
• Game of Thrones inspired knit (own pattern)
• Aidez (yes thank you Lidl, that Crelando Meli yarn has a home)
• Tie back tank in  Araucania ruca 
• Raven shawl in Kingcraig Lambswool Cashmere Aran

I have a lot more patterns in my library and queue but I'm still not sure of them yet, and this frees me up for lots lots more. 

This year I reckon I might also play around with Arm Knitting a little bit more, to see what else is creatable, whilst still being fit for purpose. This is mostly due to when I was at I knit last I was asked to demonstrate some arm knitting for a reporter and photographer, purely because at the time I was the only person in the store that had dabbled in it (purely out of lack of needles, an out of battery tablet, a borrowed phone and boredom) you can see it isn't really my first choice of medium.  Anyway that all resulted in a larger than expected article in The Times Newspaper which can be found here (if you are a subscriber) or a really bad scanned copy of the article in the physical newspaper below. 

I'm not very good at looking after little bits of paper

The project that I made for the article turned into a very holey shawl, which is currently still residing in the I Knit shop. 

Now that 2013 is over, I would like to say a quick thanks to all the new friends I made and the ones who made things worthwhile though my life kind of stood on it's head. Hopefully 2014 will be much much more fantastic!

#knitting :)

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.