skein

A year of knitting in 2012

This year I've managed to finish 47 projects (last year it was ... 58!).  Well, 48 but one of the hats was a disaster, far too large and when felted down a little bit was too tight on the brim!

Garments: 6 (4 last year)

Socks: 9 (14 last year) of which 6 pairs are gifts.

Hats: 13 (5 last year), 12 of which were gifts!

Knits for hands:  13 (same as last year)

 

Other (which incledes shawls, baby stuff and blankets) : 13 (22 ;ast year, 1 being a large blanket  and 11 shawls!),  of which 10 were gifts.

Overall very happy but next year I'll aim for 52!   I haven't done much commuting knitting this year, as I never have a seat, and lunchtime knitting has also been lacking.  That amounts to at least five hours per week less knitting!

 

 

 

It's been a decent year, but nowhere near as productive as 2011. There's been plenty of times when my knitting mojo has deserted me! 

Blue hat for Mr C

This is probably the last FO for 2012, unless I miraculously finish the double knit scarf, or knit something small over the weekend.

This was a last minute Christmas gift for Mr C, who liked the black hat I made for his father.  Of course this is in a brighter colour for him!

It's the Ribbed Watchman's hat.  You can't really go wrong with a ribbed hat.

I hope eveyrone's had a great Christmas.  We had our usual quiet Christmas, food and alcohol and a tiny bit of knitting (me, not Mr C).  I've decided to try to sort out my stash and needles, again, and spent Christmas doing the needle sort out. I have two bags of needles for my sister and niece. Not that you can tell that the needle stash is smaller, though!

 

Bubbles Scarf progress

This is a scheduled post.  I'm going to publish it on Sunday, when I shall be at home with the family enjoying a little pre-Christmas celebration.  Mr. C. will be enjoying his bachelor weekend, eating drumsticks, drinking red wine, staying up late watching comedy and music programmes, falling asleep on the sofa, and if Lovefilm deliver will be watching Usual Suspects, again.

I'm going to take his Christmas present with me, a ribbed blue hat, to work on.

Meanwhile, the double-knit scarf progresses. 

You can place the bubblew whereever you want, and there's three sizes to choose from, but I'm going for the schematic and roughly following that!

There's nine repeats (of course you can make it as short or as long as your want) but I'm going to do ten, as my row tension is a bit off.

First repeat:

 After the second repeat

Third repeat

It's kauni. One side is light/subtle and the other side is the EQ (bright) colour, but so far it's only been green. can't wait to get to the orange!

We always have a very quiet Christmas, just the minimum of cooking for two. I'll be wearing my reindeer socks, and a Chirstmas jmper if it's cold enough (I have one and it's thick!).  Plenty of time to relax and knit. I like to cast something on over Christmas but might carry on with this scarf,  Next month is Mitten month, and I have a choice of three double-knit mittens to knit, if I'm not fed up by then! 

 

Alternato hat

Something I made earlier, and took a while to block and get photos.  It's not fun standing outsdie when it's cold, with an impatient MrC wanting to get on his way to the boat!

It's Alternato, a very easy quick knit from Classic Woolly Toppers.  A present for Mr C's mum, for Christmas.  This year I'm going easy, nothing too complicated or slow to knit.

The yarn is from stash, Manos Silk Blend, and I think I knitted 22" size on 3mm needles, but never posted it on ravelry when I cast on. 

 

The pattern is slighlty slouchy (or my version of slouchy!) which makes me think that I may have made a smaller size and maybe didn't work as much length, but honestly, I can't remember, and it's now posted. I've washed it but only lightly blocked it over a balloon, didn't stretch it out too much. 

Then crown is rapidly decreases, so it's ruched, but I like it like that and didn't steam press it or anything.  Av very easy knit.  Mr C thoguth it was inside out!  At least he can tell knit side from purl side!

 

Herbivore

Now Herbivore lends itself well to a flat shot, showing off the shape of the shawl, but unfortunately by the time I've gotten around to taking photos this shawl has been in the possession of Mr C, who has been wearing it wrapped around his neck continuously for the past week.  It's rather rumpled!

It's been a long time in the knitting.  Started on 2nd July, not finished until 20th October.  

The yarn is from the Wollmeise sock club, and not a colour which enthralled me at all. It's a natural base with flashes of red, blue and yellow.  Mr C spotted it in the skein a few years back and admired it (he likes bright colours).   And then about a year ago he spotted it again, when I pulled it from sash to start a baby garment, and said he really liked the colours.  So this summer I wound it into a ball and left it on the side. He admired it again.  He had admired  my previous Herbivore, and said he'd like that pattern with this yarn.  I think, because I dislike the colour, that's why it's taken so long to knit up.

I opted not to block it out as deeply, so it's a fairly shallow shawl.  I'm pretty certain that this will be washed and reblocked in the near future unless he takes it off, so I can try slightly different blocking meausrements next time. 

Let's ignore the fact that all of these photos look the same. I was taking phtos in theocld in just a t-shirt, leggings and slippers outside, no time to dither!

(He was on his way out, that's why he has his coat and a hat on).

A little bit of progress on the Bubbles Scarf

I've hardly knitted this week.  My short evenings have been sucked up with online shopping for Christmas.  I think I have finished.  Just wrapping up now.

So, my shawl progress is not great.  I've spent just one evening on it this week, and have cmopleted one of the bubbles.  I'm afraid the photos are rubbish.  I took them this morning on my mobile before leaving for work.  I'm glad I didn't decide to bring the scarf in for some daylight photography, we  haven't had any today! 

One side

T'other

Now this is Kauni,  so it's going to look a little uneven, unlike my previous efforts at double knitting, when I've used Wollmeise!  At the moment the colours are pretty horrible, but I keep having to remind myself that soon I'll reach another colour.

Apart from this scarf I only have the start of a ribbed hat for Mr C's Christmas present on the needles, so I jmay have to do a bit of stash rummaging this weekend. Problem with that, though, is that I get wayladi, pull out too many skeins of yarn and end up with nothing cast on.   With Christmas looming I like to get lots of little projects in bags, ready for the festive season, so I need to sort it out soon!   So that's me sorted out, I'll be stash rummaging and scarf knitting all weekend!

Double Knitting Malarky

Double Knitting.  Not the weight of the yarn, but the method of knitting a double layer of fabric. 

In essence, to knit a double layered fabric, you knit both layers at the same time, alternating stitches from the near layer and the back layer.  You don't have to have both right sides as stocking stitch, you don't even have to have an even number of stitches.  You can knit both layers using just one yarn, orrn or two different yarns.  You can knit a tube or a doulbe layer of fabric.

I've never used double knitting to knit a tube, but I can imagine it beign very useful for things like glove fingers.  You have double the stitches (as you're knitting two layers). You treat alternative stitches as belonging either to the front/near side or the back/far side, and (if you're working in one colour) would (k,sl) across the row.  When you turn your work you knit the slipped stiches and slip the knit stitches, from the previous row.  As long as you don't inadvertently catch part of the far layer as you knit you will end up with a tube.

I've only done two colour double knitting, where you don't do (k, sl) but (k,p) across the row.  You trat all knitted stitches in the row as belonging to the near side layer, and the purl sts as belonging to the far side layer (which is ws facing on this row, therefore the stitches are purled).  Presuming you are of course doing stocking stitch.  You can add patterns by swapping the colours around.  

I've only knitted two things (!) in double knitting.  First off, Cheesehands, which are knit in the round.  

and this baby bonnet.

I loved knitting both of these, but have to say that I'm terrified of begining another double knitting project!  

I have a few in the queue - a couple of pairs of hats, three pairs of mittens and a few scarves.

Yesterday I thought I'd cast on a scarf, the Bubbles Scarf from Lucy Neatby.  It's similar to these two above, using negative colours, but the bubbles are stuffed!

As usual, the swatching went badly.  I really only do this to get back intot he swing of double knitting and reminding myself of my weak points, usually the row ends and knitting two stitches togetrehr, which can be easily rectified on the next row but is annoying.

Hence my swatch is all over the place, and unfinished.

That's meant to be a circle, but I changed needle sizes and swapped the colours around mid-circle. I stopped before the end as I wanted to make sure that the circles hadn't been joined and that I would be able to stuff them!

And the knitting.  SLOW.

Guaranteed, this won't be a quick project. I anitcipate it taking many months! 

 

 

The current hat in progress

No finished hats to show off - but I have two done. just waiting for photos.  One is the oversized hat which turned out very large!  Here's a photo of the hat after knittng:

It's meant to be a slouchy beanie!  Mr C has washed it and it's shrank somewhat, but sitll not a style I'd wear, so it may go off to a lucky(!) recipient.   I'm going to get some modelled photos this weekend.  I suppose I could block it out on a plate and make it a beret style hat, might suit me a bit better.

The other hat is the last of the Christmas gifts needing to be posted out. I'll wash it tomorrow and pop it in the post on Monday.  

There might possibly be one more hat to knit.  Mr. C. rather liked the simple ribbed hats I knitted for our fathers.  I have no more black Cascade but do have some bright blue in stash. I'll show him the yarn tonight, see if he likes the colours.  

I'm rather thinking that after this hat knitting I might try some cowls. I've never been atttracted tothe oversized ones, preferring ones which sit close to my neck, but I saw someone wearing one on the tube the other day and rather liked it. 

Or

A scarf?  I'm tempted to do some double knitting, and have the kauni at hand to start teh Bubbles scarf (a Lucy Neatby pattern).  

Or

Mitts? Several patterns grabbing my attention (two are also double knit!)

My plans might all go to pot, should Mr. C. wants this hat knitted.  I have to find the yarn first thoguh, might give me time to start something else beforehand.  Did I mention that I have NO WIPS again?  I really need to cast on more things! 

 

Crazy Color socks

Another Christmas present for Mr C,. his socks.  These ones are in a dk weight Regia Crazy Color, worked top down on 52 sts.  One sock is slightly larger than the other - I think I changed needles halfway through the first one (new needles arrived and I wanted to try them out) but used a larger size!  Not that noticeable....

See how the stripes match! I can't see me knitting any more socks this year, have gone right off knitting socks!  But nine pairs done this year, not too bad!

Another hat! Turn a Square

This time it's Turn a Square.  Knitted for Mr.C's son B's birthday.   

I used the leftover Cascade 220 in black, from the ribbed hats, plus some Noro from stash.  

The first cast on was enormous, with a cast on of 96 sts increasing to about 108, so I tried it on 92sts not increasing at all, still large (and Mr C has a large head) so I went down to 88 stitches.  I was a little worried then that it might be too snug, but after washing and relaxing a bit it's just right.  My tension was about 4.5st rather than 5 sts.

 Now I have some bright blue Cascade 220 in stash and more Noro.  Might be more of these in my future!