Needles on the Move

To All My Readers (lurkers and commenters alike!),

Thanks so much for being around this year, and for all the input, support, comments and advice. Here’s a little something for all of you - I hope you like it!

Mittens to Order

A mitten is the perfect blank canvas for your favourite colourwork patterns. Fill with an all-over small design, or a large motif.

This pattern includes the charts I used for the first Mittens to Order, (knitted for Kate). I have also given you blank charts and full instructions in two sizes so you can create your own unique pattern. Have fun!

Download now for free

Or, visit the Ravelry page to add it to your pattern library.

Have a wonderful Christmas and a relaxing break, and all my best wishes for the New Year.

Happy Spinning! xx

This one landed today, as we’ve come over to visit Kai and Ollie in Germany for the weekend. It was very very hard to give up! But I don’t really live anywhere cold enough to have such a thick scarf.

The pink yarn is spun from Superwash BFL Halo from the Natural Dye Studio, colourway ‘candfloss’; The blue/gold yarn is spun from Allspunup Merino/Silk, colourway ‘Lunarsea’ (which, incidentally, I pinched from Kai, so it seems fair that it’s going back to her!)

The pattern is your standard 1×1 rib 2-row-stripe scarf. The two yarns were nowhere near the same thickness - think dk and heavy worsted - but it worked out fine. I used a slip-stitch edge, Alice showed me how, and I love the way it looks.

I will definitely be making another one of these, it’s a great way to use up smaller amounts of handspun - you just need to find two (or more!) coordinating colours :-D

Yep, three, no less :-) I’ve been industrious.

First up, which you saw a bit of last week, is the MIL Swallowtail:

This is my second Swallowtail and definitely won’t be the last. It’s knitted from Live2Knit Marlene yarn, a merino/silk laceweight. I used a 3.5mm needle and didn’t do any extra pattern repeats - although I could have, I had 20g left over from the 50g skein.

On Saturday I got a bit tired of all the spinning (still on the gold spider hair) and I whipped up a quickie scarf. A long long time ago, I bought this yarn and thought I’d maybe do something with it, a slightly less long time ago Kate knitted me a hat. There was still loads left over and when I started weaving this year it occurred to me that it might work well in a woven scarf.

It did! I’m hoping it will bloom a little more when finished, I haven’t been able to wash it yet as there’s nowhere atm to get it dry. It was also my first attempt at a pattern (other than stripes). The motif is called ‘Spanish Lace’ and I found it in this article in Weavezine. If you’re a weaver, or thinking about becoming one, definitely check out this magazine - it’s fab!

Finally, I cast off last night on the Hopscotch Socks, the fifth instalment from this year’s Sock(topus) Club. It was a fun pattern and I finished just in time to receive the last parcel - hopefully out next week!

The yarn is from Brooklyn Handspun and was great to knit with. I might have to have a prod of the other colours when I visit Alice at the shop later today!

I’ve been informed by very reliable people that there may be bears at SOAR. Therefore, in preparation I have set to and knitted a pair of Scary Dragon Skin Socks which are guaranteed to scare away any large furry sharp animals that may come lurking around the hotel.

The pattern is Shur’tagal from The Inside Loop and is designed by Alice Yu. It’s a really fun knit - I definitely recommend it.

This is my first time using Oceanwind Knits yarn, and I luuuuurve the colours and the yarn. I need to get me some more I think…

Oh, and did I mention that I’m going to SOAR? (Once or thrice maybe over the last year.) About a week ago I looked around I realised I have NOTHING TO WEAR! And there’s going to be famous people there - so obviously I have to make a good impression.

So I asked the afore-mentioned Alice to help me pick out a lovely colour of Classy in just my favourite shades, I was thinking brown, I wear a lot of brown and it goes nicely with the white shirt I plan to wear under this vest.

Here’s what it looks like so far.

Not brown! You say? Very perceptive of you. I’m still not quite sure what happened - I think it involved yarn vault fumes. She needs to air that place out more often.

It’s going to be really nice though, and gets me out of my box a bit - I have been thinking lately that I need to stop wearing so many boring colours all the time :-D

This week I’ve been watching Heroes non-stop (almost through the first season) and working away at Meg - last in this series of Spin! Drying times and photography permitting, the pattern should be up tomorrow evening.

Here’s a sneaky hint:

Ciao!

All the details here.

All the details here

All the details here

Another picture-heavy post: I had the camera out so I figured I’d catch up on all the things that were piled up on the ‘things to photograph’ pile!

First up is some fibre which came my way last week on birthday day, this was from Hailey, hand-dyed from Pippi Knee Socks in a colourway which reminds me of Handmaiden’s Origin - it’s always been one of my favourites. Thank you Hailey!

Next was Alpaca from Mel (Yogicknitter). She found this for me at Bluefaced, lovely lovely soooooft alpaca in gorgeous caramel colour. The second picture is some more that Andy himself popped in for me - I love the variations in the colours!

Michelle arrived back from the US this week with a pile of dishcloth cotton, it has taken me a while to find the perfect pattern - I wanted one I could do over and over without getting bored, but withough needing the pattern forever either. I found this browsing Rav and immediately loved it! I can just about get through one without the instructions now.

Sweden also yielded some fibre and yarn, lopi-style yarn in a foresty green, and local batts, natural grey. I wanted more of the green actually, as I have something blanket-ish in mind, but that was all that was left. I might spin the grey to match and combine them somehow.

International post has done its job and I can now show you another August birthday knit:

Amanda and I were paired up in a birthday swap two years ago, and we’ve stayed great friends. Fibrey parcels fly back and forth around this time of year :-D This is the Branching Out scarf, made in handspun merino/tencel which Amanda sent me last year for my birthday. More details on the project page.

Finally, one quarter of a pair of socks. This is my current handbag knit, Shur’tagal from The Inside Loop. Designed by the Lovely Alice.

I’ve just started the heel, hopefully good progress will be made at the pub later today! Oceanwind Knits is now my new favourite sock yarn - although I’ll reserve final judgement until I see how it wears.

Coming tomorrow! A sneak preview of the next biggest thing. Here’s a little teaser to get you guessing…

For some reason, August always seems to be filled with birthdays. Family birthdays and yarny-friend birthdays often warrant some knitted goodness, especially in places where August happens to fall in the middle of winter.

These projects will be winging their way south tomorrow, almost certainly not in time to make it to the birthday pair on Monday, but still not too late I hope.

Project notes Pattern: Treenah, by Megan Marshall from Issue 1 of The Inside Loop. Crocheted from Blue Sky Alpacas Alpaca silk, 3 skeins, 4mm hook. This was a great project - easy to follow charts and enough happening in the pattern to keep it interesting without being too hard. I think I shortened the pattern a bit maybe, I just kept going until I ran out of yarn. It’s plenty long enough though.

Project notes Pattern: Koolhaas, by Jared Flood from Interweave Knits Holiday Knits (but I bought it from Knitting Daily). Knitted from half a skein of Malabrigo Merino Worsted. I never measured my gauge and it was perhaps a bit loose with this yarn as the women’s size is plenty big enough for Neil. I love the attention to detail in the decreasing particularly - the crown spirals down to a perfect finish.

I have one or two more August gifts, but they are destined for people who hang around here - so there’ll be no pictures just yet ;-)

- - - -

Thanks so much to everyone who has answered the survey so far in yesterday’s post- it will be open until Sunday. Don’t forget to leave a comment to be entered in the draw! It’s been really interesting watching the stats and reading everyone’s answers - as I suspected, a lot of things coming up in the suggestions are things I have in mind already. So I’m on the right track. For those who asked about the spin-a-long, yes it will be back :) hopefully soon, and in a slightly different format.

The website is a bit of a mess at the moment I’m afraid, but the blog won’t be affected (except sidebar links may not work), and all the tutorial downloads etc. are still available. Patterns are all now on Ravelry.

Ciao!

Woke up, coughed uncontrollably. Fell asleep.

Woke up again, coughed uncontrollably, suggested Neil might work from home in case I needed a dash to A&E to make my lungs go again. Fell asleep.

Woke up, had bleary-eyed breakfast, attempted to knit, failed, coughed.

Decided that no knitting/writing/spinning/thinking/talking could occur while I only have half a lung, so I made this:

It really was brainless, after a little bit of maths to begin with (which I messed up - you can see in the first picture that the warp is off-centre). I happily wove all afternoon, without the added brain-distraction of TV or music. The breeze came in and the pollen stayed out (thankfully!)

The yarn is handspun merino/silk blend which I spun at Mum’s last Easter with weaving in mind (it’s the yarn in the new blog header btw). The pattern is based on the one in the Schacht Newsletter, Winter 2008. It’s floaty and blue and gorgeous and took five hours from start to finish. Weaving is the new black.