Ravi - Clue 2

Half way through Ravi , clue two finished at last after what seemed to be endless garter knitting. Clue 1 was blogged here.

I've debated how much to proceed after the waistline . I wanted the fronts to reach the belt point of my favourite low waist denim. That took 3 row increases as stated in the pattern-about 5-6 cm.

The safety pins attaching the fronts slightly distort the lace in this pic. I'm positive the i cord edging will smooth matters nicely.

I'm really looking forward to knit the curved bottom of the back. I'll keep you updated :)

My readers have just reached 10000 ! I feel very humble and grateful for the steady interest . Thank you so much !

Work in progress

I've been enticed lately by so many beautiful projects . I have no finished garment to show so instead I took some photos of what I've been up to.

This is Will by Kim Hargreaves, classy cardigan which uses two yarns , Rowan fine lace in black and kid silk haze in a grey colour .
Combining the two creates a soft drapey fuzzy fabric with a deep Gray colour.

I managed to purchased some of those Rowan shank buttons in grey shell which suit this cardi perfectly. I use stitch marker's to separate between the cable section , a fantastic buy from etsy -real copper and bright blue glass beads. Oh and look how I manage to bend all my knitting needles.. 

Another piece of knitting - a vest from Amimono.I always looking forward to any publication from  Helga Isager. She creates such good looking , fashionable pieces. Such a striking slip stitch effect .

The third garment bellow is Ravi from Carol Feller. I'm participating in her KAL.

An unusual construction - must have been a challenge to write a pattern to this one. I'm using a heavy 4 ply Sheila sock yarn from fyberspates. I'm out of gauge so need to reclaculate the pattern. The colour is understated rusty metal, blend of browny denim, I think its called verdigris.  

I decided to modified the front neck line, make it lower . Here is my progress so far :)

Oh and I'm so thrilled to go this year to the Rhinebeck wool show in October with a bunch of my knitting friends. Just cant wait !

Jubillee sweater

I had in mind to knit this sweater for the Jubilee weekend here in Britain. I know that the queen is not eveybody's cup of tea but I had to swear allegiance to her when accepting British citizenship and she symbolised the country where my life I live . A lot of Union jack flags were raised this pass week on houses , shops, cars and streets and  I raised my own one in the way I know and love best ..

You can see that I used neutral colours for the flag. There is no strong red and blue in your face. All the yarn are from British sheep breeds , undyed of Rowan . The breeds in use are bluefaced Leicester- fairly fine, dense and demi-lustrous, soft to the touch and drapes well, Jacob with their often multiple horns and Suffolk -its fleece moderately short with fine fibers.

I used one of Rowan's designs , the union flag dress to knit my sweater. On the model in the Rowan website the dress looks very well fitted. Truth is that the model is tucking away the unsightly extra width of the sleeves. The designer decided to have a very wide but shallow sleeve caps to set in the armholes. The result is excess fabric in the shape of 'arm wings'.. So, to the person who is reading this and decides on knitting this -you are strongly advised to calculate again those sleeves caps. I am too fed up to reknit the sleeves -one will just have to do with what it got !

:-)

Devonshire !

Finally got to blog about Devonshire , it was raining almost solid for three weeks so could not get it photographed.  The designer is Pam Powers and you can get the pattern here.

I used Skein queen 'blush'- red riding hood a beautiful variegated warm and cold reds with dark strokes in a sports weight in a luxurious blend of cashmere and merino. The yarn is so soft you can wear it next to the skin. I was too lazy to knit this cardigan with alternating rows of two different skeins so there is a bit of light red pooling on the right front. The pattern calls for a dk weight but the difference in chest sizes between XS and S (78 cm, 91.5 cm !! ) are too great so I chose the small version with a thinner yarn hence the sport weight of 'blush'.

There are striking lace pannels on the two fronts and the back. I suppose if I chose solid color the lace would show to a better effect but I'm happy with the results.

One thing that I learn when picking up stitches for a continous band along the front edge up , around the back neck and down again is to be wary of the v neck points. Do pick up extra stitches  (I added 3 stitches ) on those points otherwise you're risking an unruly bands.

 

Frogging a Union Jack

When one does not pay attention *, one must spend a whole evening to bloody frog half its flag **!!





* The upper half of the Union Jack is missing two white stripes.
** Frogging Intarsia with lots of twisting little bobbins does not leave one in a composed mood, grrr..

The beautiful sand and sea shawl

I'm getting quite addicted to Alana Dakos designs- see gnarled oak cardigan and the sugar and cream cowl. The sand and sea shawl jumped the queue as soon as I saw the one my friend Caroline had knitted. She used only one yarn for the whole shawl, one strand for the body and double the strand for the edging. The yarn is hedgehog merino silk lace in one of the recent clubs. After I was raving on and on about it she made a gift of her 38 grams left overs.

I knew there is not enough for the whole shawl so I've knitted the body with the gifted yarn but the edging was done in a neutral cream colours ,again merino silk lace from hedgehog fibres (colour birch).

The colours are truer in those close up photos. The gifted yarn is truly amazing-beautiful shades of green , lilac and yellowy brown.

I have slightly modified the body to accommodate as much yarn as possible , so I just progressed slower with the short rows.

I'm getting lots of compliments about this one, truly pleased ! :-)

Yarning in Ibiza !

We had a cheap break in Ibiza. We were early enough in the season not to encounter the dreaded clubbists so the break was peaceful with quite enough days of sunshine. We rented a modest flat in San Antonio, five minutes from the beach so our days were filled out with plenty of walks along the beach, pass all the cafes , going out and filling our bellies with sea food. Plenty of time near the pool and the sea, watching perfect sunsets, you get my drift.

 

For my holiday knitting I took an on going project- a lovely pattern - Devonshire which was published in the twist collective spring summer 2011. I was tempted to start a new project but felt sorry for Devonshire , for some reason its been dragging a bit as I've started and finished two shawls in between. The sand and sea shawl and my Erato in which I did manage to type a blogpost.

This is the first sleeve of devonshire. The back and fronts are done and are currently swimming in a nice warm bath as I type, preparing for a nice stretch on the blocking board. The yarn, blush in sport weight was bought from skein queen and is very nice indeed to work with.

My family found one yarn shop in San Antonio and happily came running to announce the find- they know me so well :-) I made one glance and did not even bother going in. Yes - full of squeaky (acrylic )yarn..

On Saturday I noticed a market  close to the sea , near one of the big fountains, and what a joy to see. Lots of stalls demonstrating hand crafting;

I stood by three elderly ladies in traditional dresses and watched their spinning. I saw one of the ladies had in her basket a finished small skein , approx 20 grams. I asked the lady how much that is. She grinned at me with a toothless smile and a 'enty euros' came out of her mouth . She meant twenty. I thought I looked very much like a tourist that day..