T O A S T Y !

 

Here is Toasty, all done and dusted! The fronts and back are knitted separately, while the sleeves are seamlessly knitted from armhole. It has been a challenging design for me and now I'm allowing myself to feel smugness about this. It is still not perfect and it needs to be recalculated to a heavier yarn with less seams but for now it will suffice. So here you have it- with my Toasty on a chilly spring day ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

Toasty- Progress

Toasty is a project I had in mind to design- inspired by a silhouette on the high street few years ago. Couple of months ago it was time to act. Outlines were drawn, details were added, schematics calculated and few swatches knitted. I chose lamb wool no. 1 by Patricia Roberts in charcoal- heavy fingering weigh.
I'm having a love-hate relationship with this design. Its not straight forward and my biggest challenge was the garter hem in relation to the stockinette fronts. I'm telling you , its so much easier to buy a pattern and follow instructions.

 

Toasty is double breasted jacket with plenty of versatility. The buttons placement on the collar and hem give it abundant wearing possibilities. You can wear it all proper and buttoned or to have it more open and fluid.

 

 I used German short rows to shape and curve the garter hem to create a natural slope for the neck line. The collar is also shaped using short rows and can be worn high up to guard against chill or totally open in a relaxed style or buttoned side ways to create a different look. It's up to my mood.

I added some pockets adorned with double rib and purposely placed back band to accentuate the waist.

Sleeves are knitted down after being picked from around armhole, again using short rows for the sleeve cup.

Another push to finish the sleeves and decide on sleeve cuffs.
Will keep you posted !

Funky grandpa in Crete



Almaryda, Crete

Here in the UK we are basking in an unseasonably warm weather. I moved to England about 17 years ago and built my life here but I always long for the Mediterranean Sun. We had our long deserved holiday in Crete last week, our first time in Greece and I enjoyed the food (too much I'm afraid), views and friendly people but soon after arriving, it was storming for four days with very strong winds and rain. The drainage system just could not cope with that amount of water and streets became rivers. Inconvenience to idle tourists like us.

I packed my newly finished Grandpa by the lovely Rililie which was light enough to wear the last sunny day of our holiday. Not for the first time I stole/copied/inspired by the version of my dear friend the cycling-knitter  with her permission of course. Part of the fun of knitting your project is dreaming and planning the combination of colors and I always look at other ravelry projects to get ideas. I just loved the light background with the subtle stripes of the variegated skein cashmere fingering in 'Fig'. The background is not white nor cream but like a light fawn or stone color. Yarn purchased at 'unravel' from Kettle yarns Co Beyul- nice blend of yak, silk and merino in fingering weight, not too floppy just with the right heaviness. The scrumptious skein in Fig has colors ranging from purple, pink, yellow and beige. The deep brown sleeves in uncommon thread tough sock 'Pitch' with the whimsical saddle sleeves give a bit of boldness. Can you see the long stripe of Brown on the beginning of the button Band? beautiful little details. Oh and the icord bind off of the cuffs, nice short rows on the button band and double the yarn on the bottom Rib.. It really is a funky fun knit !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Acer

Acer, another design from Amy Christoffer and the first time to use my latest purchases from the New York trip. I knitted this popular cardi in no time at all - less then two weeks, just flew off the needles. A good way to destash some dk or worsted yarn with a good stitch definition. The cabled pattern is bold enough to sustain the variegated yarn.

I always remember yarn purchases and I recall my excitement when climbing up the narrow stairs to String shop last October (before they moved) and spotting those lovely robust skeins of Koigu hanging of the wall. I've never knitted with koigu before, perhaps a bit intimidated by all that colour riot that identifies koigu hand dyers. The yarn is called Koigu Kersti Merino Crepe, 100% merino wool 100m to 50g, dye code k714. It looks as if it a chain type of yarn but close inspection shows it is just twisted plied yarn.

Tosh sock holy festival

These days I'm very much attracted to neutrals with some interesting speckled atmosphere in them. You can see that in some of the new season madelinetosh colours and my favourite uncommon thread yarn (confetti ) and walk collection are applying that techniques to their dyes. Ladies and gentlemen - Speckled is the new black! :-)

Uncommon thread-confetti

Back to my Acer, here is a close up of that beautiful yarn spotting..
Oh and the buttons are from textile gardens, picked from unravel 2014. There is some marbled effect of blue and cream that goes well with all colour mess.

Happy knitting ! :-)

Everglade or my baby poo hat !

One of the ladies in our knit and chat groups started knitting this hat, 'Everglade' by woolly wormhead which  immediately drew my attention. A nice wide rib hem and a little slouch on with this half leaf intermittent stitch pattern I was wanting to try since the free Ginko shawl started circulating about.

A very quick and easy knit which was knitted leisurely in one cold February weekend. I used one of my past knitspot club yarns. -Andrea Mae DK, 100% superwash merino by Studio June yarn, hand dyed in Kalamazoo, MI. The colour 'Beligian wheat' appealed to me but what I saw as a lovely dull yellow darkened slightly by murky grey was picked at my knitting group as a baby poo color .. One of our ladies given birth recently and her lovely baby girl attends our meeting on a regular basis- hence the color inspiration :-D
I don't really mind that, I do love my yellows- they make me happy !

 

Portage !

Portage is one of those patterns that commands you to drop everything else on your needles and frantically go stash diving or web browsing for the right yarn. I had the perfect yarn for it but just under right amount. It didn't deter me from casting on. Do I ever learn?
I used 5 skeins of Hedgehog fibres , Blue faced DK in Ferrum- a lovely color which can described as olive green mingled with brown. Those 5 gorgeous skeins were the cyclist knitter's discards which I happily scooped away..

There are some very attractive details here. The back is textured with hundreds of tiny cables that you are strongly advised to knit without a cable needle. The pockets are created by extending and shaping  the bottom bit of the shawl collar, folded backwards on itself and carefully sewn on to the cast off edge and sides. I love the extra long sleeves with the ribbed cuffs folded backwards for extra warmth and stability. I also applied tubular cast off to the ribbed hem - that edging always make me happy and worth all the extra work.

All was well up to the garter shawl collar which consumed scary amounts of yarn. I knew I wont have enough for it and the pockets. Hedgehog notified me that the blue faced dk base won't be in stock until March but 2 skeins of ferrum were up for sale in the states. I bought them but for my dismay they were totally flat and dark sludgy brown. I persevered with 3 balls knitting in stripes to try to blend the colors together and it worked ! I love it and well please with it.

 

Only couple of modifications here first a shorter hem to try to save yarn and it still look generously long overall. Secondly I had to enforce and tidy up the pockets top edges with single slip crochet because of the 3 balls knitting.

 

 

Totally recommend the pattern- go and make yourselves a portage !

shaken and stirred

This is a shaken or stirred by Tea Colman. An attractive top down, shawl collared cardigan with some colour work and nice details.

Some people have a strong eye for colour, I'm not one of them but once I see a colour combination in front of me I just know if it goes. So I picked dark grey and orange for the stripes, knitted the body and hem, cast off and then paused. I was not convinced. It looked too childish and too busy so the body was frogged and reknit. I left just few stripes at the bottom and made it longer. Simple but classic.

I always coveted the luxurious madelintosh pashmina but I'm afraid it was the wrong yarn for this project. I should have picked something a bit more bouncy and less drape-y. Here is a close up of the shoulder shaping and stitch detail- lovely .

 I've discovered Robin Hobb and totally engaged in her books. It doesn't help with my knitting though. I do envy those who can knit in a car (as a passenger of course) and I wish I knew how to knit and read at the same time.  Happy holidays !