Inspiraton

Tangerine, and black...

I have been really good, honest.  Just one new book by Flying Fish Quilts author Wendy Williams and a couple of pairs of needles I really did need.  And I had managed to resist all the delicious wool in Dundee's fabulous Fluph wool shop right up until the weekend, then I spotted this Garnstudio wool.  It is destined to be made into socks for my darling boy, and if you know him then you'll know why this is going to be knitted up with black 4ply into one of the stunning designs from Stephanie van der Linden's Op Art Socks which Caitlin and Scott very kindly got me for Christmas.

Fluph is a really friendly little shop, I was lucky enough to squeeze in last week for their Women In Science week event.  It's a sad truth that women in science need to be celebrated, still very much in the minority.   There were patterns for red blood cells and the place was packed with people chatting away about knitting, crochet, crystallography, sickle cell anaemia, malaria, science, tea, cakes, yarnbombing, fibonacci sequences and binary bonsai, often in the same sentence.  Just wonderful!

Second pair of knitted socks - done!

That's my second pair of socks made with Opal's 4 ply Sock Yarn done and dusted, this pair to go away for winter, though, given the current weather here in Scotland that won't be long.  The wool is Opal's Vincent Van Gogh range, a pretty orange and green striped variegated yarn (ombre) with purple and yellow flecks called Paul Gauguin's Armchair with Candle #5436, colours taken from the painting of the same name. 

I've enjoyed learning how to knit socks and now feel ready for the fair isle versions I've looked at with longing, I got a bit bored with this pair which is a good sign that I've got the technique down.  There's a lot going on, knitting in the round is straightforward and it's fun watching the colours change, it's a nice wool to knit with.  Short rows to create the heel flap, picking up the flap stitches and creating the gusset are challenging but the instructions that came with leaflet that came with Opal's ball of wool as part of Rainbow Silk's sock knitting kit are comprehensive and if followed with care give the right result.  I had to shorten the number of rows after the heel as I've got smallish but wide feet so I knitted only 35 rows before decreasing for the toe.  The kits are lovely, wool, needles, pattern and a set of adorable stitch markers.  And then finally decreasing down to a 20 stitch toe and kitchener stitch, sewing up the toe to give a dead neat finish.

Catching up!

Well, I haven't stopped being busy, just posting.  So this is a catch up on the things I've been creating.

Firstly I was dead pleased with my beautiful DROPS studio waistcoat, photograph to the left.  The pattern is now called Misty Vines and was easy to knit in one way because it's done in the round, this means that the sides and the back are knitted as one piece up to the armholes then it splits and the only seams are on the shoulders.   The tricky bit was the leaf patterning, I eventually had to note everything down carefully so I knew exactly what I was doing on each round.

DROPS studio are a Norwegian company that produces beautiful Nordic style designs.  They produce their own wool but I used Jarold Heritage DK wool #132, a wool I've used before for a pair of lovely soft navy flipover gloves that I put down somewhere and failed to pick up again.  Bah!  The buttons came from Austria, from the dressmaking shop in St Johann im Tirol that I visit every time we go to Soll.

They were also the designers for what turned out to be two beautiful hats, both using the Halifax pattern.  The story is that these are fairisle stranded knitting which tends to be thicker, so between me measuring Scott's head for the hat, deciding on the Medium / Large size and me knitting it it didn't fit.  So that hat is now shared between me and Caitlin and I went back to knitting, this time the Large / XLarge.  Both were knitted in Sirdar Country Style 4ply black and Rico Design Superba Chinee #008 green, a variegated yarn which knitted to a soft mottled effect.  Luckily I like a challenge, fairisle is a bit fiddly and I probably would be a lot faster if I learned to carry my wools across my fingers right but I'm happy with my plodding pace.  These were an easy introduction to fairisle and are good for beginners to the technique as there are only two colours involved. 

Then, since I'd lost my glittens I made a new third pair in the variegated silver grey / charcoal Fingerless Gloves / Glittens coloured dk yarn James C Brett Woodlander L4, I don't know how many times I've used thispattern by Dawn Beck and I haven't tired of it yet.  The combination of fingerless gloves, actual gloves rather than the handwarmers which don't have the individual fingers, and flipover part make them ideal for me as I bike a lot and have terrible circulation, here in Scotland they are still in use in what passes for May.

And I'm knitting for my sister, well, for her new baby, it's a surprise but I don't reckon she'll ever look at this so that's fine!   I was originally creating an afghan from squares but it looked amateurish, then I found this pattern called The Fish - return! on the Knitting Arrows.  I can do about 3 fish in a night and am sewing them together as I go along.  I'm using various baby wools, although the blue is causing a problem as it's thicker than the others.  Oh well.  I'm actually using double pointed needles rather than knitting needles as they're shorter, at its longest the fish are only 23 stitches wide and that's just as you're about to cast off.  The colours of the picture are a bit off, the lighter blue is a soft aqua.