A parrot for a little prince

Funky parrot!

When I asked my friend Judith what I could make for her baby son Rhoan her answer was a little surprising but great fun.  I'd asked her to go look on Ravelry and she picked out a parrot.  It's been a while since I've made toys but I had plenty of spare wool so got to work on Rian Anderson's Toy Parrot.  It was an absolute pleasure to work something that knitted up in such a short time and was so well designed, the pattern is full of clever increases and decreases which give the parrot his lovely fat tummy.  And because tension didn't matter I just knitted in double knit (8ply) weight wool, which meant two strands of the finer stash wools I had in my needle.  This allowed me to play around with colour, the red for the head and tail is two strands of the same wool, but the tummy is one strand of yellow and one of orange held together which gave a lovely variegated effect.  I expected it just to look like two strands but no, they blended and unblended to look just like an ombre wool.  Before I knitted I did cross stitch and you often blend two different coloured strands of embroidery floss in the needle, but this was the first time it had occurred to me to try it in knitting.  I decided to embroider on the eyes as Rhoan is only little and was pleased with how they looked.  Even the beak has clever shaping to get the hook shape.  The wings were knitted with this amazing fuzzy yarn I had along with a strand of Blue Sky Alpaca Silk #139 Peacock which was my maiden purchase from Dundee's newest knitting shop Wool & Co.  I will just say that knitting with the novelty yarn was challenging and leave it at that, worth it for the effect but it was an experience!  A perfect pattern for using up your stash.

Yarncrawl Dundee

Router died on me after changing all my passwords last Thursday to try and keep my computer safe...  So this is a bit delayed, but I wanted to put out a post on our excellent yarncrawl round Dundee.  It really doesn't seem that long since pubcrawl was more part of my vernacular, I vividly remember the pub golf that was part of the initiation into Lip Theatre Company.  But this was pretty exciting too, especially now Dundee has five yes FIVE places you can buy wool and indulge in one of my favourite postapocalyptic life skills.

Baby double knit from the Knitting Pin for Lexi's Jacket

We got the number 73 bus in from Carnoustie, an excellent service that runs from just round the corner from us on Newton Road all the way to Ninewells Hospital, it is a lifeline for the carless and passes a good hour watching the world go by!  We clambered on and up to the top deck and the bus picked up Marta (her account of the yarncrawl can be found here) and her two boys and the kids happily blethered away all the way in to the end of the Arbroath Road.  We all got off there and turned up Albert Street to the Knitting Pin.  

Pompom yarn from the Knitting Pin

What a sight greeted me.  A vast range of every type of commercial yarn all by type, I easily found the double knitting section and was able to take my time picking out four beautiful shades of baby double knit yarn for my next big project, Debbie Bliss' Check & Cross Stitch Jacket for my neice's christening present. Caitlin was enchanted by the pompom yarn and picked out a ball to try  I left knowing I now had a failsafe good yarn store to go to, that here I would find a selection of inexpensive wools and notions that would enable me to make up any project and that I would find service that was friendly and helpful

From there it was a bit of a walk down the town but in the spring sunshine this was a delight, down Albert Street to the Murraygate and along to the Forum Centre to shop number #2, Wool Craft in the Forum Centre.  This is the shop my husband's gran used for wool and although small it has a wide range of commercial yarns, sundries, notions and stuff for other needlecrafts: cross stitch yarns, buttons and needles.  There's not much to say other than this has been my go to Dundee wool shop for years and it's good value.

Big Wool and Big needles!

A short hop then along the High Street to Union Street and down to the youngest member of the yarncrawl: Wool&Co.  This opened up just the end of last month and currently stocks luxury yarns from Rowan, Erica Knight and Blue Sky Alpacas as well as beautiful birchwood knitting needles, tiny rosewood needles for knittting in the round and cones of yarn for machine knitting.  The owner Laura shares my passion for British yarns and this is where I got the beautiful teal coloured Blue Sky alpaca/silk yarn that I am currently using to knit a parrot (!) for baby Rhoan from Rian Anderson's pattern Toy Parrot with Pirate Accessories, a delight to knit up, Anderson uses shaping delightfully.  Caitlin fell in love with a pair of mega chunky mittens, Laura had clevery designed the pattern to be used by beginners at a how-to-knit workshop so they would have something usable to take away with them.  Caitlin bought the turquoise Rowan yarn and 10mm needles to make her own and Laura sent me the pattern, thanks to the wonders of modern technology I was able to check right away that her email had reached me!

Fluph's spring window display, Totoro bottom right!

Then a longer walk up through my personal history across the University Campus to Blackness Road, to Fluph and the warmest welcome from girl (Leona) and dog!  We admired the beautiful window display and Caitlin and I particularly fell in love with Leona's little Totoro and soot ball.  Caitlin sat and knitted Rhoan's parrot while I got a very welcome cup of tea, then we hit the debit card: the last balls of wool for Lexi's jacket, a book for me and more wool for the child!

Drops Big Delight, an Aran weight yarn for Cailtin to learn cables

Fluph is the only shop that stocks Garnstudio Drops yarn and for this alone I would love them.  I discovered Garnstudio when I discovered Ravelry when I was first starting to knit again and could not believe their generosity, they offer a huge range of free knitting patterns and their Misty Vines waistcoat was my first big project.  I was unable to use their yarn as I like to touch yarn before using it, and our nearest at that point was Aberdeenshire.  There is now one in Glasgow too but in total only three stores stocking Drops yarn in Scotland and I'm lucky enough to be close to one!  Garnstudio are Scandinavian and since the 80s they have been producing delicious wearable designs, often scandinavian and nordic in style.

Book, Drops yarn and I had to have a tote bag

So I picked out four balls of Karisma yarn for Lexi's jacket, three white for the background and one dusty pink for the cross stitches.  And then I spotted Little Red In The City by Ysolda Teague and fell head over heels. Thing that I love about this book

1.  Micro cables

2. Hooded lace cardigan, I love hoodies

3. Pages and pages of how to customise a commercial pattern to your personal measurements

4. The friendly style of writing

5. The delicious photographs

6. The Scottish connection

7. And the thing that made me buy it, Teague photographs and speaks about two models, the girl on the cover models the patterns throughout.  She is triumphantly rubenesque and shows how the patterns look on real people!

Fluph runs workshops too, I may be back on Thursday for their regular knit night

Refreshed we wandered along down Annfield Road to the Hawkhill and cut through to the Perth Road.  Our final destination wasn't a knitting shop as such, but a shop I've often wanted to look into when going to or coming back from Ninewells on our bus.  Creative Creatures is a small but perfectly formed craft shop that sells a wide range of, well, stuff, including the thing I spent last week searching for: buckles.  Knitting yarn, felting tops, kits, buttons, embroidery supplies and much much more.

Tired out and satisfied Caitlin and I walked down to the newsagent next to the Queens Hotel and caught the number 73 all the way home from just outside the University's Tower Building.

All of these shops dovetail perfectly, they all offer something the other's don't and I hope they all survive and thrive.  And we met some shop owners who were fired with the same adoration of the squish stuff as ourselves and were helpful and enthusiastic about our little crafty kids.

A dress for Emily

Emily sitting pretty on our shelves

I find most dolls which have human faces frightening, but the two my daughter Caitlin has inherited are different.  This is Emily, given to her by my mum and she has a sweet face and pretty hair.  For Christmas I decided to knit her a dress from a book that I'd bought for Caitlin full of lovely knitting and crochet patterns to make for her dolls.  Admittedly she hasn't done any herself yet but I'm sure she will.

Dress Up Your Dolls by Lise Nymark is packed full of delightful designs both knitted and crocheted, dungarees, cabled sweaters, day dresses, evening wear, all sorts of clothing that can easily be customised.  The designs are for a standard 18" doll and Emily is bigger but it's fairly easy to add a row here and there, I added quite a lot to make it longer and I think it's still a bit short, but Caitlin loves it and I guess that's all that matters!

Emily's dress is adapted from the Safari Dress pattern.  The purple wool is James Brett's Top Value DK, an acrylic that is nevertheless soft to knit with (#8431 Lilac).  Purple is Caitlins' favourite colour and the wool came from the stash of my grandmother-in-law, the much loved matriarch of the family who died last year.  For the trim I wanted something fluffy and this certainly was that, it's Beregere De France's Plume #2010.  It was very slippery to knit with but was only for a short stretch.

Two finished projects in one week! #1 The mighty tunic!

Cable tunic- reverse

That's Caitlin's cardigan and my tunic finished, blocked and photographed all in

Cable tunic - front

one week, this morning was a beautifully sunny if windy and cold day, idea for bringing out the cable detail on all three of my projects.  It required balancing a camera on an ironing board and using the timer but I got there and am quite pleased with the results.

The purple tunic as you can see is really quite long, comes down to just above my knees and is ideal for wearing with leggings or thick tights and boots, I've got a sleeveless vest on here but it looks good over a long-sleeved one too.  It's quite heavy so it hangs well and is beautifully warm and soft, not at all itchy.

Would I do it again, well, yes, it is beautiful but it is a long project and as it's created in one piece it gets very heavy towards the end.  However, I really valued the lack of seams when...

Blocking at last on the epic tunic

Blocking finally in progress!

Am finally finally onto the blocking stage of my very lovely Cabled Tunic, the three inches of rib at the bottom in p2 k3 nearly killed me but I just kept telling myself it would be worth it, ditto with taking out and redoing the first sleeve after making a mess of it.  It's been a joy to knit, watching the cables emerge twist from side to side, cross and spiral round each other, learning how to do the yarn overs properly and to have holes not too big or too small, and not getting bored as I tend to with plain knit.  The purple Wensleydale aran (#54 aubgergine) I bought last summer at baa ram ewe in Harrogate has been a pleasure to knit with though I would be brave and use a brighter colour next time.

For the most part the tunic fits beautifully but the sleeves turn under slightly so I decided to do something I've never done before and block it.  My husband did look very blankly at me, he's from the knit and wear it school of knitting!

I looked online and found lots of excellent sources which took me through blocking, especially Interweave's own blog.  I put the tunic through a wool wash in my machine, as it will have to put up with this kind of punishment if it is going to survive and rolled it in a towel.  Then I pulled it out gently lengthways and widthways until the waist, bottom edge and length were the same as the sizes given at the beginning of the pattern.  As instructed I didn't pin the ribbing, this damages it apparently.  I then carefully pinned the sleeves to be straight across the top edge stretching them so hopefully they will dry without the slight curl, watch this space...  

Blocking pins were a bit difficult to source, I biked about 12 miles into our local city to my nearest decent knitting shop but they didn't have any so had to buy online, from one of my very favourite stores Barnyarns via Amazon.  I was a bit worried there weren't many in the tin but it's been enough to hold the tunic in shape.  Yesterday I went on a hunt for tights / leggings to wear with it, I dislike clothes shopping at the best of times but this was pure frustration, I eventually found some lovely patterned ones and am all set, now I just have to wait for it to dry!

After the slow work on this big project the work on a cardigan for my 10 year old has gone alarmingly fast. The Wensleydale, although an aran weight wool, was quite fine and I'm now working on WYS (West Yorkshire Spinners) short sleeved cardigan from their Works of Aran patternbook in their Aire Valley Fusions Autumn Mix aran, it's the one on the front of the book.  It just has a single twist pattern on the front so is quick to knit up and the wool is thick, soft and beautifully variegated, just stunning shades.  It's done the old way of front left, right, back and sleeves knitted separately and they have curled so I'll need to block them before joining them together.  Am just loving doing something that is coming together so quick, and having a fraction of the previous 200 odd stitches on my needle.  Knitting seamlessly in the round does have it's advantages, I don't think I could have faced knitting the front after knitting the back of my tunic, but it is heavy by the end!  I really prefer to knit using British wool if I can to support the industry, after these two Yorkshire excursions I'm hoping to go to New Lanark this summer and buy some of their wool.

Minions at Dundee Comics Day and cabling

In the afternoon yesterday we went to the Starblazers Dundee Comics Day workshop at the DCA, a

Minion hat from the At Home With the Lunchbox Guru

combination of two of Caitlin's all time favourite things and I'm not not keen either!  She spent a happy 2 hours creating Doctor Who monsters, meeting real artists and blethering her head off and having some original artwork drawn for her.  I sat on the sofa surrounded by comic artist greats and began knitting a minion hat for my friend's little girl, unfortunately I'm fairly sure it's going to be too small but it's been an education, mostly in how challenging (but fun!) it is to knit intarsia in the round.  Just lets say I have a LOT of ends to knit in!  The pattern has been straightforward and effective, thanks to Juanita McLellan for her generous free Despicable Me Minion Hat on Ravelry.  She has lots of minion patterns and I don't think this will be the last I make.

And I am finally getting on with that tunic, it is slow because you're knitting the entire thing in a

Front of tunic, yoke done with sleeve stiches on holders

single piece but I'm down beyond the yoke and on to the waist decreases.  I went back to my Wensleydale as I realised what I'd done wrong, I was trying to follow the cable patterns back and forth as you would for a pattern knitted on straight needles instead of always backwards as you do for in the round.  If you knit this kind of stuff you'll understand, if not that will be gibberish but basically it meant I was twisting loads of my cables the wrong way and the panels inbetween were wrong to an epic degree.  Almost two balls in this already!  I am really enjoying it, I realise now I need something complex like cabling, fair isle or small fiddly work when I'm knitting, I think actually, in any of my crafting, I get a little bored with plain knit.  Caitlin and I inherited her great grandmother's stash of wool including an unmade-up bear body and Val Pierce's sweet book Knitted Bears from Search Press' 20 to make series, so that's been made and we're working on an outfit, teaching Caitlin how to do increases has been challenging fun.  No, not that loop...

Meeting authors and getting inspired

As our planet tilts on it's axis towards winter we have a combination of frankly horrendous days (Friday, damp feet and jeans, miserable) and stunning (yesterday, sun, a bit chilly but beautiful colours).  Yesterday now 10 year old daughter Caitlin and I went to the Literary Dundee book festival and met Jackie Holt and Ruth Bailey, authors of Knit Your Own Scotland and the follow up Knit Your Own Britain, both of which I bought despite the presence of Maggie Thatcher in the latter, if you're Scottish you'll understand!  I bought it to make the marmite pot and make it into a pin cushion, I do love my marmite...  Just need a marmalade one now!

Both authors gave a great presentation on how they turn their ideas into their stunning figures and how they made them, they are stunning, the faces of people recognisable (contemporary, obviously!) and the period costumes stunning.  This comes from their background in theatre, both costume and prop production, and we got to touch and examine the models.  You could tell most of us were crafters from the forensic examination and oohs and ahs over the quality of the work.  They were wonderfully patient and kind to Caitlin when she went up (in her ghost bride Hallowe'en costume) to ask them to sign them.

Knitting wars

Well, I'm currently wrestling with three knitting projects as well as thinking about my and Caitlin's entries for the competition for the Quilters' Guild Regional Day next weekend.  I'm teaching a group of Young Quilters, this time we're making reverse applique t shirts but I think I'm there with what I need to do for them.  The theme is Anything Goes, so Caitlin is making a TARDIS from a dress I bought for a night out in November last year, it's a size 16 and I'm now down to a 12, despite my best efforts over the summer holidays, and although I have taken it in it's still too big.  I'm hoping to make a dress for one of Caitlin's dolls from my scrap basket, which for some reason never seems to go down, and I can't bear to throw any out.

My cardigan, though mine will be purple

The two projects I'm working on just now are a lacework cardigan (Meier cardigan) and a cabled tunic.  Both are from delicious Interweave books, the tunic from The Art of Seamless Knitting and the cardigan from Metropolitan Knits, it's the one on the cover.  Both are knitted in the round which I like, minimising on seams to sew up.  Well, the tunic has caused me no end of trouble, I originally cast it on using Wensleydale Longwool Sheepshop Aran which I spent a small fortune (for me) on at the just wonderful baa ram ewe in Harrogate when we were down in York on holiday.    I did my tension swatch and it is a fine aran so I had to come down a long way on needle size, but when I began to knit I couldn't see it at all and after a bit of toing and froing with advice from friends online I bit the bullet and ripped it out, sob!  It was then a trip into Dundee to get two huge 400g balls of Wendy Aran with wool which is a nice oatmeal colour, and it's doing fine, though as usually I have to go down about half a mm on the needles because I knit loose.  However, to knit the ribbing for the cardigan I needed a 3.5mm cable needle, now, these apparently don't exist so I needed to go up to 3.75mm and guess what I was knitting the tunic on...  Slipped the tunic onto double pins while I did the ribbing, which was completed last night while watching The Hobbit on DVD, much better viewing the second time round I must admit.  We can't wait until December for part 2 to come out!

Drops 123-21

I was knitting this pair of alpaca gloves in Alpaca Loft's beautiful off white wool, from an Drops Design, a Scandinavian online company who provide the most wonderful free patterns.  However, although I only have a finger and thumb to do on one glove I've stopped, just not inspired at the moment, though I will go back to it when I've got a bit further on with the big projects.

With the cabling for the tunic I photocopied the pattern and colour coded the different instructions, it has made it much easier to follow.

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.

Fishies blanket - finished!

All ready to go to Cambridge!

Finally finished the blanket for my sister's new baby and am glad to have it out of the way.  It has been fun to do but I can now get on with finishing my many UFOs without guilt! 

I created simple borders because this is for a new baby so no fringing or eyelets, just picking up the stitches along the top and bottom edges and then the sides.  I say just, but it is still a bit of a fiddle, some of those stitches did not want to be picked up!

To get the top and bottom straight I knitted half fishies but still ended up with a wavy edge, however, as the stripes go towards the edge they get straighter, the wonders of wool!  I think natural wool would be even more giving, this was inexpensive baby wool.

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.

Margaret's socks

Margaret's socks

Stitch markers

Finally finished my first pair of socks, knitting for my husband's grandmother.  Margaret is a very much beloved matriarch in her 90s, 3 children, 7 grandchildren, 5 great grandchildren and another on the way.  But what do you buy for someone who really doesn't need anything else?!  Margaret was once an avid knitter, our daughter has the most beautiful cardigans from birth right up until now, but it's now too much for her.  Last year it was a quilt, so this year was socks.  It combined my wish to try the unknown, knitting my first pair of socks, with the need to give her something knitted with the love we all have for her.  One of my favourite online shops, Rainbow Silks, does scrumptions Opal sock knitting kits which provide you with a set of 5 double pointed 2.5mm needles, the loveliest stitch markers I think I've ever seen, full easy to follow instructions and a ball of yarn.   The yarn is patterned so the pattern is about as simple as a pair of socks can be, a bit of double rib round the top with the rest in stocking stitch.  I ordered my kit with Opal's Schafpate IV #5483 which is spun from the wool of rare breed German Schafpate sheep and ordered a second ball for myself of Opal's Vincent Van Gogh in #5436: Gauguin's Stuhl (mit Kerze), or, in English, Paul Gaugin's Armchair With Candle.  If you look at the yarns you'll realise why it too me simply hours to choose!  Despite my worries I turned my first heel and hope she loves them as much as I do.  £7.99 sounds a lot but you only need one ball per set and there's some left over.  And they feel lovely.  Now darling child wants a pair...

Shetland gloves - 'almost too good to wear'

Left hand glove showing back and right hand glove showing palm

So said my friend Jim as I took these very beautiful gloves out for the first time this year.  I was biking into Dundee from Carnoustie, a not too hilly 11 mile ride with a number of alternatives on the route, and decided to wear these and being fingerless they are perfect for biking, but it was with a sense of trepidation that I unwrapped them from their tissue paper.  They made my outfit, it's not quite cold yet so I was wearing an a-line wool skirt with a grey poncho over the top and cavalry boots.  The bike helmet spoilt the look a little but needs must!

My mum bought these for me in Shetland and they are knitted in the undyed colours of the wool which vary from white through these delicate shades of brown and beige to black, the shading used in these gloves is just exquisite, and I'm not even sure whether I love the lattice work on the palm or the nordic star on the reverse more.  They smell vaguely and not unpleasantly of sheep and are a most cherished gift.  It's funny to think that wool from these hardy sheep was once a necessary staple, and is now a luxury!

My first Knit-a-Long (KAL)

My Bernat KAL

I finally finished my Bernat KAL and was very glad of it, I took it to Austria with me and it's softness was a great comfort when I was recovering like a Victorian lady in an alpine sanatorium!  It was a great experience, I like doing mystery quilts / blankets because it's quite often a pattern you wouldn't usually do or might be daunted by the thought of doing so much.  I ordered the wool directly from the United States and even with postage it was so reasonable, and I've got plenty of wool left over for gloves etc!  It is so nice to have something I made for myself, I do spend so much time creating for others.  Obviously my 8 year old tried to acquire it, but no chance!  It is a regular feature on my lap in the evenings and round my shoulders, especially as the season turns and the days begin to shorten and get colder here in Scotland.

The wool is Bernat's Waverley, an 100% acrylic Aran weight (US worsted weight) 180m/197yds to 100g/3.5oz.  Despite it (or maybe because it was?!) acrylic it is so soft, but you can't break it, it has to be cut with scissors.  I have tried.  The wool tension is 18 stitches and 24 rows to 10 by 10cm / 4" by 4" on 5mm (UK 6, US 8) needles on the band, but I knit loose so I found I needed to use 4.5mm (UK 7, US 7) needles after doing the tension swatch.

The colours I used were as follows, there are many beautiful photos on the Bernat KAL forum of the other combinations people used:
Beige #55615 Sun Drift
Green #55290 Turtle Green
Yellow #55640 Gypsy Gold
Pink #55425 Bitter Rose
Red #55435 Incense

My major issue was with the difference in tension between the sides of the squares.  The squares are quite big at around 9 inches and even with blocking and borders there was a lot of give in them.  But it is just the right size to wrap around you and feel hugged!

Lap blanket

Morag's Lap Blanket

My mother in law needed something special for Christmas, not least because her birthday and Christmas day are one and the same.  I wanted something to keep telling her how loved she is when she goes into hospital, and as she has become more ill she gets increasingly cold.  I may not be able to wrap her up and protect her, but I can give her something which does.  So, a month before Christmas resting on my laurels with all the lap quilts done, I launched into knitting squares from Debbie Abraham's inspirational book Blankets and Throws to Knit.  I had meant to do something colourful for our house, but this was more important.

I knitted and knitted til my fingers were sore, and once I had 8 squares washed them and pinned them out carefully onto a polystyrene fish box lid (clean I'll have you know) on which I'd drawn squares of the right size, 7 inches I think.  It was amazing the shapes these 'squares' came out as, both when I was knitting them and after washing!  I thought I'd done enough, but then laid them out and realised I had nowhere near enough, cue more knitting!  Some of the squares have beads knitted into them, which involved at times sitting patiently with a bead reamer and enlarging the too small holes on the 4mm beads I had.  I learned intarsia knitting and how to use circular needles, and Scott sewed the squares together.  Then we frantically cut and threaded through endless eight inch lengths of wool for the tassels, finishing with a sigh of relief on Christmas Eve, and completely contented with our efforts.  Not necessarily elegant, but bright and cheerful, the intended effect.

Checkerboard

An elegant demonstration of the fact that, at least with my size of pins and wool, that a knitting stitch is not the same width as height.
Checkerboard
Multiple of 8 + 4 (worked well for me, 8 x 3 is 32, plus 4 is 36)
1st row: k4, *p4, k4; rep from * to end
2nd row: p4, *k4, p4; rep from * to end
Rep the last 2 rows once more
5th row: as 2nd row
6th row: as 1st row
Rep the last 2 rows once more


Rep these 8 rows

Vertical Zigzag Moss Stitch

Another day another patch, a nice fiddly one this time.  It's multiples of 7, which made 35 a good number!  A pretty and pleasingly fiddly pattern to keep the brain working

1st row (right side): *p1, k1, p1, k4; rep from * to end
2nd row: *p4, k1, p1, k1; rep from * to end
3rd row: *[k1, p1] twice, k3; rep from * to end
4th row: *p3, [k1, p1] twice; rep from * to end
5th row: k2, p1, k1, p1, *k4, p1, k1, p1; rep from * to last 2 sts, k2
6th row: p1, k1, p1, k1, *p4, k1, p1, k1; rep from * to last 2 sts, p1
7th row: k3, p1, k1, p1, *k4, p1, k1, p1; rep from * to last st, k1
8th row: [p1, k1] twice, *p4, k1, p1, k1; rep from * to last 3 sts, p3
9th row: *k4, p1, k1, p1; rep from * to end
10th row: *k1, p1, k1, p4; rep from * to end
11th and 12th rows: as 7th and 8th rows
13th and 14th rows: as 5th and 6th rows
15th and 16th rows: as 3rd and 4th rows
Rep these 16 rows

Double moss stitch

As if I haven't got enough to do, to use up the cheap double knit wool I've got left I decided to make a sampler blanket of lots of stitches that I like, so I got the book Knit and Purl Stitches: 250 to knit by Erika Knight from the library and set to.  Unfortunately the book doesn't give any tensions so I'm just using size 7 needles, double knit wool and casting on 35 stitches and hoping for the best...  The swatches give me a nice break, I can do one in a few hours depending on complexity.  The multiples number is self explanatory, the plus number is the number of balancing stitches I needed to add on, so 34 is a multiple of 2 plus 1 is 35, great.  Sure it won't always be so easy!
 Double Moss Stich
Multiple of 2 + 1
1st row: k1, *p1, k1; rep from * to end
2nd row: p1, *k1, p1; rep from * to end
3rd row: As 2nd row
4th row: As 1st row
Rep these 4 rows

DUFC hat #1

Well, I encountered my first catastrophic failure, I'm sure it was me not the pattern but I did a fantastic ear flap hat in orange and black, the colours of my husband and daughter's favourite football team, and by proxy mine, Dundee United, my English team being Cambridge United...  It had these great mad skulls on the side that were really my kind of thing. I don't know what I did wrong, but it was too small for any of us, and wouldn't even fit my daughter's doll.  Oh well, now starting another, you live and learn...

Knitting: turning a necessity into a pleasure

Knit1 Slip1's Boyfriend Hat

Christmas with my husband's parents was lovely, nothing like taking the edge off an overexcited 7 year old like being able to hand her over to her grandparents, however, I left my lovingly knitted glittens (gloves that have a mitten bit that flips over) and my hat in Turriff so got busy knitted two gloves from the wonderful Ravelry site which offers thousands of great free patterns that do really work.  So I made a slouchy hat which will match with the gloves when I get them back, knitted in Creative Yarns DK Rainbow Multi #0343 Jumping Castle from HCS Crafts.