Little Hats

Little hats for the Innocent Smoothie campaign organised by Amelia.

These certainly meet many needs: quick results, using only small ends and a guaranteed charitable purpose.

I've managed four of these at a sitting - roughly twenty minutes per hat, bobble time extra.

Flagging it up

My first experiment at a log cabin blankie - and I'm not completely convinced. First, I overestimated how many stitches to pick up - major distortion, so I unpicked the middle and picked up on four dpns to knit a red centre. This kind of sorted it - until I noticed that I'd picked up the wrong side. I waited to see if I could live with it, but I couldn't, so out it came.

Then I found it took twice the red yarn the second time. Something wrong there, but I'm not sure what. Still quite distorted because it is hard to pick up and cast off at exactly the right tension to avoid this.

However, it's quite a startling effect, and I got the yarn at a giveaway price, so I was not wrecking good yarn in the experiment.

Innocent Hats

For some reason the charity knitting theme has taken hold. Perhaps it's the sense of making something from nothing, or the idea of community activity.
These are destined for Amelia's drive for hats for Innocent Smoothies. Yes, it's a marketing or image-building ploy, but 50p to Age Concern is a generous contribution for the results of twenty minute's knitting while watching tele.
First, some candy coloured offerings.








Next, a series representing different knitting traditions: Aran, Sanquhar, Fair Isle and Tyrolean. I can see this becoming a test of ingenuity.

Surprise.

Now what can this be? While knitting this for the first time it holds the attention although only garter stitch is used. This must be because you don't really know where you are on the garment until quite a late stage. Thus, the placing of stripes is a shot in the dark.


Eventually you reach a point where buttonholes are placed so it all starts to clarify. The section where you knit on the central 90 stitches for a while is mysterious. But the final mitreing of the front corners is not immediately clear. At last you have the whole piece off the needles...


And you have the Elizabeth Zimmerman Baby Surprise Jacket. I've wanted to knit this for some time, and I'm really pleased with the result.

Knitting for Kisiizi

Two little knits for Brigid's appeal. Rummaging through the bottom of a wardrobe I came across a cache of baby yarn. Not just yarn but all the pieces for one jumper and the back and one sleeve of the other - with the pattern. This meant a satisfyingly quick result. And to think that the bag had been there these eight years. All that was needed was the motivation.








I wonder how many other stalled projects I could dig out if I felt there was a need...under the bed, in the loft, in the other wardrobe, the dining-room.....

Charity Knitting

Knitting for charity.

Busy weekend made purposeful by the notion of joining in worthwhile schemes.

First, four squares for the Rebuilding Greensburg Block by Block project. Can it really be that those devastated by tornado damage are most in need of an afghan or knitted blanket? But the idea is compelling – if only we could resolve the world's big problems by knitting squares.

As my husband pointed out: anything which reduces the scrap yarn stash in our house has to be good news. And these were knitted from just some of the pale neutrals I used to knit the Pompei jacket all those years ago. So we have a way to go.

 

Next, some little hats for the hospital in Uganda supported by Brigid. I wasn't clear on the bonnets issue when I started these. Again these are just leftovers from previous projects. I never seem to have just little ends left.

Now, I learn from reading Rabbitch that mittens are needed on the Cheyenne reservation. There's a thought to fire the imagination: mittens, possibly inspired by the Latvians, on their way to support Native Americans. Did the Sioux Indians knit? And if so, with what? Buffalo fibre?

Another Aran cushion

Aran cushion in a pattern taken from an Aran jumper pattern. Just the front done in the complex pattern while the back is in double moss stitch. Two buttonhole loops and some neutral buttons and it's done.

Aran Cushions

Aran patterns have a charm all their own: so much dramatic impact for often minimal effort - cables being easy to memorise by reading the knitting itself. So, a series of cushions for the cottage. The point here is that heavy usage would soil these quickly, but a cottage only has intermittent use so these stay fairly clean.
This is a pattern from Alice Starmore's "Fishermen's Sweaters" - an absolute feast of complex designs. How wearable such an encrusted pattern would be, is another matter, but as a cushion, all the interplay of light from the textural interest is ther. And I can admire it, which I couldn't if I was wearing it.

Strippy Throw

A sampler throw for the cottage. The idea here was to build in a number of design elements: alternating large, complex patterns with small textures. Barbara Walker's stitch pattern library gave me most of the designs. Then two colours were chosen to echo the colours in the room, which has striped wallpaper on the chimneybreast. A further reference was the strippy quilt, where the quilting forms a textural interest on the alternating colours.

It was nowhere near as easy to knit as it might have been, because different stitch patterns alter the size of the resulting block. There were several reknittings of difficult strips to adjust for this.

One square has the date and my initials.

Giant jumper

Walking in Cumbria in the depths of winter decided me to reknit an old pattern, but in a much larger size. This would accommodate not only a bigger me, but also several layers of lighter jumpers. Knitted in Balmoral, a chunky yarn, it knit up quickly. This is a pattern I've used several times before.

Kid Mohair

This is the black version of the kid mohair cardigan. Knitted from this very light fibre, it is still floaty after all these years. The lace pattern was easy to read and memorise. The design, as I recall, had a variant with gold bobbles at the centre of each diamond, and a big floppy collar. Very Eighties.

Lace from the Auvergne

Last summer we were holidaying in th Auvergne and I came across this wonderful lace doiley at a flea market. It was three Euros, which I find astounding as bobbin lace is much prized in the region - but of course this is knitted. It measures about fifteen inches across and does remind me of a particular shawl in "A Gathering of Lace".

Pompeii Jacket

The pale version of the Kaffe Fassett jacket. this must be about twenty years old and has seen hard wear. It's a really comfortable shape. When new, it went over a beige dress to look really smart. Now it never leaves the house.

This is the curous thing about some knitwear: it becomes indispensable while other, equally credible, items fail to endear themselves.

Comfort zone.

Jaeger Shetland Style is the yarn used in this very easy shawl. It's such a soft yarn, but I was still not sure what pattern to use. I tried a small cable and then a catspaw. In the end the tweediness of the yarn suggested a double moss stich, which works well with such a bulky yarn. I'm not really a shawl person, but it is very useful as an extra wrap on cold evenings, or on car journeys.

Print of the Wave Stole

The Pattern for this came from Gladys Amedro's book on Knitting Shetland Lace. It is lovely as a piece of fabric but I am not sure whether it does not look like a bedjacket in reality. Partly it's the colour, but there is something about the texture and the way it hangs over the shoulders which suggests the grandmother in Red Riding Hood.

Tumbling blocks

A Kaffe Fassett jacket, originally done in very pale colours as from a mosaic in Pompeii. This version used a variety of evening yarns some with glitter.
I wore it to the V. and A. exhibition of Kaffe's designs in, I think, 1988.

Not really wearable now, but I can't bring myself to throw it out.

Heirloom knitting

Some more pictures, this time of items knitted for my mother, and worn with great pleasure by her and subsequently by me.



First, a waistcoat of my own design, knitted all in one piece. The idea here was to include a significant piece of text, in this case lines of verse. I'd already done one for myself with proverbs. In two ply jumper weight, from Jamieson and Smith these are at least fifteen years old.



Then, the Kaffe Fassett waistcoat in browns.



This is also in very good nick and perfectly wearable. Kaffe's designs are classics, though not to everyone's taste.

Blue dogtooth

A litle waistcoat knitted for my sister out of scraps of two-ply jumper weight.




A lovely Kaffe Fassett pattern, because it looks very complex but is really simple to execute. Millions of ends to weave in though.

Spring in Essex

First picture!



A cardigan in Kid mohair, knitted for my sister some years ago. Like a cloud, but such a luxurious item it has not seen much wear.


I believe I may have cracked how to upload pictures. Incredidible though that may seem to most bloggers, it had remained a closed book to me before.