Finished object file: Canopy Shawl | Skein Merino Silk Sport

It is such a joy to finish a project that is a beautiful pattern knit with gorgeous yarn and a bonus when it is a KAL project that has been completed within the deadline. The project that I am gushing over is the Canopy Shawl knit in Skein yarn Merino Silk Sport.

When Kristen, the owner and dyer of the beautiful Skein yarn company announced on her podcast that she was going to host a shawls KAL I was so excited to join in. I was keen to knit another shawl for myself and I had two skeins of Kristen's Merino Silk Sport in Poppy colourway that I picked up last year at Sunspun's Spring sale. 

I have knit with this blend before in a different colourway and there are so many reasons why I keep returning to this yarn. The 50/50 Merino Silk blend is so soft and it has a delightful drape. I think it drapes so well that I'm probably able to get away with not blocking the shawl. The colour is fabulous; I love how it is very subtly variegated and there are tones of red, purple and even a bit of a bluey grey.

I had been eyeing off Melody Hoffmann's Canopy design for a few weeks and decided that the yarn and the pattern were going to be the perfect pairing for this KAL. Actually all of Melody's mandarine's blog is beautiful. I have a serious crush on her designs and love the photos and anecdotes from her life. I also highly recommend her podcast because she is so delightful to watch and listen to.

The pattern is equally as beautiful as the yarn that I used. It is a triangle shaped shawl with alternating panels of stockinette and a lace pattern. The lace pattern taught me a couple of new stitches which were simple techniques that created a very nice visual touch. The stitches I learnt were how to make a right and left twist to create a pyramid shaped motif along the lace panel. So easy but you do need to concentrate just enough to remember to always maintain two stitches when knitting the twists because it is not a decrease stitch technique. There were a few times where I must have forgotten and got to the next lace row and found that my stitches didn't add up right so I fudged it a bit and picked up stitches to "correct" the stitch count. It's all lace and an extra hole here or there isn't really that noticeable, so I tell myself.

I knit an extra set of lace and stockinette panels because I had extra yardage available from the two skeins of Skein yarn and finished with only a few metres to spare, so I'm doubly happy with that result. A big tick for the stash busting challenge.

I can't wait to wear this shawl out in the sunshine. I think with the silk content in the yarn all the colours of the variegation will not truly shine until it is seen in proper light. I think this is going to be my perfect Spring shawl because it is lightweight and has just the right amount of warmth for a mild Spring day.  With that being said, I'm still going to wear it today when I go to kinder pickup because the sun is shining and I want to enjoy it immediately.

You can read my Ravelry notes here if you're interested.

Finished object file: Crag hat | Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran

School is back and I'm going to aim to get back into the swing of things. I must confess that I do find the balance between blogging about knitting and actually knitting hard. When on the kinder days I only get a couple of hours completely kid free during Miss L's nap I often choose to knit rather than blog because I have so much knitting I want to get through. However, since I keep starting new projects I don't think that status is going to change any time soon, so today I'm going to keep the needles aside and update the blogosphere about one of my latest finished objects.

After asking my friends and readers to help me choose between the Bartek and Crag hat patterns to make for my husband as an anniversary present (you can read about that here) I went with popular opinion and knit the Crag.

I wanted to use up the charcoal Debbie Bliss Cashmerino from my stash but after making two swatches with the aran (heavy 10ply) weight yarn I was starting to lack confidence in my choice. Using 4mm needles for the main pattern was still slightly off gauge but I didn't want to go any smaller because my hands were finding it uncomfortable knitting such heavy yarn on small needles. I kind of fudged it because I rationalised that if I kept my tension tighter for the actual knit and because the Hubs does have a bit of a big head I think I can get away with it in the end.

For the actual knit I started on 3.25mm needles for the ribbing and used a crochet cast on that my dear friend Jenny (Tatterz on Ravelry) taught me. I was leaving this present to the last minute so I decided to skip the tubular cast on because I just wanted to get onto it rather than fiddle with a third needle size and learning a new technique. 

Once I got going into the main body of the hat it was pretty easy to memorise the pattern and it would have been a really enjoyable knit if it didn't hurt my hands. I found I could only do about one set of the pattern repeat before I needed to rest my hands. 

In the end I didn't finish it in time for our anniversary but I did have it done for our time away in Marysville. The Hubs wore it when we went up Lake Mountain to take the kids tobogganing and he said it was perfectly snug and at times he had to take it off because it made him too hot. All credit for that goes to the beautiful cashmere and merino blend of the yarn. You can't go past good fibre when you want warmth.

My latest lesson that I have learnt after knitting this Brooklyn Tweed design and also the Rosebud hat is that I should substitute with either a light worsted or even a DK weight yarn rather than use aran. I have never used Brooklyn Tweed's Shelter yarn for which both these hats were designed for and I hope one day to get the chance to use it but for the time being I am definitely going to select more carefully when substituting for future BT projects.

Finished object: Castilleja Cowl | Spud & Chloe Sweater

Castilleja Cowl knit in Spud & Chloe Sweater.

It's been school holidays here and I have been busy with the kids every day so far.  I have had little knitting time and the blog has been a bit neglected. But today I've managed to get some rest time out of the kids and so it's blog time.

Throughout June I was working between 4 projects and just casually switching between them depending on what I felt like working on at the moment. I've been plodding through my Maeve Shrug and also cast on at the beginning of the month for the Skein podcast shawl KAL. I had also been slowly working on a mini version of the Moto Vest for my girl and an anniversary present for the husband. Between these projects I was starting to feel a little unmotivated since I wasn't getting anywhere near finishing any of them. 

I love the cosiness of a cowl in winter.

Then my little guy got invited to a kinder friend's birthday party and we only had a week's notice. I don't enjoy taking the kids to the shopping centre these days so I decided to knit the little girl something. I figured a quick gift knit might help me get my knitting mojo back.

Sir S choose some yarn out of my stash and we found an easy (and free) cowl pattern  off Ravelry called the Castilleja Cowl. It calls for a worsted weight yarn and I used some grape coloured Spud & Chloe sweater yarn. The yarn is beautifully soft and squishy with a wool and organic cotton composition. 

Simple details kept this knit interesting.

I knit this up in two days and I'm quite pleased with the results. The cowl design has regular elongated stitches set within reverse stockinette stitch and is bordered by fisherman's rib sections. There was just enough variation in it to keep it an interesting knit. 

The pattern is well written with easy to follow instructions and if a bigger cowl is desired it can be adapted without too much difficulty. The pattern needs a multiple of 6 stitches cast on and a wider cowl can be achieved with more repeats of the pattern.

I hope the birthday girl will enjoy the cowl as the cold weather sets in. I guess even though I had wanted to reevaluate my gift making I can't help myself; making gifts still feels better to me than buying.

Stash busting tips please.

My messy bundle of project remnants.

Everything looks so much nicer re-balled.

We're still in the throes of illness here with both kids coughing and sniffling now and I've got a strain in my back, so it's another short post this week. I hope that once I get my head back in the game I will have the brain space to write a much more thoughtful post.

Anyway, with all the time that we have been spending at home under self imposed quarantine I spent some time organising my stash and working out which yarns to pair with which projects. After this bit of planning time I am excited to tackle the stash and knit up some of that beloved yarn into some lovely patterns that I have been crushing over in my favourites list on Ravelry.

While sorting through the stash I also took the time to tidy up the scraps or remnants that I have kept from finished projects. I balled up all of the substantial remnants and I wonder what am I going to do with them. The really scrappy bits I throw in a bag and use for craft with the kids or for tying up gifts, but I don't have too many ideas with the bigger balls that I have left.

So, I thought I would ask you my readers a few questions. What are your best stash busting projects? How do you manage all your scraps? Or are you usually spot on with your yardage and end up with very little scraps?

Yin yang Rye socks - a knitting misadventure

Last year my dad fell from a ladder and he fractured his pelvis quite badly. While spending 7 weeks in hospital rehabilitating after having multiple pins placed into his pelvis to help stabilise the injury, he regularly complained of having cold feet. I decided that a dutiful daughter ought to lovingly knit some cozy socks for their dad.

Having never knit socks before I thought it best to go with the basic boy socks pattern from 'Purls of Wisdom'. I bought some lovely Naturally Waikiwi from the Sunspun spring sale and the aim was to have the pair of socks done by Ba's birthday in September. However, a few factors were unfortunately working against me. 1) I was in the middle of a couple of other projects 2) sock yarn is such a fine yarn that for a slow knitter like me a small sock project sti.ll takes forever and 3) life was just going through one of those particularly busy patches and knitting was not getting fit in as much as I had liked.

Well by the time Ba's birthday arrived I was only about 3/4 the way through one sock, so the plan became to give him socks for Christmas instead. About 5 days till Christmas I reassessed the sock project and decided on knitting some Rye socks by tincanknits that called for some worsted-aran weight yarn. I was also going to do some stash busting by using up the leftover Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran that I had used for my BIL's Windschief beanie and some leftover random green coloured yarn that I had used for knitting mug cozies for the kinder teachers and SILs.

When we all sat down for Christmas lunch on Boxing Day I sadly only had one completed sock to give to my dad. So, these socks made it onto my January make list and as celebrated in my 'Small victories' post I finished them. However, as this is a misadventure I sadly ran out of yarn and had the small hitch of being unable to find the same yarn. I had bought the green yarn while on holiday in Torquay a couple of years ago from a little shop that sold handmade things. They had a lovely range of handmade knits, quilts, cards, etc., as well as a small range of hand dyed yarns. There was very little information available about the yarn and when I ran out I had little hope of getting more. I had enough green for the body of 1 sock so I ended up knitting the pair in contrasting colours, yin yang style.

So, that's how I ended up knitting yin yang socks for my dad, but at least I finally finished my first pair of socks.

Happy with High Water

A perfect fit for Sir S

I finished the High Water pullover for Sir S recently but had to wait for some cooler weather before I could convince him to try it on for some shots. Today's not too hot and I resorted to the ol' bribery, "I'll give you a whole Zooper Dooper if try this on and let Mummy take some photos.".

I always love photographing this little guy's facial expressions

One of the joys of this pattern was that the use of worsted weight yarn plus lots of stockinette stitch made it a very quick knit. The last pullover I knit for S took me about 7 months to complete because it was using fingering weight yarn and Miss L was born in the midst of it.

Other than the concerns that I have with the choice of green stripes because of S's colour blindness I did blunder up the right sleeve. When I got down to the rib cuff I realised that I was one stitch short and I have no idea how that happened; the most likely possibility is that I picked up one less stitch under the arm when I was starting the sleeve. Hence why I subtitled this blog, "the (mis)adventures of...", I always manage to make some little mistake in all my knits.

Of course he chose black buttons because it's a colour he is definitely able to see

Regardless of the missing stitch the jumper fits very well on my skinny mini and I am certain that it will last him this coming winter season.

This was the first time working with the Cascade 220 worsted yarn for me. It has really great stitch definition and a lovely springiness that holds the structure of the garment well. But, I was a little disappointed that it was not as soft to touch as I had hoped it would be. However, I read the comments on Ravelry and there are claims for other users that it softens with washing. Sir S has commented that it feels scratchy against his skin but I'm hoping that he will be able to wear a long sleeve baselayer in the winter with it to buffer his skin from the wool.

I made a MOD with the sleeve cuff because Sir S requested "sleeves like mittens". I knit in some thumb holes and made the whole cuff 10cm long (2cm more than the pattern suggestion). If I make thumb holes again I will try a different technique because I think my bind off, knit two rows and then cast back on method is a bit sloppy. Next time I will do it like a buttonhole with a K2tog then a yarn over in the next row.

roaring fun thumb holes

Overall, I love the stripes and the boat neck collar. I used exactly 2 skeins of the Cascade and just under 10g - approx. 14m according to Ravelry calculations - of the Spud & Chloe for the stripes. It felt good to stash bust some of this yarn that I had purchased so long ago.

I love the classic and simple stripes design

I look forward to the winter and taking some more photos of Sir S wearing this jumper while in action.