It was time to use up a stashed yarn that was bought without a clear purpose.
These socks were knit from the top down with the intention of using just the Regia Design Line “Garden Effects” yarn, but the more ribbing I knit the more I knew that this yarn needed help from a friend to make it interesting. I added in a ball of grey Regia that appears almost purple-blue next to the the pinks and reds from the Garden Effects yarn. Stripes to the rescue!
Schoppel Wolle yarns are like magic yarn to me – I see them in a shop and I stare for ages and beautiful images appear in my mind of the things I can create. The German-made yarn is on the expensive side here in Australia but I love the striped beanie I made last year and I decided to let myself free on a few projects with their magical yarns.
First I took on a crochet diagonal stripe scarf with Crazy Zauberball (4 ply, 75% wool 25% nylon) in the Herbstsonne colourway. It’s a mighty 183cm (6 foot) long with blue, orange and red stripes. I used a 3mm crochet hook and 1.6 balls of yarn.
Spring is heating up in Sydney (we’ve just had two days in a row that hit 32C/90F!) and I’ve finally caved in and tried to take photos of my granny triangle shawl.
I first mentioned this granny triangle shawl in January, but among travels and distractions it was a project that I would pack away for weeks and then return to for a few evenings before packing away again. While it was easy to work on (a perfect companion to watching films on TV) I was also keen to spend time experimenting with other yarn projects. Continue reading
After my recent hiccup with fingerless mittens, I took a more sensible approach and knitted test swatches, took measurements, created charts to figure out stripe patterns and thumb increases, and came up with a variety of much better fitting fingerless mittens.
The end of financial year sale at Morris and Sons suckered me in so I stocked up on random colours and played around with stripes, ribs, and yarns. Continue reading
Sticking with my current obsession with stripes and double pointed needles, I decided to work up some fingerless mittens. I didn’t put much planning in and unfortunately I paid the price.
I looked for a pattern online with roughly the same type of yarn and used their stitch counts and general approach but I didn’t check the hand size they were aiming for and I didn’t knit a gauge swatch (oops).
My own wrist is very thin and I have a long palm and hands. I tried the first mitten on as I was making it. I could see that it wasn’t looking quite right and I made a few adjustment because I was keen on the stripes and trying out the yarn. When the first mitten was done it floated around on my hand! I tried it on a friend’s hand and she also found it awkwardly proportioned. Oh dear. Perhaps I could shrink and felt them, I thought, so I made the second one anyway.
I’ve never felted anything before so after some googling for instructions I gave it a try and, while it might not appear so from the photos above, the mittens have shrunk a touch so they’re not as large as they were but they are still roomy. The wrist area above the ribbing is still too wide. The shape of the mitten between the wrist and the thumb does not follow the shape of a human hand. The thumb hole feels slightly tight and awkward. And they don’t even look felted! Continue reading
