In which hubby gets another jersey...

This jersey started out quite a plain style until I came across this pattern with the old saddle shoulder style shape which always sits nicely. The collar had to be fairly short so that the polo shirt collars that himself likes to wear will sit nicely with this neckline.

The lovely fleck of this double knitting Cleakheaton wool makes the jersey come alive much better than a flat colour.

Fingerless Gloves/Mittens

Winter is setting in and time to think about my cold hands when trying to do things, particularly at work. I am going to do some fingerless gloves, actually mittens when I think about it. I have some baby alpaca I bought from a lovely little shop in Geraldine, New Zealand. It's on a cone and is 1 ply with over 500 gms on it. It is the softest fibre I have ever knitted with. I am a convert to this!

For these gloves I need at least 3 ply so have wound some off into little balls and have been knitting 3 strands together. That seems to work alright. I am guessing that it won't ultimately have strength but then I wont be wearing them out in the way you might need socks to be hard wearing.

This pattern comes once again from my favourite site Ravelry. Here it is.

Felting Fun

My first attempt at felting brought on by the fact that I have a supply of mohair wool that I don't seem to have a use for. I noticed that after sitting around for more years than I care to admit to that it is naturally felting a little. So a little bit of research and it would seem that mohair is going to felt well. After the slippers I made (previous blog) were not too big I needed to make something else. So a hat, I have always wanted a felted hat and they are always quite expensive!

Settled on this wonderful pattern and with 2 strands of my mohair on size 8mm needles it only took about 2 hours to knit. It came out the size of your average bucket, sorry I forgot to photograph it. Then the exciting part. After some research I knew that I wanted to do this process by hand. We have a front loader washing machine and it would seem like a big waste of hot water as well as the fact that you can't keep checking the size of your garment.

 I donned the rubber gloves squirted a little dish washing liquid in and rubbidy-dub-dub!
















It took about 3 sessions of 10 minutes and of course you have to try it on... wet! But you literally stop when it fits... Simple! What a great process!

I wrapped it in a towel and squeezed as much water out as I could, even stood on it to help the process. Then it was time to finalise the shaping. Each time I walked past it I would run my hands around the brim that I wanted to curl up. It was very easy!

I am more than happy with the result..and its so warm... Roll on winter!

A Cute Little Outfit

This was fun to knit in sock wool 4 ply. It is knitted across (the jacket) and this means you have to be careful to determine the length of the jacket right from the word go. 

Once again I used Opal wool and a free pattern from Knit World

Hats for Winter...

Something to do with that left over sock wool and makes a smart looking hat that goes with lots of clothing! A little stocking stitch rolled hem to makes it look nice.

Two different hats. One to go with the local rugby colours (thats the black and yellow in case you didn't guess!) To make the other one a little different a wide contrasting garter stitch band makes the contrast stand out a little. 

Singlets or Vests

I knitted these 2 vests a couple of years ago and thought that they would be quite useful as singlets but was thrilled to see the clever mother use them as vests as well. They went easily over the onsie merinos I had made and bubs was lovely and snug. So that led me to thinking that this is a really good idea and practical garb for babies. For the next babies I was knitting for I decided to make prettier versions. First off I made this one from Ravelry in double knit

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/milo-3

Then I lauched into this one with the 4 ply I had on hand. I have particularly enjoyed knitting in the round and knitting from the top down. So little sewing up to do at the end.

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/little-sisters-dress-kjole-til-lillesster

Then found this free pattern and thought this would be great for some more of that left over sock wool. This wool is so clever the way that it lends itself to making such wonderful patterns. However when hubby looked at it he said it looked funny because the 2 fronts were just out out of alignment... sigh. So it is languishing at the bottom of my ironing basket now!

Neck Wrap

Have been wanting to do some real 'lace' knitting for quite a while so bought myself some yummy 2 ply (silk/merino) and then set about looking for a pattern. I was keen not to have a 50 row pattern as I wanted to to this on the train and was keen to make a scarf/shawl for my Mum for her birthday. Then I found the perfect pattern for free on my most favourite site ravelry. I went to Holland yarn to buy a super smooth, and lovely to work with, circular needle. It was well worth the outlay. I am a fan of these needles now.