Tag Archives: Knitting

Working until you break down

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IMG_1659Lately I have been working soooo hard, that my knitting needle broke 😉

Well, I took quite a few balls on my trip during half term, only old stuff from my stash and I just started to knit it up (half way through I realised that I was a bit overambitious and gave quite a few balls to my husband to take it back home again and just kept a reasonable amount for the second half of the holiday.)

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So I made a hat for myself using up all the left overs from my scarf, a slightly too big hat for my son, for next winter I guess, one little girls dress and a cushion cover. I still need to finish off the boys hat and the cushion cover but I am pleased with the de-stashing in general.

IMG_1658Since I have decided that the little girls dress would be slightly too small (because of the slightly too thin yarn), I have started another one (this is when the needle broke) and I will use the smaller one for the event I am invited to next friday.

I will participate at the International Women’s Day event of the Family Services of the Kensington and Chelsea where I can show my work and talk about my knitting classes and I guess about starting a new career in general.I thought a little raffle there would be fun and as there will be many young mothers the little dress will be a perfect prize. But until then, more work is waiting for me, mainly paper work though I guess.

Phew!

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I have finally knitted something where I had to use my brain a little bit (really only a  little bit) and I really struggled….. I am clearly not used to it any more. I guess I need some brain exercise and what would be better than knitting!

Anyway, so I made a Life on Sundays by Veera Vaelimaeki using some DyeForYarn Merino/Silk. It is a striped triangular scarf with slipped and twisted stitches.

It is a beautiful pattern but it really took me a while, a few ripped rows and a few stitches that needed to be dropped in order to fix something. And at some point, I had actually a “disappeared stitch”. That was really a new experience for me and it took me ages to find where it had gone as there was no obvious hole.

I guess I have learned a few (obvious) lessons from this project.

If you are winding yarn into balls and then keep them for months before knitting, keep the ball bands as you might start a project using two different weights of yarn 🙂

Think before you start. Choose the right colour as main/contrasting colour. Thin stripes with very contrasting colours might actually not look that good from further away especially if it is a rather loose knit.

If you are using a new pattern, don’t knit while your children want to play with you. Especially not if it is something with many stitches on the needle.

Anyway, it was a very nice project and I am definitely going to use the pattern again. as usual, this one is not even made for me….

And one of my next projects will definitely be something for MEEEEE. Except that I need to make a few other things first….

 

 

knitted keyring

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IMG_1589It’s my brother’s birthday and I have decided to use the miniature knit that I meant to put into his Christmas cracker (before I knew we would not be able to fly back home).

It is meant to be a bottle of a local beer brand, I tried to imitate it’s rather unusual shape (but failed a bit) and embroidered (rather than knitted) the labels in red and gold. Which is really the very lazy version of the original label but it was after a whole series of very tiring miniature knits…

I bought a cheap keyring, cut the plastic tag off and fiddled the small linking ring through one stitch of the bottle.

And since this is not really a proper birthday present, I knitted yet another hat, still in Debbie Bliss Rialto Chunky.

IMG_1587_edited-1I guess the trauma is slowly turning into some kind of obsession 🙂

 

Finally overcome…. I think

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I haven’t had much time to update the blog lately because I was sooo busy knitting hats. One of my new years resolutions is to actually tackle problems rather than always knit the same easy things where I do not have to use my brain. So, I made these two extremely warm hats (a third is in the making – to improve the decrease section). I have used Debbie Bliss Rialto Chunky, a 100% super soft merino. I have used slightly too small needles to make sure I’ll get a dense and warm fabric. The blue-green one is in simple stockinette, for the black-white-red I have used a ribbed pattern to get an even chunkier look.

I have also knitted two more feminine hats, one for my mum, one for who knows. So, my mum left London with a purple Super Cupcake by Bonne Marie Burns.IMG_1545I have used Debbie Bliss Rialto DK for the ribbing and added Debbie Bliss Angel in a very similar colour for the main part to add a bit of a halo effect. It is a very nice and simple hat in shaker rib pattern.

The other one is much more adventurous. It is an Escargot by Veronica Parsons.

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I just love it. I have used Debbie Bliss Donegal Luxury Tweed which is perfect for that 20ies inspired style.

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Unfortunately it is slightly too big for me, I guess because I haven’t got much hair. So the hat is currently headless, and I am looking for a loving and caring home for it. If you have any suggestions please let me know!