New Pattern: Tangence

It's here!  This lace top has been in the making for many moons now, and today is the big one - out into the wild it goes!

Though winter is edging it's way into my life here in New Zealand at the moment, I'm thoroughly enjoying all your lovely sunny photos from Scotland.  Now seemed the right time for the summer top to come out to play.  Saying that - it was still warm enough here this week to model a lace top!

Tangence is part garter, part lace.  Worked from the back, over the shoulders and down the front this top is interesting and relatively quick to knit. Seamed with a three needle bind off and finished with applied i-cord, there are also a few very satisfying finishing touches which introduce ways to customise your own creation. 

Yarn is merino/silk from The Wool Kitchen, which was wonderful to work with - it's shiny and drapey, and the Punch Drunk colour way is just... amazingly orange.  

Head over to Ravelry for the pattern and more details, and hit The Wool Kitchen for your yarn!

Until the end of 27th May, you can use code 'Orange' on Ravelry for 50% off :)

 

  

Wuthering: New Pattern

A fair while ago now, I had a reather exciting chat with Helen of The Wool Kitchen (who is amazingly lovely).  The result is this scrumptious cowl, knit with two skeins of one of my favourite semi-solid colourways.  

Wuthering is knit in the round, and travels through several stitch patterns.  Nice and simple!  Back to my original pattern philosophy of 'less complicated than it looks'. 

Apparently the most popular photo from the entire shoot is the outtake which caught me trying to fit bodily into the cowl.  I'd like to argue that I was demonstrating the extreme smooshyness of the cowl/yarn combo, but I was just being ridiculous.

 

My patient friend Lauren helped me with the photos above, and I bothered the boy into helping me take some during one of our Scottish castle trips! 

The cowl itself was thought up on one of these trips - inspired by those hardiest of plants who manage to thrive despite the wind and rain on the precipice of mountains, cliff-tops and long-neglected gardens. Delicate yet resilient, these admirable little plants are represented in the ‘rocky’ lace and floral patterns of this cowl.

 

 

 

Yarn: The Wool Kitchen DK in colourway Wuthering.  2 skeins (400m).
Needles: 5mm (UK)



Find Helen:
Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/Thewoolkitchen
Twitter: @thewoolkitchen

New Pattern: Syne Shawlette

Just in time for the weekend is the Syne shawlette!

It's inspired by fireworks at New Year, which are particularly beautiful when viewed over the castle in Edinburgh. This shawlette is a one skein knit, inspired by those most giant of explosions which radiate outward to end in further noise and sparkles. 

The yarn!  Oh goodness the yarn.  It's the Lush Light base by Rainbow Heirloom, which is made up of alpaca, silk and cashmere.    It's the most gorgeous shade of green as well, I really fell in love.

Given that you’ve been knitting for others all through December, January might be time for a little something for yourself.   What are you currently making for yourself?

 

Similar to my previous shawls, it's semi-circular shaped, beginning with a garter tab at the centre top, increasing as you knit down toward the lace border.

 

 

You can find Syne on ravelry here.  

 

 

(c) Rainbow Heirloom

 

 

(c) Rainbow Heirloom

New Collection: As Autumn Falls

Autumn is my favourite season, and October one of my favourite months.  I adore the changing colour of the trees, the rapid change from peaceful green to burning reds, oranges & yellows.  As I've mentioned before, we chose our flat because of how close to the Kelvin & botanic garden it is, a lovely river which flows almost unnoticed in the west end of Glasgow through leafy green avenues, passing by a wonderful arboretum. 

I'm not sure if people really realise the arboretum is there, it's always lovely and quiet, even on the warmest of sunny days, tucked away across the road at the back of the botanic gardens.

It's from this changing of seasons, from the turning of the leaves and the crispy drop in temperature, that the Autumn collection is derived (here on rav). 

Front centre of "Baile" cardigan, as below

Comprised of a golden brown/orange cardigan - Baile, two gorgeous hats inspired by hay bales and golden twigs - Bulgurwheat & Slipthatch, and last but certainly not least, the Emmer shawl - a slightly more sombre pink/brown shawl, inspired by empty stalks and leafless branches. 

The entire collection is knitted in beautiful malabrigo yarns; a super soft merino for the shawl, superwash merino for cardigan (sensible), and silky soft merino/silk for the lighterweight hat with a single spun worsted beauty for the heavier weight hat.

Emmer- I wanted emmer to be loghtweight but warm, so used twisted stitches and occasional yarn overs to add detail to this delicate but robust shawl.  Using 150g of 4ply, it's just the right size for wrapping around your shoulder when those cold October winds begin to blow!

 

Baile - I wanted this cardigan to look complex whilst being very simple to knit, and think we've managed!  The front panels are a short repeat, easily knitted with only basic knowledge of ssk, k2tog and yo. 

Charts are written out as well, so if confused you can always use both!  

Slipthatch - this hat blocked beautifully.  The woven stitch creates a dense fabric in this worsted yarn - this hat is toasty!!  It's inspited by hay bales and thatched rooves and warm autumnal fun.

 

Bulgurwheat - after that toaster of a hat I needed something more delicate - how about one which reminds me of bare stems and golden stems of flowers long gone? 

 

On Ravelry the patterns are individually priced.  £9 for the 4-piece collection - I think ravelry adds tax to this depending on where you are! 

If there's enough interest, maybe we could run a wee knit-along in the Ravelry group? 

Which new item is your favourite??  What's your favourite time of year, and if it's Autumn, is it for different reasons to me?

New Pattern: Ithunn Socks

Steady tendrils of graceful ivy grow up most vertical surfaces in the local garden, and it would be nice, just by slipping on a pair of socks, to become a little part of that.

Living in a flat often means that we have to bring little pieces of the outside in; anything from cacti to orchids, window-ledge bird feeders to leafy inspired socks.  These green toes were named after Ithunn - the Norse goddess of spring and keeper of apples & eternal youth. Nice job, that.

Rows begin at the start of sole stitches, ending with end of instep chart.  These socks are knit from toe up in the round, with short row toes and heels. The foot is first knit with stockinette on the sole and pattern as charted over the instep. After the heel the pattern continues around the circumference of the leg.  This knit involves knitting in the round, lace and cables.

Oh, also!  In case you missed it, I made a Short Row Toe video tutorial last week, in case you're unsure about short row toes :)

 You can find the sock pattern over here on Ravelry, or buy now with paypal.  

I do love these socks, and there's plenty of time to get started before spring comes around - because aren't they just perfect for spring-time?

The yarn is glorious too, it's dyed by Sylvan Tiger, and was part of the Autumn 2014 Golden Skein Yarn Club.

First Mystery KAL

Having never participated in a Mystery Kal before, I'm a little bit excited.

Perhaps it's the lovely orange shade background, perhaps it's all the handwriting; I have no idea.  All I know is that I'm looking forward to this one!   Why should it be the handwriting, you ask?  I don't know.  Maybe I miss pen and paper.  Maybe ariel typface at work just makes my eyes sad.

With no 'mystery KAL's under my belt & only one Ysolda pattern (which didn't turn out as I expected.  Still have no idea exactly what I did to that one) I was unsure about this at first - but I just couldn't let it go!

Have you any experience with KAL projects?  Was it worth it?

I've chosen to knit it in two colours, part pink/purple silk handspun, approx. 4ply, from some lovely fluff from katie at hilltopcloud (who dropped by for some questions a wee while ago!), part cream laceweight spun from merino.  Gonna be fluffy!

You can find the pattern and specifics at Ysolda's page on Ravelry, and I'll be updating my own wee version on the blog here and on Ravelry too!


Pssst... I totally changed my mind... Different yarn choices and everything here!!  :D

Caithness Craft Podcast & Fibre Stash on Ravelry!

Hello lovelies!

It has been a little while since my last blog (I do apologise!).  I've recently moved to Glasgow from Edinburgh for work, so between moving house & new job everything is insanely busy at the moment  - good busy!  But busy nonetheless.

I never seem to finish on time,  always appear early for fear I miss something before the shift starts and comes back to bite me in the bottom halfway through my lunch - which I've not actually had the chance to leave the building for yet, but we can all dream.

Louise of the Caithness Craft Podcast asked me to answer a few wee questions for her episode this week!   I first met Louise at the Edinburgh Yarn Festival in March, where my excitement got the better of me and I did nearly knock the contents of my stall over attempting to hug the poor woman.

Also, it's the first I've heard about the new fibre stash section on Ravelry!  Sooo excited about thie

It's a great wee listen when I'm knitting on the bus on the way to work - makes ye smile in the morning :)

You can find it here: http://caithnesscraftcollective.podbean.com/2013/08/22/episode-86-batty-bat


Have you got any great podcasts you'd recommend?  I'd love to hear about them!!  It would be nice to have a little podcast filled blog :D


Do get in touch and let me know what you've been up to recently!  I feel like I've not spoken to any of you lot for ages!

x

New swap! And my last swap gift :)

How about a knitting swap?  I've recently taking part in the Spring swap over in the TinyOwlKnits group on Ravelry, and found it to be such good fun!



And you can see the lovely, amazing, beautiful gifts my spoiler sent me in my last blog post about it here!

You are given the username and address of your spoilee, and do a little bit of Ravelry/blog stalking before  putting together a pretty little love-filled package for them!

I can't wait until the next big swap starts, so thought it would be amazing to start a little one for in-between times! If you'd be interested in taking part in a swap please do comment here and/or head on over to the discussion on Ravelry in my group!

It’ll just be a little swap, with a budget of £/$5-10. If you haven’t swapped before, you simply make up a little package of love for the one you’re spoiling (it doesn’t have to be expensive, or shop bought or even new, just something you think they’ll love, whether that be handmade, repurposed or bought just for them).

Sme ideas would be stitch markers, balls of yarn, knit them an item from their queue, knit a little random item, or present them with a pattern, or any manner of other little goodies you think they might like!! (Like chocolate, mmmm)

This is just to gauge interest, so please do post in my Ravelry group if you’d like to take part! Pass the message onto your friends if you think they’d like to join too!

So I Spun Up All the Yarn, & Learned to Ply.

As you probably spotted in my Spring Equinox Swap post, my lovely spoiler (Aobhro)
 gifted me a whole pack of assorted fleecy bits to spin on my new wheel!

Well a couple of weeks have passed and I may have spun them all up...

There's some pastel cheviot, green & black humbug jacobs and natural humbug shetland - all so pretty!!

None are plied, they all ended up around fingering/4ply weight and I was happy with that, because I've decided to make a from scratchy handspun and handknit beekeepers quilt :D

Aaaaand before, they looked like this!  -

Next, I decided to tackle the next hurdle - plying.  Going for a simple 2 ply, I spun up this lovely 70% black shetland 30% bleached tussah silk.  The plying was so easy!  Can't believe I've been putting it off!  - don't put it off spinners!  Ended up around DK/worsted, so I may make a hat :D

Navajo plying will be the next test on this beauty of a braid:

What did you spin this week??  Send me where you get pretty fibre from :p

Amanda x