A warm knit for the cold days

The back of Ambleside is finished! It is very cold here at the moment, last fridaynight -15 °C. There is also a lot of snow, I can’t remember the last time there was so much snow. And they say it is going to snow even more tonight. I have to go to work tomorrow, I hope I can still take the bus.

I think this chunky knit will be very handy in this kind of weather. But there’s still a front to knit.
The back and sleeves are knitted in one piece, which gives a very eighties look to the tunic. I love it. After the front I only have to knit two bands for the sleeves and a neck band. It is a nice easy knit. The pattern is easily remembered, and there is not  a lot of shaping. A really nice relaxing knit for a change.

This is our back yard, a few more centimeters and we can’t open the door anymore.

This one was taken during our walk in the Millingerwaard yesterday. You can see one of the wild cows in the background, still eating in the heavy snow.

Here are some more cows, who have taken shelter under the trees.

You almost can’t see them, but they are there, under the trees. Very unusual weather, we could even have a white Christmas this year.

chunky versus 4 ply

I decided not to be stubborn and started afresh on Ambleside on 6 and 7 mm needles, like the pattern says, and which gives me the right gauge. I’ve just started the second ball now so I am now just as far as I was last week on the 5 and 6 mm needles. It looks very good, and a bit less tight, which is good, because I want to be able to wear it over a blouse or maybe a thin sweater.

I still have to frog what I knitted last week, because I couldn’t get myself to do it. It looks so nice. I think in a few days I will be able to. I was also hoping the big cables would be easier to knit on 7 mm, but I am still having problems. They distort the fabric very much and the stitches I knit from the cable needle are getting very tight. I’ve watched videos on YouTube to see if I was doing anything wrong but it seems not.

And the small cables are going fine. Maybe it is just something you have with such an unusual big cable ( it is knitted over 20 stitches).

The day before yesterday I really wanted to knit on Lauren again. So I guess my plan is working. If  I don’t feel like 4ply, I can knit my chunky tunic, and if I’m sick of those big needles I can knit on Lauren. I knitted a few hours on the left front but it still isn’t finished. But I am almost there now.

I am bit stuck on the Baxter mitts. I am knitting them on smaller needles because they would be too big for me if I would knit them on the right gauge. But now they are getting too small…so irritating. The ribbing is perfect, but the fair isle part is really small. And I’ve found out now that fair isle fabric isn’t stretchy at all. So it would be best to frog back to the ribbing and do the fair isle part again on a bigger needle. But I know how much work this small part of fair isle was…maybe next week I’ll feel up to it. I do have days when I can frog really easily and without regret, but not today.

Rowan has a preview of Rowan 47 on their website. There are a lot pale colours this year, but after a while I could see through that and there are many designs I like. There are some really new shapes like this pink one (knitted in Kid Silk haze?) with unusual sleeves and a frill detail.

Must be very nice partywear too. I am also very much interested in this one:

I love the flared sleeves. What a perfect design, I can’t wait to see a bigger picture. There seems to be some texture or cabling on the shoulders, but you can’t really see it here.

A very classic pullover but with such lovely details. A good opportunity to play with colours and make my own colour combination. There is also this one with short sleeves:

I think I wouldn’t knit the heart, but I love the different stripes and the raglan sleeves.

I am looking forward to spring…but in fact winter has just started here, this is the first really cold day in The Netherlands. But I am definitely going to buy this magazine in january.

new collection Garnstudio

Garnstudio/Drops sent an email about the voting for their new collection for spring/summer. I didn’t like their last two collections very much, but this time I was pleasantly surprised. There was a lot to like.

On the left an A-line tunic knitted in Bomull-Lin. This is a yarn that’s on my list with yarns I would like to try out some day. I love the ruffle.

On the right my absolute favourite, this one I am definitely going to knit. It is knitted in Paris, a cotton I haven’t tried out yet. I am thinking about brown with purple accents ( I love 70’s colours).

On  the left a sweet tee in Safran, a sport weight or 4 ply cotton I’ve used and which is a very good yarn I would love to use again. On the right is a basic but well fitting cardigan in Garnstudio’s new yarn Delight. I think this is the colourway I like most. I want to try it out, but I don’t know yet if I want to use it for a sweater or for a smaller item like a shawl or hat. I like the tight fitting body and wide sleeves of this cardigan.

On the left a very nice textured cardigan knitted in Alpaca. A yarn I’ve also tried out and would like to use another time. This cardigan reminds me of Kim Hargreaves jackets, but she would probably use a raglan sleeve. I would love to wear this classic jacket.

On the right a pullover with a very nice pattern on the yoke they’ve used for a few more designs in this collection. I like it best on this one with the long sleeves. Also in Alpaca.

On the left a very romantic cardi again in Alpaca. From the one on the right I don’t like the yarn at all, much too fluffy for me. But the design resembles the design I’ve posted first very much, the one in Bomull-Lin. If I can find a sub for the yarn, one with a hood might be even better.

Branching Out

The skein of Handmaiden Cashmere and Silk was getting smaller and smaller, so I decided today to keep on knitting until the Branching Out scarf  was finished. That took a bit more time than I thought, I thought I could do another 3 repeats, but I have knitted 12 more repeats out of that tiny little ball.

But now it’s done. I had to unrip my cast off edge two times, because it was too tight. The third time I used a 5 mm needle to cast off (worked the rest of the scarf in 4 mm) and that fixed the problem.

The scarf is long enough to wrap around my neck one time. Maybe it will even grow a bit longer after blocking. I have never blocked a lace shawl before, I am very curious. But it will have to wait until next weekend.

I am very glad I am getting rid of those old WIP’s. I now only have Willow left (and another lace shawl in hibernation but that doesn’t count), but I think that one will be nice to work at in spring. The rest of my WIP’s I have all started in autumn or winter, so I am in no hurry to finish them.

I am a bit unsure about Ambleside. Maybe it’s better to frog the part I have done and start again at the recommended gauge. It will be tight this way, maybe it works out, but it could also be irritating not to be able to wear much under it. I am also having problems with the big cables. When I work them, they make the whole knitting very tight, it is almost impossible to knit the stitches from the cable needle. Maybe a less tight gauge would help with that too. I just don’t like ripping out 30 cm’s, although this yarn knits up quite quickly.

I read the review by Clara Parkes of the British Sheep Breeds yarn, and she writes it will bloom when you wash it. So maybe that it will look less loosely knitted when you’ve washed it. I think I will have to frog, but: next weekend. I have to get used to the idea first.

FO: Emily

Pattern: Emily by Kim Hargreaves from the book Heartfelt

Yarn: Rowan Kid Classic in Oats (the recommended yarn and colour)

“mods” : I have knitted an S, but I knitted the sleeves 1 cm shorter, as for the XS

This was an easy but interesting knit. The cuffs for the sleeves and the edge of the body are very nice to knit and the constant change of stitches  gives a very beautiful and uncommon result. There are also a lot of increases and decreases to be done in this pattern, which give the beautiful elegant shaping. I like to do so many shapings, it keeps the knitting interesting.

You have quite a lot of finishing to do on this one, because you have to knit the neck band separately and then sew it on. I don’t know if I would do that another time. I really love the stitches used for the neckband, but it’s hard to sew it on in the right manner. I tried to stretch it a little and then sew it on, as described in the pattern, but I think I could have stretched it even more. I can live with it, but if I would knit another Emily, I would try out how it looks with a band knitted from picked up stitches.

I love the shape of the sleeves very very much. Knitting them was a lot of work, because they are so wide, but they are perfect. It was worth it.

The pictures are crappy, Emily deserves better, but it is so dark outside. It has been raining the whole day. And my photographer is gone partying…but we couldn’t have taken pictures outside today anyway. Maybe later.

I could also have put on some shoes instead of my slippers to make the pictures a bit more glamorous…but I guess this is how I look on a winter day.

I already complained a lot in my other posts about the bad luck I had with this pattern (it had nothing to do with the pattern itself which is very well written) but it was all worth it. I am considering knitting Still too, from Thrown Together, which looks a bit like this but with a square neck and other cuffs. A pullover is really easy to wear and I like that.

British Sheep Breeds

My Rowan Purelife British Sheep Breeds yarn arrived the day before yesterday from English Yarns. I bought ten balls so I got the whole bag. And even the plastic of the bag is degradable, they even thought about that.

This yarn is so lovely. It feels a lot nicer in your hands than I thought it would. Of course it isn’t a soft yarn, but it feels nice and firm in your hands. It isn’t itchy like mohair can be. I have fallen completely in love with this. I love the colour too, the natural colour of the Black Welsh sheep, isn’t that cool? It is a very dark brown, with some white hairs mixed with it and now and then a red hair. It makes a nice contrast to the dark colour.

I couldn’t resist casting on for Ambleside from The Rowan Purelife Winter Collection. I made  a swatch first, and was getting the right gauge (13×22) with the recommended 7 mm needles, but I didn’t like the fabric this was creating, I found the stitches too loose. So I am using 6 mm, and getting 14×22. So mine will be a bit tighter, but it does fit around my hips, so it should be okay. I am wondering if it will bring me into trouble when I have to fit the sleeves in the armholes, but I don’t know. Because the length for the armholes is given and I am not changing that, will the sleeves be to small for it? I guess I will find it out while knitting this one. I find this maths things to be very complicated.

The yardage of this yarn is really good for a chunky yarn, I still haven’t finished the first ball. It also smells really nice, lanolin, but not too much. I love the sheep smell. I am definitely going to try out more British Sheep Breeds. This yarn is worth it’s price. I am really glad I decided to go for it.

I have fallen in love with the Black Welsh sheep too. It says on the ball band: “In Wales this sheep is known as ‘Cochddu’ meaning brownish. This hardy sheep produces fleece which is black, short and thick with a firm handle, durable, lightweight and warm.”

I don’t think we have this sheep in The Netherlands. I never saw one. I saw on another website a sheep that looks very much the same and was called Black Welsh Mountain Sheep.

It is a hardy sheep what can live practically on it’s own in the hills. It is also a rare breed. The normal Welsh Mountain Sheep is white, this is a variation of it. It is known as a friendly sheep.

Mitts

I decided to keep using the brown and purple tweed for my fingerless mitts. I have tried out how it would look with the blue Kid Classic I bought, but I didn’t like the combination, it made the teal blue too green.

So the motives are going to very subtile, but you can see them in daylight. Next time I will choose a light and a dark yarn, but I think those mitts are going to be very cute.

I love doing the fair isle. I always thought it would be very hard, but it isn’t. It is just stockinette and purling, but with two different colours. The only thing you have to remember is twisting the yarns around each other after 3 stitches, so you won’t get those long loops.

I find the fair isle much easier to learn than lace knitting. There are so many different stitches used in lace. I am not doing the fancy stuff like holding one yarn in your left hand and one in your right, I am just dropping the yarn I am not using at the moment. It goes slowly, but I love the result.

Terrible flash light picture, but it is dark outside.

Baxter mitts

Early update on the mitts. I can do fair isle. I’ve done four rows now. When I have to do more than three stitches in one colour, I wrap the yarn around the other one as described on the information page of the Rowan magazine. This works very well. I don’t find the purling in fair isle to be very bad, although knitting is easier.

But I didn’t think about the contrast of the yarns. I chose two fairly dark yarns. It is dark now, and it’s very hard to see the difference between the two yarns. And the motives are very very subtile this way.

I should have chosen a light and a dark yarn. Very frustrating. I am going to lay it down now and see how it looks tomorrow. I will decide then if I continue or buy another ball of yarn or use the blue Kid Classic as contrast yarn.

But I can do fair isle. Very slowly, but I can do it.

Mitts and new yarn!

We went to Utrecht the day before yesterday to visit some friends who are going to have a baby. We had a very nice evening/night there, we laughed a lot.

There is a little yarn shop in Utrecht: Modilaine, so I wanted to check it out. It is a lovely shop, a lot of Rowan, but they have other brands too and also a lot of sock yarn. The people working there are very friendly. I wanted to buy some small amounts of yarn for mittens and a hat. It is always overwhelming to see so may yarns and colours, but this time I did manage to choose something.

This is such a nice colour: Canard. You have to see it in real life, it is a teal blue, with a bit of green in it. It depends on the light how much green you see. Kid Classic is definitely one of my favourite yarns.

I browsed a lot on Ravelry yesterday and in my pattern books and decided to knit the Soul hat from Kim Hargreaves with this. I already started the hat with the Crystal (gray) Kid Classic I got for my birthday, but I didn’t really like it. The Soul hat has to be blue for me. My cast on edge was also too loose, because I used the wrong needle size, so I had to frog anyway.  I am going to use the yarn for Susie’s Reading Mitts. Those are very romantic old fashioned looking fingerless  mitts. They will be lovely in gray.

This is Rowan Felted Tweed in Treacle (left) and Bilberry (right). I thought in the shop the Treacle was a very dark aubergine, but it is actually brown. To me it has a bit of a purple glow. A very nice colour. Bilberry is purple, my favourite colour. I thought at first about knitting Ysolda’s Garter Stitch Mitts with this, but the colours look so nice together, I decided to go for fair isle. So I started the Baxter Fingerless Mitts from Rowan 46 today (my sixth WIP, but knitting is for fun, isn’t it?). I started in the recommended needle size, but it looked far too big. I measured my hands, they are 15 cm measured over the knuckles, and the pattern is going to be about 20cm. So I went down a needle size, to 2,25 mm and 2,75. I hope this will be small enough. I don’t feel like knitting a swatch for this, it does look smaller and I don’t own smaller needles than 2,25 anyway.

The yarn feels very different than the Cashsoft I am using for Lauren. It is a lot rougher, it has less stretch, isn’t so bouncy. But the knitted fabric looks wonderful. It looks rough, natural. I love the little tweed flecks in blue, white and light brown. I think I will love using this for Ginny.

This is going to be my first fair isle project, and I am very curious if I will manage to do this. I am knitting this pattern flat, although I agree with the people on Ravelry that it is possibly easier in the round. But this way I don’t have to tweak the pattern (these are also my first mitts, so I don’t know if would be able to do the thumb in the round) and I don’t have to buy new dpn’s.

New yarn

The new Kim Hargreaves book is out, Winter Blooms.

I have been looking forward to it for weeks now.

But I didn’t buy it.

Strange isn’t it?

I just didn’t like it as much as the other books. I find it a bit dull. A lot of the designs are in my eyes variations on an earlier theme. The book is nicely photographed, the styling is really good, lovely models. I really like the use of colours, and the use of new Rowan yarns like Lima and Cashmere.  But there isn’t anything in the book I want to knit.

The design Fleur is the only one I really like, it is a very simple tee in a beautiful yarn with an unusual ruffle trim. Livi is a very elegant textured tee, and looks different than the designs in her other books. But they didn’t make me want to buy the book.

I decided to buy something else I have wanted for a long time: 10 skeins of Rowan Purelife British Sheep Breeds Chunky, colour Black Welsh. I have wanted this yarn since I first saw it on the web, but it is a bit expensive. I think it will be worth it’s price, it is organic and I love the fact that it is an undyed natural brown/black yarn.

I have decided to go for the tunic Ambleside from The Purelife Winter Collection. I long for a chunky knit while slowly (very slowly) working on Lauren. I have felt the yarn when I was in London a few months ago and it isn’t a soft yarn, so maybe I will lower the neckline of the design a little.  My neck is sensitive to itch. The one in the book is knitted in colour Steel Grey Suffolk, which is softer.

I think the big cables will make it a very interesting knit. It reminds me of Cheadle in Rowan 46, but than vertical instead of horizontal.

And I am going to count the days till the new Kim Hargreaves book in spring…she is still my favourite designer.