Stormdoor II

I have several knits to share with you but somehow never seem to find the motivation to blog about it.  However this morning motivation finally struck and here I am. You may remember the Plucky Knitter Stormdoor shawl I knitted for my sister for her birthday in 2016.

I enjoyed knitting the pattern so much that I decided there and then to knit myself a shawl too. That I did sometime last year and I am just as smitten with the result as I was with the green beauty for my sister. 

The colour in the images is not quite representative to the true colour which is a very dark burgundy. Reds are very difficult to photograph and even with a lit of tweaking the colour channels this is the best I could do.

The yarn this time is from the Plucky Knitter and is their gorgeous cashmere/silk yarn Spiffy in a sport weight. As you can imagine it's incredibly soft and feels luxurious and sumptuous around my neck. 

The beauty with this pattern is that you can use all of your yarn, you simply knit increases until you have used half and then you start with the decreases. Works a treat. Two done and already another planned. 

Happy knitting and quitting. 

Storm Door in green

Time for an update on my knitting which is still going strong. We siblings don't do Christmas presents anymore but we do do birthdays and my sister's was at the end of December. And what do you get a girl that has everything (don't we all !), of course something knitted. Anja has already plenty of quilts so I thought it was high time for a knit. 

This scarf is one of many, many scarf pattern that are in my Ravelry library. It's called Storm Door and is by Plucky Knitter. It's a gorgeous pattern and versatile in that you can make the scarf smaller or bigger. I used the softest merino mix wool I have ever had the pleasure gliding through my fingers. It is Casbah from Hand Maiden in fingering (80% merino, 10% Nylon and 10% Cashmere). The yarn is as soft as a 100 % cashmere yarn would be. Quite astonishing to be honest. 

The yarn was purchase at loveknitting and I used two full skeins. The pattern called for less but I made the scarf bigger.

The colour is called Cedar and as you can see in the close-up shots its ever so slightly variegated which makes it just gorgeous and sumptuous. Needles to say my sister was very happy indeed. And so was I. So much so that I already started a new one but this time for me. 

Knitting - a finished Ombré cashmere scarf

When I went to Quiltcon last year in Austin, Texas I took advantage of saving on shipping costs and taxes and had quite a lot of fabric and wool sent to my hotel. The most precious parcel that arrived was cashmere wool from Purl Soho in New York. Some months earlier they had announced on their purl bee blog the kits for an Ombré Wrap kit which I had absolutely fallen for.

This kit contains 8 skeins that are specifically dyed for Purl Soho and blend into each other to deliver the ombré effect. I only knitted this scarf during travel when I went to Germany to my parents and over the past couple of months a little here and there which is why it took the best part of a year.

The scarf is knitted in simple ribbing stitch and about 20" x by 70" in size. I washed it and blocked it last weekend and have been wearing it ever since although it is not really cold enough.

This has got to be the softest cashmere I have ever touched, it's almost like feeling warm soft water and not at all like wool.

The set comes in 5 different colours and each is very tempting but knitting a scarf of this length is also a little boring eventually. So I am glad it's finished and I can move on to the next one.