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. 

A Day to Remember Shawl

I took a break from knitting linen sweaters and finished a pretty scarf the other day. This is such an easy going knit and extremely portable which is a must for a frequent traveller.



The pattern is from Joji Locatelli and is called "A day to remember" . It basically is knitted throughout in garter stitch with a yarn over row thrown in between every 10 rows or so.

I am not the biggest fan of garter stitch but must admit it makes sense in scarves and shawls simply because you don't have a right and wrong side and it makes them a little more squishy.





I knitted in a heavy lace (the pattern is written for lace but easily adaptable in terms of yarn size) and used a wonderful merino/tussah silk yarn from Miss Babs in a light yellow called "Light Peeps". This yarn in hand dyed and Miss Babs has the most gorgeous colours in their repertoire.





The  yarn  is ever so slighted variegated and varies between a deep yolk yellow to a very light washed out yellow and all of this adds tons of interest to the scarf.





The scarf is meant to be around 72in x 16 1/2in after blocking but I kept going for a little while longer as simply wanted to use up both skeins I had. That added one more garter/yarn over block to it basically and probably extended it to 80in or something. It fits now comfortable twice around my neck which is how I like it best.





And another doughnut photo to finish up.




Happy stitching and knitting everybody.

Bauhin - a new summer scarf

When I was im my Caribbean holiday in February I made a start on my first lace scarf. I rise early if at home or in holiday and this precious hour or hours in case of a holiday before anybody else gets up are the best of the day for me.

So I found myself kitting the "Bauhin" pattern by Veronika Avery for Brookly Tweed every morning on the terrace of the little wooden house I had rented for two weeks and although I only finished the scarf recently, it will forever remind me of this holiday. 

I knitted in Madelinetosh's Prairie lace yarn in "Stovepipe" . This is a wonderful, soft 1ply yarn that knits very, very well. It really was such a pleasure to knit this yarn. The colour is almost like a faded denim and works perfectly with most of my wardrobe. 

The pattern was easy to follow but be warned, there is a lot of counting and referring back to the chart involved in the sections where the fan pattern evolves. This is not a knit you can do on the go.

Whilst I love the fan pattern, I made few changes to the overall pattern in that I included fans only on the increasing part and then once again on the decreasing part which leaves the entire mid-section in the more simple holy pattern. My reasoning for this change is that most of the middle section will be wrapped around my neck and I thought it was a little pointless to have this intricate pattern where its not really visible. And to me, to be honest, it makes more sense to just have it at the beginning and end.

I also lengthened the scarf by about 40 cm because I really wanted it to wrap loosely twice around my neck. 

After blocking it ended up in the region of 2.4 meters from top to toe and about 45 cm in width. 

This was quite a bit of work but despite this a really enjoyable knit and I can imagine to do this again in exactly the same way, just with a different colour. 

Happy crafting reader !

A new Winter scarf

This scarf, I finished a few week ago started live as a sweater but I soon realised I didn't like it as a sweater, so unravelled it all and started a large scarf.



I knitted this one again over a long period of time, mostly while travelling though the last third at home as it gotten rather heavy.

This scarf is made from Madelinetosh Merino DK in Mineral and was bought at Loop Yarn here in London and I love this treasure trove of a shop.

I think I used 6-7 skeins on this, hence the heaviness, and it measures about 2 m by 46 cm and was knitting in simple seed stitch which makes it look maybe a bit more like a blanket than a scarf.

 

Whilst I am really happy with the scarf and love wrapping myself into it, I must say on hind side, that it really is very heavy and I don't think I would wear it on a 3 hour walk or something like that. But this is just a small issue. Mostly I just love the incredible softness of the yarn.