On the needles

Hello!

I hope your weekend has started off well, whether it's with a night out or a cosy evening in. This morning I am still in bed at 11 with a fresh cup of tea, some knitting and listening to one of my favourite podcasts by the Grocery Girls. Tracy and Jodi are so much fun and every episode feels like a chat with friends. If you haven't watched them before I would definitely try out one of their podcasts.

I'm working on two projects this weekend, firstly the Flax Light jumper by Tin Can Knits.


 I fell in love with a 4ply yarn in the colourway Delirium by Third Vault Yarns but I couldn't get more than 600m and the jumper requires 1200m for my size. So I am alternating every two rows with Purple Berry Tart by Easy Knits. Both dyers are London based and I have met them both at various yarn shows. Easy Knits will be at Woollinn this year and I'm looking forward to getting more of their yarn. Easy Knits is known for bright pops of colour but Berry Tart is a softer lilac which blends really well with Delirium. I have found switching yarns a bit annoying as they twist around each other as I knit but the overall look is making it worth all the effort!

Look at those colours! The stripes look more obvious in the photos than in real life. I can't wait to finish this although I'm not looking forward to all the stockinette! If I knit a bit each day, I might even finish it in time for Woollinn.

The other project I'm working on this weekend is... Drum roll please.... Two at a time socks!

Now I know what you're thinking - wasn't this to solve the issue of odd socks? And you're using two different colourways? Yep! I'm staying on the south coast this week and packed a little last minute as usual which meant I didn't plan ahead enough to wind one skein into two balls. But I couldn't wait to try a new technique. I took the advice of Mina from the Knitting Expat podcast - another one I would recommend - and did the cuffs separately. You then put both cuffs on one needle, carefully making sure they are faced in the same direction so the working yarn is going in the same direction and starts on the same needle for both socks as you can see in the above photo. Starting the socks separately made this process so much easier as it was more obvious which way to put the socks on the needles. However, despite all this, I'm not sure I like two at a time. It may be because I'm not used to it but I found knitting a little awkward with two projects on the one circular needle. I'm going to keep going and see if this improves. It's still better than DPNs!

Hope you have a lovely weekend, Charlotte and Harvey x