On the needles - weekend WIPs and wanderings

After my post on Friday stating my amazing knitting plans, I have spent a lot of the weekend relaxing and doing other things.

I did all of two rows on the Jaycee cardigan.The gap between the two markers is the entirety of the knitting I completed last week.

I think the back and forth of the cardigan for so many weeks meant that I wanted to work on something ANYTHING else. So that's exactly what I did.

I finished the ribbing on Will's Christmas hat while watching a new-to-me podcast called Sew Perfect Purls.

I then finished a DK weight hat I started back in April as I needed the needles for the cable part of Will's hat. I love the bright splashes of colour and self-striping colourwork of the yarn. This is Adriafil Knitcol DK in colour 72 Velazquez fancy. It's the second one I have made this year and I just made up the pattern as I went along.

It's been really satisfying to have a finished hat and to work on a few different projects.

The weather this weekend has been really changeable. Going from this

to this

And back again within five minutes which means a lot of time indoors making yummy food.

It was gloriously sunny for more than a few minutes on Sunday. I was really glad as it meant that all the local Remembrance ceremonies could go ahead without a downpour. This year was the first year I haven't been part of the ceremonial side of Remembrance for around nine years. After holding a minute's silence and reflecting on all those who have gone before us, I decided the best way to honour their sacrifice is to celebrate every moment we have been given because of it. Living in a military city, you are always aware of the commitment and hard work that soldiers and sailors give to this day. Thank you.

I took advantage of the sun to travel across the local ferry to visit a friend.

For some reason the rusty ferry chains glinting in the light caught my eye and I had to take a photo.

My friend lives a short drive from the city but far away enough that her main view from her flat is this:

It was wonderfully quiet. I don't think I noticed how much noise is around me where I live in the city until it was taken away. Perfect. 

How was your weekend? Have a wonderful week!

Charlotte and Harvey x

WIP Update!

Happy Friday! Well done for making it to the end of the week. We have had beautifully sunny weather here in the UK with only a hint of coolness today which is unusual for this time of year. Not that I mind. The pure blue skies are a joy to wake up to although I've never been affected by grey skies. You can still tell the year is moving on as the sunset is getting steadily earlier and the cosiness of the indoors beckons. The floor of the local forest is covered in conkers and beautiful autumn leaves. I heard somewhere that moths don't like conkers so I put a few in my yarn stash just in case!

It's also the time of year for coughs and colds which has led to a few days off work. I headed home to my mums for chicken soup and TLC and am feeling much better. I always love the journey home, not just for the welcome waiting for me but also for the views along the way. The first train journey passes directly next to the sea with nothing to block the view.

So, onto knitting. First - a long awaited finished object! For some reason the photos outside made the yarn look more of a washed out grey than the actual navy blue of the scarf. Looking at my Ravelry photos, this scarf is a different colour in every single one. Started in December 2016, this scarf has languished at the bottom pf my project pile, guiltily pulled out every so often. With my drive to actually finish things, it's been stuffed in my bag and taken everywhere.

Ta da!

The pattern is from Interweave Winter 2016 and is available on their website. It's easy to follow and makes a squishy, warm scarf. I have started wearing it, oops.... It will make it's way to Will by Christmas I promise...

I have added another stripe to my knit version of the Moorland blanket.

I'm using a free pattern on Ravelry using a feather and fan motif. For the original crochet pattern and the knit one, I have attached both to my project page here.

I've made a lot of progress on Mum's Jaycee cardigan in Donegal Studio Darnie. (project page). I have started adding progress markers as they really help to highlight how much has been knit that week. This helps when doing endless knit and purl rows of the main body.

And finally a teeny tiny bit more on my Flax Light. Christmas presents are getting priority now though with two months to go!

That's it for this week. What have you been working on?

Have a lovely weekend, Charlotte and Harvey x

Mad Squishy Bear Hat

A finished object! And it almost knit itself, it appeared so quickly!

This is Mad's Hat by Jodi Brown from the Grocery Girls podcast. The gorgeous yarn is from Bear in Sheep's Clothing which I bought at Woollinn this year (post here).

The pattern called for two strands of 4 ply held together with one strand of mohair and I knit it in the Romance colourway. It has a cream/ rose underlying colour with speckles of deeper pink and green. The snippets of green on the hat really give it depth and makes it look like a hat from an expensive brand! The mohair is so squishy and soft and I have found myself automatically grabbing this hat every time I head out the door.

The pattern is really effective. It looks complicated but really isn't and it highlights the speckling of the yarn  well. I know some people don't like mohair as it's fluffy and can moult, however I haven't had that issue yet with this particular skein.

Pattern rating: 5/5 easy to read and understand, produces a nice finished piece. Rav link here.
Yarn rating: 5/5 lovely to work with, very silky, good price, big fan of the colourway and will definitely buy more from Bear in Sheep's clothing in the future. They are currently on a pause in their shop but the link for them is here.

April - a month of Finished Objects

Now that I’m back in the UK with free time, I’ve been looking at all the projects gathering dust in various corners of my room. There are a few. Well more than a few and suddenly I couldn’t cast on something new without at least trying to finish some of them. I tried casting on a basic hat and I couldn’t without looking at my WIP pile! This had to change. So without meaning to, April has become the month of finishing things. 

The first WIP was my Feb socks for the Grocery Girl Sock Bash. I have no idea why I thought joining a knit-along during the lead up to exams was a good idea! I have now finished the first sock:

Mellow Mornings

Good morning, how are you? I flew back from Nepal on Sunday and since then my body clock has woken me up at 7am sharp every morning. As a natural night owl, I don't usually see this time of morning without the aid of an alarm clock and a strong coffee! I'd like to say I can watch the sunrise or the sky get brighter but it's still pretty grey in the UK at the moment. On the plus side, I feel like I get so much more done before midday at the moment. Let's see how long this lasts!

I was in Nepal for two weeks and before I left I knit a holiday hat out of Rico Adriafil DK.

The Frog and the FO

This seems to be a week of firsts! I finally frogged a project and I finally finished a project. I started the Hermione socks but having changed both my needle size and starting number of stitches the sock was going to be far too small. So the logical choice was to rip back and start again. It's amazing how reluctant I was to do this! I think the knowledge of the time spent knitting up to that point meant that every stitch I pulled off the needle felt like time lost. Conversely poorly fitting socks would be far worse in the long run and would remind me of time wasted making a whole two socks that didn't fit.

The sock

Back to the start

Another exciting first for this week is my first ever finished object!! I counted the other day and I have 16 works in progress (WIPs) currently sitting in my room. I can now say that's down to 15! Still a huge number but I'm getting there. No new projects can be cast on until I'm down to 10 projects. I think I'm going to set that as my new maximum. What's that I hear you say? You don't care about WIPs, what's the FO? Fair enough really, I am rambling...

Well back in July I went to PomFest (see my post here) which was a combination of a yarn market and a series of talks. I made it to PomFest late on Saturday afternoon so missed the talks but still got to see all the yarn stalls (yay!). I got chatting to the lady running the Garthenor stall and ended up standing there for a good twenty minutes. Garthenor is a company based in Wales which sells 100% British wool yarn and has been around for a few years now. Inspired by her enthusiasm and humour, I bought 100g of Llanwenog DK yarn which is naturally a beautiful creamy white colour.

Garthenor has a huge range of yarn from different sheep breeds from around the UK and on their website they have a page for each one explaining their origins. I really like their story of the journey from sheep to finished ball of yarn. Their website is here.

Less than ten minutes after getting home from PomFest, I cast on the Llanwenog to make a hat! My first ever hat as well. The yarn is described as giving good stitch definition so I chose a cable hat pattern. My Ravelry pattern notes are here

It started as a moustache of a hat while doing the rib.

Then a fringe:

I quickly got to the cabling, the best bit! I think basic cabling makes a plain hat more interesting without much extra effort. At this point I went to Tanzania on holiday so of course I took some knitting.

This hat was knit on a plane: (with a cheeky G&T)

And on a beach in Zanzibar: (yes those are my pale english legs)

And then finally finished! 

It's surprisingly hard to take a photo of a hat on yourself! The first three photos looked a bit manic because I was concentrating so much, looking at the floor seems to be the way to go!

If you would like to try Garthenor yarn but want to squish it first, they are sponsoring the Great London Yarn Crawl after party and will be there with a stall. Tickets are already be sold out but there may be a waiting list. More details on the Yarn in the City website here. I think I might take my hat and show the people at the Garthenor stall :)