Knitted Headband

It was a work colleague's birthday last week and I didn't have any time the weekend before to go shopping to get her anything, I felt so awful!  But then I had a complete lightbulb moment - make something!  It's no secret that I love yarn and hoard great amounts of it.  I like to think that one day I'll have so much stash yarn that I could store it all in a big disused water tank and swim around in it all.  Like Scrooge McDuck from Duck Tales swimming around in his money.  Well, back to the story, I knew exactly which yarn I wanted to use, Debbie Bliss Cashmerino, it's definitely one of my favourite yarns!  I didn't have to look too hard to find a ball of aran weight and in a gorgeous red colour!

Anyway, my lovely work colleague loves knitted headbands, so making one for her would be perfect!  For inspiration, I went to my usual source, Ravelry.  I stumbled upon a pattern called Hot Mess Headband which was a really simple but gorgeous pattern; 1x1 rib with a cable in the centre.  Took me all of two evenings to complete, so super quick!  

Knitting skills save the day! And thankfully, my work colleague loved it :D

Christmas Scarf!

As my previous post just stated, my BFF and I always have clashing schedules and find it difficult to meet sometimes.  And so finally, yesterday we exchanged Christmas gifts!

Her's was the first project I started working on last year, think it was late September.  She's always been really supportive about my knitting and crocheting and is determined to make it go further, so I thought she deserved a really special present.

This scarf consisted of 8x50g balls of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran knitting on 5mm needles.  I do love knitting cables, so what better idea than to include 3 in this project!  

I didn't manage to get a picture of her in the scarf yesterday but I did take a few snaps before I wrapped it up.  

Purple Snood

©TheYarningDarling 2012

Another knitted Christmas gift!

My sister-in-law loves scarves.  She also loves purple.  So, it made sense to combine the two to make her a scarf!  I decided to make her a snood, or infinity scarf, with cables.  I wanted to break them up with a rib, but wanted to do something a bit different, so I flicked through my book of stitiches and found the brioche rib.  Seemed easy enough and I liked that it added a bit of thickness so that the scarf would be all snug and warm.

I started it in November on the plane to see my boy and originally made the edges in a seed stitch.

©TheYarningDarling 2012

This all started out fine, but for some reason, the brioche rib unravelled on the plane, luckily I managed to save it.  Whilst in LA, it happened again, but this time it was HUGE!  Silly me didn't take any tools with me, not even a crochet hook!  I had to improvise and with a safety pin I patched the area up; it didn't look great but it did the job and looked alright from the right side.

©TheYarningDarling 2012

Three balls of yarn in and one to go, it happened again!! ARRGGGHHH! I'm a bit of a perfectionist and having three fairly big mistakes annoyed me.  Like, seriously annoyed me.  The only solution was to start all over again.  It's funny how satisfying it can be to unwind 20+ hours of work :/

©TheYarningDarling 2012

Thankfully, it all went well the second time round - albeit a few minor mistakes!  And my sister-in-law loved it :)

For those who want to know, I used the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran yarn on 5mm needles.