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

Baby Hat & Booties

It's been AGES since I last posted!  Life's been a bit crazy since my boy moved back to the UK.  For those of you who don't know, he's been living in LA since 2010 so it' crazy exciting that he's back!! It's just all starting to settle down now which means I have more time for crafting...woohoo!

To no surprise, another one of my friends had a baby last month and I went to see them on Monday.  I didn't have time to go shopping, so I had to frantically buy some yarn online hoping it would be supersoft and thankfully it was!  I ended up choosing Red Heart Soft Baby Steps which is 100% acrylic and aran weight. It is really soft and has a lovely sheen to it.

I searched for patterns on Ravelry for booties and a hat using aran/worsted weight yarn.  I decided on the Basic Beanie by Busy Mom Designs.  It looked like it needed a little something so I made a flower for it that I found through another pattern (click here for pattern).  It was super easy to make; I decided to use a 6mm/G hook so it crocheted up a little smaller with tighter stitches.

Next...the booties!  Having made the flower for the hat, I knew I had to put some on the booties too so they were all cute and matching!  The pattern I used for the booties were Cute Baby Boots Crochet Pattern by Teri Crews.  The flower I made up with a pretty simple design:

ch5, join with slip stitch.
*sc, ch1, 3dc, ch1, sc* in each stitch.

That's it!  I was really pleased with how these turned out.  I haven't made anything for a 0-3 month baby in such a long time that I forgot how teeny tiny they were!

Not Your Boyfriend's Sweater

I'm so excited about this...it's my first jumper that I can wear in public!  My first jumper was appalling, embarrassing even - the style of jumper I made was separate front and back panels and sleeves to be sewn together.  Some how I managed to knit the back panel SO loosely, but the tension for the other 3 pieces was fine.  When it came to sewing it all together it was so uneven that I gave up!

Undeterred, I set about knitting a second jumper.  This time I decided to do the raglan style, so completely seamless and no sewing together, hence less room for error!  I also found the straight stockinette in one colour of the first jumper soooo boring.  Instead of incorporating colour to jazz it up I decided to add detail in.

Now, I already had in mind what I wanted to do.  I'd seen a pattern yonks ago on Ravelry that has been saved in my favourites forever.  The pattern was called "Not Your Boyfriend's Sweater" and can also be found on the Cascade Yarns site.  It has the usual ribbed neckline and cuffs, but it has gorgeous lace details on the front and the back.  I had never tried knitting a lace pattern before so I thought I'd give it a go - it couldn't have turned out any worse than my first jumper attempt!

The yarn I decided to use was Calmer by Rowan.  It's a sumptuous cotton and acrylic mix yarn which I had bought from John Lewis as it was on sale (can someone say 'yarn addict'?!).  Then I found out it was on sale because it had been discontinued, such a shame as it's such a lovely yarn to work with.  It was also the same weight as the required yarn in the pattern which was extremely handy :)

The incorporation of the lace pattern made knitting this so fun, so much better than the monotony of a plain stockinette.  I did a practice swatch of the lace repeats before I got to that part in the pattern and I have to say it was definitely not as scary as I thought; in fact it made me happy making something quite pretty :)

Overall the jumper took a little over two months to make.  "But that's AGES!" you're probably thinking, and yes, you'd be correct.  However, this was done in the little spare time that in between working, flat hunting. packing, moving, extreme knitting a rug and my boy coming to visit for 2 weeks...I think if I didn't have that much on it wouldn't have taken that long at all.  Using worsted weight with 5mm needles meant that it knitted up fairly quickly.

 

I did also make an annoying mistake which I've left in there to remind me to be extra careful knitting whilst under the influence!  Fruity flavoured Swedish cider is so deceiving :(

I am so pleased with how this jumper came out!  I highly recommend this pattern to anyone new to knitting jumpers and wants something a bit fancier.  I would say you do need to have practiced or have experience with circular needles and DPN's (double pointed needles) - and if you do, great, you'll love making this!

WIP Update

Just realised it's been over a month since I last posted!!  It's been such a mad few months that I've not had that much time to knit or crochet.  Since August, I've moved into an unfurnished flat that I'm still buying furniture for, had my 30th birthday, my boy came over for a 2 week visit and now we're planning for his big move back to the UK!

I've been working on this sweater since the end of August...progress has been slow but I'm almost there, just a sleeve and the neckline ribbing to go!

I am planning to make some cute little Christmas decorations once the jumper is finished.  Things have calmed down a bit now so hopefully I'll have more time for crafting and blogging! :)

Extreme Knitting: Rug Edition

I've just moved into a new and unfurnished place. Although it was a NIGHTMARE getting the furniture for it, I did have a bit of fun with decorating :)

Whenever I'd browse online yarn shops, I had occasionally come across huge and gigantic knitting needles and always thought "those would be so cool to try out one day" but I never had a project in mind to warrant using them. So when I realised my flat needed a rug I had a lightbulb moment - knit a rug!

I put a lot of thought into planning this - it would be nice to have a durable material that was easy to maintain and wash if needed so I settled on using tshirt yarn. I was originally going to make my own yarn from buying tshirts in bulk from eBay. But I couldn't find the colour I wanted and dying it myself was looking like a necessity. I ended up googling 'orange tshirt yarn' and found this amazing site called Hooplayarn that sold cotton jersey tshirt yarn on bobbins in millions of colours (okay not millions but definitely over 30).  I didn't want the orange to be too garish so I ended up going for a colour called Sunset, which made sound a but romantic too:) They seemed a little pricey, £8.50 for a 100m bobbin, but when I calculated how many tshirts I needed to buy to get 100m it turned out to be more expensive, plus I wouldn't have to dye it myself! I wasn't sure how many bobbins I needed so I just ordered 10 and figured I could order more if I needed to.

Next step, the huge needles! The tshirt yarn was designed to be used with 10mm needles or hooks. I came across a few, but the ones by Rachel John seemed to be what I was looking for. The extreme knitting needles came in either 19mm or 24mm. I decided on the 19mm, that way I could easily double up on the bobbins and the stitches would still look tight. I kinda wanted to do a cable knit too so I bought the straight 19mmx700mm needles and the 19mmx400mm cable needles!

As you can see from the picture, there isn't a cable. This is because I was silly and didn't think it through, what was the point of a cable if there's going to be a coffee table on top of the rug?! Doh!

Next came the actual knitting! Me being on the petite side found using these ridiculously large needles a challenge, but I love challenges! I cast on 65 stitches and just worked a stockinette until I got the length I wanted. It was easy to begin with, but as it got longer turning the work over got harder. I even had to sit on the floor as the work was too heavy to try and hold up doing it sitting on a chair or sofa! But turning heavy work meant a good arm work out, I should start selling tickets to my gun show now!

      

Et voila, here is my work in all orangey and extreme knitting wonder. It ended up being 100cmx150cm (101x152 to be exact!). I'm pretty darned pleased with how it came out.  I might even use the left over yarn to make coordinating coasters!

...Said no knitter, ever.

I just saw this amazing post on Facebook shared by Vogue Knitting.

My favourite line: "I love weaving in ends, the more the merrier."  Hahahahaha (weaving in ends is the WORST!)

Pink Baby Cardigan!

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine commissioned me to make her BFF a baby cardigan who is expecting her little bundle of joy in October.  The only pre-requisite is that it had to be some shade of pink!

I've never been given such artistic freedom for a commissioned project and so I emailed my friend like a fiend of cardigan pics and yarn types.  We soon decided on the 'Baby Sophisticate' pattern that I found on Ravelry for free, and to use Rowan's All Seasons Cotton in Cosmos.

The actual knitting went along quite nicely, because the yarn is aran weight, I managed to do the body in one weekend!  I've been using 4 ply a lot recently so I forgot how big a piece gets so quickly with aran!  Plus it was nice to hold some chunky needles and yarn.

The one bit I had trouble with was picking up on the right side, I kept getting this weird flat bit and frogged it about 2 times but with no improvement, other than that I'm pretty pleased with the result - so was the yummy mummy that I made this for :)