Three more of this month's knitted gifts were presented over the course of last week, so can now make their debut here.
First up:
Pattern: Turn a Square beanie by Jared Flood. Very easy pattern (and free!) and very effective!
Yarn: 1 x 50g ball Noro Silk Garden col 47 and 1 x 50g skein of Naturally Harmony 10ply in col 804. The Naturally Harmony is the perfect yarn to match with the Noro SG - the colour matched well (in fact, it's almost the exact same shade of grey used in the Noro) and the perfect texture. And it's lovely to knit with! The 2 balls of yarn were enough for both hats, if you swap the main colour and contrast colour for the second one.
(see, you can hardly even see the first two Noro stripes because of the matching greys!!)Sticks: 4mm KP fixed circulars for the ribbing, 4.5mm KP fixed circs and then bamboo dpns for the body of the hat.
What I learned: Jogless stripes! Finally! I've tried the technique which has you pick up the stitch from the row below and knit with the new colour but it's never worked for me. But the summer IK had a nice tutorial article on jogless stripe methods - I used the slip stitch method (you slip the first stitch in the new colour on the next row). It does pull slightly, as you are slipping the same stitch all the way up (but not on every row) but it works out fine for this width of stripes.
Time: I did both hats in 4 days! 6 August 2009 - 9 August 2009. Love an easy, effective, stocking stitch pattern!
The mainly grey hat was given to a friend for his 40th birthday and the mainly Noro hat was for my brother's 50th birthday.
Next:
Pattern: No, not a weird octopussy thing, but Jonna by Norah Gaughan, from Norah Gaughan book 1. Any easy ribbed scarf with a modern twist - pointed rather than flat short ends, and balls (or bubbles as NG calls them!) instead of pompoms or fringing. I thought this would be a good option for a just turned 40yo friend (yes, the wife of the grey hat recipient!!)
Yarn: Lovely Sublime Cashmere Merino Silk dk, 4 x 50g balls in colour 0007. I actually meant to buy this yarn but in aran weight but somehow didn't...not that it really made a difference. It's such a lovely yarn to knit with, and (I hope) to wear. A real pleasure to knit. It did grow a lot on blocking (full wet block) - the scarf grew from about 190cm to about 225cm, so it ended up a little longer than I'd anticipated, but I think it works well - with the balls, I don't think you want the scarf to be too short.
(thanks to husby for his excellent modelling!)Sticks: 4.5mm rosewood straights. I don't bring out the straight sticks very much, but when the yarn is this nice, and it's a narrowish scarf, it was the right time. Lovely sticks. I used 4.5mm bamboo dpns for the balls, which in the pattern are somewhat bizarrely are knit flat and seamed. Pah to that, I say. I knit them in the round. Yes, it was slightly fiddly doing the decreases down to i-cord, but worth it to avoid the seaming!
Time: 15 July - 21 August 2009. I gave myself plenty of time to knit this one!
Three more gift knits down, only a couple more to go, and then my big reward - I have a grand plan, which I'll tell you more about later!
17 comments:
i wanna know the grand plan now!!! Oh wait, I think I do! Don't I?
Look at your clever joggless stripes! Go you. I skipped that article in both copies of my Summer IK. I'll go back and try it again.
Those balls are funny. I wonder what they are like to wear? It's cute!
Great gifts- lucky recipients. You've inspired me to revisit jogless stripes - given my love of stripes I think it would be a useful investment of time and thought.
And I think I also know your grand (another word for foolhardy?) plan...so exciting for us onlookers.
oh very very nice. I hadn't even heard of jogless stripes - now I need to find out more.
Isn't it a great hat pattern and I love your two, especially because you made them from juts the two balls and did clever alternating!!!
Very cute scarf, I could never resist pelting people with the 'bubbles'!!!
Ooh love that scarf, beautiful and very different too. Your hubby is so good to model for you. I love the colors of the hats too.
Hey RoseRed, they were well received and looked even better in real life! The birthday girl liked her scarf so much she wore it at breakfast yesterday morning!
totally love that hat pattern, will knit it more myself. yours are so lovely, what a great eye for colour you have. and the scarf is brilliant - i would have never have looked twice at it on the page but it really works!
Lovely! Great gifts, it can be hard keeping things to yourself until they've been gifted!
Grand plan? Want to know!
Love the hats and the scarf - very clever bunny you are!
yay to you working out the jogless stripes - I'm going to go back to that IK and see if it can't teach me, too!
The hats and the Jonna are gorgeous, what lucky friends and family? totally agree with you on knitting the balls in the round - who would want to seam up all of them?! you can bet NG didn't!
Wow, missy! That's a lot of stuff to talk about! Am excited to try the jogless stripe trick. I skipped the article because I assumed it was the method I already use (row below) but now will have to dig it up to try this way - sounds much better!
Love the cute hats, too... now I'll have to try them, too. And that scarf is way too cool. Your friend is going to love it. I'm a huge fan of Sublime, too, though it has gotten very, very expensive here for some reason.
And yes, me too! I want to hear the plan!
That's a mad scarf! Brilliant.
Lovely, lovely and lovely again. Two patterns I really like and so well executed by you - fab! Am excited to hear about the plan - knit faster so you can tell us soon :o)
I was wondering what the bubbles would look like when worn. It looks great!
Love your weird octopussy thing! What a unique pattern.
My new knitting goal is to knit a hat that actually fits a human head, a goal which for some reason continues to elude me!
That's the neatest scarf!!!! And what a man to model it for you.
Those balls remind me of tablecloth weights lol. Very cute and it's really great to see something different. Were you tempted to put lead sinkers in them so they act as scarf anchors?
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