Leaving on a jet plane…

Tags

aeroplane, Cologne, Noro, Regia, shawls, socks, Stitch 'n' Bitch, toe-up, trains

Not quite but soon! The top of my Ravelry queue reflects that too. 

First up Jeck. I’ve used this pattern before for Strrripes! which were also a travel project: Stripes – the love affair continues and for Making Merry. It’s mindless but not so mindless that you go crazy. Every second round has a little bit of activity with a few stitches to be slipped or purled. I’ll be starting at the toe (as usual) and working up so I’ll use Wendy Johnson’s Gusset Heel. I’ll be travelling on planes and trains for over 24 hours so that’s a lot of knitting time. You get a lot of knitting hours out of a ball of sock yarn!

Second in the queue is TGV. I have a ball of Noro Taiyo  for this.

Again this is very straightforward knitting; the first half is a garter crescent followed by a two-by-two ribbed frill. It will be perfect for when I visit my old Stitch ‘n’ Bitch group in Cologne as I’m sure there will be lots of chatting! After that? Probably more socks. This journey is the first of several…

This could be the start of something big…

Tags

AIWCC, blanket, charity, Knitters Guild, Lizard Ridge, Noro, Ravelry, stripes, yarn

I’ve knitted 23 pairs of socks to date. Most of these pairs have used significantly less than 100g of yarn. I’ve been saving the remains for emergency repairs and darning but I don’t really envisage using them for such (particularly as my own pairs have had the heels reinforced prior to wear). I thought it would be nice to use the leftovers in a blanket. Ravelry has hundreds of projects, ranging from rows of stripes to patchwork squares and even stuff-as-you-go hexagons.

Before browsing too much, I drew up a shortlist of criteria that would hopefully help me decide which kind of scrap blanket would work for me:

• Work in pieces to enable a good arrangement of colours
• Project should be easy to carry around
• Add in a neutral colour to balance some of the highly variegated yarns

Finally, I decided on making a Lizard Ridge blanket (pattern by Laura Aylor), using grey as one of the striping colours and all my leftovers for the contrast. Lizard Ridge is knitted in worsted-weight Noro yarn so each square is larger than one you’d get using 4-ply/fingering wool. I started off by knitting a square that was one-repeat (i.e. about a third) wider. It seemed a bit on the floppy side. I decided to knit as written and just make more squares. I was fortunate enough to sit next to Caitriona at December’s Knitters’ Guild meeting and she commented on her dislike of sewing together her Lizard Ridge blanket. It made me think. Seriously. About all the squares I would need… I recalled the fund-raising charity blanket that the Stitch ‘n’ Bitch group at the AIWCC made (I was one of the ‘lucky’ ones involved in its assembly)…

• Should I start all over again and knit bigger squares?
• Should I just bite the bullet and resign myself to a lot of sewing-up?

The solution is a compromise of sorts – my squares are now rectangles. They are still 43 stitches wide, as in the pattern, but they feature six not four sets of stripes.

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Christmas Knitting – did you do it?

Tags

knitting, Noro, socks, yarn

Christmas knitting means different things to different knitters:

• There’s the “I need to make 7 gifts in 5 weeks” kind of mad knitting that sucks the enjoyment out of it as you know you have absolutely no time whatsoever for any kind of mistake or interruption.
• There’s the “If I start thinking about it now in January, I’ll have a heap of lovelies to share out come next Christmas!” forward planning that enables the organised knitter to enjoy some personal knitting time.
• And there’s the pure bliss of receiving beautiful yarn and being justified in abandoning all WIPs (aka current projects) in the pursuit of the perfect pattern, closely followed by casting on while the giver is still around, and culminating in the first Finished Object of the year.

Christmas knitting – did I do it? Yes.

I gave socks to Brother and Sister-in-Law (I learnt my lesson, having done the mad stuff a year ago!)

And I was given this beautiful Noro yarn by Elder Daughter

which has gloriously turned into this.

Christmas knitting in January? I’m all for it!

Would YOUR granny wear these?

Tags

knitting, Noro, shawls, yarn

I see brows wrinkle and eyes roll. I hear the “hmmm”s when I mention knitting wraps and stoles and yes, shawls. I enjoy using multi-coloured yarn with simple designs. I love turning fine wool and silk into intricate lacework. Knitting – it isn’t just for grannies.

Noro

Tags

knitting, Noro, yarn

A ball of heaven

There’s something about Noro yarn that shouts “Choose me! Knit me!” The colours are so vibrant, combining tonal shades or surprising you with an unexpected mix. The yarn isn’t easy to knit with. It’s thick and thin (scarily so in places) and sometimes there are knots and joins that change the colour sequence. Noro is loved and hated by knitters worldwide. I do both.