2 posts from May 2008

When I was at the Autumn Home Show last month I was tempted into buying some dyed and carded polwarth fibre from Sharon of Jumbuck Carding. There was only 85 grams left of the heathered sliver (top-left), so I nabbed that, and a quantity of a solid purple.

Heathered Purple Polwarth

I didn't have a plan for them when I purchased (no surprise, I'm sure), but got spinning pretty quickly, at first on my old Traveller (now gifted to Mum), and then on my new Joy.. Soon I had 170 grams of about a sport weight yarn (plying together a single of each sliver), ready to knit. But what to knit?!

Not a scarf, or a hat, or a fraction of a jersey. So, mittens or gloves it was. I did eventually settle on a fingerless glove pattern, but given that I had no real plan before, I saw no need to stick to it. As you've probably gathered from the title of this entry, I made mittens!

One Thumb

Right Mitten

Call me a heretic, but I didn't work them in the round, preferring to use straight needles, and then seam. I do dislike rangling dpns for fingers and thumbs.

Anyway, the mittens are nice and soft, and a pretty heathere colour! I'm very pleased with both my spinning, and my knittings. And that my fingers are warm!

V-Neck Pullover

If you have a good memory, you may recall that I was working on a jersey for my Mum. Well, there were long periods of time where there was very little work happening on the jersey front. Finally, however, it is completed! And handily (but coincidentally) just in time for Mother's Day!

The pattern is from Fitted Knits, and customised to fit my Mum (and she will attest to the many phone calls I made asking her to measure from here to there, and around that).

V-Neck Pullover

The pattern has the ribbing on the arms starting above the elbow (and the body ribbing startng a little higher), but this version has the ribbing starting below. It's still one heck of a lot of ribbing! For more details, check out my project at Ravelry.

When I started (and to below the neck - top-down - the first time around), I was working with the 8 ply yarn, and modifying the stitch counts. That was a pain (as were the large numbers of stitches), and in the end I started over with the yarn double-stranded, getting closer to the pattern gauge. Unsurprisingly, it grew much more quickly (and would have been fniished a while ago had I not been distracted)!

Whenever I took this out with me to knit somewhere, people remarked on the colour, which was picked by Mum. I'd never knit with the Bendio Woollen Mills yarn before, before I'm sure I will again. While the crepe was a little "crisp" at times when knitting, it softens and bloom very nicely on washing (and this variety is machine washable). And the 200 gram balls make for less ends to weave in (especially when working with two strands at a time (from the outside and centre of a cerntre-pull ball). That's always a bonus!