"You know, you never post anything about knitting anymore," my friend said. When I looked back at recent blog posts, I was startled to find that she was right. I write a lot about potential knitting but I rarely post about Stuff Wot I Have Knitted. Clearly I need to make amends although I have not been knitting super-exciting things.
The Skald shawl. Looks pretty, non?
I chose to knit Spring Trellis by Linda Choo which is a free Ravelry pattern (and well-written too). I ended up running out of yarn and had to omit the nupps on the border. I quite like the contrast between the lace and the solid border, but would have preferred the shawl with nupps.
The yarn was Sirri Tógv 1ply - a Faroese wool which I purchased on my last visit to the mothership Copenhagen. I loved working with it: it was rustic, sheepy, woolly, and beautifully unprocessed. However, it took five rinses to get all the natural lanolin out and instead of the soft, gorgeous fabric I had imagined, Sorri 1ply had bloomed to such a degree that my shawl looks like a cat has slept on it. No, like a cat has slept on it for weeks. The marriage between pattern and yarn proved to be an unhappy one - the yarn would have worked far better in a simple garterstitch shawl - and lessons have been learned.
I have more Sirri yarn kicking about. I'll need to think carefully about what to do with it.
I got as far as the yoke on my Fenris jumper when I realised I had to rip it out. I loved that yoke, I tell you. I had combined Nordic motifs that I've known and loved my entire life - particular that wheel design which reminds me of the Trundholm Sun Chariot. The Chariot was found very close to where I grew up and the Bronze Age wheel motif is so .. it is part of my psyche, you know?
For the body and sleeves I used a pure wool aran (sold to me as bulky!) which I bought at a very favourable price in my mum's local supermarket. Denmark's great for yarn, I swear (although not so great in other ways but that's for another day). I used remnants of New Lanark aran for the colourwork yoke. A big thank you to Paula and Bronwen who gave me scraps that I'll incorporate - in that way the jumper won't just represent Denmark but also Scotland.
A bit of a departure for me: baby knitting! A colleague is expecting a baby and I wanted to make her something she'll actually use (rather than a fancy baby cardigan that'll languish in a drawer).
The patterns are from Erika Knight's excellent Natural Nursery Knits (probably my favourite baby knitting book) and I used oddments of Patons Washed Haze DK. I really like the booties, actually. They are knitted flat, then seamed quickly up the back. I managed to squeeze out a pair during one knitting group session. Score.
Finally, a black hat. I still need to do a modelled shot, but the weather has been too good!
I used some workhorse aran (again from my mum's supermarket) and got the general gist from a Norwegian hat pattern although I didn't follow the pattern exactly (I lost it, ok?). I knitted this with winter in mind. Last year I knitted Intuitive and loved it for about two weeks before I lost it on a northbound bus. I am not going to face another winter without a black hat.
I'm currently working on a laceweight version of Karise. There won't be a separate pattern for the laceweight version - just some extra numbers added to the pattern.
So, yes, I do knit. Look! Evidence!