Stripes ahoy

 

The first project in my “cleansing my stash & queue” effort, is a project which I had already for years planned. So much planned that they yarn sat on a shelve neatly wound up in cakes for a good number of years. I has travelled to me to 3 continents (yes I am ashamed to say that) and it didn’t cast on… Until now!  

So this feels good, and in retrospect, I really do not know why there was so much activation energy required. After all it was an easy knit, in a nice soft cotton, albeit just a teeny bit splitty (so yes that might be the reason, it required just that small amount of extra attention, maybe not the best yarn for a travel-project). It makes a good item for sping/autumn and of course North-Western European Summers (as a friend told me the other day, summer is only a state of mind this year).

Very early into the project I felt that my gauge was a bit of, but that the fabric was very nice, so I knitted the XS size to obtain a S/M, that worked out quite well. Other than that I made only small changes in the way the shaping of the arm holes and sleeve-caps were done, but really very minor adaptions. Just like I wrote, sometimes one wonders why you didn’t do something way earlier…..

Summer resolutions

 

Before the holidays I thought I should make an effort to reduce my stash in the coming months.Good for finances, good for reducing the yarn laying around here and there "kind of organised" in the house and in the end, I guess also good for morale. I have a nice stash, so knitting it up shouldn’t be a problem, it is mixed as well so plenty to choose from. To really do it I made an effort to put some of the yarn in the stash pages on Ravelry and I will put some more on today. That makes it easier to browse it and to find patterns to match (preferably from my ever so fast growing queue). So all the knitting for the coming months will be mainly reducing stash projects. 

The second (the first one was actually Hélène) item made is another cotton cardigan for M. Elisabeth is the pattern, Ultra Pima fine is the yarn, in a nice cobalt blue colour. I really thought after browsing the projects that 5 skeins of the yarn should be enough for this one. After all M is skinny and I need to knit sizes smaller in width than length for a “normal 10 to 11 year old. But that was assuming that I just would knit the pattern…and that of course didn’t happen. M wanted it to be a bit longer than the pattern and that was that….I am going to run out of yarn. So I had to order another skein and then M had seen this sweater in a shop and wanted one and… and ….. So I ordered yarn for that as well (I actually really didn’t have a slightly thin-thick yarn in my stash to make that sweater and as it will be a kind of own design I thought I could make that exception…)

But I will try to be better in the future…. really no yarn ordering until the 1st of January 2016!

Other than the length I also made another border at the bottom of Elizabeth. Instead of the stockinette rolled hem I made an I-cord finish. I think it fits the lace better, I will still do the rolled stockinette for the front and neck finish.  The only problem with an I-cord is that it takes so long to make it….perseverance required….

Hélène

This will be a short post, still travelling, the last couple of days. One thing good about long train travelling is that one has plenty of time to knit a bit while looking out of the window to a changing landscape… Sometimes the landscape is too beautiful, but ever so often one can just knit a bit...

So Hélène got finished. Not to much to add about this one, except as this is a side-ways knitted lace sweater, be very careful to bind-of very loosely, otherwise the lace doesn’t block fully...

I added two more rows to the neck-finish, but other than that….. no changes at all. Knitted in my favourite linen yarn, Sparrow.

Impressions...