Colours

My first big knitting project of the year got finished yesterday and I feel quite pleased with it. The pattern came from a Japanese book and I wanted to knit it for quite some time but other things came always in between. During the autumn my big daughter asked if I could knit her a Fair-Isle sweater, slightly vintage inspired and this pattern came to mind. The biggest problem was the yarn. Spindrift and Jumperweight bot come in lots and lots of colours, but this sweater was knitted in yarn that had slightly more weight but as it was Japanese not at all easy to get here. In the end I decided for Duett superset which is just slightly thicker than the yarns from the shetlands. S wanted the sweater in similar colours as the book, so we had to match them and there are quite a number of them. The Superset really worked well since it is slightly sticky yarn and that really helps for getting the tension right for the stranded knitting. 

I didn’t make any changes apart from the back where I also used the colour work (in the original the back was only in the main colour) and as the sleeve cap instructions were quite odd (or maybe I just didn’t interpret the scheme right) I did my own shaping there. As there are so many colours on a neutral background, it goes with almost anything, which is of course important ;-) .

Anyway this was fun, and that one has to treasure these days… So many days this week I woke up with dread, what will be in the papers today… Last week Saturday was a glorious counter of course, but the rest of it. So many decisions from Trump and so much worse than even imagined. Mexicans, women, muslims, scientists all being targeted and what will next week bring?  One other good thing of knitting this jumper is that I have quite a bit left-overs for stranded projects, maybe something like a bit of my own resistance mittens. 

 

P.S.

P.S. I forgot to activate the pattern download on Ravelry yesterday….too hasty I guess. It is fixed now and the pattern can be downloaded.

 

And just a peek at what I am knitting now, challenge for January:

A small gift for 2017

 

Some weeks ago I knitted a slipped stitch hat for M. I really did like the way that it came out and I thought it would be a nice idea to make it into a pattern. I quite like slipped stitch knitting as it is easy to do and it gives a real nice effect. In this case the slipped stitches are giving rise to vertical columns. Slipped stitch fabric is also quite dense, so it makes for a good warm hat.  Since I spent my last day of the old year and the first day of the New Year with a terrible cold, it gave me plenty opportunity to reknit the hat, take careful notes and make it into a pattern. So here it is a Slipped Hat for a fast quick knit too keep one warm for the year to come. 

Just one note on the yarn, I used Rowan Fazed Tweed, unfortunately now discontinued.  I love this bulky yarn as it is soft but doesn’t pill. Any bulky yarn would work. The hat comes in only 1 size ((Women’s), but using a slightly thinner yarn and smaller needles will make a smaller hat as I did with the one below (Bigger child). Notes on that hat can be found at the project page, here.