Turn a square... or two

It always happens at this time of the year - the knitting rush towards christmas is on and the gaps between posts gets longer! So much making going on that I can't show you quite yet but for now you can get a peek at the hat I finished last night. The weather is so dull today I had to use a lamp for photos but you can see it's a stripey blue beanie from Jared Flood's 'Turn a Square' pattern.

The pattern is super easy to knit up and I finished this in an afternoon/evening. It's worked in worsted weight using one solid and one tonal yarn. The lighter stripe is my tonal yarn but it is very subtle in these photos. I think the contrast between the two yarns may be too much - it gives really definite stripes but the tonal subtleties are a bit lost. Maybe having the lighter colour as the predominant one would help.

I used two DK yarns  - which didn't seem the same thickness, go figure! -  so I had to make some pattern alternations. The pattern calls for stripes in 2 rows, then 3 row thicknesses. My thinner yarn was for the three rows but didn't look much thicker than my chunkier two row yarn so I ended up knitting 4 instead. Now this is finished I'm thinking it is an excellent beanie but a bit neat to be flattering for the people I have it in mind for as presents so I'm going to cast on a few more stitches for the next one to give a slightly looser fit.

And I've even got the yarn all ready waiting to be cast on:-) It has a slight yellow tinge from the artificial light but this should knit up to be a lovely soft tonal pink and grey hat. I may change the solid colour to a grey tone but it depends if I have any in my stash! Mmmm, I think there is a little angora left from the soft grey cornflower cowl....... I'm thinking that would work better. Keep you posted on how this works out. If there is decent light tomorrow, you may even get some colour accurate photos!

Oh, and there are some snowflakes in the wind this week I have to show you - metaphorically speaking:-) Now back to some christmas speed knitting....... see you soon!

Test knitting

Today I received a very lovely parcel in the post - the yarn for my test knitting project, some gorgeous soft Rowan baby alpaca. I can't describe how lovely this is, just heavenly:-) Its so soft to the touch it makes you realise just how brash and hard all those other yarns have been:-))) And I thought cashmerino was nice. This is on another level entirely and after I stopped fondling it :-), I got around to knitting with it - sigh, perfection! Yum, yum, yum!

So what am I test knitting? It's a lovely cowl pattern by designer Karen Scott called Cornflower Cowl full of lovely cables and twisted stitches and I'm enjoying every minute of it. I think this alpaca is spoiling me!! How will I go back to my acrylic stash now!!! But not just providing me with this yummy yarn to test knit with, Karen also included some of her lovely stitch markers for me as a gift - aren't they lovely? Especially for socks which is perfect as the normal ones are a major pain being far too big and getting in the way all the time.

A close-up for you. I love the little heart on the left:-) Do you think Karen knows about my love of pink? It came in a bright pink mail bag, wrapped in bright pink tissue paper and the stitch markers were in this pink organza bag with a pink ribbon!! A lovely way to start the day. Thank you so much Karen!! There was another small gift too......

.....but it didn't last long enough for the photo shoot:-))