Last Day for Giveaway!

Just a little reminder that the rug giveaway is finishing tomorrow, so if you are a US reader, don't forget to enter! The winner will be drawn at random and I will post at the weekend to let you know who has won. If you are the lucky winner, I will e-mail you ASAP!

On the knitting front, the Adriafil Baba yarn has finally arrived. All that time waiting, I'll have forgotten the urchin pattern. But it is very simple so it shouldn't take long to get back into. But I must finish the front panel of the wicked vest first so I don't forget where I am in the neck decreases. Nearly there! Soon, only the last front panel to do and then sewing up! I really hope it has a lot of stretch as it's looking on the small side. Sister dearest, it may well be winging its way to you if it doesn't fit!! But I know you'll like the fushia colour:-)

It will be good to get two WIP's finished and then I can catch up on the forest canopy shawl and the sunflower scarf - remember them?

It has been a while:-) And then there are the noro socks.........More on them tomorrow!

Urchin

Some knitting has been going on this last weekend. In fact I'm in the middle of two new projects, Urchin and the Wicked fushia vest:-) Today, I thought I'd bring you up to date with Urchin, a lovely super chunky knitted hat designed by Ysolda. It's designed sideways so you are knitting the wedges of a pie with short row Wrap & Turns (W&T) - which are more commonly found in short row heels for socks.

Have a closer look:-) the first time I saw this I thought, that yarn looks familiar, I'm sure I have something similar in my stash that would be perfect, but couldn't find it at the time so put the pattern into my file and forgot about it for a while. Recently though, I saw some lovely finished examples on Ravelry and thought hmm, yes, I never did start that, I'll see if I have any yarn that would work. And this time I did!

My first choice was Paton's blue super chunky Symphony. I used this a lot for some crocheted cloche hats and slippers a few christmases ago and I was experimenting with the chocolate colourway for my chunky glove pattern last christmas. I knitted a swatch to get gauge and it just would not work. When I reached gauge, the knitting was so loose that it was virtually lace! So back to the stash I went. Rummage, rummage. I pulled out a range of all thicknesses for this and eventually I got gauge with this super lovely Baba yarn from Adriafil - very yummy!

Yarn found, I plunged right into knitting the pattern. As usual, a lovely pattern that is very enjoyable to knit. I was steaming away with this and then realised that one ball was not going to be enough. Nope, not even with a very close margin! 5 wedges out of 8 knitted and the inevitable happened - yarn gone.

The problem with a stash is sometimes balls lose their labels and this one was label-less and bought 'somewhere' online. I thought it was a hopeless case and it was time to rip it all back and start again with another new yarn but the next day, I woke up and suddenly remembered what shop I bought it from. I had no idea the brand or how long ago I bought this, although I was estimating about three years ago? The way fashions and colours change, I wasn't expecting to be lucky but what do you know! There it was, Adriafil baba in multicoloured reds. Whew!!

So one multi-coloured red urchin can soon be finished when the postman decides to deliver my yarn..... Come on, come on! I didn't want to stop knitting this and I can't wait to start it again!