Urchins!

Well, you go and upgrade your computer and suddenly you are days behind on all your blogging posts! I have done quite a lot this week - knitting, washing more fleece, painting the house:-) - but I thought I would indulge in showing you some Finished Objects. Yup, FO's!! A long time since we've seen any of those:-) Everything has been ongoing, its beginning to hang over my head a bit so it's time to clear the decks and get some of these projects finished.

So, today it is two urchin berets. The first is the lovely multi-coloured red Urchin knitted with the majorly chunky Adriafil baba that I waited ages for in the post so I could finish knitting it up. So now it is finished, I've realised it is HUGE! While I was knitting, it didn't seem any bigger in circumference that any other beret but the band for your head obviously has too many rows and the hats falls down past your nose:-) Sigh. So after all that wait, and I must say an enjoyable knit, I think it is destined for being ripped back and knitted into something else. Maybe a circular bag....

The beret is precariously balanced on the dummy's head so it doesn't slip down her nose:-) It is really bulky at the back too and unfortunately in this jumbo scale not very flattering on! But I decided to knit another urchin in a thinner yarn to compare and contrast.

Same large pattern size but look at the difference. Little baby blue and jumbo red! It's a shame as the red yarn is really lovely and warm and would make a great hat. I think if I wanted to use it for an urchin I would have to create an extra, extra small version:-)

The blue Urchin is knitted in the Paton's Symphony I was swatching with earlier. All I needed to do was use 7mm needles instead of 8's and knit the large size to compensate for the stitch reduction. Saying that I could have got away with the small or the medium hat size as it still has a little more slouch that I would like. That may be due to the tension being a little looser than I would like as well - maybe 6mm's would be the answer:-)

Anyway, this is a very quick knit and the short rows just fly by using super chunky. I finished the last 5 wedges out of 8 and grafted the seams in about an hour or so this afternoon. This fits a lot better but still I don't find the style that flattering on me. I wonder what a much finer gauge would knit up like? With a little pattern tweeking, and maybe using st. st instead of the textured garter st, it could become a whole new hat in its own right. Thinking cap on......

Well, I have cleared my work space and I have pulled out another long overdue for finishing WIP - the fushia forest canopy. I'll work on this tonight and show you how far I get tomorrow.....

Happy knitting!

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!

Friday favourite

Just a quick blog today to tell you about a textile giveaway going on at The Textile Blog. If you live in the US or Canada, you can enter to win a free cushion/pillow up to the value of $100! I'm so miffed I'm not able to enter:-) So get over there, have a look and leave a comment. Wouldn't it be nice to win one of these?

These two are my favourites. Something about red and white contrasting graphic patterns - yum! But there are literally tons to look at so enjoy a visual feast! You have till friday the 12th June to enter......

'Urchin' knitting is happening but I ran out of yarn and only got 2/3rds of the way through. So I'm waiting on another ball to arrive in the post and then I can get it all finished and photographed. It's just I get impatient waiting when I'm on a knitting roll:-)