Sunday 28 December 2008

Christmas knitting.................

I had initially just opted to make one knitted gift this year for my Father-in-law for christmas as he had requested some cashmere socks. I went on the hunt for this yarn back in October at Ally Pally and landed on some Seriously Gorgeous Cashmere Silk from Knitwiches.

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This has to be one of the softest yarns I have ever knit with and I have to say there were several times when I really wished the socks were for me. The colourway was Forest Moss so I needed to design and appropriately named pattern to go with them. I was also able to apply my newley learned skills of toe-up, magic loop knitting. There was no way I could afford to have one of my usual running out of yarn disasters at the toe again. I very dilegently split my skein into two equal balls and commenced the knitting.

The result was the following pair of Woodland Trail socks, so named to compliment the neat mossy pathways that follow up the socks to the cuff. The cuffs were a 3x3 rib so that they were loose as FIL can't wear anything tight around his ankles.

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I also knitted another one of these little cardis that I had done for a friends baby that arrived in July for my brothers daughter. I love the way this knits up and I want to have a go at knitting an adult version of this one.

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There was also the hat, handspun and designed especially for Andy, Mr Wool of Bluefaced.com, I am really pleased with this as it is the first time that I actually knit with my own handspun.

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Oh and with all that finished well in time for christmas last Saturday I suddenly decided that I wanted to knit up and wear my Hey Teach on Christmas Day. To be fair I was completing the button bands on Christmas morning but I did have it ready to wear in time for lunch at our friends. (This has not yet been blocked.)

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The buttons are some cute pewter ones shaped in Celtic Knots that I went around and collected from Robynn of Purlescence on Christmas Eve. I am really pleased with how well it knitted up once I got the hang of how to count the lace repeats from the chart! I also decided to be a little bit different with this being a virral knit and decided that reverse stocking stitch would be better for the plain part of the body. I knitted this up in some Fyberspates Scrumptious DK yarn and it only took 3 skeins to knit, in fact there were 80grms of the third skein left.

I am definately going to knit another one of these. I also wore it over a long sleeve black t-shirt on boxing day along with jeans.

Oh and not to forget of course Carl's christmas present - The Cable Sweater of Doom!

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I also had a few knitty and spinny things for christmas too but you will have to wait until the camera has charged up before I can post those!

3 comments:

Katie said...

That's an impressive amount of Christmas knitting for someone who was just doing 1 project!
Hope everyone loved their presents, they all look gorgeous.

Justine said...

Merry Christmas, Mel!

Quality knitting! All looks great - love the colour of Hey Teach - will you be wearing it to the IKnit knitting evening on 5 Jan?

HeyYeah said...

I love you cardie! Fabulous & very festive looking.