Our internet connection seems to be back up and running again, thank goodness! It has been driving me mad. NTL are going to replace our cable box in a couple of weeks as the one we have is rather ancient, hopefully this will solve some of the connection problems, and the freezing up that the telly does sometimes. It has taken me two tries to get this posted, the connection just seems to be variable at the moment.

Anyway, I have finished the last hat for Nanny, I think 6 should be sufficient to keep her going for a while 🙂

Last stripy hat

The background is a DK weight cotton I had lurking in the spare room, and I managed to use up the last of both colours of the Schachenmayr Princess. I think I have got the hat knitting thing out of my system now.

I had been going to start my mitred t-shirt which I did the tension square for ages ago, but I’ve been distracted again. It was knitting group on Wednesday and Audrey was showing us the method she used for making some jumpers using handspun. The idea being that you start at the centre bottom with 3 stitches, then on every other row you increase on each end of your piece, and on either side of the centre stitch until the base of the triangle is the width required for the body. Then you carry on increasing on either side of the centre stitch, but decrease at the sides every other row until you are up to the neckline, and then shape the neckline and shoulders.

I don’t spin, but I did think this would be a great way to use some lovely colours of DK cotton I have, without doing horizontal stripes. It will also cope well with the fact that I have lots of some colours and not much of others. I am hoping for a kind of random effect with the colours, and patterns. I’m not usually very good at doing random things so we shall see whether it comes out ok or not. It is really good fun so far. I am twiddling with Audrey’s original pattern in that once I have made my first triangle big enough width-wise I shall knit another the same, and then join them so that I can knit the bulk of the body circularly. I think I am going to make a V-neck, and I would like to somehow knit the sleeves on too, but I am still working through the logistics of that one. I had a thought about it the other morning just after the alarm clock went off, but I was rather asleep at the time so what seemed like a brilliant idea then may turn out to be rubbish. I’ve got a way to go before I need to worry too much about the sleeves though so plenty of time for inspiration to strike.

Anyway, here is a picture of what I have knitted so far.

Cotton jumper in progress

Did I mention I like bright colours? 🙂