This is the friend for the Turquoise Elephant, and has already been delivered to Jenny and Chris for the other of their twins due in February.
The yarn is Patons Fairytale Colour 4 Me DK again. A nice yarn to knit with, and comes in a good range of cheerful colours (it comes in some more subtle colours too).
Things are definitely looking a lot chirpier round here. The central heating is fixed, I have actually had some sleep (!) and am making inroads into the To-Do lists. The sun is out and it is not raining for the first time in days so I am enjoying the blue skies. I would be enjoying it even more if we stopped having power cuts!
I have also finished another elephant!
The yarn is Patons Fairytale Colour 4 Me in the DK weight, and I used 3mm needles to get a nice firm fabric. It is a nice yarn to work with, 100% wool, machine washable, and nice and soft. The elephant has gone to live with his new family, Jenny and Chris are expecting twin girls in February, so I am working on another elephant to join the turquoise one.
For a bit of variety in the toy knitting stakes I decided to have a go at knitting a camel. This is out of my own head and I’m not sure whether it has been entirely successful. It does look a bit like a dinosaur minus tail. I have been dragging him around and doing an informal poll entitled “What animal is this?”, and so far the results have been recognition as a camel (if not a very good one), and only Sarah said dinosaur.
I quite like him anyway, although I don’t think I will be repeating the experiment. He is interesting but not very cute (never mind, it happens to the best of us).
It seems that loads of my friends are starting families at the moment so I am knitting away like a mad thing on little goodies for the new arrivals.
This elephant is from Ysolda’s Elijah pattern.
I used Opal 6ply yarn and 3mm needles. I really like the way he has come out, very cute. He has already gone to Melissa and Dave, the parents-to-be. The actual recepient is due to make his/her arrival at the end of October.
I am on a bit of a roll with actually finishing things which have been on the needles for yonks. I started these socks back in February so I would have something on double pointed needles to take to Unravel in case anyone wanted to see the technique demonstrated. As it was there were several people there demonstrating double pointed needles so instead I worked on my Kool Aid socks which were on one long circular.
The yarn is Lana Grossa Meilenweit 100 Colortweed and the colour is 1004 (a very nice number, although I do find colour names easier to remember than colour numbers), and I used 2.5mm needles. The pattern is my usual one, this time with garter stitch short row heels.
I think these could qualify for the most-knitted-socks prize. I have been knitting them for about a year, and I think I knitted the first one four times in all, mostly due to my stupidity. The first time they were looking ok but I thought the fabric a little floppy so I thought I would try smaller needles. I went down two needle sizes and the second incarnation was like an inflexible little board. I then started off again for the third version with the needle size between that used for the first and second version, it was all going well until I realised part way down the leg that I had totally mis-counted the number of stitches to cast on – no wonder they looked big! The fourth version was (luckily) the last, although there were a few moments of un-knitting while I worked on the toes.
The yarn is superwash Bluefaced leicester 4ply weight, from Bluefaced.com, dyed with Kool Aid, and the needles I ended up using were 2.25mm.
I experimented with a few different things on these socks (one of the reasons they took a while). I started off with a version of the tubular cast on, adapted for use with a different number of knit to purl stitches, since I like to work a k3, p2 rib on the cuff of my socks.
I am really pleased with how this has come out and will definitely be using it again.
I tried out the Sherman heel, this uses a slightly different way of working the short rows. The heel unfortunately doesn’t fit my foot model very well but this does fit my feet ok.
This came out ok, but wasn’t as neat as I was hoping. I really like the garter stitch short row heel but haven’t yet found a stocking stitch version which I like quite as much.
I also had a go at making left and right foot socks.
The jury is still out on whether this is worth the effort. My feet are quite asymmetrical and the left and right foot socks certainly feel comfy so far. I shall wear them a few more times and then pass judgement!
I can’t actually remember when I finished these. They have been sitting on the arm of the settee waiting for me to photograph them for ages.
The toe looks a little weird here because my plastic foot model is quite a bit smaller than my foot.
The yarn is Cherry Tree Hill Supersock, and I think the colour is Tropical Storm.
I experimented with a garter stitch heel for these, which I like very much. It looks nice and neat and is very comfortable.
I also did a ribbed hem.
I like how this looks. Very neat from the inside too.
It is a bit pointless though, since rib doesn’t curl anyway. You do get rid of a cast on edge, but the rib makes the cuff quite thick. It was an interesting experiment but I don’t think I will do it again. I think I will experiment more with hems in other stitches.
My friends James and Emma’s baby was born a couple of weeks ago (she was the recipient of the Baby Surprise Jacket and the booties) and I thought what little Megan really needed to go with her hand knitted bits and pieces was an elephant. Ysolda has a great pattern called Elijah, he is knitted all in the round and you stuff as you go so he has no seams.
Here is the top of his head as I was knitting him.
The yarn is Rowan All Seasons Cotton, 60% cotton, 40% acrylic. The pattern called for a DK weight yarn knitted on 3mm needles, but the yarn I had was aran weight so I went for 3.5mm needles and I think it has come out well. The yarn was left over from a blanket knitted by another of Emma’s friends, the blanket was mostly cream but with stripes in pale blue, pale green and brown. There was none of the cream left, but nearly two balls of the blue, and nearly one ball of both the green and the brown. I was concerned that there wasn’t enough of any single colour to make the whole elephant, and so went for a stripey body with head and ears in solid blue, the colour I had the most of. I think he has come out very nicely, although I may be a bit biased 🙂
Here he is with legs and arms, but no ears or face yet.
He was a really fun knit, although if I was going to make another one I think I would choose a more elastic yarn. The fabric needs to be quite firm so that his stuffing wont poke through, and that was quite hard on the hands and shoulders with a cotton yarn.
Here he is finished.
He is even more adorable in real life, and I have been dragging him round to the knitting groups I go to to be admired 🙂 I did manage to face the difficult task of giving him up so he can go to his new owner last week and she seems to like him.
I’m afraid I am in catch-up mode again. I have finally got round to downloading the pictures from the camera from about the last month, but I think it will take me a while to sort out.
I have sorted a picture though of my very first finished project from my own handspun! I am so ridiculously proud it is silly 🙂
There is a definite difference between the centre, which was my first skein of 2ply, and the edges, which was my first skein of 3ply, but I have decided it gives it character 🙂
I actually finished the knitting for this back at Christmas, but it has taken ages for me to find buttons I liked. Finally Mummy found some good ones so here is the finished jacket.
I love it, and hope that the new parents-to-be will too, and that it will fit ok. There is still another month to go, but I will be seeing them this week so will ask them whether they would like it now or after the kiddie is born.
As a recap the yarn is 4ply weight, 80% superwash merino, 20% bamboo, dyed by me with Jacquard acid dyes.
I love this pattern so much I have already started doing tension swatches for an adult-sized one for me.