Category Archives: Stranded Hat

Exhausted

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I’m afraid I have been overdoing it again, I had hoped to post more frequently now on the shiny new blog but this last week or so has rather worn me out. I shall hope to be at least a little more coherent here than I have been in general the past few days – I hope you know what I mean to write even if I don’t quite manage to articulate it as well as I would wish. Despite my best efforts I haven’t managed to wedge any extra hours in the day yet. Also I am having to reluctantly admit that not sleeping in an attempt to gain more time for other things isn’t a particularly good long term solution. I am working on it!

The stranded hat is crawling along – when I find those extra hours in the day I am going to use them for knitting. I have got to the second crown now so I feel the end is in sight.

Stranded Hat

The two-handed knitting is definitely starting to feel a lot more natural and I am looking forward to finishing this and branching out into something a bit more complex. Talking of new techniques, I learned out to knit back backwards at the Reading knitting group on Saturday – good fun and I’m sure it will come in useful, although after my last brush with entrelac (a very large very green coat knitted a very long time ago and now relegated to camping due to its vast size) I am still feeling a little scarred.

I can’t think of a clever way of changing topic now, so I will just wave my arms around and you can fill in a witty and intelligent segue in the conversation. The subject being that I am going to be at the Knitting and Stitching show at the NEC on Thursday with my Mum. Anyone else going? I can’t make Ally Pally this year so we thought we would try the NEC and see what it is like.

And on that note, given that I have irrevocably proved that I am way too tired to write a sensible blog post I am going to go to sleep.

Half a hat

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I was hoping to post this on Saturday but my computer has been having a bit of a moment. After spending an extended time-out on the naughty step contemplating the error of its ways, and having its hard disk defragmented 4 times (which took 2 days!) it is now a behaving itself a bit better.

In the time not spent at the computer I have been knitting a bit more on the hat:

I have worked the first crown:
I have picked up my stitches from my provisional cast on, and started on the second half, in inverse colours:


P is convinced it is a hat for Marge Simpson, I keep telling him he needs to wait and see …

It’s arrived!

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I caved and finally ordered some of the Kauni yarn everyone has been going on about. It is such fantastic colours I couldn’t resist, and it arrived on Saturday! I had been hoping that the weather would perk up a bit so I could take pictures outside, but it hasn’t so I’m afraid we have inside pictures today:

Surprisingly (!?) I ordered the brightest colour they had (EQ), and while I was at it a couple of balls of Trekking found its way into my shopping basket too. It was the first time I have ordered from Astrid’s Dutch Obsessions and the process all went very smoothly and quickly, and she even included a little piece of cake! (just visible on the right of the picture above). I have been very restrained and haven’t casted on yet, I am still plotting what exactly I am going to do. The yarn is very nice and I love the long stretches of colour. My only niggle is that it isn’t the softest yarn in the world. I think it will be ok, it is not that harsh, but I would love to find something in colours like this but perhaps in merino. If you have come across anything I would love to know about it!

Stranded hat

The hat is trotting along, I have started the decreases for the crown (and changed my mind, undid about 20 rows and redid them), here you see version 2 (version 1 didn’t live long enough to have its photo taken):


My hands are definitely getting more used to knitting together, although I am still haven’t some difficulties with pulling the yarn in the left hand too tight, anyone have any suggestions?

Comments

The Japanese short rows aren’t too much of a pain once you get going. Also, while the pins are handy while you are starting out because they make it completely clear exactly which thread you need to pick up, I think you can dispense with them once you have got the idea. Once you have got rid of the pins it it probably less fiddly even than the wrapping method. I am going to do some more experimenting so watch this space!

Terribly British

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In celebration of all the good weather here we have been out decimating the garden this weekend. We had a large goat willow near our boundary with next door which was starting to lean on their greenhouse so on Friday a couple of tree surgeons came and removed it, and gave the Eucalyptus and the smoke bush a bit of a hair cut too.

This was the view from our back door on Thursday before all the action:

and here is the view this lunchtime:

The tree surgeons were very quick and tidy, although it was rather hair-raising watching them climbing the trees with chain-saw in hand! P has also been hard at work at the weekend chopping down and pulling up some of the other rather over-grown stuff, and is now onto renovating the lawn which is currently partly bald, and partly brown and crispy.

After all the excitement we decided it was time to actually enjoy the garden and so on Saturday night went shopping for some food to cook on the barbecue for Sunday lunch. Sunday dawned rather grey, but neither of us are particularly good at letting go of an idea once we have latched onto it, so we bravely forged ahead, got the barbecue out, lit it, and put the food on. Then the rain started:


There is something so terribly British about barbecuing in the rain, so many happy childhood memories of summer holidays with iffy weather 🙂 It is all part of the fun really. Luckily it stopped raining and the sun came out just as the food was cooked and we had a lovely meal, beef burgers with onion and chilli made by P in rosemary rolls made by me, very yummy. We finished it all off with a trip to RHS Wisley to enjoy someone elses garden.

Knitting

In amongst all the gardening I have been doing a bit of knitting:

I am practising my two-handed two colour stranded knitting. I have just about beaten my left hand into submission now and am starting to get a bit faster and more even. I thought this would be a good practice project before I launch into Alice Stamore’s Henry VIII. It is going to be a double layer reversible hat, but requires a bit of imagination at the moment.

Comments

Thank you all for your very kind comments on the Patchwork Sweater. I will definitely look into writing the pattern up, though it may take me a while to work out the logistics of making it fit a wide variety of sizes!