Archive Entries for 2014

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Wednesday October 22, 2014

Alison: Kaffe KAL Clue 2

As I am knitting the blanket I need to knit 7 square. I think if I were to think of knitting 67 8" squares for a blanket it would seem very daunting, but actually knitting 7 squares in 10 days is really easy. I still have time to knit on other things. I like the squares - great TV knitting (which after all is really all I do) but interesting enough that its not just a never ending mountain of stockinette. 

Clue 3 is due out on Weds and here are all my clue 2 squares blocked and ready to go.



Posted by Alison at 4:20 PM. Category: Kaffe Fassett Rowan KAL

Tuesday October 21, 2014

Alison: Kaffe KAL Clue 1.

The first clue came out and the pattern is a simple stripe.  However its not completely brainless knitting as the stripes and increase/decreases are not regular. The first colours are pretty unusual - and certainly not ones I would have combined automatically but look rather nice together.


Posted by Alison at 4:14 PM. Category: Kaffe Fassett Rowan KAL

Saturday October 18, 2014

Christina: Kaffe KAL Cushion clue 2

Here are my squares for the first 2 weeks.
Are they actually square you ask yourself? Well cobbling together the colours I need in a consistent thickness is very challenging I'm afraid.

I am finding the squares surprising tricky to knit considering they are in fact so simple. I think I get carried away and forget to increase and decrease in the right places. Most issues I have are with increasing - for some unknown reason - and also the shape of the corners is poor in the first part of the square. Thus, pretty soon, I developed a method to overcome this - it's a bit weird but...

First of all, Alison wrote us a nice shorthand version of the pattern - stripping the rows down to colour and number of increases - with breaks at colour changes. After this, I decided to knit my squares from the middle using a waste-wool cast-on and working back from the 34th row to the beginning; I then pick up from the middle again - discarding the cast on - and work as the pattern is written to the end. I only have to decrease on both halves of the square. Heaven knows why this helps me but it does.

My squares still aren't square but they are better than they were!

Posted by Christina at 6:02 PM. Category: Kaffe Fassett Rowan KAL

Sunday October 12, 2014

Christina: Kaffe KAL Cushion

I'm not committed enough to make another blanket so I thought I would do the small cushion. Once again I am using DK yarn that I already have - and it's not quite so challenging only having to find enough yarn to make a smaller item.

Here are my colours for the first 2 weeks.

Posted by Christina at 5:53 PM. Category: Kaffe Fassett Rowan KAL

Wednesday October 1, 2014

Alison: Kaffe Fassett Rowan KAL

I am knitting the blanket in the brown colours as part of the Kaffe Fassett knit along that is being organized by Rowan. Here is my bag of wool ready to start. I actually need to knit 67 squares total for the blanket with 7 of each colour combination. I am hoping that by Christmas I have a lovely Kaffe blanket for the cabin.


Posted by Alison at 4:11 PM. Category: Kaffe Fassett Rowan KAL

Sunday July 20, 2014

Christina: Gold from Straw

Finally completed.

Unsurprisingly, the squares pucker in places due to variability in size and yarn weight. However I am pretty pleased with the result. I think it looks slightly weird but that's the project and not the way I knitted it! It has certainly turned out as a very usable throw.

[I finished off the edging at the Guild meeting yesterday and everyone was very polite in admiring it. A lot of people really liked the cable edging which seems to have caused great controversy on Ravelry - lots of people replacing it - I never understood this as I think the edging is both suitable and lovely.]

Posted by Christina at 9:28 AM. Category: Martin Storey Mystery Afghan

Monday June 23, 2014

Christina: Colourwork - and rework

I was doing well with my squares but having completed them all now, I have decided to reknit some of them.

In order to use my scraps I actually split some of the plies in the yarns, as well as knitting 4plys and 2 plies together. This was not quite as much of a pain as one might think (I did it dynamically while knitting). This resulted for the most part in the squares being a little denser than they first started out. So my initial "blackcurrant" square in Phildar Oxygene was too flimsy, and I reknitted with additional plies in the same shade of Phildar Luxe, (and there was also some Jaeger Luxury Spun in there too!).

For the "seville" colour I used 2 strands of an unknown synthetic 4 ply together and they came out much too big - so I altered the pattern to have 5 bobbles across the row instead of 6 and again completely reknitted them. The sister squares of "dots and dashes" came out too small - so I just added some extra rows to the square; here I had completely replaced the brown colour with grey.

In general I did not have enough interesting brown shades to match - so I replaced one with grey (as above) and the other with olive.

I had to purchase one ball of raspberry pink budget acrylic - I did have a yarn which might have worked - but not enough of it. And I purchased a few ounces of vintage Sirdar Fontein Crepe 4 ply pure wool while at Woolfest - looks like it came from my stash but didn't! This was the mustard edging - I combined it with some unknown 2ply I had on a cone.

The blanket is a mix of wool and synthetic with attention being paid only to the colour mix. I also unwillingly used cotton blends in 2 cases in order to get the colours.

Posted by Christina at 10:01 AM. Category: Martin Storey Mystery Afghan

Monday April 21, 2014

Christina: Scrap Quilt

I noted this Rowan knitalong was starting while in France over Easter - but I've decided not to invest in more wool but use my own oddments from the attic. I am not sure how it will work out. However, I am determined to try and match the colours as I see them on the web - without actually checking out the recommended Rowan Pure Wool Worsted in a shop - I am sure if I saw the intended colours I would want to make it properly - and since I don't actually need a blanket, that would rather defeat the object.

I have decided to go down a needle size and use double knitting yarn. Here are the first two squares - which I have knitted in a vintage mix of Phildar yarns.

Posted by Christina at 7:39 PM. Category: Martin Storey Mystery Afghan