Rainbow jumper and scarf

As is usual when I ooh and aah over colours in a knitting magazine, it transpires that they are false.  I don't know how many times I've been caught out by this.  I see colours which are lovely;  I order the wool online;  the wool turns up and it's entirely wrong.

There is a lovely rainbow jumper in Simply Knitting 181, knitted with blocks.  I decided to knit it for my daughter, omitting the blocks which I didn't think were necessary.  I thought the rainbow stripes were in soft shades:  red, orange and yellow in spring shades, with a clear turquoise and soft lavender.  

Hah!  It's not turquoise at all but emerald green and the lavender is dark purple.  How can they get the colours so WRONG in a magazine?  One could accuse the lighting of altering the shades but the colours on the wool website were exactly the same:  much lighter than they actually are in real life.  

I just honestly could not be bothered to send the wool back, although I should have done as it isn't very nice to knit with.  It's fuzzy and the stitches split and tear.  I'm seriously going to be hating it by the time I'm done.  The yarn, in case you want to avoid it, is King Cole's Riot DK and the shade that is so hopelessly wrong is called Chameleon.

This is what it looks like as a (short) scarf:  

 

I've also started knitting the jersey but fear I may only finish it next winter as I'm mighty bored.  I've also noticed, to my despair, that the ribbed edge is curling and nothing I do will flatten it.  I foresee a very annoying jersey that my daughter may not want to wear (the wool is quite scratchy and she's a delicate flower, like me!)

On the Simply Knitting Facebook page is an image of the jersey as it appears in their magazine.  You can see straight away that the colours are different.  There is NO yellow in the image above (taken in harsh February daylight) and the green and turquoise are miles apart.  Yet this is the shade called Chameleon, exactly as I bought it.

Why not buy your wool from a shop where you can see the colours, you might ask.

To which I would answer:  I live in central London.  WHAT shop??

Anyone for tennis?

I knitted another cardigan for my doll, this time with matching shorts, headscarf and cute booties.  The cardigan is, once again, the Simply Knitting pattern (for a toy bunny).  The rest comes from a free pattern I found on the Let's Knit website.  The pattern is called Dolly Daydream and this link will take you there:  doll's clothes.

Here she is with the rabbit I knitted.  I think they make great pals!

I had a wee bit of bother with the collar.  I think next time I might knit it slightly differently to the pattern's requirements, perhaps making it bigger (it doesn't lie flat).  

I don't remember the yarn I used for this as they were all leftovers in my wool stash, but I can tell you they were all bamboo cotton, lovely to knit with in summer.  (And a very hot one we are having too.)

Doll's Cardigan

When I spotted this cardi on a toy rabbit in issue 170 of Simply Knitting (first time in years that I had bought a knitting mag), I had an inkling that it might fit my doll.

I worked out recently that this doll is at least 50 years old - possibly older as I think she may have been second hand.  She arrived one Christmas wearing a pink A-line dress (very 1960's) and had a blue pram, which I remember wheeling around the house for years.  My mother had crocheted her a blue granny square blanket, which I've also still got.

The doll came back to England with me as I thought my daughter would be interested in playing with her.  She wasn't, needless to say.  When my mother died 10 years ago, I wasn't capable of doing anything except knitting and sewing clothes for this doll.  I worked without patterns and - since my knitting wasn't very good in those days - the results were sweetly amateurish to say the least.

But at last my doll (and she is mine again) has a cardigan knitted properly from a pattern.  I used an entire ball of Rico Baby Dream DK to make it, including the headscarf.  The latter was a bit small so I've joined the ends (under her hair) with elastic.

The poor doll never had a good head of hair.  Half her eyelashes have gone and she's got a gammy leg .... and this was the state of her when I got her!  But I love knitting tiny things so may get more inventive.  Lucky dolly.

An Acorn Hat for Spring

I was tidying up my knitting magazines a few weeks ago and discovered the first ever Simply Knitting I'd bought was May 2008.  Have I been knitting for that long?!  It's full of lovely patterns I've always meant to make and haven't, so promptly set about making a pixie hat for Spring (although it looks just like the cup of an acorn to me) which was so successful, I made two!

You're supposed to use Rowan Scottish Tweed DK for this, striped, but I happened to have quite a large stash of Sirdar Escape DK which self-stripes quite effectively.  I knitted the flower instead of crocheting it (still have no idea how to crochet).  It makes a lovely hat for Spring - great for those days when you know it's getting warmer and don't want to wear a thick woolly hat, but still cold enough to want your ears covered up!  The hat was designed by Liz Baxter - check out her designs on Ravelry:  http://www.ravelry.com/designers/liz-baxter

This hat is called "May Blossom."  I can't find a website for her but her designs have appeared in Simply Knitting several times.

Lovely Surprise

I got home from a staff meeting at lunch time to find an envelope with a Patons knitting booklet and some lovely new 4mm needles - just what I needed too!  My favourite size 4mm are quite bent from use.  I'm not sure what it is I do to knitting needles but the ones I use the most are quite wonky!  It's amazing I manage to knit anything straight on them.  I got these goodies because I've had a letter and pic published in Simply Knitting - and do you know the sad thing?  I don't even have the magazine yet.  It used to be sold by my local newsagent AND my local Waitrose but they both - in the same week - stopped stocking it and have some or other knitting mag I've not heard of and don't want.  Living in the centre of London, you'd think it would be easy for me to pick up any magazine I want.  In fact, I'm going to have to walk for 25 minutes towards Holborn Circus before I find a WHSmith big enough that actually stocks Simply Knitting.  (But then, the stock every magazine in the known universe, so it's a sure bet to go there.)  Why has Simply Knitting become so hard to find?  Are they not one of the biggest knitting mags in the UK??

The solution of course is to get a subscription, but I've already had a subscription and cancelled it.  For some reason, the magazine is a whole lot better when I have to go out and physically buy it.  Weird.....

Cool Cardi

After knitting all those stripes with frequent wool changes (every four rows!), I decided to knit something easy - virtually no shaping, except for the sleeves, only one button hole...what could be simpler!  I've never had so much fun with a cardigan - I love the way the stripes developed.  Although each ball is essentially the same, they are not identical, so you can't always tell how the pattern is going to develop.  I thought it was a young woman's cardi so knitted it for my daughter.  However, it's so fabulous I've decided to knit one for myself as well!

The yarn is Sirdar Crofter DK Fair Isle Effect and the pattern comes from Issue 108 of Simply Knitting.  It's truly the easiest cardigan I've ever knitted - and yet it looks the most fabulous.  My daughter wears it with everything and miraculously, it manages to match everything as well.  I love this yarn so much I want to keep knitting with it forever!

I'm having a problem finding this colour and have an awful feeling it's been discontinued!  NOOOOOOOOO!  Why is it that anything with orange is inevitably dumped?!  It's my favourite colour and impossible to find in nice shades!

ps Yay!  Deramores is still selling this shade - it's called Isla.

I've sent this one to the Simply Knitting letters page

That interesting rock was put there by the IOA, which is just across the road - I worked there during the summer!

The stripes and patterns are just gorgeous

All photos taken on Gordon Square, Bloomsbury

Striped jumper for Spring

Owing to a shoulder injury that suddenly got a lot worse in January, my Gedifra jacket is currently on hold - the very large needles were really difficult to work with....like ski poles!  Also, I was trying to knit the collar, which meant holding the entire project on my lap - very heavy indeed.  (What actually happened is that I messed up the collar and had to pull it out....great reason to abandon it for the moment...!)

Fortunately I can still knit with fine needles and a lightweight wool.  I made some terrific leggings for my daughter out of my stash and and currently knitting her a stripey jersey which is ostensibly for Spring, but it's slow-going so will most likely be for early Summer!

Delicious stripes for Spring

I'm using what I've got left of the Bergere de France Ideal (featured elsewhere in this blog) and Hayfield Bonus DK, which I used when making that toy owl.  The Ideal is 4 ply and a better quality wool than the very cheap Bonus but you don't notice it particularly unless you went very close!  My daughter chose the stripe pattern, which I wasn't sure about at first but seems to be working out.  The colours are very fresh and it's lovely working with something that's so easy when my shoulder hurts so much!

Read my previous blog featuring Bergere de France Ideal plus photo:

http://badknitting.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/endless-banana.html

Success!

At last I've knitted something I not only like but can actually wear.  Something with practical use!  Isn't the colour just glorious?  It's Sirdar Escape Chunky (Shade 0197 - I can't remember the proper name for it!) which I got on sale.  It was a spontaneous purchase, completely unplanned.  I then glanced through my knitting magazines and discovered a simple cardigan pattern for a chunky wool.  It's supposed to have a fur collar, which was the main feature, not really my thing, but the plain garter stitch collar I thought worked out really well.  It's warm without being too thick, just right for the wildly random London spring weather.

It looks particularly fantastic closed with a shawl pin I got free from a copy of Simply Knitting.  At the time, I didn't like the colour much as it isn't a colour I wear, nor did it match anything, but by chance, it looks fantastic with this cardigan!  

Details:  Pattern is from Simply Knitting Issue 89.

Things I would have done differently:  the hem.  You're supposed to cast on with the thumb method but I have no idea what that is.  I presume it gives a neater edge?  Whatever, without a rib, it naturally curled up several inches.  I blocked it carefully with damp cloths and about ten thousand pins but it began to curl up again.  Realising this was going to be a problem (AFTER I'd finished the back and front sections), I decided to do a proper sew-up hem for the sleeves which was also a mistake.  Too chunky!  What I should have done was just knit the first row into the back of the stitch.  I'd forgotten about this!  It produces a neat edge and might even have prevented all the rolling up it does.  

No matter.  The delicious colours and practicality make up for any errors!

I've got a letter and pic in Simply Knitting!

My coffee and Kindle covers have been published in Simply Knitting magazine!
Always a thrill!!!