A Very Braidy Cowl

I should have been tidying my craft area. Whilst I did make a start on it I got distracted and knitted this Cowl. A number of friends have been into knitting Cowls for a while now and I decided to give it a go. The pattern was designed by Maryse of Just Maryse (I love her blog). The pattern is free and you can see it here. It's lovely to knit and I can see myself knitting more of them. I already plan on a scarf version for my dads Christmas (planning ahead here, I know).

Not sure what the yarn is although I do know it has a silk content. It fluffs up in a similar way to silk socks I knitted a while back. Honestly I did not lose the ballband this time. My lovely friend Clare gave me a bag of yarn that was going free. None of them had labels but they are all very pretty. This one was calling out to be used first. It's so soft!

The Cowl is also going to my knitting groups charity, the shoebox appeal.

Freebies

I love freebies in magazines but very rarely do I use them. I have countless knitting needles from these magazines still sitting in their packs. Mind you that's mainly due to the fact the tend to give away the size that most knitters are going to have already, 4mm. Plus some of those plastic ones are a nightmare to knit with. Last months Lets Knit came with free bobbly yarn called Cookie by Charlotte Lewis. I love unusual yarns so it got put aside until I got round to knitting with it.

My knitting group recently decided to make the shoebox appeal it's charity this year so I used this to try the yarn. I picked out the scarf from the magazine called Ali (issue 39 in case you were wondering). It was quick and easy to knit and if you don't look too closely turned out okay. The pattern was simple. I normally don't bother with the fringe but in this case the pattern needed it and I am glad I bothered. The yarn on the other hand is a nightmare. The bobbles split and fray so easily. At some points in the yarn they were already frayed. It made it very awkward to knit with. Nice result but I don't think I will be knitting with it again.

I also attempted this week to make some lemon cupcakes from the Hummingbird bakery book. The photo above is my second attempt. Don't fill your cupcake cases quite as high as the recipe suggest as it only leads to disaster. My baking tray looked like one big cake. It wasn't pretty!

Socks #3

I have finished another pair of socks and again these ones are for me. That's three pairs so far this year. I don't think I have knitted myself more than three pairs since I took up sock knitting (until now that is). I know I am good to myself. In my defence it's part of my challenge to knit one pair of socks a month just for me. I realise it isn't even March yet but as my friend Alison pointed out I can always take a month off in the Summer.

I used Sirdar Crofter DK. I love that yarn. It feels lovely and soft and knits up in fair isle. I also used 3mm needles. This makes for very large socks. Ideal for in the house or for under boots. All three pairs of socks for my challenge have so far been in DK. Maybe next month I will actually use sock yarn.

About Time!

Last night I stayed up till midnight finishing these socks. I knitted the first one back in July. For some strange reason I didn't start on the second one and it's been glaring at me ever since. I think I had a few things to do that had deadlines and then of course I had Christmas presents to do. That's my excuse anyway. I decided after finishing the blanket for my sister that I really couldn't justify starting anything else until they were finished.

The pattern is called Sunshine and is a design by Cookie A in her book "Sock Innovation". I love the patterns in this book and I can see myself knitting them all. I think this is the third design I have knitted from it. I enjoyed knitting this one. I liked the combination of lace and cable. I'm just not sure about my yarn choice. I picked out a lovely yarn by Tofutsie. I just think a solid yarn would have been more suitable. Tofutsie is lovely to knit with though and I still have about half left (surprising considering you wouldn't think it would do a full pair of socks when you look at it in the beginning). It's also one of those yarns made with something unusual. In this case crab shells. I kid you not.

I also finished another pair of socks to put away for my sister. This pair is called Winter Garden and was designed by Betsy Lee McCarthy in her book "Knit Socks". This is the second design I have knitted from the book and to be honest I doubt I will knit any of the others. Never say never though. The original design is done in green and blue too. Surprised me how much those colours worked together. I used Patons baby yarn as it offered brighter shades than the suggested yarn. It also means the socks are very soft.

This is also my first attempt at using my newly acquired fair isle skills on socks. I still struggle with the tension but I am happy with the way they turned out. Thankfully my sister is quite small and they should still fit her. The only down side is threading in all the loose ends. Worth it though.

Think Pink!

Having finished it I can now reveal one of the larger projects I was working on. My sister requested a large granny square blanket after seeing mine. I then dragged her into hobbycraft and had her pick the colours. Makes sense that she chose all pink since it will match her room. I added the black to try and break up the pinks a little bit.I'm pleased with the effect of it.

This blanket is much larger than mine. It fits a double sized bed. It took me about two months to do and used up 9 100g balls of yarn. The pinks were done in rounds of three with one round of black in between each shade. I did attempt to do a new stitch (new to me that is) round the edging. I was taught to do a crab stitch but in the end I didn't like it and stuck with just a round of black to set it off. I have plans for more large granny square blankets but it will be a while before I get round to it.

Crafttastic Weekend

Things have been kind of quiet here because I have been working on some larger projects. It will be a while yet before I get those finished. I have though been working on some smaller projects in between but because I have been working on them here and there they have taken longer. This weekend seems to have been the weekend for finishes. First of all I finished my dad's birthday socks. Only a few days late. Just a basic sock pattern as I don't think the yarn really needed more pattern to it. This was one of those balls which was floating about my sock yarn stash and has long ago lost it's label. So I couldn't even tell you anything about it other than it is definitely sock yarn. Dad seems to like them though.

I also managed to finish a pair of socks for myself. Again the basic sock pattern. This time because the yarn I was using was so thick. It's double knit rather than four ply and is called Smoothie by Paton's. Perfect horrible weather socks.

Amongst all that I managed to do a bit of baking for my friend. It was her birthday last week and I promised that I would have some peanut butter cookies for her since she never gets birthday cake.

Then today after a lovely afternoon of coffee and tea with friends I knitted up a sock for my ipod touch. I am sure it would fit an iphone too. Someone on twitter gave me the idea of using leftover sock yarn to knit one of these. Of course raiding my button stash to decorate it was my idea.

I even got some work done on my larger projects but after all that I am now off to bed with my book.