I’ve made some progress on the first sleeve of my yoke cardi. I’ve finished nine out of the thirteen increases for the sleeve, though I started increasing faster after the 7th increase since my arms also increase a bit faster at that point.

I’m hoping to be on to the second sleeve by next week, mostly because I’m really looking forward to starting the colourwork yoke. I love colourwork. It’s the exciting bit… other than the finished object, that is.

However, my wrists are starting to feel better so I’m hoping that I won’t need to restrict the amount of knitting so much in the coming weeks. Fingers crossed. :)

Do you see those DPNs? Yep, that means the body is done and I’m on to the sleeve. Okay, if you want to be really picky it’s a cast on row plus 14 stitches. However… sleeve! Again, the little white marker indicates where I was last week, which brings the body to the point where I’ll join the sleeves. I’m modelling this off my all time-favourite cardi, my Shalom (which I modified to be knit in aran and have sleeves). I wear it all the time, and I’d love another ‘perfect’ cardi.

In fact, I was even toying with the idea of casting on a new ‘at home’ project since this is such a great portable project. Or it is until I get to the yoke. I know. I’m nuts, but the call of malabrigo lace is strong. I can hear it now. And I’m at the other end of the house. And half deaf. That’s loud yarn.

I’d best continue knitting the cardi lest the men with funky white coats appear in the drive.

As a side note to Kelley (from the comments last week), the progress marker was an idea I picked up from watching video podcasts. Some of the podcasters use markers so you can see their weekly progress on larger items. Such a great idea. I think it works brilliantly to show progress in a sea of solid colour.

Apologies for the delay. I had a photo fail.

However, I can now show you the progress I’ve made on my yoke cardi:

The little white marker is where I was when I took the photo last week. I’ve added in a little over four inches to the body, and I’m almost through the waist increases. I’m hoping that I might even be on to the sleeves by next week, even given the slow rate of knitting at the moment.

I’m really enjoying working with this yarn. There is something so wonderful about working with a tweedy woolly yarn, and I love how it is knitting up. If all goes well, I can see this becoming a favourite piece. It’ll have the durability to be an everyday piece, and that’s exactly what I want. I’m really excited about this cardi’s potential.

I’m thinking about designating Wednesdays as knitting day here on the blog, so with that I’d like to introduce you to something I’ve been slowly working on.

I needed something relatively mindless to work on as I’ve been ill and generally lacking brain power for the last couple of weeks, so I cast on a colourwork yoke cardigan, knit in the round. And written in Icelandic. Because of course, that’s what everyone does when they are full of cold, right?

The pattern is called LÉTT – LOPAPEYSA með stuttum munsturbekk og hettu and I’m knitting it in some discontinued Rowan Scottish Tweed in a colour that makes my heart sing. And matches the throw cushions on the sofa. I’m nothing if not predictable.

I’m about eight inches (20cm) into the body of the cardigan and I’m enjoying it immensely. I’ve made a few modifications to the pattern as it was written as I’m adding more waist shaping and more stitches for my steek. I’m a confident knitter, but a two stitch steek was a little too gusty even for me. I’m doing a six stitch steek instead, figuring that since I have a five stitch button band, I’ll be able to try on the garment with some accurate notion of fit before I cut it up the centre front. The coilless safety pins at the bottom are holding the live stitches of my button band and marking the centre of my steek so I know where to start cutting. Those live stitches will eventually be picked back up to knit the buttonbands on 4mm needles, and the bands sewn on to the cardigan after the steek has been cut.

I’m knitting this up on my Addi Turbo fixed circulars, using a 4.5mm needle for the main part of the body. The stitch marker you see is from Stitch Candy on Etsy (though she doesn’t have anything in the shop as of the time I post this) which I won through one of my groups on Ravelry. They are lovely and make be smile every time I encounter one whilst I knit, which when lacking brain power is exactly what you want.

Continuing with the colourwork challenge on the SDK group, this month the challenge is mosaic knitting.

Mosaic knitting can be done flat or in the round and creates colour patterns by using slipped stitches. As a result, you need only hold one colour of yarn at a time. I decided I wanted to do a small project for this challenge, so I designed an iPhone cosy.

The pattern reminded me of the buttons on my old cassette player (yes, I’m that old), so I named it REC•. I took advantage of the fact that I was knitting in the round and used only one row of each colour, rather than two which is more widely used in mosaic knitting. The result was a small scale pattern that I think works really well on a piece this small.

I’m quite happy with the results, and I’ve written up the pattern. It is available as a free Raverly download.

The pattern requires approximately 30m (33yds) of the main colour, and 20m (22yds) of the contrast colour. Skills required: knit, purl, make 1, slip stitch, knitting stripes, knitting in the round, and kitchener stitch.

Details:
Pattern: REC• cosy — download now
Yarns used: KnitPicks Essentials Kettle Dyed (now discontinued) and Regia 4ply Uni Solid
Needles: 2.25mm
Size: 6.3 × 14cm (2.5 × 5.5”)

It’s official. I’m knitting furniture. I am one of those people.

This is the Puff Daddy knitted stool, and I thought the kids would absolutely love it. I originally saw similar items on Pinterest and fell in love with everything but the price tag. When I noticed the Puff Daddy pattern I was intrigued, and everything just fell into place when I thought about pairing it with some old DK yarn in the stash.

The yarn is Sirdar Country Style DK which I bought in 2003 to make a jumper for my husband. I made most of a cabled jumper but just wasn’t thrilled with the results. After a while, I didn’t have the desire to finish it or the heart to give my husband a highly cabled (mostly) acrylic jumper. He deserves wool. The jumper got frogged and the yarn has sat in the stash for years. I contemplated giving it away on several occasions, but with nearly 3000m the frugal side of me just couldn’t quite give it up. It had to be useful for something.

And it was! It makes a perfect puff. :)

The puff is stuffed with 6 cheap Ikea duvets that I bought for 19DKK each. It could possibly take one more duvet. The jury is still out. I think I’ll let the kids bounce on it a few times before I make a final verdict. I’ve left the one end easy to undo for the moment so that I can make adjustment as everything settles into place.

I lined the mid section of the puff with some similarly coloured stretchy fabric I had in my stash. Unfortunately, the piece wasn’t quite big enough to cover from top to bottom, so I think I’ll make a quick trip to the fabric shop and buy a big enough piece of fabric to make a ‘bag’ to line the puff and stuff the duvets in. I’m a bit worried about the fabric (as is) shifting over time, and am keen not to see the white of the duvets showing through. I’m certainly happier with it lined, though, since I used a dark colour yarn to make it. I think the pops of white showing through would really detract from the final look.

The pattern is very simple. Big yarns, big needles, big garter rectangle. I think the shape could be refined to give a more couture look by using short rows, which is what the original puffs seem to use, however, with a little patience in the closing up of the puff, the opening pretty much flattens out. A curved wool needle would actually be of great asset in this endeavour, as I found it difficult to do the final bits with a straight needles. One last thing of note, be sure not to seam up that first seam too tight. Allow it a little slack otherwise it will pull and become taught during the stuffing process.

In all, I’m happy with my first piece of knitted furniture. I’m delighted that I got to use old stash yarn and make it into something useful for the kids.

The details:
Pattern: Puff Daddy (rav link) by Anna and Heidi Pickles
Yarn: Sirdar Country Style DK. 926g used, or 2945m (3220yds)
Needles: 15mm (19US)
Finished Size: 40cm (15.75”) tall and 1.91m (75”) around
Notes: Nine strands of yarn held together. Puff is fabric lined and stuff with duvets.

As part of my Mad Dash (to use 12,000 yards of yarn in 6 weeks), I decided to knit the Bandana Cowl by The Purl Bee. The original pattern called for a bulky weight with a gauge of four stitches to the inch. I did mine in laceweight. Multiple strands of laceweight.

The original yarn was part of my Wildcraft club shipment in November 2009, a BFL in the colourway Birdseed, which I blended with some oatmeal BFL and spun into a 3ply heavy laceweight.

It was spun to make a featherweight cardigan, which I did knit. Twice. The first time I knit it I soon lost a lot of weight and the cardi (which was verging on too large to begin with) was now huge on me. As it was a top down cardigan, I ripped it back to the raglan increase for the new size. I had plenty of yarn left over from the first time I knit it, so I decided to reknit the cardi with fresh, new yarn rather than the kinky yarn I had just ripped out.

Long story, short, I had a lot of kinky yarn and nothing to do with it. In fact, over 1000m of frogged yarn. Since it was a 3ply I didn’t want to use it for lace and it sat in my stash until last week when I had a cunning plan.

I washed the yarn to take out the kinks, wound two strands into a centre pull ball, then navajo-plied the double strands into another centre pull ball. Presto. 18ply bulky weight yarn.

I knit the Bandana cowl as per the pattern, though I used slightly smaller needles to give a firmer hand to the fabric. The fabric. I can’t even begin to describe the squoosh factor of an 18ply yarn made out of handspun BFL. If I were a kitten, I’d want to sleep in that cowl.

In the end, the bandana used 1075 metres of my lacweight handspun. That’s 1075 metres (1175 yards) closer to my goal of 12,000 yards. And I have a fabulous squooshy cowl to keep my next warm in the cold Danish winter winds that, until last week, was a ball of unloved leftovers that I didn’t have the heart to throw out because it was handspun.

Details:

Pattern: Bandana cowl
Fibre: Wildcraft fibre club; Oatmeal BFL overdyed in ‘Birdseed’ colourway, November 2009 combined with oatmeal BFL
Yarn: 3ply handspun heavy laceweight, multistranded
Needles: 6mm
My Ravelry project page

My contribution to the January SKA KAL:

A lovely, simple little pattern. That’s assuming you like knitting 2×2 rib. If you don’t, then this is not the pattern for you. I modified the pattern to my standard 4 year old size so they would fit Thing 1, and switch out the eye of partridge heel to my standard slip stitch heel. I love the look of eye of partridge, but knitting it drives me batty. The slip stitch heel has burnt itself into my knitting brain and my muscle memory gives me a hard time if I try to deviate from that.

This would make a fabulous man sock. In fact, many of Erica Lueder’s patterns would make wonderful man socks, which is great since I’m always looking for simple yet interesting sock patterns for on-the-go knitting. And I have a man. And he likes hand knit socks. It all works out. :)

Details:

Cast on: January 2nd, 2012
Cast off: February 11th, 2012 (these were designated bus knitting, and I don’t ride the bus that often)
Pattern: Weasley Homestead
Yarn: Regia 4ply in the Kaffe Fassett Design Line
Needles: 2.25mm
Mods: 48 stitch sock, used a slip stitch heel.
My Ravelry Project Page

I love toys. They are just so bloody cute.

My daughter picked out the pattern and the basic colours for the toy as this is going to be a birthday gift for one of her new friends. I hope she likes it even half as much as I do.

The eyes are knit and sewn on. The pattern didn’t give specific instructions for the eyes, and by the looks of the photo she used felt which was cut and glued (a method suggested as an option in the pattern). I wanted something a bit more durable so I knit eye pieces as follows:

CO 2 stitches
Row 1: k1, m1, k1
Row 2: p1, m1 (in purl), p1, m1 (in purl), p1
Row 3 – 7: knit in stocking stitch
Row 8: p2tog, p1, p2tog
Bind off.

I then sewed the eyes to the face and embellished them with highlights. The end result are eyes that look very similar to those shown in the pattern (which I loved), but will hold up better to play.

The crochet flower is from the Mollie Flower pattern, and was made from various sock yarn oddments.

The dress is made from aran weight yarn. It is basically a 32 stitch tube that started with a turned picot hem. I decreased 4 stitches (2 at each underarm) before doing 2 ridges of garter and binding off under the arms. The straps are 3 stitches of garter knit from the back and grafted to the front. The straps are crossed over on the back with 2 cast off stitches between.

After finishing the dress, I decided it wasn’t playful enough and added some simple embroidery using sock yarn. For reference, I did a lazy dazy with a French knot at the centre, used back stitching for the vines, and satin stitch for the leaves.

There is also a two stitch button hole for the tail on the back of the dress. The dress is not removable.

For the head, the pattern has you use a provisional cast on or simply seam up your cast on stitches, and the shaping happens between needles 1 and 2, and 3 and 4 (or what would be in the centre if you were doing this magic loop). I used Judy’s magic cast on for the top of the head and rearranged the increases/decreases to compensate for the change in orientation, making the head much like you’d do the toe of a toe-up sock. The instructions of the ears had the decreases in a similar orientation. Being an avid sock knitter, I found this fought with my natural instincts. Instead, I simply cast on the same number of stitches and decreased like I would when doing a wedge toe on a top-down sock. (See? It always comes back to the socks.)

Details:

Cast on: February 5th, 2012
Cast off: February 9th, 2012
Pattern: Grisig the Cat
Yarn: the body is done in acrylic DK yarns. The eyes are Patons Diploma Gold DK. The dress is Wildcraft aran weight superwash BFL. The nose, whiskers, and dress embroidery are all sock yarn oddments.
Needles: I used the 3mm needles for the cat, the 3.25mm needles for the hem of the dress, and the 3.5mm needles for the rest of the dress. Also used a 2.5mm hook for the flower.
My Raverly project page.

The pattern is straight forward and written in row by row detail. Other than changing the placement of the increases and decreases for the head and ears to compensation for my sock brain, I followed the pattern. I only used the contrast colour for the paws of the cat (the 2 colour version in the pattern has the head/ears in the contrast colour as well), and I used a basic jogless stripe technique to prevent a jog at the colour change. I would advise, however, to stuff the body as you go. The neck is quite small and it would be difficult to stuff the body evenly if you wait until you’ve cast off.

Yesterday I can on a new pair of socks. Yes, I have enough socks. No, I’m not going to stop knitting socks.

Over on the Stash Knit Down group on Ravelry, we are having a year long colourwork challenge. January’s theme was stripes, for which I did my striped mawata mittens. This month the theme is illusion knitting.

Although I understand the concept of illusion knitting, I’ve never actually done any illusion knitting. I had a browse through the patterns for illusion knitting and found the Love me Knot socks by Alice Bell. (Okay, I may have narrowed the field down to only sock patterns. This may not have been much of a stretch, but I really didn’t fancy knitting dishcloths which, along with scarves, seem to be the most popular use of this technique.)

I converted the pattern to top down and am knitting them over 64 stitches. The pattern face on:

And looking down along the fabric:

These socks make me inexplicably happy. I keep putting them on my hand and looking and the pretty hearts.

The yarn I’m using is Regia Uni 4-ply in a deep brow and a hot pink. Though I doubt I’ll have them finished for Heart Day, I wanted to keep them in traditional Heart Day colours.