Knit Meter

Saturday, March 19, 2016

2015 in 2016

In my round up of 2015 I mentioned three projects still on the needles at the start of the year. Two cardigans and a shawl. As I am determined to finish them this year I thought I'd show them a little love on my blog. Let's do this in order of starting.

In April I started a cardigan by Iris Schreier, the same designer as the pink shawl in this post. Ms. Schreier has her own line of yarns and I bought a set which included Merino Cloud and Silk Mohair. I sold the mohair and used the money from that to buy Beaded Silk and Sequins so I could make the Diamond Dewdrops Cardi. I started this at the beginning of April and I can't remember why it was sidelined although there is a note on my Ravelry page that in October I changed needles so until then the knitting experience was probably not too enjoyable. It is worked from the top down and at the beginning of the year I tried it on as I was concerned about fit. I was right and it is too small; it was also an opportunity to ask DH what he thought as if he didn't like it I was going to completely pull it out. But he liked it so I just have to pull it back to the armholes and work to the next size. I haven't done this yet as I thought it would be better to concentrate on the other cardigan on my needles.



In May, my friend and I met for lunch and decided to have a little trip to the yarn store first. I had no plans other than looking but ended up buying yarn and a pattern. Definitely one of those cases where the pattern made me look at the yarn. The pattern is Morning Glory Cardigan and the yarn is Findley by Juniper Moon Farm. This is a lace weight yarn knit at a slightly larger gauge which I love. I started it at the end of June and at various times other projects took precedence. But I went back to this with a flourish in the middle of February and it is nearing completion.



The third project I wanted to finish was a shawl I started in the middle of November. It was an easy pattern but I had stopped working on it when I came to the point of working out how many extra rows to work before starting the border. I want to use as much yarn as possible but the border is added sideways so calculations had to made. I was getting pretty excited as I neared the end of the border and it looked like I would have enough yarn - I had been weighing it at certain points - when I noticed that I had worked the border on the wrong side. When I added in the extra rows I had added an odd number so I started the border on the wrong side. The shawl has a right and wrong side and so does the border. DH said he couldn't notice it was wrong but I definitely could so the whole border and one row had to be pulled out. Luckily, I had put in a lifeline before starting the border so with a smaller needle I picked up the row below the lifeline, pulled out all the border as far as the lifeline, noticed that in nearly 400 stitches I had missed just one, put this on the needle, then pulled out the lifeline and the row it was holding. This was actually quite quick but I decided to have a little break before starting it again.


Sunday, March 13, 2016

Socks in 2016

With all the sock yarn I have, I should be completing a sock yarn project every month. But it's just not working out that way. In fact here we are, nearly in the middle of March, and I have shown 2 knitted hats and one sewn bag for 2016. How much happier I would feel if I could say I had been lax in posting about my finished items but all that is waiting to be shown is one knitted hat, a sewn bag a quilt and the socks I will show today. By this time in 2015 I had nine finished yarn items, and for the same time period in 2014, I had 14 finished yarn items.

So why only four items in 2016? I don't feel as if I am knitting any less; maybe the items I am knitting are larger. On the needles, amongst other things, are a cardigan and a shawl. (Which should have been finished by now if not for a major error.)

At least today I can show a finished pair of socks, plus I started another pair and have plans to cast on another to take on a trip.

These socks were cast on at the beginning of February, for the SKA challenge Literary Theme. The pattern is Maudie and is named after the character Miss Maud Silver created by Patricia Wentworth. The pattern is actually quite an easy cable pattern with an interesting heel and toe. The yarn I used is Seella by All For Love of Yarn, which is no longer dying. My friend Elizabeth had got this in a yarn club and it really wasn't her colour so she swapped for a skein of sock yarn that I had bought to make fair isle gloves and then changed my mind.

When I first got this yarn I really thought it was destined to be a shawlette but it actually turned out quite well as socks.