More hats
I've made two more hats! One was an on-request Waldo/Wally hat (as seen in the Where's Waldo/Wally books). Yes, the pompom looks like it's got mange. Turns out, making pompoms is a skill, and one I do not yet have. Actually, I'm not really fond of pompoms, so I might not ever get it. And making them takes forever, and is not in any way a form of knitting.

As the pompom is too big anyway, the recipient (or his mom) may trim it down, or might make a new pompom, as she apparently knows how to make pompoms (but can't knit).


I like how this hat came out, other than the pompom/deranged red guinea pig problem. I knitted it from the top. One issue I had was, I did a row of knits to start off the red border, so it would look nice from the outside, which it does, but that means that if you turn up the entire red edge, the join looks a bit rubbish. But as it has to look rubbish on the inside or the outside, it's a bit of a crapshoot. Probably next time I'll make the outside look rubbish, as that's more likely to be unseen. I think.


This yellow one is another baby hat. I really really love the texture, it looks all wavy, but is done entirely with knits and purls, no cabling per se. Very easy to make, and a really nice effect.

I'm particularly proud of the crown, it came out very tidy. Knitting from the bottom-up gives me time to get used to a texture and think about how I want to work the crown. But knitting from the top-down makes sizing easier - I can just do a provisional cast off and see how the hat looks as a whole, before deciding whether to knit any more, which is very convenient indeed.  ¶ 10:44 AM 0 comments

  A Christmas Ornament This project is a first in a few ways. It's my first try at making something with stuffing in it, my first Christmas ornament, my first knitting project that includes cardboard.

It looks ok. I'm not sure about the stuffing - it's very soft and often lopsided. I suspect one is meant to really put in as much of the stuffing stuff (technical term?) as you can squeeze in, and I probably didn't.

Because the whole thing is seamless, it was a bit tricky knowing when to put the stuffing in, then the cardboard, and knit it closed. It might make more sense to make this sort of object from the bottom, rather than the top?

But it came out fine, and will maybe work as a Christmas ornament. I think it needs a proper, more solid sort of loop on the top, rather than just a loop of thin yarn.

It will completely fail if it gets wet, though - the base bit is part of a shoe box. Probably it should be plastic?

I'm pleased I managed to make it completely seamfree, though. And the increases and decreases are reasonably hidden, and the bell shape worked, which is a good trick, given that I had no pattern at all, as usual.

Next project? I've got a hat that I just need to do sewing-in on, that's quite cute. And I'm about to start making a Waldo/Wally hat, after the "Where's Waldo/Wally" books (it's Waldo in North America, Wally in England), for a friend.  ¶ 10:15 AM 0 comments

  Another Hat After the Giant Scary Blanket of Doom project, I wanted something a teeny tiny bit easier. So I made a hat!

My toddler insisted that a pregnant mum we knew did not have a baby in her belly - she had ice cream! So I made a hat like a cone for the ice cream baby. Yeah, I know, bad joke, but the hat looks ok. It's a bit uneven in bits (thanks to tension issues, I think, and the fact I'm really not used to purling, pretty much ever) but it'll settle down. I saw it on the baby this afternoon, and it looked pretty good.

The ice cream pattern is out of a Barbara G. Walker book, and is done with twisted stitches. This is an effect a lot like cabling, but you're only moving single stitches at a time, and you don't need a cable needle.


I fiddled with the technique a bit (some of the earlier crosses aren't as nice as the later ones, ho hum), and ended up using a pretty straightforward technique for the right crosses and a different one for the left ones. The other problem is, the brim probably should have been a roll brim, as it tends to go in a bit. I guess I could have put a ribbed brim on it? It looks ok on the baby, with the brim folded up, anyway.

Some textures give an interesting-looking lower edge that's worth having on display (even if it means the hat doesn't fit for as long, possibly) and others, it turns out, look goofy. Ah well. Live and learn.

I really like how the reductions came out, very tidy.

I've been working on another hat, I just have to sew the ends in. It's done with just knits and purls, but looks pretty funky. I think I need to do a couple more hats, but might take a break and try to work out how to make some Xmas ornaments? Not sure.

Other possible plan: I might make myself a sweater. Probably not, though.  ¶ 2:51 PM 1 comments

  A Camera That Doesn't Suck! I was getting fed up of posting really rubbish photos on here, of my otherwise lovely projects. But I got a lovely new camera, and can now show off my projects properly! And I just finished a blanket for my sister's new baby, so here it is!

It's all done in 4-ply, and measures 25 inches by 30 inches. It took forever. All the multicoloured work is done using mosaic knitting, which is a lovely way to work with colours, much easier than intarsia or fair isle, I think.

You essentially do multicolour work by slipping stitches a lot. It's also done in garter stitch, so should really lay flat without any problem.

The centre bit has deer, the next bit has waves, and the outside bit is a lot of girls holding hands. All the patterns are from Barbara G. Walker books.

The whole blanket style is from one of her books too - it's knitted all in once piece, with no sewing up at all. It meant I had to be hauling the whole thing around with me in order to work on it, which was a bit of a hassle, but I'll do anything to avoid having to sew up.

The fancy outer edge was knitted entirely in the round, and the ruffles were made by increasing a great deal, just before casting off. The green border alone took more than one 50g ball of Jaeger 4-ply. I think the blanket as a whole was about 8 balls, but I'm not really sure, as I didn't keep track.

I think I could have done a slightly better job - I probably should have planned it more, rather than just starting in the middle, and working my way out, and hoping things would work out ok. Some of the proportions aren't quite ideal - the plain grey borders aren't all the same width, and I'm not sure whether they should have been. (I got lazy, and wanted wider borders to get a decent-sized blanket.)

Some of the picked up stitches in the middle weren't done that well, but then I was just getting used to the technique, really. The colours don't really thrill me, I'm not sure they actually go, but I'm pretty sick of them after working on this project forever.

The yarn was from my giant albatross of yarn, fifty-something balls bought last Christmas at a random Reading department store (Jaeger! Half price!), so at least it was stash-reducing.

And I do think my sister will like it, although, really, to suit her taste, I should have made it more Celtic-y, she likes that sort of thing.

She had her baby, anyway, last week (a girl, everyone is well), and the blanket was posted the day after the baby was born. I hope it will get to her soon.

I think I might not be rushing to do another giant project in 4-ply ... but then I start thinking about knitting myself a little top in the purple from my albatross ... I am torn ...

But whatever my plans for giant projects, I need to do a batch of hats now, there are too many pregnant women around. I have one I finished last week, and gave to the mum this morning, another one on the needles, but nearly done, and at least three or four more I should just do, to get ahead.

I have a spare one kicking aroud, but it's a pointless lacy summer baby hat, which I never ended up giving to its intended recipient because we never saw each other this summer. I don't know whether to be embarassed or annoyed. I'll save it for next summer, I guess, there are always more babies.

I'll try to update again soon, with pictures of all these hats, anyway.  ¶ 2:53 PM 0 comments

  Very Brief Update I'm afraid I've been away for a little while. We have been having some big building work done, so we went away for the Easter holidays, so the builders could get it done without our resident children playing with the tile cutter.

And of course we've come back to a terrifying mess, a kitchen I don't understand yet, and all the rest of what you'd expect.

I did manage to finish that baby sweater, and it came out fine, but I ended up making up a new sleeve-joining technique. Well, I'm sure someone else has done it before, but it was new to me. Then I gave the sweater away to expecting friends, while I was away. I did ask for photos of it, but they might wait until the baby comes.

And I started, and nearly finished, a sweater for my youngest child. Without a pattern, from scratch. And it's going pretty well, except I'm not working on it now, as I'm too busy sorting out this house.

My next project will be a tie, using tubular knitting. It seems like an obvious idea to try, but I'm a bit worried it will be too thick. (I'm working with 4ply.)

Maybe a tie should be single thickness, but with a small needle size, for the wool? Maybe a tie should just be normal knitting? (I made a tie for my father in law, last Christmas, using circular knitting, and two very different yarns. It came out ok, but not great.)  ¶ 7:16 AM 0 comments

  Sleeves Attached! Despite general domestic chaos, I've now managed to finish both sleeves! And attached them to the body. It looks ok, maybe.

I had 108 stitches for the body, and 36 stitches for each sleeve. I used 8 stitches for each armpit, and split the body stitches evenly, 46 stitches for the back, 23 stitches for each front.

I had even managed to make sure that the arms and the body were both on the same row of the "pattern" (aka garter stitch).

So, I knitted the front left. Then I spent a long time looking at the sleeve and the body. And then I knitted an extra four stitches onto the sleeve, so that I could use 8 stitches at the worst part of the sleeve, the bit where I changed rows, for the armpit (because I was using the current yarn from the sleeve, not the yarn from the body, as I'd need that to sew the top of the sleeve.

Then it took a few tries to arrange the sleeve so that I was sewing the armpit in the right place (harder than you'd think!), and so that I could k2tog in the front leg of each stitch, just to make things easy. I think this meant I was not sticking to the garter stitch, but I don't care. It's a baby's armpit.

So I used three-needle bind-off to sort out the armpit. Then I checked the sleeve really was right (attached the right-way up, on the right side of the cardi). Then I knitted the top of the sleeve, stopping to notice the charming holes next to the armpit, on the front and back.

Then I did the back of the cardi. Then had a math crisis, as I forgot about the 8 stitches from the body that I was about to knit into the armpit, and became convinced it had all gone wrong. Once I worked that out, I was much less worried.

The cardi looks ok now. I have to start on the v-neck, and the yoke decreases. I will probably follow the original pattern (!!) for the v-neck, doing decreases every other row on the edge (or near it anyway). I'll have to do hidden decreases for the yoke of the neck. And I think I'll put that yellow pattern in the yoke somewhere, too. Maybe.

Then there's the collar sort of bit, which I have to pick up stitches for from the cardi. But at least that means my (not entirely attractive) selvedge will be hidden. Ish.  ¶ 10:28 PM 0 comments

  Knitting Progress ... of a sort I am still working on this. Only, as usual, I'm not really following the pattern.

First of all, I'm working with 4-ply. So I had to change the number of stitches, to suit the finer yarn and smaller needles. Unfortunately, while doing that, I accidentally did twice as many stitches as I needed to. And I only worked that out after I'd done enough knitting to go from the hem to the armpit.

At which point, I had a couple of choices. I could have frogged the whole thing. But I'd already frogged it all once (ha ha, because it was a little bit too narrow, little did I know!).

I could have switched to making a cardigan in a size that would work with twice as wide a back as the newborn size I was working on. Except, that meant making a cardigan for myself. Which I'm not opposed to, but knitting a cardi for me in 4-ply would take ages, and it probably wouldn't be in light green.

So I went for the third option: I decided to change the pattern so it was in the round, so to speak. I could have done raglan, but I decided to do a yoke sweater. I think. I'm not there yet. I'm taking advantage of the new pattern to take the colour motif from the hem of the sweater and repeat it on the cuffs, and probably at the yoke, too.

So far, I've got the body of the cardi, from the armpits to the hem. And more than half of one sleeve. I think I've then got to graft the sleeve onto the body, which of course I don't know how to do. But I'll work it out.

Things that are helping me work this all out: Knitty has three lovely articles on sleeve design: here, here and here. Knitty linked to a lovely page giving standard measurements for different sizes, for babies, kids and adults.

Between these two, and some concerted websearching for seamless yoked sweaters (even top-down ones), I should be able to make this sweater work, even bottom-up.

It's been a busy week for knitting, otherwise. I visited a new local knitting group, in a nearby church cafe. Annoyingly, the group is from 2pm to 4pm on a Friday. I'm normally pretty busy then, what with a napping toddler and a trip to collect my bigger son. Nice folks, though. I don't think our knitting styles totally mesh, but a local place to meet up with fellow knitters is always good.

And then today, at Spitalfields, I found a lovely knitting stall, and bought some really cute alpaca yarn. They run a knitting group every other week, around London, too. Here is their site.  ¶ 8:33 PM 4 comments

  Adventures in Blogging Still fiddling with the format of this thing. The sidebar bits had fallen to the bottom of the page, and I couldn't work why. Changing to a new template seems to have fixed that, but I probably have to figure out a better way to fix these things!

I like this template ok, but that weird indent on the first paragraph of each blog entry really annoys me. So, still more fiddling to do.  ¶ 8:31 PM 0 comments