lundi 26 septembre 2016

Nogat

As one of the owner of a local yarn shop called Pompon Laine Café, I planned a KAL with my two fellow coop admin. We selected Justyna Lorkowska, because : 1. her designs are beautiful and inspiring, 2. the projects and difficulty levels have a large spectrum. 
It was only natural that I make my pick among the options of patterns to knit and, because we had some brand new Fino Simple by Julie Asselin, in the new Echo colourway, I chose Nogat. The designer had made it with Fino, but the only difference is plied vs one ply. It's a dream to knit with and to wear!
I alternated skeins every other rows to prevent pooling and because my colours didn't match perfectly. 
Our window of time was between August 9th and September 17th, which was enough to knit a fingering weight sweater (if properly motivated!). I found that the combination of lace, cables and garter really helped me to get through the knitting, which is something I should keep in mind for future projects!
I pretty much followed the pattern, but made my sleeves 3/4, as I usually do, and did less repeats of the body pattern. 
I like the deep neckline and the pretty details in front. I'm also glad I did the short rows in the back, they make the sweater sit nicely around the bum. It is not a complicated sweater. I had the chart memorized after one or two repeats.
I can't believe this is the first knitted piece I own by Letesknits! I should really get more as I love her style and follow her with great pleasure.

jeudi 22 septembre 2016

Dotted Rays

 Here is the most recent addition to my shawl collection. Dotted Rays by Stephen West.
I felt urged to cast on for the #dottedrayskal by Stephen West in July, but didn't make it to the deadline in time. Other wips got in the way. I picked it up again in early September and added the three last wedges. 
Perfect for TV binge watching, as it's easy peasy garter stitch all the way. I knit this all from stash yarn and didn't bother too much with my sequencing and pairing of colours. My logic was more of a "make the most of that little ball of yarn". So I organized my stash from small amount to larger (but all leftovers) and used the tiny bits for the thin holey stripes. 
Can you tell I had fun during the photoshoot? The light, the colours and my black tunic played together so well. They are my favourite FO shots to date!
One of the things I love about this shawl, like all stash busting project, is that there is a memory attached to each little pieces of yarn. Together, they tell a story of past knitting. 

It contains about 220 g of yarn, but knit on 4,5 mm, it is light and drapey. I still have some more leftovers to play with, but I did finish a fair amount too. What will be next in the stash busting word of knitting? We'll see!

More pictures and details here

lundi 19 septembre 2016

First Handpsun Sweater

Lots of knitting since my last post, but not so many FOs to share. I should really take the time to document my process as well. 

But here we go. I have a new sweater to wear and it's half made of a yarn I spun myself! Yeah!
The roving I used was a Manos del Uruguay merino hand dyed. It came out my Ashford Kiwi Spinning Wheel looking like this : 
Pretty much a Sport/DK weight, as I explain on my project page. I decided to stripe it with Silky Wool and make myself a simple boxy, cropped sweater with dropped shoulders.  
It was fairly easy to produce and was pretty fast to knit on 5 mm needles too.  I wanted something smooth and light, and it worked well! It weights like nothing and is very comfortable! The only thing I would change, is maybe making it a bit longer. But that would be easy to achieve even now. 
The handspun colour is beautiful and created a nice gradient effect in some places, which made me super thrilled!
What a joy to be able to wear your handpsun... It makes me want to do everything from scratch. Ah, the good use of time I would make if I didn't have two jobs! ;)

I have another skein of roving on the spinning wheel that I might use either for another sweater or a shawl...

And more FOs to come real soon too!