Tuesday 18 March 2014

Colour Affection Shawl


I was the very lucky recipient of a stunning gift from my friend Lynda some time ago and I am totally in love with it.
  
My first Colour Affection Shawl (pattern by Veera Valimaki)
I wear this often, regardless if it matches what I am wearing, I just love it.  I wear it so often that I simply had to have another one in another colour so I bought the wool and the pattern and went for it.
I would say I am a basic to intermediate knitter and looking at the shawl that I have it just looks so complicated, but it’s really not.
It was a nice easy pattern to follow and I think that the overall effect makes it look a heck of a lot more complicated than it actually is.
I am in love with all things mustard at the minute and when I clapped eyes on this Fyberspates Yarn I had to have it.  
I bought three skeins in three colourways and I am really happy with how it turned out.
I have read about problems people have encountered when knitting this pattern, namely the hump that forms at the top and the tight sides with the carrying of the yarn up the side.  
I was aware of this and tried my best to give generous leeway at each colour change. 
This is not a complicated pattern but it is a grind, it takes a long time and towards the end your rows seem to go on forever.  When the shawl came off the needles I was a mixture of relieved and gutted.
The hump was very obvious; almost a hood shape and the sides were tighter than I thought they might be.  Gutted!
I thought I would block it and see how I felt after that and lo and behold, the miracle of blocking did its thing!
I adore it.  The mustard colour has a golden hue it is a simply beautiful yarn.
 
It is a large item and is very difficult to photograph, not to mention that the light has been rubbish lately too.
 
Here it is, my little pride and joy, it gives my other pink colour affection a day off.
 

While the wool was out I did make myself a pair of wristees following the same pattern I used to make these from the Learn to Knit, Love to Knit book, simple but effective with a stripe I think... now just watch a heatwave will hit the UK!
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Saturday 15 March 2014

The Birthday Berwick Scarf


I knitted this up as a gift for my friend’s birthday last month and can share it here now. 



This shawl / scarf was made up as I went along, not a difficult pattern at all, I cast on 3 stitches and increased one stitch at the end of every other row to give the increase on one side, I called it the 'Berwick Scarf', if you've been to Berwick you will know that you need a sturdy warm scarf.
 Simple garter stitch, alternating between the Rowan Linen and the Rowan Alpaca Cotton finished off with a crochet edging, and a wibbly wobbly pom pom finish.

 The pom pom pattern was taken from here.

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