The Sock Yarn Sweaters

Last year, whilst branching out into more luxury yarns, I bought two skeins of Araucania Lonco Multy with absolutely no idea what I was going to knit with them. They were reduced to clear and I couldn't resist myself. 

I hand wound one skein as it was knotty, which cause a few expletives to come out of my mouth. As I couldn't face the other skein, I cast on for a shawl with it, but ended up frogging it as I didn't like how it pooled.

I came across the Kaleidoscope pattern and knew it would be perfect, but it needed an accent, which had me frog a sock from the this-will-never-get-finished pile so I could use my  Knitting Goddess 4ply merino/nylon sock.

I extended the ribbing, omitted the waist shaping, worked my first garment with a provisional cast on for the sleeves! Hell, I even worked magic loop on the sleeves for the first time, go me!

I just love it. I love the colours, the shape, even the buttons (bamboo and not sewn on when I took the photos).

I loved knitting it so much that I decided I needed a tunic from the same pattern. I grabbed a ball of King Cole Zigzag from my stash in what I thought was a variegated colourway. Nope. Just a very thin self-stripe, but given that it would be on a project larger than socks I let it do it's thing. I had to buy a 2nd ball of it, but more on that later.

 

I cast on 10 stitches more than what I required using a provisional cast on, as I didn't know how I wanted the bottom to look. I knit for a while, gently decreased to the number of stitches that I required and knit for a while longer.

I worked out where the cast on would have been on what I'd knitted and placed a stitch marker so I could follow the pattern for the waist shaping.

I joined in the provisional cast ons for the sleeves, then I worked out the neckline I wanted. So some stitches went on a holder and I started the back and forth with the decreases for the shoulder shapings. I carried on decreases more than the pattern says so that it'd stay on my shoulders.

I grabbed my leftover yarn from my colour affection to knit the contrasting ribbing. I love the green against the pinks and yellow.

I had to join in the 2nd ball at the neckline, only I had checked before hand which way the pattern went, it started reversing, but given that that section was worked flat I didn't think that it would matter too much.

In other news, I knit and designed a shawl using a Crazy Zauberball, I call it "Monster Hugs" on my rav page, but now I've knitted it it's certainly more "Mike Goes To University" as in Monsters University. I also knit 4 hats and a pair of gloves last week, but they're Christmas presents and can't be shown.

And now I've been rummaging through my project box and have chosen a sweater and a pair of gloves to get finished, so [hopefully] they'll be shown soon.

Ciao.

My Colour Affection

Or Color Affection if you're American, and I spelt it that way on twitter due to today being the 4th July.

So there it is; my Colour Affection, (rav link) I have loved working on this project, it was so therapeutic, just simple repeats that were memorised in a jiffy.

My only nit picking would be the time it took to knit the last 30 rows, I timed it at 24mins. Yes, I used a stopwatch. When I say 24 mins I mean per row, I'm not such a speedy knitter. Luckily I had Supernatural on play all so I didn't have to keep getting up.

And for the nerds, yes, my Aperture Laboratories vest, I also have a shower curtain, it's probably my favourite game ever now.

Ok, so the yarn I used for this delightful project it;

Stylecraft Life 4ply - Silver Grey (Grey, duh)
Stylecraft Life 4ply - Zest (Yellow)
Stylecraft Life 4ply - Fern (Green)

On my project page for this I have the Zest listed as being yellow-green as in the ball it does look a yellow-y limey shade, but next to the grey it's perfect yellow, I guess that's how different colours interact and affect each other.

I chose to start with the grey because I knew it'd play well with the other shades, but also as I didn't want the  long band to be grey as it'd feel washed out, this is the same reason why yellow was contrast colour 1 instead. I was knitting this for me, and although it's my favourite colour, yellow doesn't suit me, whereas greys do. I also wanted contrast colour 2 to be a darker shade to end on, give it some weight in appearance, hence the choice of green.

In all honesty I should've sketched this out like I usually do, but when I was yarn store browsing, I saw these three shades and knew they'd work well together, then I saw how it looked in my head.

I really loved it, and I have plenty of the yarns left over to knit matching socks! Haha, maybe, or a monster, or something. I certainly used over half the ball of each shade.

For an acrylic yarn (75% acrylic, 25% wool) it's really come out so nicely, and so soft. I don't think I'll be blocking this because I really the the smush factor and how it drapes and hangs.

I can see what everyone said about the edging being tight, but that doesn't really bother me as I'm not blocking it out, if I was I could see how this would be a problem. I also don't think my m1L and m1R are as tight as what most people have been on about, but maybe I'm just loose...

I just know I love it, and everyone should knit this. I'm really tempted to knit one half the size for some reason, as a neck scarf? Who knows, I'll think about it.

Squares and Affection

Squares

I have a chair in my room which I love to sit in, put my feet up and knit. As this chair is cream of all colours, I have a throw on it. This throw is now getting a little threadbare, but I love this it!

I bought it from IKEA a couple of years ago, from the bargain corner, so it had a hole in it already. I didn't care, think I paid about £3 for it. All I did was knit a ribbed square and sew it on over the hole.

Fast forward to now, and I'm at the height of my yarn collecting. I'm knitting things all over the shop and I have odd balls of yarn. I figure, why not use them up and save something I love? I can practice different square knitting methods, learn something new, it's fun!

As you can see I have kept the squares to a natural-ish pallet, using 5.5mm needles for aran weights and 4.5mm needles for the bulky. This keeps the squares at the same sizes

Affection

And by affection I mean the ever popular Colour [Color] Affection. 

I've chosen grey, yellow and green as my colour scheme, ooh they look so tasty together, don't you think? Craig bought me the yarn, it's Stylecraft Life 4ply in Silver Grey, Zest and Fern.

Everyone appears to love knitting this, so I'll give it a go. I'm going to start with the grey.

Best get started then! I'm off to watch Revenge, laters!