Tag: colinette

Knitting: works in progress

Jillybean shawl

As my sewing things in the Shed are gradually being packed away, my focus is shifting across to knitting. This is a Childry shawl, knitted in Jillybean‘s Knot Another Granny Yarn. I’ve just reached the soul-destroying part, which is the row where you triple the stitch count to make the ruffle. Each row now takes about half an hour to knit… but it does mean that the end of the shawl is in sight!

Colinette shawl

This one is another Childry, in a long-discontinued Colinette yarn. I don’t think this one’s going to be as big as a shawl (it’s only about six inches long at the moment), but I think it’ll make a nice little neckwarmer.

Striped Tank

These colours aren’t quite right – it’s a lovely maroon and dusky pink combination. The pattern is Echinacea, by Rita Taylor. You’ll notice that mine isn’t exactly the same as the one on Ravelry. I utterly loathe doing colour work, so after only a few rows the flowers were unravelled and transformed into stripes. Eventually this will be a lovely square-ish tank top to wear at work.

Forest Scarf

This Kidsilk Haze Stripe was originally bought to make a jumper. After eighteen months I’d only knitted three inches of the first sleeve, because knitting complicated lace in mohair that’s impossible to unravel turned out to be a really bad idea! So now it’s almost turning into the scarf pattern that’s printed on the ball band. I say “almost” because the borders up the sides of the scarf are supposed to be in moss stitch, but I seem to have been knitting them in garter stitch for quite a while. Given that I can’t see where the change happened amidst the fluff of the mohair, I’m going to make the executive decision that it doesn’t matter!

Golden Cowl

This one’s my new favourite. I bought the yarn on Saturday, wound it up into a ball (all one thousand metres of it!), and started designing straight away. It’s eventually going to be a lovely little golden cowl for a Christmas present. In fact, I’m hoping there’s going to be enough yarn to make two, as I already don’t want to give this one away!

The nice thing about having a lot of knitting on the go is that I can pick and choose depending on the state of my hands and the length of my concentration span. The nice thing about a lot of it being very simple knitting is that it frees up my mind to think about other things, while my hands just take care of the stitches. (Mostly. When they’re not knitting garter stitch instead of moss stitch by mistake.) At the moment I’m thinking about cowls and mittens and interchangeable lace patterns, and maybe a little booklet to show them off. We’ll see. For now I just need to make sure that I’ve got enough knitting available to keep me as sane as possible during the house move.

Long-Sleeved Eve

Colinette Eve Cardigan

This is Eve, in Colinette Giotto.

I finished knitting it about six weeks ago, it’s just taken me that long to get around to sewing all the bits together. For those of you on Ravelry, you can see the details here.

It’s a mash-up of two versions of the Eve pattern – the short body from one, and the long sleeves from the other. The short sleeved version took 3 skeins, and this only took one extra. If you were making anything above a 36″ chest you’d definitely need five skeins. I find this ribbon style yarn quite easy to knit with, and the cardigan’s very light and pleasantly drapey. It does tend to go a bit baggy when you wash it, so I knitted a smaller size than I would normally.

I never follow Colinette’s instructions to “stripe” their yarns to avoid pooling, partly because I don’t mind too much how the colours come out and partly because I’m too lazy to wrangle two balls of wool at once if I don’t have to. I’m not totally convinced by the resulting fabric here, which looks like a cross between a zebra and an untuned television. It’s an excellent summer cardigan though, and I’m sure I’ll get plenty of wear out of it. I wear my blue one quite a lot.

Colinette Cate Cardigan

Colinette Cate

I knitted this cardigan at record speed, so that I could wear it to a wedding back in June. The yarn is Rowan Polar, and it had a previous life as a tank top from Teva Durham’s Loop-D-Loop book. I love the colour, but I have to confess that I’m not a huge fan of the yarn itself. It has a halo of alpaca fluff that sheds all over the place, and you can see that it’s already gone very bobbly under the arms.

I do like the style of the cardigan, although I usually wear it untied as the knot is quite bulky. I also want to add a piece of ribbon across the back, to stop it from stretching and slipping off my shoulders. I’d like to either amend the pattern or maybe find one that’s already written for DK yarn, to make a lighter weight cardigan. I’m not sure I have the attention span to knit this style of cardigan in a lighter yarn though – the draped fronts would take forever!

Finished Angora Leaf Scarf

Angora Leaf Scarf

I cast off the Angora Leaf Scarf last night, and breathed a huge sigh of relief. I wasn’t convinced that I’d have enough yarn to get me all the way to the point of the final leaf, but I was thrilled to find that I’d made it!

Thankfully, I’d decided to weigh the first leaf. That way I knew how much yarn I needed to have left after the straight part of the scarf, in order to get me all the way to the end.

Unfortunately, cutting things so fine meant that I didn’t have enough yarn left over to embroider the stem stitch detail on all three of the leaves, so I just added it to the top one.

The pattern calls for a transparent snap fastener to hold the top leaf in place, but the Colinette Parisienne is so fine that it would have been visible, and ugly. Instead I remembered a great big plastic ring that I had stashed away in my jewellery box. The delicate scarf pulled through the ring with no problems at all, and the leaves stop it from slipping around. 

The perfect finishing touch!

Angora Leaf Scarf Angora Leaf Scarf

Angora Leaf Scarf

Angora Leaf Scarf

I picked up issue 2 of The Knitter yesterday, and cast on for this scarf almost immediately. 

So much for all the jumpers I was going to knit before I started anything else… but I’ve had this single ball of Colinette Parisienne in my stash for ages, and this seemed like the perfect use for it.

The whole scarf is knitted in garter stitch, with shaping on alternate rows. Because it’s impossible to tell the difference between the front and the back of the work, I’m using two different lengths of needle to help me find my way. When I switch to the longer needle, I’m on an increase row. Simple!

The things we do for love.

In this case, having your photo taken wearing the latest hat and scarf that your girlfriend’s just knitted.

Colinette Point 5 hat & scarf

Paul’s not mad keen on having his photo taken, but he agreed to let me snap away just this once, so I could have a fabulously manly picture to show off the hat and scarf sets.

These hats and scarves are ever so versatile – as you can see, you can wear them whilst standing in a field, leaning against a tree, and checking your email on your swanky new iPhone, all at once!

Five Scarves and a Hat.

Well, okay, not yet they’re not.

But those are the plans for this little pile of goodies from Colinette:

Colinette

  • Isis, shade Summer Berries – 100% viscose chenille type
    This one’s going to be a plain scarf, I think. It’s pointless trying to work a stitch pattern in chenille yarn, and the velvety soft finish should be interesting enough.
  • Tagliatelli, shade Paintbox – 90% merino, 10% nylon tape yarn
    Destined for a very simple garter stitch scarf. This yarn looks better and better the more you handle it, as the edges of the tape start to fray a little. Paintbox is so bright it’s practically fluorescent!
  • One Zero, shade Marble – 100% wool
    I am absolutely in love with this yarn – both the weight of it and the beautiful subtle colourway. I don’t think a lacy pattern would work with a thick-and-thin yarn, so perhaps something with cables.
  • Graffiti, shade Fresco – 100% wool
    This was my attempt at choosing a manly colour, for a manly scarf. Destined for something with ribbing, I expect.
  • Point Five, shade Tapis – 100% wool
    I bought two skeins of this, to make a new display model for my hat and scarf sets. 

All of these are destined for the Art Market on November 22nd. 

I have to admit that I did spend rather a long time squidging the parcel and poking at each individual skein before I wound them up into these pretty little wool cakes.

I may also have had a little game of “when I own a wool shop…” which is a part of my imagination that I like to retreat into every now and again. My Imaginary Wool Shop sells many things that I can’t buy locally, such as Colinette, and Addi needles, and the lovely Brittany ones which I’ve heard wonderful things about but never met in person.

But mostly, My Imaginary Wool Shop has a sofa, and a swift and a ball winder, and a library shelf, and a lot of friendly, happy knitters.

Hand Knit Hats & Scarves

Colinette Point 5 hat and scarf

Yes, it’s that time of year again!

I’ve worn my woolly hat and scarf two or three times now, which makes me wonder whether there are any of you out there with cold heads and necks… or maybe you have a chilly friend or relative who might appreciate a nice woolly Christmas present? 

So, Hand Knit Hats & Scarves are now available to order.

I may have accidentally done a little shopping at the Colinette website, so hopefully I’ll soon be able to bring you a better picture than my scruffy old hat and scarf that could do with a trip through the washing machine!

I’m also knitting up a nice warm pile of assorted scarves, to take to the next Art Market on November 22nd.

You can see the knitwear I have currently in stock, over at Etsy.

Yarn Overload!

This week I seem to be absolutely drowning in wool. Not that this is any kind of complaint, you understand!

A friend of mine was having a clearout of her yarn stash, and kindly passed on a few goodies that she thought I might like.

Yummy new sock yarns

These are two sock yarns. The purple one is by Opal, and the other is one of the Kaffe Fasset colourways for Regia. These yarns together would make a lovely pair of the Simply Knitting socks that I’m still working on. Alternatively, as I only really wear very short socks, I might even manage to get two pairs of anklets out of 150 grams of yarn. We’ll see – I’ve got plenty of time to think about it while I’m finishing my current sock!

I’ve also come into possession of a complete pack (10 balls) of RYC Cashcotton 4 ply, in a beautiful peachy colour. I don’t quite know what I’m going to do with it yet, although a lacy summer cardigan seems like quite a nice idea.

Macro wool...

Over on the Simply Knitting website they’re running a series of articles about taking photographs of your knitting in new and interesting ways. I thought I’d see what the “super macro” setting on my little camera could do, and this is the result. I like the obvious difference in texture between these two yarns. You can almost imagine how they’ll feel from looking at the picture.

The top ball is the peachy RYC Cashcotton – 35% cotton, 25% polyamide, 18% angora, 13% viscose and 9% cashmere. The lower one is Debbie Bliss Soho – 100% wool.

I’ve been updating my stash details on Ravelry to include these new goodies, and although I don’t have as much yarn tucked away as some people, I think I probably don’t need any more just now.

This is particularly disappointing, as I received an email from Colinette this morning, giving details of several new colourways. I’m also intrigued by their new Creative Project Packs, where you can buy a bag of one yarn type, but in little hanks of different colours. I can feel some interesting scarves and socks coming on…

Baa Baa Black Sheep…

Ever wondered what an entire kilo of Colinette Point 5 looks like?

Colinette Point 5 - black

Well, now you know!

Colinette Point 5 jumper 

It used to be the most enormous jumper, one that I knitted for Paul a few years ago. It’s hardly been worn, so I decided it was time to reclaim the wool and turn it into something else. I’ve promised to sew a fleece for Paul instead, so at least he won’t get cold!

His main complaints about this jumper were that it was:

  1. Too heavy. Well, it did weigh an entire kilo! The style is supposed to be a funnel neck, but the sleeves are so heavy that they pull out the neckline sideways.
  2. Too hot. I suppose you would be hot, wearing half a sheep…
  3. Too cold. Yes, really. Colinette recommend that you knit this wool using 12mm needles. That’s fine for the thicker parts of the yarn, but wherever you get a thinner strand you also get a looser knit. This makes the resulting fabric a bit draughty in places, and Paul complained that the wind got through!

I must admit that I prefer to knit most Colinette yarns using smaller needles than suggested. I’m going to try a swatch of this on 10mm needles, and see how it comes out.

I’ve been looking for the perfect shrug/bolero/cropped cardigan pattern which would work in either Point 5 or Rowan Big Wool (which I also prefer to knit on smaller needles than recommended), and I haven’t found it yet.

I think it’s time to sit down with Ann Budd and a piece of graph paper, and work something out.