Tag: Kaffe Fassett

Buttons and Bows

First bow tie, finished and boxed.

This was the first of Mr Magpie’s Adjustable Bow Ties to come off my mini production line. It’s a cotton hand-tied bow, on a grosgrain ribbon adjustable band. I love the look of a hand-tied bow but I find it impossible to tie one on front of a mirror, so this seemed like the ideal solution!

Organic cotton covered buttons, 15mm

While I was making the bow ties, I used all the offcuts of organic cotton to cover a little pile of 15mm buttons. They’ll be for sale alongside the ties and the vintage button stash that I’ve been sorting out.

Organic cotton bow ties

Here they are in glorious technicolour – all the striped fabrics are all from fat quarters of organic cotton designed by Kaffe Fassett for Rowan. I don’t think that particular fabric’s available any more, but I’ll definitely be making more bow ties with new organic cottons as I buy them.

I’ve got one more batch of fragranced tealights to make before the Frome Steampunk Extravaganza, and once they’re done, it’ll be a matter of what else I can make in the time I’ve got available in between my shifts at work. Hopefully I’ll end up with a stall that shows a good variety of the things I enjoy making, and that people will actually want to buy!

Knitting Update…

Owl Wrist Warmers

The run-up to Christmas is always the same for me. Deciding far too late that I want to knit something far too ambitious, and then wrapping it up in such a hurry that I forget all about taking photographs. This year I did remember to take pictures of a couple of things, so here they are!

These are the Owl Wrist Warmers from issue 21 of Mollie Makes. I’m not a regular reader of Mollie Makes, but I saw this pattern on the front and knew it would make a lovely Christmas present, so I snapped it up. They’re made from one ball of Sirdar Click, and the only alteration I made was to mirror the cables on each cuff. (I’m fussy like that.) The hardest part (apart from wrestling double-pointed needles, which I still dislike) was sewing on the little buttons so that the owls didn’t look too cross-eyed!

Childry Shawl

This is Childry, from Issue 100 of Simply Knitting – well, from the booklet of extra patterns that came with it. The recommended yarn is Fyberspates Scrumptious 4-ply, which I didn’t have, so I went for 2 balls of Regia sock yarn in one of the Kaffe Fassett colourways. You can wear it either way round – with the point at the front it’s ideal for filling in the annoying little gap at the top of a coat.

Childry Shawl

This way round, it’s held together with a sparkly little hairclip from Accessorize. I must admit that I thought I was going to die of boredom while I was knitting this. Because it all garter stitch all the time, it’s wonderfully easy and the self-striping yarn does all the work of making it look pretty. But the row where you start with 250 stitches and then work k1, yo, k1 into every stitch, leaving you with a count of 750… that ruffle took some getting through. And then, in my infinite wisdom, I decided to do a picot cast off! Which looks lovely, and I’m very pleased with it, but it took three evenings to get the shawl cast off and finished.

And of course, being a sucker for punishment, I immediately cast on to make another one for myself. Mine will be made from some Mystery Colinette that I’ve tried to knit a bunch of times without success, but which I think will be perfect for this.

7/07/2012

I also finished knitting these socks…

Stripy Sock

and these socks…

Noro Kureyon

but not these socks. I’m about half way through the second one, and they’ll hopefully be a birthday gift if I can get them finished in the next ten days.

Currently on the needles are:

  • The Noro socks above
  • The aforementioned Mystery Colinette Childry shawl
  • A black and silver sparkly cardigan
  • A complicated lace jumper that I can only knit when alone in the house
  • Two horrible peach shawls that I’m probably going to unravel soon

That should keep me busy for a while… until I decide I’m bored of them all and cast on something else!

Louisa Harding Ginerva

Louisa Harding Ginerva

Issue 34 of The Knitter dropped though my letterbox a couple of days ago, and I was immediately smitten by this lacy dress pattern. It’s Ginerva by Louise Harding, and it’s so new that there are currently only 2 projects for it on Ravelry. (One of them’s mine!)

I decided straight away that I didn’t want to make a dress version, but a shorter jumper would be perfect. A few sums and a day later, I found myself in John Lewis buying two balls of Kidsilk Haze Stripe. This is the Forest colourway.

I’ve started with the sleeves. That way I can see how much yarn they take up, and then hopefully figure out how long I can make the body afterwards. I tried to pick two balls of yarn that looked as though they’d been wound the same way, in the hope that the stripes won’t be too all over the place on the finished jumper.

So far I’ve managed the set-up rows and one repeat of the edging. The pattern says to repeat the twelve row lace pattern until the work measures a certain length (depending on your size), and then you get into the tricky business of trying to work shaping at the same time as keeping track of which pattern row you’re on. I know from experience that I’m very bad at following more than one set of instructions at once, so it seemed like a good idea to make myself a chart. That way I can simply tick off each row as I work it, without having to scribble incomprehensibly all over the magazine.

I thought it would be nice to share it, so you can have it as an Excel file, or a PDF.

Please note that this is NOT THE ENTIRE PATTERN. That’s obviously copyrighted to Louisa Harding and The Knitter. This is just a way of keeping track of the lace motif and the shaping, for both the body and the sleeves. You’ll need a proper copy of the pattern for the rest.

Also, these are only the instructions for a size 14. If you need a different size, I recommend downloading the Excel file and using the original pattern to update the stitch counts for each row. (The central lace motif stays the same for each size.) If you’re already making a size 14, you can just download the PDF.

I’m rapidly discovering that this is the most complicated thing I’ve ever knitted, mostly because the lace motif is worked from both sides. This is definitely going to be slow going because of all the counting and tracking required. Not one to sit and knit in front of the telly, or to take out and about with me. Thankfully I’ve cast on another sock for that!

Stripy Socks

Socks

This was something of an exercise in nail biting – would it be possible to make a pair of socks from just 80 grams of yarn? The answer turned out to be yes – if you don’t mind them being short, and you’ve got a little bit of something else to use for the heels!

The stripes are just less than a single ball of one of Kaffe Fassett’s colourways for Regia. I didn’t think I’d matched the repeat when I wound the yarn into two balls, and had resigned myself to knitting fraternal rather than identical socks. I’m thrilled to bits that the stripes actually match! The heels are a little bit of Opal which just happened to match the purple stripes perfectly.

The pattern is Wendy D Johnson’s Slip Stitch Heel Basic Socks. I knitted them from the toe up on two circular needles, starting with a figure eight cast on and ending with a Russian cast off. I have a high instep so I like socks with a heel flap and gusset, as they give a little extra room. I also like the way that the slip stitch heel provides a thicker fabric where the socks will wear. I might experiment in future with slip stitch toes!

I bought new needles for these – Addi 30cm circulars with angled tips. I’d been using 40cm Pony circulars, but found the extra cable a bit annoying. I’d say that the 30cm needles are the perfect length for knitting socks in the round, especially with the angled tips, but I did find the purl rows a little fiddly when I was working on the heels. My gauge is much better for socks on 2.5mm needles – nice tight fabric, and minimal holes in the short-row heels. I might buy a couple more, so I can have more than one pair of socks on the go at once.

I think the only thing I’m not completely happy with is the cast off. I know from experience that I tend to cast off tightly, so I looked around for some stretchy solutions. Unfortunately I think I’ve gone too far the other way, and the socks are very slightly baggy around my ankles. Mind you, if the socks were longer the ribbing would be around a wider part of my leg, so the cast off would probably be just fine. Perhaps I’ll give it another try before I decide against it altogether.

I may have had a little falling down in the Hobbycraft sale just after Christmas, which resulted in rather a lot of half price Regia coming home with me. Looks as though everyone’s getting socks for Christmas, now I’ve got the hang of making them!

Blue Organic Cotton Dress

Blue organic cotton dress

This is a little tunic dress, from one of my own patterns. The main body of the dress is blue organic cotton from Bishopston Trading. The yoke and assorted other parts are also organic cotton, from Kaffe Fassett’s collection for Rowan a few years ago.

The pockets are set into the side seams, because it seemed like a good way of creating a nice sturdy finish. As the tunic is so full, next time I think I’ll make patch pockets and place them a little further towards the centre.

I’ve worn this with and without the belt, and I think it looks great either way. The belt is made from 5cm elastic, simply covered with matching fabric which gathers as the elastic contracts. The ends are fastened with loops and matching fabric-covered buttons. Next time I’ll add a slightly thicker interfacing, or perhaps a scrap of corset coutil, to make the front panels a little less likely to fold over on themselves. I also need to make another one about two inches longer, as this one’s a bit too tight for my liking!

I’ve been thinking for a long time about what to make with my organic cottons, and I’m really pleased with this tunic and belt. This is going to be the start of some thinking out loud in fabric, as I try to work out which styles might be available for sale.

Rowan Colourscape

Nicola came to visit yesterday, to try on the mock-up for her wedding dress. Thankfully it all went very smoothly, and tomorrow I can start cutting silk! She also came bearing Christmas gifts, which turned out to be a bag full of Rowan Colourscape Chunky. The colourways are designed by Kaffe Fassett, and mine is “Cherry”.

I had a look online to see how it would knit up, and it makes nice wide stripes. My immediate thought was to look for a pattern that’s knit sideways, so you can make vertical stripes with it. Apparently Rowan had the same idea, as this is what’s on the cover of the pattern book that goes with this yarn:

After a quick look through my mountain of knitting magazines, and a few doodles of possible shapes and patterns, I decided to just start knitting, and see what happened.

Colourscape jumper

I’ve decided to go for a very boxy shape, with a minimum of shaping that might disrupt the stripe pattern. So, it’s going to be a drop-shoulder jumper, with a deep rib and a cable up each sleeve. This is about two-thirds of the first sleeve, and I plan to keep knitting it until this ball of wool runs out. Then I can make another one the same, and work out how to distribute the three remaining balls of wool around the rest of the jumper.

The fabric in the background is a silk skirt that I bought years ago. It was on all the advertising for the La Redoute catalogue at the time, so I signed up for the sole purpose of buying this skirt. Unfortunately it’s too small for me at the moment, so I won’t be able to wear it with my new jumper. Shame, as the colours are absolutely perfect together!

I might take my knitting on a fabric shopping this week. Perhaps I can make a new skirt or a pair of trousers to wear with it instead. Of course, that means I have to finish the jumper in time to wear it to the wedding… so perhaps I’d be better off concentrating my time on the wedding dress instead!

Sublime Brocade

Today I had a Day Off. I didn’t sew anything for anyone, I stayed in bed and read a good book, and I sat on the sofa and began to knit a new cardigan.

Oh, and my credit card may have accidentally fallen down in the general direction of some new wool.

Sublime Brocade

My copy of Rowan magazine number 38 arrived in the post this morning. I’ve been putting off buying this for ages, because I balked at the idea of paying £10 for yet another knitting magazine. (Believe me, I have many.) What I didn’t realise is how completely amazing it is. More than sixty patterns, each one more beautiful than the last.

Obviously the magazine is a showcase for Rowan’s range of yarns, but of course you’re not morally obliged to use the yarn that’s specified for the pattern. Which is just as well, as this particular book is three years old, and the yarn used for this jumper has now been discontinued.

Thankfully, the lovely Mim shared a link to a website which was having a clearance sale, and I am now anticipating the arrival of fourteen balls of Sublime, in black and pink. It’s 100% merino, but it’s machine washable, which means that this jumper will actually stand some chance of being worn, rather than staying hidden in the wardrobe because I’m too afraid of ruining it in the wash.

I’ve never tackled an intarsia project quite this ambitious before – my only other attempt has been the pirate jumper, which I wear a lot. I’m a little bit intimidated by the enormous chart, but at least I don’t have to deal with any shaping until I get up to the armholes. That gives me 96 rows to work out what I’m doing. Hopefully that’ll be enough!

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…