A new life, and the Lush Lacy Mitts to go with it

Its been a while, again - I would have thought that being a student again would mean having lots of spare time to do my knitting and sewing projects, but with post-work travels, freelance work and getting to grips with philosophy, I have been pretty busy. However, there is always time for knitting, and with temperatures dropping I decided I needed a new pair of fingerless gloves (a girl can never have enough pairs, clearly my favourite thing to knit!).

These are the Lush Lace Mitts, which I saw on craftsy's facebook feed and immediately had to have. I was drawn to the lace (as usual), as well as the aran-weight yarn, which together make for a pretty and fast knit. The buttons make them look quite dainty as well, they remind me of my Veyla gloves, which have been my favourites for quite some time now but sadly are starting to pile.

I was a little sceptical of knitting them with 5.5mm needles, as most of my fingerless gloves are made with 4mm needles, but I couldn't quite get the gauge so I settled on my 5mm ones and hoped for the best (winging it as usual). In fact I read somewhere that this yarn is quite stretchy after blocking (will come to this in a moment) so I figured it would all even out eventually.

Aside from that, I pretty much followed the pattern, but made them slightly longer at the top by adding 4 rows of stockinette before binding off.

On to the yarn, Drops Big Merino, which I bought from the Nest stall at the Alexandra Palace Knitting and Stitching show; I had in fact planned to take lots of pretty pictures and write a blog post about the show, but as usual I got completely overwhelmed with yarn and fabric joy that I didn't. What can I say, I'm weak! Anyway, the yarn is very soft and and has a lovely springy quality to it which I absolutely love (I suppose this is why others have complained about it getting too stretchy?). And its a bargain at £3.10! (why are Drops yarns so cheap??). I think it did stretch a bit after blocking but they were a little tight initially so I was sort of counting on it. The only issue might be that they might stretch out with wear (I have a hat made with a similar yarn which is so enormous now, its unwearable).

The buttons I had completely forgotten I had, and found them in my sewing box when I was looking for thread, I think I bought them at the knitting show last year? They are bigger than what I had planned to use, but the tiny buttons I used in Veyla keep coming undone so I figured bigger ones might stay put more easily. I should mention that the gloves don't have buttonholes, I just squeezed the buttons through the lace stitch.

So, overall, I love them and I am sure we will be very happy together! (I am wearing them right now in fact) I don't think they will be very useful when it gets very cold (lace, and fingers quite exposed), but they will be an excellent friend for cold-ish weather.

Link to Ravelry project

Sewing disasters, and my first Delphine skirt

So, cushions done, pyjamas done, zipped cushions done - it was time for my next piece of homework, making a proper, going-to-wear-it-in-public skirt. Yikes! The stakes were high, can't walk around with a tattered skirt that holds the risk of falling off any second. But a girl has gotta practice.

I neglected to take step-by-step photos of this expedition, so you will just have to picture it. The first challenge was to re-size the pattern, the Delphine skirt from Love at First Stitch. By now you know about my disproportionate hips versus waist issues, but this pattern allows resizing, hurrah! I wanted the skirt to sit lower than the picture so I measured that part of my waist, then my hips and then combined to draw a new size.

This time I decided to try a new method of cutting as well - I pinned the cut pattern onto my fabric and then cut it directly rather than re-drawing. I definitely saved time and I don't think it was less accurate, so I might stick to it in the future.

It was all going smoothly, sewing the different parts of the main skirt together, fusing the interfacing to the waistband to make it stiffer, all good. Until I got to the dreaded zip. I didn't blog about this last week, but I had a hell of a time trying to understand how to sew a zip on, as different people seem to do it in completely different ways, and my pattern did not explain what you are supposed to do when you get to the head of the zip (to avoid damaging the needle).

But all that practice helped (that was the intention anyway) so I felt ready to tackle the concealed, or invisible, zip. I even bought the special foot (attachment) for my sewing machine. Yet, when I opened the zip pack, I got confused: what I was holding in my hand did not look like what was on the photo (despite the fact that I selected concealed zip on the menu). The zip teeth were meant to be hidden in the front, but on my zip they were hidden in the back....

So, guess what I did? I winged it, again. I guess I could have ordered another concealed zip and done it properly, but I decided to just attach the regular zip and see what happened.

And it sort of worked. I do have a skirt and it doesn't look like it is going to fall apart any second now. My zip is completely misaligned though, I have no idea how, and why, that happened but hopefully not too obvious.

The main problem is that the skirt does not fit me well at all. It does not sit where I intended it to, it sits where the pattern intended it to (ie high up) - I imagine that to get it to sit lower, I should have made the hips one size bigger? But the issue is that because it is high up, it is actually gigantic!

Too big!

And in case it wasn't clear in the previous photo

The funny thing is that the pattern helpful suggests a point where you can try the skirt on (before finishing the waistband) to see if it fits and if it needs any alterations. However, for some reason when I tried it on then it was too tight around the hips so I decided it was not actually going to fit me at all and I should just finish it regardless.

I'm on a roll! Bandana cowl

I've been even more productive, making a second knit in the same week. This is the Bandana Cowl that I knit for a friend (after, once again, spending hours browsing Ravelry for patterns, and also starting and frogging a few).

Don't ask why there's a weird glow on my face, no photo editing could get rid of it! 

I used some of the Colinette Zero I had left over from the Under the Cover of Midnight cowl, and I can now say with some certainty that I don't really like this yarn. Its frizzy (and I have enough of that in my life already), and heavily textured (which means that the thick and thin bits complicate making anything with lace or with any sort of defined border). The colours are beautiful, its nice, snuggly and warm, but its just a pain. 

This was quite a nice little pattern that I might well make again when knitting gifts, pretty fast because of the short rows, which are used to knit the 'point' of the bandana (another yarn issue here, because of the multiple colours and weird thicknesses, I couldn't quite see the wraps so I had to use a marker as a reminder).

Also, if I were to make it again, I would probably opt for a worsted or aran weight yarn. The pattern calls for bulky yarn  but my gauge was way way off - I decided to go for it with the 6mm needle even though it was not quite right because I was worried it would be too dense with a smaller-size needle. 

So I was basically winging it. I followed the pattern until the wraps, then lost track because of the yarn but then got into a bit of a rhythm. When the short rows were done, I did not follow the decreases as written because the cowl was getting a little too long (wrong gauge and all). I only knitted one row in between for the first three decreases and then did three more decreases consecutively. It worked, somehow. I feel that this is a recurring theme in my life!

Link to Ravelry here

Autumn instant gratification: almond comfit

Autumn is definitely here, despite the random rays of sunshine we seem to be getting. And although its not yet warm woolly weather, I really felt like making a hat just to get myself back into knitting mode. I still intend to finish baby corn, I just needed a bit of an instant fix first to get me there.

I have had a skein of Manos de Uruguay wool classica in various shades of purple (surprise surprise) for almost 2 years now, and it was always going to be a hat. I just hadn't made up my mind about which hat. So in search of a pattern I went, browsing through Ravelry for probably hours until I came across Saturday Treat by Ysolda Teague. 

Now, I'm a big Ysolda fan, so I was quite surprised that there was a collection out there I had never noticed before. This was apparently published in January 2012 and must have gone a little under the radar because the knits have few projects on Ravelry. There are six patterns, in the style of Whimsical Little Knits (so hats, gloves etc), designed and published in collaboration with Fyberspates.

I was immediately drawn to Walnut Whip, but the sport-weight yarn is not exactly compatible with instant gratification. Instead, I opted for Almond Comfit, a beret-style hat with a lace flower shape at the front. 

The construction is weird and can be confusing: it is knitted more like a shawl than a hat, starting with the lace flower and gradually increasing in a sort of triangular shape, which is then decreased and finally joined through a kitchener stitch. I guess think of it a bit as a bandana wrapped and tied at the back of your head?

I was prepared, as everyone on Ravelry had already noted that its confusing, and mainly recommended to follow the instructions without thinking about it. And its true, you just need to follow the instructions. And remember that you are NOT knitting on the round and instead knitting back and forth (that's where I went wrong anyway). I didn't bother with the kitchener stitch, I did a three-needle bind-off instead, which I have decided is my favourite kind of bind off.

Once I understood what I was doing, it just flew by, and by the end of the weekend I had a hat. Yay! Of course the next day it was 22 degrees celcius, but no matter, I am sure it will be here soon.

I have to say, its a little slouchier than I expected. I picked the medium size (yes, it comes in three sizes!) and was a little worried it would be too small or beanie-like, but actually its very much a berret, made a tiny bit slouchier because I got confused in the decreases and knitted an additional two rows by mistake.

Here is the back, to admire the pretty colours!

I tried to take a photo of the flower but for some reason it is really out of focus and almost impossible to see the flower because of the colours. Perhaps this would work best with a solid colour instead to ensure that the lace is clearly visible.

Link to Ravelry here