Stripy socks

A few days ago, I started some sock knitting - just for something to do while camping up in Fife, as I hadn't taken anything with me.

I bought Coop knits sock wool in two colours, and Jawool in a mustardy colour, and borrowed some needles (thankyou Katherine).  I'm using the Artesano Wuru free sock pattern, which starts at the toe - find it here!





To start with, I had to learn how to do a closed toe cast on (there's plenty of advice on this from Mr Google).  My sock toes, heels and cuffs will be mustard-colour, with two-colour, two-row stripes in between.



Above, I've just started knitting the blue stripes after the toe!
And below, is a beautiful red campion which was growing by our tent - June is "30 days wild" month, run by the British Wildlife Trusts.  They challenge you to do something wild every day in June! Sign up here.



Go wild!
Sock update soon,
Vicky xx

Ysolda's cadeautje

Happy New Year!
Before Christmas I was super-busy knitting four of these fantastic socks, from a pattern by Ysolda.  The word "cadeautje" translates from Dutch as (I think) "present" or "gift", which is exactly what these are perfect for.  I finished the last sock of the two pairs on Christmas Eve, and left them by the fire for the recipients to find on Christmas morning.  They went straight on and have been popular on our chilly floors ever since.



Then on Boxing Day, cast on for another pair! And when these are finished, I'll finally do a pair for myself.  I love the way the sole curves up at the toe, due to the clever way the stitches are picked up for the welt and then decreased into the toe cap.



As we've had some snow, I thought some pictures of these extra-cosy socks outdoors would be appropriate.



You do kind of need a good selection of needles for these.  I used double-pointed as well as a 45cm circular, and at some points used both the dpns and circular together.  If you are buying needles for the project, I would go for two 45cm circulars.  One set of 5 dpns is not enough for all the stitches of the adult sizes!



You can buy and download the pattern from Ysolda's website here.  Check back in a week or so for another post about MY slippers!

Flower garden tea cosy

I made another tea-cosy, this one for a friend who's a gardener.  Most of these colours are Aran-weight left-overs, perfect for creating a colourful bunch of flowers.



Tea cosy body, flowers and leaves are from two of Loani Prior's fabulous books - How Tea Cosies Changed The World and Really Wild Tea Cosies.



Felt bobbles finish off the bottom edge nicely (I didn't make these though).



Flowers made from a mixture of Noro scraps and Aran wool from Commodum in Ireland.  Felt balls in the middle finish them off nicely!



This is the third of Loani Prior's teacosies I've knitted, but the first I've blogged.  The first was this mad creation, made with A LOT of Noro wool - I absolutely love this one and it's always a talking point when people pop in for a cuppa!



The second (also not blogged) was 'Devilish', which I made for a small white teapot.  So funny this one.



I've got another of Loani's teacosies lined up to knit for a Christmas present, which will be number four.  I'm off to make a cup of tea!
xx

My Snawheid mittens

Back in March I posted about the Snawheid hat I knitted using Kate Davies' pattern. Here I've taken it one step further!



The hat turned out so well I was inspired to make mittens to go with it, and I started one almost straight away. 



That was finished by Easter, but then I knitted another mitten (different yarn, different pattern) before I got round to ordering more of the Jamieson & Smith yarn for the second Snawheid mitten - so there has been a slight delay in getting the pair of these ready to wear. But now here they are, after a week's holiday on Tiree (Scottish Western Isles) I've had time to finish that second one off (and the weather is still just about chilly enough to wear them!).




The colourwork makes these very cosy and snug, and after a gentle wash the yarn has come up feeling lovely and soft and full. As I mentioned in my previous post, I mashed up Kate's snowflake motif with the Lusekofte-sque mittens pattern from Ravelry and am really happy with the result!  I put rows of three and four snowflakes on the back of the mittens and left the palms plain.  From the Lusekofte-sque pattern, apart from the shape, I borrowed the border pattern.
The mitten pattern has a double thickness cuff at the top and bottom which I love, and I think it might translate onto socks quite nicely...

I did make these slightly bigger than the Lusekofte-sque pattern, adding an extra ten stitches to the width (I think!) and ten rows to the length, as well as an additional two stitches to the thumb and two extra rows (but I do seem to have fairly big hands).

The weather hasn't been too chilly lately so I'm hoping not to need these till winter starts. In the meantime, the garden's looking lovely....

Snawheid mash-up!

A while ago I downloaded Kate Davies' Snawheid knitting pattern, ordered some Jamieson & Smith jumper weight yarn, and knitted this lovely hat:





My head seems to be bigger than average (!), so I added in a couple of extra snowflakes to the straight rounds and did a bit more decreasing before I started on the mega-flake on the crown.
It was a great pattern, easy to follow, and the snowflake motif is truly lovely.  So lovely in fact that I was inspired to use it again, combined with another pattern, to knit some fingerless mittens.

I based the mittens on Mary Rourke's Lusekofte-sque mitts pattern, available as a free download from Ravelry, mashing up her border motif with the snawheid motif to make my design.  I also (after reading a tip from someone else on Ravelry) moved the end of the round onto the palm (which I'm leaving plain), thus hiding the pattern discontinuity on a less obvious piece of the mitten.

This was my first attempt at working out how to fit a pattern motif onto a piece of knitting and it took a few attempts to get everything sorted.  The double cuff and double edge look like they're going to make these really cosy!
Watch out for some photos of my new mittens soon!