Some Actual Knitting Content!

In my quest to slowly get back into blogging etc, I took some photos of some FOs that I finished at the end of last year/beginning of this year. Gloves and mittens are easy to take relatively decent photos of, so I started with them :)

First off, last year at some point I frogged my version of the Druid Mittens that I had started to make with fingering weight yarn (I posted about them here) They were just a bit too small, and I never got round to finishing them, because I kind of knew that I'd be unhappy with them. Then I thought of making them with DK weight yarn instead, as it would be an easy way to make them larger without having to mess about with the pattern. So I used this green yarn (it's wool/acrylic, possibly Stylecraft Life DK, but I've forgotten exactly. I'm about 80% sure it's Life DK though), and slightly larger needles I think. See, this is why keeping blog posts and putting things on ravelry is much easier when you do it directly after making the item! :D Anyway, I just knit the pattern as written, since I didn't have much brain space for modifications, and I just wanted to get them done and out of my queue. Here's some photos:





And here's a photo with one of them steam blocked and the other not:



Pattern: Druid Mittens by Jared Flood, from Vogue Knitting Fall 2008
My ravelry project page: here

I did another re-knit as well. I don't know if I'd ever posted about the Something Floral fingerless mitts, but I'd started to knit them in some fingering weight yarn before - in black and white. But again, they were small. So I decided to just frog them (I went through a bit of a frogging phase in my knitting slump!) But I really like the pattern, and wanted to make them, so I cast them on again. This time I used different yarn - it's possibly Regia sock yarn, but again, I've forgotten and lost the ball bands :)

This is the project that made me figure out that I need to knit colourwork either on very large needles compared to the pattern recommendation, or go up a yarn weight. They're still snug, even using larger needles, but they can at least go on now :) They'll be perfect for autumn days either with T-shirts or under a cardi or something.





Some detail shots:







And mid-steam-blocking:



Pattern: Something Floral by Miranda Grant
My ravelry project page: here

And finally, a pattern I'd been wanting to knit for ages, in a yarn that I'd been wondering what to make out of for ages :)









Pattern: Susie Rogers' Reading Mitts by Susie Rogers
Yarn: a colourmart merino (DK?) that I got in my goodie bag at Knit Camp. I'd been wondering what to make out of it for ages, because I wasn't sure how much there was. Then I saw this pattern in my queue and the two matched together! I had a teeny bit left over, it just went in my scraps bag :)
My ravelry project page: here

Yay, a post about actual knitting! I'm going to try to photograph some more stuff later on or tomorrow - it turns out that even though I considered I was in a knitting slump, I still managed to get quite a few projects finished! :D

Knit Camp Day 2

OK, round-up of Day 2's purchases :)

My first purchase took place about 5 minutes after entering the marketplace :) Since I'd already walked around all the stalls twice the day before, I knew was was there, and what I'd be interested in, so I wasn't so concerned about doing a preliminary walk-through. There was a stall right at the front, beside the Vogue Knitting stall, which I assume was DT Crafts from looking at the marketplace map. It looks like they and WhiteLies and Annie Modesitt's stalls were swapped around for some reason. They had a box of yarns that were 5p per gram, and there were these three skeins of the same colourway, so I snapped them up.




They're very pretty :) A light-fingering weight wool, in lovely pinks and oranges. I've no idea what it'll become yet though.

The next yarns are in random order, since I can't remember exactly what order I bought them all in. It's a bit of a yarn-blur! :D



This is a 4ply Whitefaced Woodland in the Pink Panther colourway from Freyalyn's Hand-dyed Fibres. Very pretty! I think this might become some actual socks. I know, sock yarn being used for socks! Whatever next!?!

I went back to Wool For Ewe's stall :) I just loved their yarns, they had wonderful Araucania yarns, such as this one:



Araucania Toconao Multy yarn in colour 413. I love the colours. Blues and oranges and Browns, very pretty. It reminds me of a more natural, toned-down version of the IrnBru colours. :D




And more Noro Cash Island :) I do like this yarn. This colourway (No 14) reminds me of tweedy kiltishness for some reason. I seemed to pick very Scottish colours, with the black tartan-y one on the first day as well... Again, this will probably become some sort of simple shawlette/scarf thingy.




We went to The Yarn Yard's stall so many times to look at all their pretty yarn! Eventually I picked one (I do remember that this was my last purchase as I ran out of money buying this one!) and bought it. This is a fingering/sock weight yarn in lovely natural brown shades, with a hint of green sometimes (I don't know if you can see that in my crappy pics!) So beautiful!! I don't know what this will become yet.



One of my goals in going to the marketplace was to buy a yarn to make the World's End Fingerless Gloves by Deborah Gall (of the SavvyGirls podcast) First of all I picked this beautiful variegated grey yarn from the Artist's Palette booth. It's their Smootherino yarn, which has lovely subtle colour variations in it. Then I saw this other yarn, and decided that I wanted to use that instead.



This was from the Ba T'at stall, which had lovely dyed yarns. This is a smaller skein about 75g, and as that is what is called for in the pattern, I figured there won't be a whole lot left over when I make it. I'm looking forward to making those gloves in this yarn!




I managed to contain myself to buying only one lot of fibre, this Blue-faced Leicester/Silk from Wingham Wool Work. It feels so lovely!! I can't wait to spin it up!

And that's it for my purchases from the Knit Camp marketplace (finally!!) I went a bit overboard, but I love everything I got, and it's not like this kind of event happens round here very often. I really hope there are more events like this in the future, although I'm a bit worried in case people are put off by the organisational "difficulties" that this event had. I'm not going to post about those here, not today anyway, but if you do a quick google or ravelry search, you'll soon find out about what happened, if you don't know already. This post is all about my pretties!!! I'll have more pics and little bits and pieces next post! And you'll get to see what lovely, lovely thing was waiting for me when I got home on the Saturday!!!! (I'm such a tease, lol!)

Knit Camp Day 1

(apologies in advance for the very long post, and the bajillions of photos!) :D

This week the Knit Camp event was held at Stirling University, which was really exciting as Stirling Uni is only a shot distance from where I live. I didn't go to any of the classes, but I went to the marketplace on Friday and Saturday with Blackmagpie, which was totally awesome!!!

The marketplace was filled with so many amazing stalls, I was totally overwhelmed. We made made a plan to walk around first and see what each booth had, then go back round to buy stuff, instead of spending all our money at the first few booths, which could quite easily have happened :)

We managed to go through two of the three rooms before we caved and started buying :) The first booth I bought from was Wild Fire Fibres. This is what I got from Vikki, who I'd met online, but this was the first time meeting her in person, and she was just as nice and lovely and awesome as she is online. And OMG, her yarn!!! It's not really surprising that her booth was the one that made me start buying! Here's what I got:







WFF Hathor Lace in "Atlantic Blue" and Tempo 4ply in "Shadow". My pics really don't do justice to the awesomeness of these colours. I love these yarns. I'm not sure what they're going to become yet, but I had to have them, they're so pretty!




From Wool For Ewe I got these 2 skeins of Noro Cash Island in colour no 13 (descriptive! :) ) It looks a bit like tartan to me with the black and green and red. Wool For Ewe's stall was amazing, they had so much stuff on sale and it was all so pretty. It was hard not to blow my entire budget here as well! I think I'm going to make this into some sort of triangular neck scarf. Just a simple pattern to show off the colours.




I got this pure wool DK from Freylayn's Hand Dyed Yarns - such pretty shades of yellow! Again, it'll probably become a scarflette of some sort, but I don't really know. I just like the colours!





I got yarn in my goody bag - Supersoft Merino DK from Colourmart and a tiny ball of Opal (so cute!) I have no idea what I'll do with the Opal, and the merino is going to be made into wristmarmers or something glovey.



One of my main goals in going to Knit Camp was to get a lighter spindle to spin thinner yarns. I got this 37g spindle from Scottish Fibres. I got 2 fibres from them as well to experiment with, this Soya Bean Fibre



and this flax.




The Soya Bean Fibre is really quite soft to pet, but quite inelastic and it almost has a squeaky feel when pressed. It'll be interesting to try to spin it! :D





I also got this Bluefaced Leicester fibre from Wingham Wool Work. They had so many interesting and colourful fibres and fibre accessories. I kept going back to pet their merino /silk, but didn't get any of that unfortunately.



Oh, and I got this shawl pin from Textile Garden. Their stall had a lot of buttons, which I managed to resist, and I just loved their pins.

As for patterns, I got the Serpentine Valentine Socks by Katie Weston from the p-hop stall. P-Hop works on the principle of downloading patterns, and then you pay "pennies per hour of pleasure" and they give the money to Médecins Sans Frontières, which I think is awesome. They had samples of these socks and they were just amazing! I've never tried colourwork socks before, but I'm looking forward to trying this pattern!

I also got the MY Baboo Flower Cushion Cover from the MyBaboo stall. I just loved the sample they had of the giant flower.

I got 2 free patterns in my goody bag - the Frilly Filly Scarf by Gryphen Perkin from Stitch and Bitch Advanced, and the Alpaca Love Cabled Chapeau from Stitch Nation, and my goody bag also had a copy of Knit Simple winter 2009/2010, which has some really cute patterns in it.

Phew, longest post ever!!! And that was just day 1! Next up will be what I got on day 2. Yes, there is more. Much, much more :D