Back to the needles..

I was recently approached by a magazine here in Australia asking if I’d like to design a project for them. So that’s partly what’s secretly been on the needles the last couple of weeks. I knitted up two designs for them, some delicate lace and cable cuffs and a woodland style tea cosy, and they want to run them both so I’m pretty happy with that. 🙂

Other things on the needles this week….Some faux fair isle socks from Bendigo Woollen Mills, plain vanilla socks with a fish lips kiss heel. 3/4 through the first one.

I’m also knitting up another Route 1 by Norah Gaughan for myself. I love the boxy shape of this pattern and the low v neck. I have worn my first one to death, and it’s a really quick knit. I’m doing this in Bergere de France’s Recycline, a ‘recycled’ yarn which I really like and is so nice to knit cables with. I’m not sure exactly what ‘recycled’ means. I do have a mental image of them scraping the floor of the mill to gather the fibre to make this yarn, but I guess that’s okay. It even has the odd sparkle here and there. Obviously unblocked as yet.

I’m still going on my Trapper Hat, but I’m not loving it. It is knit in flat sections and fully lined with the fluffy part. I’m doing it in a Jo Sharp aran tweed thing from years ago, and eyelash yarn. Man, that eyelash yarn is a bugger to work with! I’ll finish it, but my hopes are not high for this one.

Also on the needles, a birthday gift for someone special. I don’t know if the recipient reads this, so only a peek at that one for now. But I do really love this one. Despite the fact the cables are a trypophobic’s nightmare. I just don’t look too hard. 🙂

My next major project has been taking aaaaaages to pick. I chose the yarn first. It is Drops Nepal, a wool and alpaca blend.

M and I often compete to come up with vividly descriptive colour names, of the sort used by paint companies but usually kind of unpleasant ones, like ‘bile’, or ‘baby poo brown’. This one got away lightly, it is brussel sprout, because I put a brussel sprout next to it and it was a perfect match.

But I couldn’t decide on the pattern. I wanted a top down cable cardigan. There are some really nice ones, I like Hello Winter and Ingrid in particular. In the end I have picked one that is unfortunately worked flat, the Must Have Cardigan, an old free pattern from Patons.

It’s a boxy late nineties shape that I like. But I am using chunkier wool for a more dense finish, and changing the edging to a shawl collar (from the Gramps pattern) for extra warmth. I am aiming at getting this done for my mid-winter trip to Tasmania, that only leaves me 6 weeks.

I started it over the weekend. The cables are surprisingly easy to memorise, and I am absolutely in LOVE with the green. This one is a pleasure to knit, even flat. We shall live happily ever after together and I shall call him ‘Hobart Cardigan’, continuing my habit of naming things after the holiday destination they are knit for. Luckily I have no immediate plans to visit the more dodgily named Australian towns. Perhaps a Woodenbong Sweater. Or a Mount Buggery Cardigan. Maybe not a Diapur Jacket.

B