@junipernine rocking his #wip please Penguono #westknits...

@junipernine rocking his #wip please Penguono #westknits #knitting via Instagram http://ift.tt/1mdxqHj

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Progress on the Penguono for @junipernine #knitting #wip...

Progress on the Penguono for @junipernine #knitting #wip #westknits via Instagram http://ift.tt/UVAZZ3

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My first #knitting pattern on sale on #Ravelry “asymmetric...

My first #knitting pattern on sale on #Ravelry “asymmetric tunic” the other arm. via Instagram http://ift.tt/1lHMKag

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More colours in my Penguono for @junipernine #knitting #wip...

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First #knitting pattern for sale on #Ravelry via Instagram...

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My First Ever Pattern is for sale on #ravelry

You can buy the pattern here: Asymmetric Tunic

Penguono for @AnthonyDawson. #westknits #wip #knitting via...

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What colour next on my Tonyono a Penguono for @anthonydawson via...

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@Love_Knitting competition "Britain’s Next Top Knitwear Designer" Finalist

In late January I started a top secret knitting project and for once I kept it off the Ravelry radar.

I am going to knit myself a wedding dress!!!!

I sketched out some ideas and decided to experiment with some cabling.  Then we lost the venue for our wedding and had to move our Dutch barge, Morgenster that we had been renovating.  Given the wedding was delayed, somehow my idea morphed from a dress to a jumper with no cables.

I was reading Knitty Blog's WWW which mentioned: Britain's Next Top Knitwear Designer Competition that Love Knitting were holding this year.  By this time it was mid February  The deadline was the end of April.  I had nothing on the needles, 12 balls of Sirdar Softspon DK and the fragments of an idea for a unique jumper.

In January I had knit Colour Craving a garter stitch shawl shaped using yarn over holes.  I had really enjoyed the ease and speed at which this shawl took quite an unusual shape. This would be the technical inspiration for my jumper shape.

So with excitement and a reason to get my knit on I cast on...

Some time later I had a pair of sleeves and a yoke like none I'd seen before.

I thought about stopping here and calling it a cropped top.  I decided I'd never wear it, it needed to be longer in the body. 

I picked up stitches in the selvedge and joined to knit in the round. I didn't want to slow progress by knitting in garter stitch in the round.  My purling is still not as fast as I'd like.

When the shortest side reached to waist length I again thought about stopping.

I cast off!

After a few days of looking at it I still knew it needed to be longer for me to get much wear out of it. 

I really liked the seamed look I had created by picking up from the garter stitch selvedge so following the same approach I picked up stitches.

I decided to switch back to garter stitch so as to avoid the stockinette roll.  Embracing the asymmetrical I decide to add in a new slant. 

I knitted a whole heap of garter stitch for the slanted hem, in record time. The deadline was getting closer...

I tried it on the dummy... success I love it, it looks great on the dummy and vaguely resembled the idea I started out with.

It was now April 20th, I had kept jotted down notes as I went, but I hadn't typed them up as a pattern.  A few days later I finally forced myself to buckle down and write up my pattern, a couple of days after that and I was happy enough with my write up. 

Only a few things left to do, cast off, sew up and try on.  Casting off went quickly.  Sewing up a doddle, I hate sewing up so I had designed the pattern to only require one tiny seam on the kimono arm. 

I tried the jumper on, STILL NOT LONG ENOUGH for me to love it.  On the shorter side it came down to my hip bone, which was fine for a top, but I really like my garments long. It looked beautiful over a dress, just not quite right with jeans. 

As the end of April was upon on me and I loved the garment, it was flattering on a size 14-16, just not so much on me as a 16-18.  I submitted it as it was.

Watch this space, I may just make an alternate hem for the original pattern...

@westknits coordinating my hair with my knitting

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Frog hat knitted for my nephew modelled here by @anthonydawson

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Progress shot of my Penguono from #westknits

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2013 in Knitting

Towards the end of 2012 I picked up knitting again having had a year or so off. 

I went to a craft fair some time ago and saw the work of Rachel John. Rachel worked with multiple yarns at a time on very large needles to create large scale pieces of knitting such as rugs and blankets.  I bought some very large needles from her at that craft fair and started knitting a blanket holding 6 or more chunky yarns at once whilst knitting on 24 mm needles.  This project gradually got shelved as I realised the cost of yarns that would go into it.  However it lurks at the back of my stash hoping to eat up ends of balls.

My boyfriend saw the half finished blanket in my collection and when I suggested I knitted him a scarf he knew he wanted something as impressive.  I knitted the scarf below on 15 mm needles holding 6 varying weights of yarns. I chose a simple brioche rib to give the scarf a lovely squishy texture. In the end I reckon this scarf used about a kilometre of yarn.

I was rewarded for my efforts on the scarf with an amazing book on Turkish sock knitting for Christmas.  This was the push I needed to finally finished the Turkish socks I had started a long time ago.  The book included lots of pattern inspiration and quite a few charts that I incorporated in the legs of these socks. The book also detailed the method for a very traditional braided cast off.  This cast off created a neat non-rolling, two colour cuff to these socks. 

I knitted myself a sleeveless jumper freestyle from some gorgeous Colinette wool, Graffiti in colour way Cezanne.  Hopefully one day I will upload pictures to my ravelry project.  I suspect I will frog this jumper at some point and knit something looser.  This is quite a fitted sleeveless jumper knit mainly in stockinette with a cowl neckline and a racer back. The yarn although gorgeous is very bulky and does not really lend itself to being fitted.  I think I will frog this and create a cropped jacket.

My main knitting achievement this year has been knitting my first every sleeved jumper. Tony's Holey Grey'l Jumper. This jumper was knitted from a raglan tutorial whilst incorporating ideas from another pattern for a hole detail on a purl row of a mainly stockinette jumper. Below is a picture of this jumper as a work in progress.  Once again I haven't taken finished photos of this.  I finished this jumper with a braided cast off like the one used on the tops of the Turkish socks.  This introduced a small smidgen of colour on the hem, cuffs and neck edge.