Finished Knitting Rugs for the Bedroom

The Yarn

This yarn is a waste product created in the weaving of tweed fabrics in England.  Whilst at The Knitting and Stitching Show at Olympia in the Spring of 2014 I bought this yarn from Rachel John.  Rachel John is an extreme knitter, she knits large scale work mainly with multi-stranded yarn.  Her stand was full of blankets, rugs and cushion covers all knitted with multi stand yarn.  I had in the past knitted a multi strand scarf for my husband and started a blanket. I had started the blanket some years previous having seen Rachel John at a show in the past, however this blanket was massively eating yarn. So although the rug was beautiful, it lies forgotten at the back of my stash as I build up odds and ends to go into it.  When I saw Rachel John again at the show I mentioned this and she showed me this fabric edge yarn she had just started selling. This yarn seemed like a very cost effective way to knit the rugs I had already fancied knitting.

My intention was to knit a blanket or rug for use in the lounge of our houseboat. Rachel John told me that the yarn was pretty much fresh from the factory, and because it was a waste product it was a little dusty. She suggested washing it in the washing machine before winding it into balls.  I did this and ended up with the most almighty tangle.  So I sat down to watch The Killing with my husband and night after night was spent untangling it.  This was in April/May 2014, I knew we were moving at the end of May so once I had finished untangling this yarn I packed it away for the move.

In June we moved house, this house move would result in us spending a lot more time on our Dutch barge. The barge still had a lot of DIY work to be done over the summer.  Over the summer knitting got set aside whilst I made blinds and other such things for the barge.

 

Starting Out

In September as the temperatures cooled on the barge it became obvious that we would soon be in need of rugs. One particular concern was getting cold feet when getting out of bed.  I spent some time looking at rugs in Ikea and other high street stores. I could not find anything I liked but more importantly I could not find anything that was going to be narrow enough for down the sides of the bed in the main cabin in the barge.  I then remembered about the fabric edge yarn I had bought for the lounge.  Luckily the blue and grey colours would fit nicely in the bedroom, so I cast on.

I cast on this rug on September 28th.  I cast on 14 stitches on 24mm Knit Pro needles.  I then knit in garter stitch random stripes in the three colours I had.  Once I had used up half the yarn in each colour, this was about 40 rows I cast off. I then knitted another rug for the other side of the bed.

Finished

I knitted these two rugs in about 10 days.  They measure 40cm by 150cm.  They are well used and much loved now that it is cold.

Knitting in 2014

Late Xmas Presents for Niece and Nephew:

Last year my husband to be (Tony) bought me the book Animal Hats. For Christmas I decided to knit a lion hat for my niece and a frog hat for my nephew. I knew I would be seeing them after Christmas so I knitted these hats over the Christmas break.
Here they are as modelled by Tony and myself.

Birthday Scarf:

For Christmas Tony bought me the pattern and yarn to knit Stephen West’s fabulous Colour Craving. I cast this on, on Christmas Day and by the end of boxing day I was well into clue one and absolutely loving the results. By the New Year I had enough of this done to decide I wanted this done by my birthday, the 16th of January.

Design a Knitted Wedding Dress Fail:

Some time in January my now husband and I decided we wanted to get married on his birthday towards the end of April. I decided I wanted to knit my own wedding dress. What could be more amazing than designing and knitting my own dress for this momentous occasion. I had also found a competiton I wanted to enter my pattern into, the Love Knitting’s Britain’s Next Top Knitwear Designer.
So I got some of my favourite stash yarns and started experimenting. Unfortunately this didn’t really work out.

Britain’s Next Top Knitwear Designer:

Whilst trying to design my own knitted wedding dress I came up with an idea for a jumper I would like to knit. However I tried to focus on the wedding dress. Then our boat got evicted from the mooring we rented due to the land being sold. This meant we’d have to move the boat around the time we were going to get married, so wedding postponed. So decided to pursue the jumper idea. This jumper went on to be a finalist in the Love Knitting’s Britain’s Next Top Knitwear Designer.

The Colour Project:

After finishing the jumper I fancied knitting something chunky and colourful. I knew exactly where to turn to, Stephen West. Tony very much fancied the Penguono. I liked the idea of using this project as a stash buster for all my odds and ends. Between us we came up with the idea of having a fire (red) side and a water (blue) side. This was a super quick knit I think I got the bulk of it finished in a month. Weaving in all the ends and adding buttons took forever. I started wearing it without having the ends woven in, Tony didn’t want to wear it till it was “finished”. In the end Tony said it looked better on me. I have now worn this almost every day for most of the Autumn.

Another design flop:

For Christmas 2013 my brother bought me this gorgeous Rowan yarn. After finishing the Penguono I wanted to try and do my own design again. I thought this yarn would be lovely for something inspired by Game of Thrones character Sansa Stark. This once again didn’t result in anything. I seem to have a problem picking up my own designs. I really enjoy knitting and like to do it as a relaxation activity, I found that having to make design decisions and not seeing progress was not relaxing.

Knitted Rugs:

I went to the Olympia Knitting And Stitching show in the spring. There I saw Rachel John, she was selling fabric edge yarn for rug knitting. I bought some with the idea of knitting a rug for the lounge on the boat, however at the time I was knitting the Penguono so I stashed the yarn.
The bedroom on the boat is very small, we have a small amount of space on either side of the bed. As autumn was coming we decided we need some rugs so our feet didnt get cold getting out of bed. These rugs would need to be 45cm wide, and about 2m long. We set off to Ikea, we quicky realised that no one makes rugs to these dimensions. I then remembered I had this yarn stashed, and set to work on these rugs. Each rug was probably less than ten hours work, but they required a lot of time in prepping the yarn and were tricky to transport so I could only knit them at home.

Fixing up some old mistakes:

After my parents moved house I found this cowl I had knitted for my mum that never quite seemed right. When I found it i decided I should fix it up. I frogged everything other than the cable band and reknitted the rest of the collar in the round.

Leopard Print Scarf:

Some time in October I started to think about knitted christmas presents. I decided I needed to use up some stash yarns and decided to knit a double knit scarf in blue and purple. The black was added using duplicate stitch.

Christmas Present Knitting

A Scarf for Movember:
Enjoying the double knitting, at the start of November I decided to knit a “Movember” themed scarf. I decided that my brother’s girlfriend would love this.

Mouse Hat for Olivia:
Tony’s daughter wanted a mouse hat for Christmas.


Mittens for Kittens:
Matching mittens for Tony’s daughter, and mittens for my niece.

A Shark For Finn:
My brother said he wanted a shark for Christmas so I knitted him this one. I loved knitting this it was a very exciting pattern with a lot of technical challenges.

Last Minute Movember Mittens:
Mittens to match the Movember scarf, Love the Latvian braid on these.