Stripy Shellseeker cycling hoodie - DONE!

She sells sea shells?

It's finished, and I love my hoody, although my Shellseeker is not perfect, I learnt a lot. including my first attempts at off piste knitting, aka designing the hood. Other knitting techniques new to me were; 3 needle bind off, magic loop for the sleeves and applied i-cord! Next time I'd make a far better mark II hood now that I have worked out the construction! The top down construction of the whole sweater is ingenious, look mum no seams!

I blogged the start of my Shellseeker here. I used Drops Merino Extra Fine, and I can't recomend this yarn enough, I can only wear superwash, it's a far better price than other 100% merino brands and the colour spectrum is beautiful. I did order turquoise too, but a good knitty friend said that was not needed as too bright, funny how I have a turquoise T shirt on today! Perhaps I can use a colour like that for my next one? *

I was pleased with the red applied i-cord edging, I used 3 stitches so it's not too fat. I cannot get it to lay flat, I tried sort of blocking and sort of holding it flat whilst applying steam from the iron, but not touching.

I had not known about three needle bind off before either. what a quick and simple way to cast off and "sew" knitting together at the same time. Look how neat the seam is on the inside, you can also see how neatly the red applied i-cord attaches too.

This is the seam from the right side, every stitch perfectly matched up. 

Heidi's shellseeker just had a rolled unfinished edge but I picked up and added some 2x2 rib, I decreased a fair few stitches at the armhole seams on the first couple of rounds by starting k4 p4 on the sleeves and then reducing to k2p2. I then cast off the central front stitches and continued for the hood. I haven't blogged the mods as it's not great! 

I loved my stripe sequence but I did not like the evening spent sewing in three lots of all these ends, body and two sleeves, and then there were all the hood ones too! 

Self striping yarn would be my choice next time for many coloured stripes. The increases and decreases were harder as I didn't do the 2x2 stripe sequence recommended, if I had there would have been no need for a row counter and no ends. Heidi is so clever making the knitter's life easy.

The out takes! The back "flap" is a stripe longer than the front, I tried freestyling it to be much longer when on my bike but forgot the unseamed edge would just roll in, so it had to come out and I had to follow the pattern. These pattern designers do things for a reason!

The kangaroo pocket is a really useful value added feature of this pattern. I had flu really badly as I got to the pocket, and after 10 days I came back to working out the pocket construction from the pattern and was stumped. I couldn't picture it from the pattern. I thought I was wrong so I undid it. Stupid me, it was right! I searched Ravelry and found it wasn't just me, and the advice was to trust the pattern, do as your told and it will work out. The advice was spot on.

This is a sweater I'll take everywhere, abuse and love! If found abandoned on a garden bench please return to owner!

She Sells Sea Shells finished 20th February 2014 (took about 5 weeks but time out in the middle being ill)

YARN: 
Drops Extra Fine Merino DK 100% merino wool.
Light Grey Mix (05)
Denim Blue (13)
Light Grey Blue (19)
Green (18)
North Sea (28)
Red (11)
Mustard (30)
Pistachio (26)
Marine Blue 27
Purchased from Wool Warehouse

NEEDLES: KnitPro Symfonie circular 4mm

PATTERN: Heidi Kirmaier's Shellseeker

HAPPY KNITTY INDEX: 9/10 

PS *I love it so much I have cast on the next one in cotton bamboo, the morning after finishing She sells sea shells.....She's still seeking shells. See the turquoise was singing to me!

Shellseeker cycling hoodie or hoody - in progress!

I have made some more progress with my sweater, I am knitting Shellseeker by the talented Heidi Kirrmaier. I am using Drops Extra Fine Merino. I love this yarn, I used it for my French stripey throw and promised myself a sweater for me in it. Grey plus 8 colours, a ninth one has been rejected as being too bright. It's a superwash double knit yarn, so no hint of lanolin or itchy wool-itis, and it comes in lots of gorgeous natural shades and it is relatively affordable!

Shellseeker is a clever top down in the round construction with neat shaping...

..as you can see below, which cleverly incorporates the kangaroo pocket. Decreasing in the centre and increasing at the sides so the sticth number doesn't actually change but shaping happens! Now that pocket was a bit of a challenge, I had had flu badly and been in bed for ten whole days with no hope of knitting, and however hard I tried I could not fathom out the pocket logic. I googled and found others had the same problem. The solution...

...is to stop trying to imagine it and just follow the instructions exactly, and then it works. Even post flu befuddled brains can do it. I was so annoyed with myself as I undid it once when I had done it correctly...duh! Follow the instructions exactly as written and it works.

I am so proud of myself as, about a zillion years after everybody else, I also taught myself Magic Loop. I thought it was some extremely complicated clever technique for super advanced knitters requiring multiple classes to learn. It is extremely clever but super easy, knit anything in the round on one size circular needles. Google and watch a You Tube video for 2 minutes and anyone is an expert! I have just picked up the sleeve stitches from the holder in the pic above to knit magic loop. Now just to work out how you knit two socks at once.

The only problem with all these luscious stripes are the ends......I have sewn them all in except for the second sleeve I am just finishing off. 2 ends per colour stripe for the body and each sleeve Far wiser to use just two yarns as the pattern advises so the yarn can be carried up neatly! 156 ends, never mind a few grey ones too.....I have endititis.

French Stripey Throw - DONE!

As promised I'm back.

I finished my French Strip Throw. To be truthful I finished it back in June, and we have had a long hot summer (well for England we've had a lovely summer) and in all that good weather I never got around to photographing my dense, warm, cosy and soft French Stripey Throw! So here it is.

The story started a year ago when I splashed out on some gorgeous Garnstudio Drops Extra Fine Merino in my favourite colours, a light double knit pure merino wool. I justified the outlay as it was my birthday money. I then stashed it like a squirrel. Nothing unusual there for most knitters and hookers, but I do not store, I buy for a project and use it. I may not finish whatever it is but I always buy for a specific project and not in advance of starting, and certainly not without knowing what it is for and how much I need.

I knew I was making a throw and that was it, but the design cogitated in my head, with extensive "research" on Ravelry, aka how-to-make-an-evening-fly-past-and-achieve-nothing!! I finished my Rainbow Ripple and started and finished Cath Kidston inspired Granny and also mum's Christmas present Vintage Granny, the blanket wa vintage colours not that my mum is vintage!

Anyway, a bit more detail on how my French Stripe Throw was finally born, back in January. It seems ages ago when it rained and rained and rained for months. Here is my only update a couple of weeks later. Since then we have moved house and I've started a new full time shift-work job that is very physical. I am so ready each evening for a selfish half an hour or so of crocheting with my feet up.

As you can see in the pictures, we are getting around to doing something with our little estate garden. The vintage gazebo came from mum's garden in Cumbria 15 years ago, moved to Minchinhampton where it resided with a clematis crawling all over for 15 years, and I was determined it was coming to Bristol as there was nothing in the garden, it had to go into storage! A couple of weeks ago when I had Sunday off and it was a lovely day, the two of us dug the turf and bedded in the wood edging and bamboo strip so the grass can be mown up to the edge, and pegged down some weed matting. It's scary how much this landscaping lark costs. A huge crane lorry arrived on Friday morning and nimbly lifted a bag of slate chippings over the back wall. Then we had to wheelbarrow it round, as you can see I didn't get very far on my day off on Friday and got waylaid by photographing my blanket! it was finished yesterday though.

Anyway, back to the important things. As I explained previously, I had 9 colours and I decided on a very loose 'colour pattern' of 5 rows solid and then a variegated similar size stripe of different colours and then another solid stripe and so on and on and on. As it gets bigger you have to lug the whole blanket with you, great in winter but it gets a bit warm in summer. However, there was no joining-together-marathon either. There were a lot of ends and the ends were "dealt with" very religiously every 20 or so rows, I would lose the will to finish if I had all the ends hanging over me, literally.

The size was determined by the amount of yarn I had, early on I sent off for another 12 balls, so 40x50g balls in total approx. This pattern is yarn hungry and quite dense, I kicked myself for picking a dense design with the posh yarn. I just kept going until I reckoned I would be getting short on the border.

The border I worked by keeping the pattern the same (dc ch) and picking up down the two long edges, working a double crochet in each row and then a chain to work into on the following round with a 2 ch sp and 2 dc worked into the corners. 

 I did have a few issues with the wavy edges, and so I worked 2 decrease rounds in border rounds 2 and 5, clearly visible on the pistachio round, where I crocheted two stitches together every 10 stitches.

I didn't have the same amount of each yarn so tried to spread the colours evenly throughout, some had run out by the border.

I was a little frustrated that I had chosen a pattern that ate yarn, so it ended up a throw size for the sofa, and goes well with our soft furnishings in the living room, a cushion snuck outside to pose!! It is gorgeous yarn, but being 100% wool I will worry about it more than the Stylecraft blankets that can be abused. I have no reason to believe that the Drops yarn won't wear well, I only worry because I spent so much more on it than usual.

French Stripes Blanket finished 14th June 2013, it took me six months as I started on Boxing Day

FINISHED SIZE: 160cm x 135cm including the border that ended up as 9cm

YARN: Drops Extra Fine Merino (Light DK weight 50g balls)
#15 Light greyish green 2 balls
#19 Light grey blue       6 balls
#20 Dark blue              4 balls
#21 Purple                   4 balls
#13 Denim blue            6 balls
#14 Steel blue              6 balls
#22 Medium purple      6 balls
#26 Pistachio               6 balls
#01 Off white               2 balls

HOOK: 4mm

PATTERN: Beach Stripe Surf Blanket from Kristen's Cozy Things blog
Inspiration came from the talented Cathy at Clicky Needles which led me to Kristen's blog. Oh how time is wasted artistically inspired blog hopping!

HOOKY HAPPY INDEX: 8/10

French Stripe Throw The Beginning

Update 1

Update 2

Update 3

One-a-Day 8th Jan 13 Tuesdays Tallies

Happy New Year! Yes I know I am a little late with Tuesday's Tallies, but New Year's Day itself was a little too early for a Tuesday's Tallies progress post, unless we were totting up the empties, or in my case ripped out rows due to missing a stitch the night before!

How many of us have started a new project, and how many of us are determined to finish their WIPs BEFORE starting anymore?! I managed to finish my Vintage Granny in time for Christmas and have been immersing myself in a self indulgent project with Drops Merino Extra Fine aka "posh" yarn. It is stripey so hopefully I can say 2-5 rows a day. I have done around 75 rows in the last couple of weeks. Here is my French Stripey Throw story to date.

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I do have a few concerns, mainly "will I have enough yarn?" but fortunately it is a pattern I can just keep on going until the yarn runs out. It is 110cm wide and measuring about 35cm to date and I have used about 8 balls of my 28 balls. I think I may need more! I am wondering if the wisdom of this dense pattern was wise with my posh yarn but it's too late to rip now as I have sewn in so many ends. I am determined to keep up with my ends this time.

What are you working on? Even if the aim is a square or a strip or a few stitches every day then progress builds over time. all are welcome to join in even if this is your first or thousandth project,  we can all enjoy our projects and be inspired.

I made bagels for the first time at the weekend, it was really strange to boil dough before baking but they turned out OK, if a little misshapen! They tasted great

See you next week. Happy knotting.

French Stripe Throw - the beginning

A New Year and a new project. This one I have been anticipating for some time as I bought the yarn with birthday money back in September. Choosing the yarn and then deciding what to make with it has kept my brain occupied much of the time I have spent working on my Vintage Solid Granny Throw that was finished in time for Christmas, phew!

Since rediscovering crochet and knitting in the last couple of years I have used Stylecraft Special DK for almost everything, especially crochet throws. I have loved working with it and although I am very satisfied with the look and feel, I have had a hankering to use "posh" yarn, as so many others do and somehow their projects look so special. I would love to try something like Debbie Bliss Cashmerino or Rowan Cashsoft but at over £5 for a 50g ball there is no way I could justify even hankering. However, I had seen Drops yarn, and knew their yarn was far more reasonable. When the autumn sale was announced I pounced. I purchased Drops Merino Extra Fine in 9 colours from the fantastically helpful Wool Shed. They scoured their stock, waited for a delivery to come in, and sent exactly what I needed in 2 parcels optomised for postage, 28 balls in total. I went with a mixture of blues and heathery tones reminding me of French lavender fields and the sea. 4 balls each of 5 colours and 2 balls each of 4 others. The washable yarn is so soft and 100% merino wool, a light double knit weight. It is good value at £3.10 for a 50g ball, but I managed to secure the 25% off sale price. So it is over twice the price of acrylic but not 5 times the price!

This is what I am making, stripes, lots of stripes, inspired by Clicky Needles' Beach Stripe Surf Blanket

The idea is just to keep on going as long as the yarn lasts, the pattern is 1dc 1 ch, then the next row you work the double crochet into the one chain space and then a chain, so it all interlocks and gives a lovely dense yet flexible fabric which is soft and very warm.

Garnstudio Drops Merino Extra Fine L to R: 15 Lt greyish green:14 steel blue:01 off white:22 med purple:21 purple:13 denim blue:20 dk blue:19: lt grey blue:26 pistachio

The photos are washed out, although it hasn't rained that much today we have had enough of dank, miserable and wet weather around here the past few weeks, it's hard to get decent photos even in the conservatory!

I will be back on Tuesday to restart the One a Day crochet-a-long (cal) for the New Year, this is my project. Hopefully the weather will cooperate for some much nicer photos.

I will leave you with some inspiration, Kristen's original Beach Stripe Surf Blanket from her lovely Cozy Things Blog.

Edited to add, here is my French Stripey Throw finished!