Knitting

It must be a time of year thing (can't really say it's a cold weather thing as we've been having far better weather the last few weeks than we had all summer). Howandever, I've been knitting lots recently and really enjoying it.

I finally finished the scarf I started for myself in March. It's a pattern called mistake rib, which is with 20 stiches - row 1:knit 2, purl 1 and row 2: knit all, repeating those rows to the end. Of course I didn't realise that when you purl on a line you've been knitting you're supposed to bring the yarn over and so I have a mistake-mistake rib. Or maybe a reverse mistake rib? But it's pretty I think.


I've also made a couple of hats.
The dark one is Sirdar Denim Ultra, which is what I have a pattern for. The other one is a different wool called Gedifra Charme which was left over from what I bought to make a scarf for my friend when I was Germany (that one I knit as a proper mistake rib one). It's much smaller and I don't know how to size a pattern up so will need to figure that one out or else find a new hat pattern for less chunky wool. The range of colours I can get of the Sirdar isn't great and I'm bored with dark grey and dark brown hats.

And finally I've started two new scarves. One for my sister as a birthday present - I met her the other day for brunch and dragged her into This is Knit to choose some wool. Very much a girl after my own heart she went straight for the bargain bin and chose a nice Debbie Bliss merino dk in light purple and then proceeded to look longingly at a scarf which looked complicated. Good thing she was standing beside me or I might have bottled it. I didn't though and it turns out to be not too bad. I needed a couple of starts to get it right but it's going well now. It involves a lot of "yarn over" so it's good I'd figured out how to do that properly from my own scarf mistake already. I also dug out a few balls of Taos wool from Crystal Palace Yarns which I thought were really pretty and have started a similar scarf in that. Haven't decided who it's for yet but am liking it a lot so it may just be another one for me! Have loads more wool to keep me occupied now.

The Knitting and Stitching Show is back in Dublin on November 1 - 4 and I've just booked tickets. If I don't book ahead of time I never make it to these things so not only have I booked a ticket for the Saturday and Sunday, I've also signed up for workshops on Crochet, Continental Knitting (not actually sure what it is but was told it's knitting for left-handers and being a citeog that'll suit me alright) and Felt & Beaded Flowers. I meant to book on to the Knitting Flowers one but got all mixed up so decided to just leave it. Felting and beading will be interesting too and I can always see if there's a free space on the day for the other. I remember last year that I didn't really buy anything as I found nothing that I couldn't get any time from my normal suppliers at the same price (or less) so this year decided to use my budget for attending workshops instead. Anyone else in the area going to be there on the Saturday or Sunday?