Blanket from coned yarn

Recently,  I collected a lot of yarn from a family in Bristol.  They had very kindly donated the yarn stash belonging to a recently deceased family member to Loving Hands.  I brought the yarn home, sorted it through and shared it out with other Loving Hands members and groups.  For reasons of postage costs, I kept most of the coned yarn to use up myself.

The problem with coned yarn is that it is normally very fine - it is, after all, designed for use with knitting machines, not for hand knitting.  A lot of cones are very large too - some of these weighed around the one kilo mark.  In my experience, the best way to use it when working by hand is to put several strands together.  So I set out to crochet a blanket using four strands of yarn at a time with a size 6.00 hook.

I chose 2 different combinations of yarn, and made each granny square 12 inches by 12 inches.  24 squares were joined together using slip stitches to make a blanket 6 feet by 4 feet:

To edge the blanket I did one round of dc in the paler combination, then one round of crab stitch (AKA reverse dc) in the darker combination.

The blanket weighs 1.4kg and is very warm (that's said with feeling, having had it on my lap most of the day while I crocheted the border and darned in all the ends!).

And despite using 1.4kg of yarn, there is still an awful lot left on 3 of the 5 cones I used!  At least 2 were almost completely used up.  Now I need some ideas for projects to use up more of the cones.

Back to the Fifties (or earlier?)

After my mum died, I found her knitting patterns in a neat pile.  Many of them were from the eighties, when she had recently retired and had time on her hands, so did a lot of knitting.  I found the pattern for her favourite jumper, which she knitted for herself at least four times.  I found the patterns for jumpers she had made for me, including an aran jumper that I remembered so well.

I also found some patterns for boy's jumpers which date back to the 1950s or beyond. My brother was born in 1946, and there are lots of childhood photos of him in hand-knits.  I was very taken with this pattern:

I love the happy looking boy with his goalie's jersey and leather football!  The black and white photos and the price make it likely that this was printed in the 40s or early 50s (the price of 3d is just over one penny in today's money).  I remember a school photo of my brother around the age suggested by the pattern wearing a button-necked jumper with a collar, so I chose "Tich" (although my brother was 6 feet 5 inches, so I don't suppose he was ever a 'tich'):

So this is my latest boy's jumper on the needles:

The pattern is designed for Bairns-wear Heather Mixture which of course no longer exists.  I googled it to no avail, but as it was knit on size 9 needles (that's 3.75 in metric) I chose a thinnish Hayfield DK from my stash which is 80% acrylic and 20% wool.  I went with 4.00 needles, and, as expected, it is coming up slightly larger than the pattern suggests.  But it is a very satisfying knit, garter stitch with purl ribs.  Let's hope I finish it quicker than I finished the previous boy's jumper!

No longer a work-in-progress

A while back I posted pictures of some jumpers that had been on the needles for a while.  This was one of them:

I am delighted to say that, about a year after casting it on,  I have finally finished it:

It is knitted from a pattern that I made when my children were small, and I've really enjoyed the variety in it.  Having 4 different patterned sections to knit has made it interesting and a bit challenging - I found myself having to pull back rows because I became a bit blasé about reading the pattern properly at times.  The main colour is Copper, in Stylecraft special DK.  I was a bit afraid that the colour would be overpowering, which is why I did the rib and pattern bands in a contrast.   I'm feeling rather sorry that it's finished, although I don't think I'll be casting on another just yet!

My goal was to complete 12 boy's jumpers in 2016 - it's the end of April and I have completed 6, so I am well on target.

Twiddling!

Last week a lady from the Alzheimer's Society came into the scrapstore.  Our local branch are preparing a display of 3000 knitted and crocheted forget-me-nots to go on Weston's pier during Dementia Action Week in May.  She was looking for something to use as a backing to display the flowers.

 We got talking, and I mentioned that I had made a couple of twiddle mats and a twiddle muff.  These are used by people with dementia to keep their fingers and hands busy and stop them picking at their clothes.  I offered to show her some, and asked for her input on whether I have got the activity level right.  So on Saturday I got the sewing machine and my box of bits out, and started twiddling.

These two are ones that I made a while ago:

The top one is rather 'loud' in that there are lots of different patterns and textures, but there are lots of things to discover, including the crocheted dog who lives in a pocket.  The fleece muff in the lower picture is very soft and comfortable to have over my hands, but the standard of sewing is sadly very poor because I got the dimensions and construction of the muff totally wrong - and on top, my sewing machine decided it didn't want to sew through several layers of fleece.

For the ones I made on Saturday, I used an old valanced bedspread that I had bought in the scrapstore.  I started with the intention of making a muff, but again, got the dimensions wrong, so I ended up with a long and narrow mat.

There are lots of things to fiddle with, including metal buttons on a thong and a large bead underneath the fleece heart on the right, which can be pushed around within the shape.

Not to be defeated, I cut out yet another piece of the quilted bedspread to make a muff.  More success this time, and as you can see, there are lots of things to twiddle with both inside and out.

I hope to get some feedback on these this week from the Alzheimer's Society, and then I can make some more.

Experimenting with colourwork

I don't often knit with chunky yarns, and I don't think I have ever bought any, but I found I had several part balls of chunky in my stash - I think it could be part of the breeding programme that seems to go on in my yarn cupboard if I leave it closed for a few days!

I picked out white, green and lavender, and felt there was enough for a scarf, so off I went, knitting on size 6.00 needles.  I chose a broken rib pattern because it offers stretchiness and texture as well as interest to what can be quite a boring accessory to knit.

The scarf turned at just over 4 feet long.  It's very warm and drapes well, and should be suitable for a 6-8 year old child.  Apparently the rule of thumb for scarves is that they should be as long as the child is tall.

There was still some of the yarn left, so I thought a hat would be good too.  But frankly, knitting the scarf had been a bit boring, even with the rib pattern, so I thought I would go for something a bit more challenging in the hat.  Opting for basic colourwork, I used the lavender for the brim, then started rounds of alternating coloured stitches.  The first round was one green stitch, one white stitch, then the next round was one white stitch, one blue stitch.  This is the effect it produced:

I was particularly pleased because I finally got the hang of holding one colour in each hand while knitting - a really important skill for fair isle and similar knitting.  I also got the tension reasonably right, so that the yarn behind the stitches doesn't pull, but forms a good insulating layer.  This will be one warm hat for whoever gets it via Operation Orphan.

There was just enough yarn left at the end to make a pompom!

This is the completed set.  Does it look like a set?  I'm not sure that it does, but it doesn't really matter.  Incidentally, the scarf is doubled in the photo, which is why it doesn't look very long.  So far this year I have now made 14 hats towards my target of 52 - just about right for mid-April.

Childhood reminder

When I was a very little girl, in the mid 1950s, women and, to an extent girls, still wore hats when they went out.  Thinking about it, the men did too, mainly tweed caps or trilbies.  I remember that my mum had a couple of knitted hats which she wore regularly when she went into town to shop, or when she went to church or to women's meetings.

My hat that I wore to Sunday School each week was a knitted pale lemon beret made from angora wool, so that it was soft and fluffy.  Mum had pinned a small brooch in the shape of a celtic harp made of coloured enamel, to the front of it.  Oh, how I loved that hat!  It was never a problem to get me to wear it.  I'm not absolutely certain who knitted it, but it could well have been Auntie Elsie, one of mum's older sisters (mum was one of 12), who didn't have children of her own so semi-adopted me.  I used to go on holiday with her and her husband for two weeks in Cornwall each summer (during tern time!), and I spent much of my school holidays staying with her.  She was an expert craftswoman who encouraged my knitting, and taught me to crochet.  She knitted and crocheted, but her speciality was embroidery, and I still have several tablecloths adorned with her work.

All of this came flooding back when I was given some brushed acrylic yarn.  I scrolled through Ravelry to choose something to make, and came across a pattern for a child's beret.  Crocheted, not knitted, but I just had to have a go at it.  And this is the result:

It isn't as fluffy as my beret was, but it is soft and I am sure will be very warm.  The front post crochet  'ribs' give a lovely structure to the hat.  Now I need to find a small brooch to pin to the front of it!

Finished Objects

Gosh, two posts in two days!  This must be a record!

I had a good day yesterday, finishing off some items that had been on the go for a while.

Firstly, there was this little newborn hat, knitted on circulars with a feather and fan pattern:

I'm not normally very good with lace patterns because I get a bit over-enthusiastic with yarn-overs and end up with way too many stitches and holes in wrong places. But this one worked well, and produced a very dainty-looking hat.  This is the pattern I followed; I did a rolled stocking stitch brim rather than the garter stitch brim suggested by the pattern.  

The other finished garment is this little boy's cardigan, which I am counting towards my 12 boy's jumpers for the year: 

It is a Stylecraft pattern which is available for free on the Deramores website - their free patterns are well worth checking out.  The double contrast stripes in the rib add a really smart touch to this cardigan.  This is the smallest size of the pattern (6-12 months); I'm also knitting the largest size - well, if you have read other posts you will know that I find it hard to finish a garment without having started something else in the meantime!