Cafe society

Item 5 for the Yarn Knit Along, Coffee Couture by Megan Longhurst from Yarn 6.

MATERIALS: Just under 50g of an 8ply recycled from an op-shop jumper.

ALTERATIONS: None, but I'm tossing up about picking up some of the side stitches and making a button placket for added warmth.

It's a lovely quick knit. Perfect for last minute gifts. Not that there's anything last minute about this one - it's a 2008 Christmas gift for coffee loving friends. Oh, and I've added the pattern to Ravelry if you want to queue it.

I had some help. One of the blokes at work wanted to learn to knit. He did most of a row of double rib.

A larger version for Dad's birthday on Thursday has been cast on. Fingers crossed I got the numbers right.

Vested Interest

The Jelly Belly Vest pattern by Jenny McElhinney from Yarn issue 1, December 2005.

SIZE: One size 12-18 months

YARN: 2 x 50g balls Nastro Four Seasons cotton/acrylic blend donated by Spidey, leftovers from one of her lovely creations. It's a weird yarn. 2 chains of different colours, in this case a pinky apricot and a cream that sit flat like a tape. Knits up pretty, though, and has an interesting texture.

ALTERATIONS: Knitted in the round to the underarms, then flat so there were only the shoulder seams to sew. Also, I used the same finishing on the armholes as the neckline instead of the pattern's double rib, mostly because I was concerned about running out of yarn. As it turns out, the concerns were well founded and I have a scant 4m left.

This is item four for the Yarn Knitalong. I goes in the box for the women's refuge.

Top that

Beanie 2007.127

My third project for the Yarn Magazine KAL.

Sarah Golder's Sock Topper from Yarn, issue 8 - the current issue. The yarn was left over from a pair of socks and was exactly the 25g called for - hooray, no more scraps! Bummer, I've got 9g left.The hat's very sweet and I'll be able to use those 9g somewhere, I guess.

Couldn't resist photographing it on my favourite hydrangea which Dad propagated from a cutting off his, now deceased, plant. Originally it came from a cutting taken from Mrs Norris, also deceased, the mother of a family friend. The glorious rain of the last few weeks has made the garden explode with blooms.

Star quality

A day's leave from work today to attend my nephew's Speech and Drama Class Concert.

Here he is - the one with his head on one side trying to work out why his aunt is photographing him through a beanie-in-progress.

He did a great job in the speech choir pieces and in the two-hander with his mate Adam. There's video footage, I won't bother posting it to You-tube - you can thank me later. ;p

Due to a communication error, Mum and I got to spend 3.5 hours at the school - that's 3" of a 4ply baby hat on 2.75mm needles. Some of the time I was taping performances, but most of it was knitting.

The whole primary school attended and the children were beautifully behaved - more so than the mother behind me who took several calls on her mobile during the hour and a half concert and chatted and drivelled while the children performed.

While we were over that way, popped into the Crafty Frog for leather thonging to finish the Christiane Collar - ta da!

Ditte Larsen's Christiane Collar from Yarn issue 7, Winter 2007. The yarn is a wool/ack blend reclaimed from an op-shop jumper. The colour is gorgeous and it has these little felty bits through it.

Finished off with leather thonging and boodle wooden beads.

In the bag

It's done - the first item on my list for the Yarn knit-along. See this post for yarn and pattern details. It's 4 repeats longer than the pattern and I put the eyelets in the second pattern repeat which gives a ruffled top.



Because this was a tape yarn I used it to make the ties as well.


I'm particularly pleased with the beads. The photo's not so hot, but I had wooden beads in exactly the right shades of orange and pink. No purchases were made to conceive or complete this project. Whacko!



And I've cast on my next KAL project, Ditte Larsen's Christiane Collar from issue 7, Winter 2007.

Yarn KAL

I don't join Knit-Alongs. They tend to be just too much pressure - knitting's meant to be fun and if I start putting deadlines to it, the fun dies and I stress badly. I don't mind setting myself goals, I just don't like the pressure of other people's expectations or the competitve drive that kicks in.

But when I saw that Kate was starting up a KAL to celebrate Yarn magazine and retiring editor Barbara Coddington, I decided I could cope. Read all about it here.

The idea is to knit a pattern from any or each of the 8 editions before issue 9 (hopefully March '08) is out.

I've got Buckley's of knitting 8 items by March '08, but I'm going to give it a go. Typically my first piece is not from any of the 8 paper editions, it's from the online sample issue. See, there's another reason I don't KAL - if I can't set the rules, I break them. That, and I'm a smart arse.

I'm setting some ground rules, though. I'll try and knit from each edition I haven't already knitted from and I'll use current boodle to complete each item. It would be really great if I could use some of the yarn I won from Yarn to knit a few. No telling how many items I'll make and my copies are already bristling with page markers. There's only one edition from which I'm struggling to find a pattern I really want to knit.

The first project, though - Barb's own Little Lace Bag. It's a sweet ripple pattern designed to make a pretty little evening bag. Thing is, though, I have about as much use for an evening bag as I do for set of iceskates. What I need is a little bag to protect the coffee mug I lug about to meetings etc. instead of using the plastic and sytrofoam usually on offer. So I’ve added a few pattern repeats and because I committed knitting sin number 2 (not reading the pattern the whole way through before casting on), I’ve put the eyelet row in the second pattern repeat.

I'm using Lang Moana, a Spidey leftover. It’s 50/50 cotton and acrylic. It’s making a dense fabric to protect my mug and washes well.I would have been finished but I cast on the second piece on the wrong size needle and was 1/3 the way through before I discovered the error.

So, anyone else up for the Yarn KAL? It''ll be fun. There's plenty of free online patterns or you can go over the the mag website and order back issues. Drop Kate a line kathrynthorne at hotmail dot com and she'll send you an invitation to the KAL blog.