And another new project. . .

Well, I've started a new knitting project.
There's an odd reason I started it. Well, ok, not so odd for me.

You see, I realised the wool stash was getting a bit out of hand and so, while at IKEA, I purchased some storage boxes.
So, I got home and assembled and moth-proofed the storage boxes (including putting some lavender and lavender essential oil in the boxes) and started re-housing the wool and yarn.

There I was, happily transferring from boxes and bags to the nice new boxes and I suddenly came across these two cones of 4-ply herdwick wool I'd bought from Texere yarn mill on a whim - it's made specifically for outdoor garments and is also a bit hairy, though a pleasant gray marl colour. I remembered about a month ago, just a couple days after I bought it, I'd seen a moth crawling across one of the cones. I was quick and killed the evil little critter. But, remembering that moth made me pause and think "what if it managed to lay a couple eggs?".

So I pulled out both the cones and started thinking on what I could make. Luckily I'd used my brain and weighed the wool when I got it home, and the written calculations (rough ones, since I didn't know how much the cardboard cones themselves weighed) indicated that there was about 1450 metres per cone. I knew that was enough to make at least a sweater per cone.
But, I decided I wanted to combine/double the wool and maybe add something else so I'd get a winter-weight yarn (at least an aran weight) and be able to make something for winter.
I was lucky, and remembered I'd gotten 14 balls of deep purple Debbie Bliss DK merino in a sale (£1.50 per 50g ball - a fantastic deal).

I trawled the computer and found a pattern I'd downloaded for a serape-type wrap off the Berroco yarn Website (www.berroco.com). It was a plain pattern, actually developed for one of their fluffy synthetic yarns, but the swatch I did with the combined wools worked out to perfectly match the gauge of the yarn.
I decided to add a border pattern and I also thought it would be a perfect time to try out cabling, since I'd wanted to for a while. So, I added a simple cable, but I did three repeats of it so it would be a wide band. I pulled out a 5.5mm circular knitting needle (42" length), cast on 190 stitches and started knitting. I was VERY lucky and everything worked out fine.
I've just started the third ball of the purple wool and completed 9 1/2" in length - I've only got another 49 1/2" to go. *grin*

The picture above is primarily of the border pattern (a knit-purl weave effect) and the cable. Other than the border and the cable, the wrap is knitted in stocking stitch. It's slow going, but I'm having fun - and knitting cabling is a lot easier than I thought it would be.

One last thing - the picture isn't a photo. It's a scan. I could not, for the life of me, manage to photgraph the knitting. It's strangely reflective and the detail does not come out at ALL. So in desperation I popped the knitting into the scanner and it worked beautifully - the cable was nice and crisp and the colour only needed a tiny bit of adjustment. It's just a shame that the border pattern isn't clearer. Ah well, you can't have everything.

Until the next entry.

Well, nuts.

5 minutes into waking this morning, I realised with a shock that I'd made a mistake on the final measurements of the clapotis yesterday - I said they were 16 1/2" by 32".

I don't think a 2 1/2 foot scarf would work at all if it was meant to be a wrap, would it?

No.
So.
The clapotis measurements are actually 16 1/2" by 76".

Sheesh.

Until the next entry.

The finished Clapotis - finally.

Well, I'm back from Lichfield a week later than I originally planned for. I'm not going into details of what happened - it all went by in a bit of a blur to be honest and I don't want to tell it all again - once to my Father was enough.

So. This is a photo of the finished Clapotis, a bit worse for flash bleaching - but the draping looks nice. The clapotis has been roughly folded in half before draping over the chair and the excess folded (from the back)over the top of the chair again. The chevron effect of the dropped stitches is not intentional, but the right side sort of merges with the wrong side. Ok, that doesn't make sense, but I'm tired (it's 1am here in the UK).
This is a close-up photo (one of the VERY few I did manage to take of it) of the knit side of the clapotis in the early stages. It's here to give a comparison to the next photo.
This is a sort of close-up of the knit side of the finished clapotis. Though it isn't really possible to see, it did shrink a bit after washing. Yes, the colours did fade a bit as well - but not quite as much as it appears. The photo above was taken without the flash, while this one had flash.


The finished clapotis is 16 1/4" wide and 32" long. It's a bit too skinny, but surprisingly enough, it's perfect on the length. I say "surprisingly" because I had the sinking feeling as I was washing it that it was going to shrink more than it did.
Nice yarns.




Oh, one final note. It's not as slinky as I thought it would be, but it is nicely warm and the colours remind me of the surface of the ocean during a high tide.

Ok, got to go - the bed is calling.

Night.