hand-dyed cardigan in progress

hand-dyed cardigan fronts, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

This is what the little strip of knitting in the last post has grown into. Onto the back next.

a pile of hand-dyed yarn

a pile of hand-dyed yarn, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

Terrible photo cos all I've got is PhotoBooth on my Mac (anyone want to buy me a digital camera for my birthday?). But here is the yarn I dyed with Rosie last weekend.

I'm turning it into a cardigan, or more likely the body of a cardigan in stripes of the different yarns. The narrow vertical stripe is to make the most of the short colour sections in the rainbow coloured yarn I dyed. I didn't like the mixture of colours when I wound it into a ball, but when they line up they're gorgeous. So, this is my first garment sized intarsia project (does it count as intarsia if it's all in one stripe?). I tried out my technique on a little hat last week. The bottom has a knitted in hem to keep it neat (first time I've done that on a large garment too, though I've done it on socks). I think I've got enough yarn to make 2 fronts and a back, with some left over to do little stripes on the sleeves. I'm not sure what the sleeves will be made from yet. Something plain, maybe more off-white aran, though I've not got many balls that match, or maybe something else. I'm basing the pattern on the Go-Everywhere, go with everything cardigan (Ravelry link) but since I've already deviated from that by changing the gauge, adding stripes and a hem, and will probably add a little waist shaping, it's really only a guide.

little tiny hats

little tiny hats, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

I've been knitting tiny little hats for smoothie bottles.
They're for Innocent's Big Knit campaign.

You knit little hats, send them to Innocent, they put them on bottles and 50p goes to Age Concern for every be-hatted bottle sold. I meant to knit hats last year and the year before and never got round to it. This year, I've got nothing else to do (apart from looking for a job) so I'm doing something useful with my spare time and woolly leftovers.

(pic is reversed cos it's taken using Photo Booth)

hello there

Daddy's hat - front, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

Long time no knit! Sorry. Life got busy and I'm camera-less. Apart from the web-cam on my new (ish) Mac.

I have been knitting. There are various things in progress. And here's one I've just finished. It's a hat for my Daddy. I say finished, I've haven't woven in the ends in yet and he hasn't tried it on yet. But it looks like a finished object, so I thought I'd blog it.

Pattern: Greenery Hat by Lilith Parker

Needles: 4mm circs

Yarn: 2.5 balls of random off-white aran wool or wool blend from my grandma's stash.

Modifications: Increased to 120 stitches (one extra cable repeat round). 30 rows of ribbing for a big turn-up.

Notes: The pattern's well written, although I wish it had charts. Could always have made my own, I suppose. Once you get into it, the cable pattern becomes logical and I didn't really need to refer to the directions, except when it came to decreasing. All the decreases are written as k2tog. I switched some to ssk because I thought it looked neater. It's an easy pattern to tinker with, e.g. deciding on the amount of ribbing, adding or decreasing the number of cables horizontally or vertically to change the size. I'm toying with the idea of knitting a baby-sized one in 4-ply, or maybe the Calmer I've still got left over from Shedir.