Pattern Available - Bea Fair Isle Pullover

The pattern for the "Bea Fair Isle Pullover" is now available.

It's a lovely warm stranded pullover. The colour work is very easy, as there's only one contrast colour and one background colour for each motif. The yarn I've used is a Heirloom Merino Magic 8 ply, which has a fantastic range of colours, even though the one's I've used are fairly subtle. It's knitted flat, from the bottom up. A colour chart is included. This is my first foray into collars, and I love how this collar has worked out.

Bea Fair Isle Pullover
Knitting Pattern

Yarn Suggested: Heirloom Merino Magic 8ply or any other 8ply/DK yarn. 50 gram balls, 98m (107 yds)

Gauge: 24 sts = 4 inches in Stocking/Stockinette Stitch

Needle Size: 4mm

Meterage: 1470 - 1666 m (1608 - 1822 yards)
7(8,9) balls of main colour
2 balls of contrasts A, B and C
1 ball of contrasts D and E

Sizes Available: 84 (100, 117)cm, 33 (39¼, 46) in

This pattern is available to buy from Ravelry for $US 5.75

Ill Knit by Moonlight

Further to last weeks post, the pattern for these fingerless gloves, "Ill Knit by Moonlight", is now available. When I misheard the title of the movie “Ill met by moonlight” on late night TV, then a couple of weeks later read the obituary of one of the real life players in this WWII event, I knew this had to be the name of my next design. Perfect for your next undercover assignment.

They are nice warm fingerless gloves with an all over, small textured twist stitch pattern. The yarn used is a beautiful soft and warm Merino, Alpaca, Silk blend, Heirloom Silk Touch. The gloves are knitted in the round and have a thumb gusset. A stitch chart is included.

Ill Met by Moonlight Fingerless Gloves

Knitting Pattern

Yarn Suggested: Heirloom Silk Touch 8ply or any other DK/8 ply yarn

Gauge: 24 sts = 4 inches in Twist Squares Stitch

Needle Size: 4mm

Meterage: 199 m (218 yards )


This pattern is available to buy from Ravelry for $US 5.50

Fingerless Gloves completed and gorgeous.

Here are the completed Fingerless Gloves, looking gorgeous on their gorgeous new owner.  I'm in the process of typing up the instructions at the moment.  I learnt a few new skills with these -  Knitting into the back of the second stitch, and knitting fingers.  There's always something new to learn in this game. :)



I hope to have the pattern out in the next few days.  I'm glad there's some winter left for them to be worn in!

My next venture is a scarf knitted in a Mosaic stitch.  This is a pattern where two colours are used, but only one on each row.  By slipping stitches, or some other method, it looks like two colours are used on the one row, when only one has been used.  The particular stitch I'm using doesn't used slipped stitches, but knit into the stitch below.  This effectively drops a stitch to mix the colours.  It's easier than I thought it would be.  It's lots of fun having so many stitch types to try.  This is producing a fantastically light, soft fabric that will be great for a scarf.

I think I can... I think I can...

I'm limping along, step by step, to the end of these gloves.  There's nothing particularly difficult about them.  Once I'd worked out how to do fingers, the second glove should have been a cinch.  Maybe I've got second glove syndrome.  Or it could have been the school holidays.  I can't think of a really good excuse, so what the hell, I'll get there in the end.

The gloves are currently blocking, and hopefully will be dry enough to weave in the ends in the next couple of days.

I can hear True Grit (the old one) in the background which is slightly distracting.  It's hard to ignore John Wayne.

While I'm waiting, I'll be preparing a test swatch for another magazine submission.  My previous success has emboldened me to have another go.  This time I thought I'd try some fingerless mitts.  Might as well push my luck on the whole mitts/gloves thing.

Edward Scissorhands?

Am I making my very own Edward Scissorhands?  No, but this is very much what it looks like, I have discovered, when one knits gloves.  Even more so, when you have a half completed finger with three double pointed needles in it.  It's a fascinating process.  This glove is now complete, though not yet photographed as such.  It's taken quite a lot of glove pattern study, and quiet thinking and calculating time to work out how to do the fingers.  But it all makes sense when it's broken down.

These gloves may seem quite long, but that's how they should be, according to the teenagers in my life.

Legs are now warm!

The leg warmers are now complete.  I've decided not to publish this design, as it bears a remarkable similarity to a pattern my daughter found, to use as inspiration for these.  Even the colours used are similar.

She's finding that they slip down a little, so I'll probably put some hat elastic through the top of them.  I don't think they slip too much, but it won't hurt to do this anyway.

My next project is a pair of fingerless gloves for the other daughter.  She wants quite long gloves, and why not?  A nice smooth yarn was requested, and so I'd decided to go for Heirloom Celone, only to find that it seems to have dropped of the face of the earth.  I've found another Heirloom yarn, which seems even softer.
It's Heirloom Silk Touch which is exactly the same blend of fibres - 85% Merino, 10% Alpaca and 5% Silk - but not a crepe yarn as the Celone was.  I bought this at Mooroolbark Wool. 

Having already done a pair of fingerless mitts, I thought I had the whold Thumb Gusset thing down, but after three attempts at all the calculations, and still ending up with an unexpected number of stitches, I'm beginning to wonder.  Hopefully, all will be fine by my next posting.

One down, one to go

A leg warmer on the leg is worth two on the needles.  Well at least one leg can be warmed!  The length is fine, despite my anxieties.  This is a fantastic demonstration of how different a colour can look, depending on the colours it's beside.  There are four stripes of exactly the same purple in this.  As the variegated yarn changes, the look of the purple changes too.  I'm halfway through the second leg warmer, so there's not long to go till there are equal rights for legs.

I can't wait to get to the newsagents tomorrow morning for my copy of Yarn Magazine to see my first magazine published design.  How exciting!