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!

Cosy Leg Warmers

I have some leg warmers underway.  I'm doing my usual trick of slowing down to a complete halt when I have doubts about what I'm doing.  The problem this time is that my row gauge is so different to normal that I like to use measurements in my patterns rather than number of rows.  That's fine for "until you reach the armholes", but for stripes of about one inch, it doesn't work too well.  By the time my stripe measures an inch, what's still on the needle is going to add to the length, for each and every stripe.  It seems that making mistakes is a mandatory part of learning.  I'm learning a lot!  These leg warmers may end up a couple of inches longer than they are meant to be.  I should plunge on, and see if that still works OK for my daughter's legs.  Just scrunch them up a bit!  Extra warmth!  But no.  I crawl to a halt.  Must . . . . .  keep . . . . .  going.  If they need to be re-knitted that's fine.  Have I convinced myself?

I officially give up trying to show the true colour of these leg warmers.  There is a repeating purple stripe in these, but it looks a different colour in every stripe!  The miniscule viewer of my camera doesn't help.  The colour is actually better than it looked through the viewer.

If I can't reproduce the colour of legwarmers, I'll try our Liquid Amber.

Not bad!  The colours this autumn are absolutely gorgeous.  According to news reports, the season leading up to now has been perfect for producing these beautiful colours.  They certainly cheer up a grey day. :)
My Fair Isle Pullover is being test knitted.  The colours my testers have chosen are fantastic.  So bright!  I can't wait to see them finished.

If it looks like a sleeve cap…….

……it must be a sleeve cap.  All those calculations must be pretty well correct!  Well, one sleeve completed, blocked and fitted (with the aid of safety pins).  It seems OK!  The blocking has made an enormous difference to the piece.  When I’m finished the second sleeve, I’m going to photograph the blocked one and the non-blocked one side by side, to demonstrate the difference that blocking makes.  And this isn’t forceful blocking, it’s just laundering the piece as the finished garment will be laundered, and laying it out while still damp.

As usual, as I’m drawing to the end of one piece, my mind is jumping ahead to the next design.  DD2 has expressed interest in some arm and leg warmers.  I'm thinking about what yarn and stitch pattern to use.  I'm thinking of using the same stitch pattern on each, but to a different scale.  I've got a few ideas.  It will be the absolute wrong season to be working on these, but what the heck.  It’s nice to be asked for something, instead of knitting for myself all the time.  I’m loathe to knit items for people, unsolicited, as I don’t want to be pushing my interest onto others.  I’m very happy for people to ask for something.