Help me choose buttons!

 Kingscot needs closure(s). But should they be the iridescent glass ones at the top, or the green flower ones at the bottom? I like how the first ones echo the shape of the bobbles, and perhaps their more neutral colour would be more versatile. Then again, I love the contrast of the green... I need your help! Sometimes I think that choosing the buttons is the trickiest part of making a cardigan.

Kingscot Cardigan

I went on a riverside walk yesterday to see the Antony Gormley statues, pick some wild brambles, and take some photos of my finished (but still buttonless) Kingscot cardigan.

I am so utterly delighted with this new addition to my wardrobe, not least because it is the first sweater project I have finished since Audrey in Unst last November.

The design is a fine one, by knitting demi-god Norah Gaughan, with cables and bobbles inspired by gothic windows gently curving to shape the fronts, and rope-like cables snaking up the back. My one criticism is that it is supposed to be knit in many pieces - it even has you knit the button-bands separately then seam them to the body. I hate this kind of construction, so adapted the pattern to be entirely seamless apart from the shoulder seam (if you're interested in the technical details of that, I made quite comprehensive notes on my Ravelry project page).

The yarn is the smooth, soft Debbie Bliss Cashmerino DK in teal blue. This was, in fact, one of the first sweater's-worth of yarn I ever purchased, almost two years ago. I am now much more easily seduced by  hand-painted skeins, or small, independent producers, and I would be less likely to buy such a commercial yarn. I have to say, though, that it was a pleasure to work with (apart from the loosely-wound balls that fall apart as you knit from them), and produced an impressively even, snuggly fabric.

This yarn also featured in the stash pledge I made a year ago. I did break that pledge in that I bought more yarn, but actually haven't purchased any more in sweater quantities. I wonder if this is part of what has made me less enthusiastic about knitting jumpers and cardigans - that worthy but also ever so slightly dreary feeling of knitting from stash. Hmm... I appear to be justifying the buying of more yarn - this could end badly! [ETA: I've just realised this is a filthy lie - I did buy some yarn to make a cardigan and completely forgot about it! Probably a strong argument against buying more...]

I still have to decide on buttons for Kingscot - I may be asking your advice soon!

Cables and Bobbles and Teal, Oh My!

I have started work on sweater #2 of the six I pledged to knit from stash. This yarn (Debbie Bliss Cashmerino DK) is in fact the longest-standing tenant of the yasteroid; I am glad to see it finally moving out. The pattern is Kingscot by knitting wizard Norah Gaughan, a Gothic-inspired cardigan awash with cables and bobbles.

So far this has been a most entertaining knit: I am as eager to get to the next development in the cable panel as I might be to find out what happens next in an exciting book. It is amazing how complicated but interesting things seems to go so much quicker than easy but boring ones. The pattern is written for pieces, but I am knitting the body and twisted rib button bands as one piece to avoid seaming - a simple modification, though one that does involve a lot of flicking between different pages. I have been continually thankful that I  know how to cable without a cable needle: those on the back twist on every right side row (I have been enjoying listening to the song 'The Twist' by Frightened Rabbit while doing all this twisting of stitches). I have just split for the armholes, making it a bit of an unwieldy beast with three balls of yarn dangling off it, so I have also started a smaller, more portable project which I shall save for a future post.

Edited for spelling!

A Net!

After several arduous hours knitting my gift yarn in cafes in Spain...

... and a couple more in rainy Cambridge Annette is done! To underline the celebratory atmosphere of this occasion, I got my friend to take some photos of me in it outside Party Mania, the one-stop shop for all your plastic shark, anchor and mermaid needs.

This is an excellent pattern, and I'm still so excited to have snaffled this lovely yarn for free!

The only mods I made were to lengthen the sleeves, and shape the neck-line with short-rows and finish it with an i-cord bind-off. I am pleased with the smooth finish this gave, although it did lead to a little bit of pattern uncertainty where I picked up the wraps, as you may be able to see in this photo.

It's nothing I can't live with, however, and over all I am heartily pleased. Hooray!

Grumpy and travelsore

I have been, physically and figuratively, all over the place. Over the last twenty days I have cracked open Easter eggs in Edinburgh, visited my boyfriend in Madrid, been to an amazing hybrid Basque/Californian wedding in a town outside Bilbao, eaten a pizza in Pisa, walked on the beach in my grandfather's tiny village in Calabria, delivered a painting to Genoa, and, finally, limped back to Cambridge this evening. 

Apart from contributing to a fearsome carbon footprint and equally fearsome load of dirty washing, this journey gave me a lot of time to think, about this blog among other things. From now on, I intend not just to post about my completed knitted objects. Although I've been knitting A LOT recently (more on that story later), not only does 'Look! I finished something!' make for too infrequent an output for my liking, but I worried that it also could give a false impression of sporadic sterile success, without any of the messy, interesting stuff in between. I've just listened to the awesome Insubordiknit podcast, by a lady who spins blood red yarn with realistic, vein-y eyeballs, so things messy and interesting are on my mind.

I'm a little bit too sleepy to follow through on this at the moment, so I'll leave you with news that I am knitting two cardigans, both of them purple...