The Shard Hat is now available

Looking for a quick holiday knit? Or are you a beginner wanting to venture into hat territory? If so, The Shard Hat is the pattern for you.

Worked in a knit-purl pattern from the ribbing up, this unisex hat is simple to knit, yet has enough going on to keep things interesting. You can also knit this hat up in anything from sport to aran weight yarn - the size is adjusted by changing the gauge. The small size is suitable for children, while the medium and large sizes are perfect for adults.

Pattern is presented in both written and charted formats. It requires approximately 125 yds/114 m yarn and needles in the appropriate size for the gauge. Many thanks to my brother, Kew Gardens and some early snow for the photo shoot, and my test knitters, knucna, tinpins, lemonsong and mrsmommy, for their help and suggestions.

To purchase, click below - the pattern is available through my Ravelry store, but a Ravelry membership is not required.

The Shard Hat, $5.00

FO: Handspun Northman Mittens

I can't remember if I did this last year or not (I don't think I did), but this year I've decided that, in the face of just over three weeks to Christmas, and a lot of gift knitting that must be done, thereby obliterating any other potential blog fodder, I am going to do the FO posts as the Os are Fd (so to speak). Otherwise I'll be forced to post a picture of my narrow escape from Sleeve Island and that will stay at the top of the blog for the next few weeks. And that's not what any of you want to see - grey cables are not very interesting photo montage material. So without further ado...Present #1 (that I'm blogging about in December - some of the others have already been mentioned and won't be revisited).

Pattern: Northman Mittens by David Schulz of Southern Cross Fibre fame
Yarn: For the outer mitts - handspun pencil roving from Artisan Threads, in natural white and naturally dyed teal, approximately 135 yds teal and 80 yds white. Also some handspun brown BFL for the cuffs, left over from the Norwegian Snail Mitten extravaganza last year - no idea how many yards. For the lining - 120 yds of handspun BFL singles that were dyed by me with Burgundy Jacquard Acid dye.
Needles: US 4/3.5 mm for outer mitten, US 5/3.75 mm for lining.
Gauge: Outer mitten: 6 sts/inch, lining: 5 sts/inch.
Start/finish: 28 October - 29 November 2010. They would have been done faster, but I had a wait of about a week and a half while I tried to get some more teal pencil roving, and then I had to spin and dye the lining yarn.

Comments/mods: Let's start with modifications: besides using handspun instead of commercial yarn, absolutely none. This pattern was a joy from start to finish - well written, nicely laid out, with gorgeous pictures and fantastic charts.

I like the purled cuff quite a lot - using two strands of yarn for alternate purl stitches creates an interesting texture. The pencil roving had a bit of lanolin left in it, and the rustic yarn made for a slightly scratchy outer mitten, but the lining solved the itch factor. And Gill at Artisan Threads was very helpful in procuring me another ball of the teal roving when I ran out (I may have even gotten some more of the white roving too. Just to have on hand, you know).

I really like the lines and patterning on the thumb gusset.

I even managed to remember to switch charts for the left and right mitten, so the amount of swearing involved in the completion of this project was greatly reduced.

For the lining, I spun a singles yarn because I thought that some feltability might be a good thing for mitten lining. And the Spintelligence Fibre Club has me in a singles spinning mode these days. This yarn was spun at 6.25:1 and soaked in hot water until it cooled (overnight). It then went in the dye crockpot with a 2 DOS burgundy dye solution (volume dye/weight of fiber) for a couple of hours. I let that cool overnight, and the dye bath was largely exhausted the next morning.

The BFL made for a soft and squishy lining, and my inability to loosely tie my skeins led to a Malabrigo-esque kettle dye job. Result! So these are destined for some lucky someone somewhere with cold hands. Any one want to predict who? There might be a prize in it...

Things I've been meaning to blog about but haven't

You know how you'll be going along, happily finished objects and writing up little synopses with pretty pictures, and everything will be fine and dandy until...

...you realize that there are five finished objects that haven't been blogged in final form, nor even mentioned since you cast them on. Oooops!

For the very first time ever Once again, I find myself in said situation. Here is the quick and dirty rundown.

Neglected FO Number the first: my gorgeous, lovely Cadence pullover.

Sorry for craptastic nighttime photo, but it's almost December and it's the UK. It's dark at 4:30 pm.

I knit this up in nine days out of Artful Yarns Serenade (a cotton/angora blend). I was a bit dubious about the shaping of this sweater - to be more precise, the lack of shaping. As someone who bears a striking resemblance to either a pear or a warped board (slightly curvy) depending on the angle, I wasn't sure that a silhouette that tapered toward the bottom hem was going to be anything even remotely resembling good. Imagine my surprise when I found that with a bit of negative ease, it actually works quite well.

My only complaint about this project has nothing to do with the pattern and everything to do with the yarn. The yarn is soft and lovely, and seems to have a bit of resilience not normally found in cotton yarns, which is a very good thing. However, this particular yarn is extremely friendly, and prone to leaving bits of itself everywhere. And I mean everywhere - I need to lint brush myself a couple of times a day when I've got this thing on. Never again with the angora!

Not-quite-so-negelcted FO Number the second: Devil's scarf.

Yarns were recycled from some ancient Goodwill treasures, and I vaguely followed the pattern for Marty. I ended up knitting a big tube for this, because I didn't want it to curl and I wanted to knit her name on the back to hopefully prevent it's being lost within the first two weeks of use. It's nice and thick and warm and soft, and she's been quite pleased with it - blue to match her school uniform, but a softer, paler blue which she seems to like.

I've also got an Aran Necklace camisole to talk about, but that one requires some surgery to become wearable-without-being-arrested, so I'll save that process for another post. Ta ta!

The power of the tweet

You, dear reader, may or may not be aware that I've got a sitemeter for this page. Every week I get an email report of how many visits I've gotten. I put it on initially just to see how many people were showing up, but it turns out that I can see where my visitors are geographically, where they arrive from (if they come from another page for example), when during the day they visited. It's all very interesting, but I honestly don't pay too much attention to it other then to check and see how many visits I've gotten in the last week.

Imagine my surprise, therefore, when I opened up my report a couple of weeks ago to find this:

And then today, opening up another report to see this:

Apparently, there are little web gremlins running around searching for particular keywords (in this case I suspect The Shard and Putney), and alerting their handlers, resulting in a tweet about some random knitting pattern, and lo and behold - I hit the sitemeter jackpot.

It's all a little Case-Molly the Razorgrrl-Neuromancer, but given that my previous readership is about 50 hits a week, many of which are members of my immediate family, I'm thrilled to bits that more people are visiting. So, to all of you folks who have wandered over to this corner of the knitting blogosphere - welcome! I'm awfully glad to have you here. The red wine and chocolate is over there on the coffee table, let Mario the Barista know if you'd like a cappuccino, and pull out your implements of fibery goodness. I'll try to keep the kid stories to a minimum...

Some knitting to tide you over...first up is Sleeve Island.

And Scarf Island.

Sadly, with no hope of imminent rescue in sight.

Yummy distraction

Dear Lion and Lamb,

We need to talk. Because I've got this List I'm working on, right? But last Friday I took the girls down to the stash to find some yarn for scarves, since it's really starting to get chilly in the mornings. While we were digging out blue and pink yarn for them, I found you buried in the bottom of a bin. And in pawing through the bins, I came across you again. I looked at you fondly, remembering that day almost a year ago when I found you all by your lonesome in the sale bin at Stash, and brought you home with me.

However, the problem lies in what happened next. Even after going back up to the house through the rain you kept calling out to me. And boy were you persistent! You promised me the coziness of wool, the sheen of silk, and you were just the same exact color as the lining of the winter coat I'm working on.

So I did something dumb. I listned to your siren call, pushed the IM Aran sleeves under the couch cushions and wound you up. Then I cast on for a cowl. A few obsessive hours and a couple of bad movies later (Men in Black, The Legend of Baggar Vance - a fine illustration of the extremes of Will Smith's acting career), there it was.

One Darkside Cowl, with gorgeous cushy stitches and brilliant colors,

and a good third of a skein of leftovers, maybe for some matching mitts?

I apologize for ever doubting that your high price wouldn't be worth it, and I now understand why a Clapotis knit out of you might be just the most luxurious thing ever. I have to say, I don't think you're cut out for sweater-dom, but if I ever come across more of you - even at full price! - I'm going to be taking some of your cousins home with me.

Much love forever and ever,
porpoise