Progressing slowly

I've been knitting furiously away at the clapotis and am now on the long straight section. My DH thought the beige would look better as a shawl, so I have made it wider than I intended, just 2 repeats less than the pattern. This of course means I don't have enough yarn, but Jeanette is kindly going to mail me some more.

The Erin ribbon twist turtleneck is going slowly. I reached the neck shaping on the front before I realised I had too many stitches, and had to frog back to the armhole. Sat up until 1am ripping and re-knitting.... I just know that the week I finish this will be the first heatwave of the year!

Away to Edinburgh

Just back from a last minute trip to Edinburgh. I managed to squeeze in an hour to visit HK handknits, a wonderful yarn store, stocking not only Jaeger and Rowan, but an extensive range of Lana Grossa. The new summer stock has just arrived, and the shop is crammed with mouthwatering colours and textures. The shop is light and airy, and bigger than it looks from outside, as there is a backroom too. Jeanette has recently taken over the store, having worked for Rowan at Jenner's for several years. She is lovely, giving lots of help and advice, even down to arranging a necklace of balls of yarn around my face to check if the colour suited me!

I came away with some wonderful Lana Grossa Colorato in two different colourways. I have been looking for the perfect yarn to make my first Clapotis shawl, and this is the one! It's an interesting microfibre and cotton variegated blend, with a shiny nylon strand that reflects the light. I couldn't wait to get home and cast on.

My very first blog posting!

Having recently discovered knitting blogs, and finding them addictive to read, I wanted to have a go at writing one. I'm new to knitting, starting in January, but am already developing a serious stash and impossibly long list of 'wanna-do' projects. I plan to post pictures and updates on my projects, and hope to progress in terms of skill and FOs throughout the year.

Let's start with my few finished objects. The skirt was a good beginner's choice as it's basically a tube. It's knit in fuchsia aran and I'm quite pleased with it.














The scarf is another matter! This was supposed to be an easy, quick knit, but ended up being more time consuming and frustrating than the jumper I'm knitting. Hard to see the tape measure in the photo, but this thing measures over 9 feet long!
Wrestling with this was not fun. However, the biggest problem was the yarn, which slithered off the ball, and tangled into knots the whole time. I ended up cutting and rejoining so many times, I was heartily sick of this project by the time I finished. I used Sirdar Boa, but I think I'll give eyelash yarns a wide berth from now on.


On the needles at the moment, I have a Ribbon Twist moss stitch polo neck. I chose it for speed, and because it looked fitted in the pattern photo. Not sure yet how it's going to work out - this photo doesn't look too flattering!