Final FO of 2007...

Final FO of 2007! Two whole evenings of diligent seaming!

Anise jacket

After finishing the Christmas gifts, I had a craving to cast on a jumper or jacket for myself. This month's Simply Knitting provided the answer in the Rowan Anise jacket, originally published in the Newshapes booklet. The magazine claimed you could knit this in a weekend, it's very fashionable, and I had the perfect yarn marinating in the stash. I pulled out a bag of Rowan's Ribbon Twist and cast on last weekend. I've been knitting furiously over the holiday week, and have managed to complete the separate pieces.


I'm determined to join the pieces and not leave them languishing as I usually do. My mother's friend Jean kindly provided me with matching yarn to seam, as the Ribbon Twist is too bulky and loosely spun to use, so I have no excuse.

I'm trying hard to choose a colour for my next hipknits project. I'm torn between candy shop, tandem, choc cherries or bingo, although the first two are shading it. Candy shop might look good with biscuit, and tandem with navy or biscuit.

The reveal

As Christmas presents have been safely delivered and unwrapped, here are the finished gifts.

My sister's beret and scarf:

My mother's scarf:

My brother received an ipod for Christmas, which was clearly going to get scratched quickly. I felt obliged to whip up an ipod cosy for him using the leftovers from my sister's hat, conveniently also trying a new technique of knitting in the round on 2 straight needles. This was quite strange as it involved knitting inside out and slipping alternate stitches. I found I needed to check regularly that I had not accidentally missed a slipped stitch and knitted the two sides together.

We decided a felted cosy would protect better, so I gave the finished item a five minute hand felting under the tap last night. To my shock, the wool felted so quickly and completely that I could barely get the cosy on the ipod! Fortunately, my brother thought that the tighter the fit the less likely the ipod was to fall out, so it's all good!

Countdown - 5 days to go

Five days to go, and the Christmas knitting is still going. My stock take:

1) Stripy throw - finished, although there are still a few ends to darn in

2) MD garter scarf - finished

3) matching beret - increase section done, just starting decreases

4) montego bay scarf - knitting finished, fringe needed

5) crocheted stripy scarf - rashly promised to be made with leftovers from the throw, but not critical for Christmas

My sister is the one who is most concerned about her woolly gifts, so the beret is my knitting priority.

My blog was disabled this week because blogger identified it as a spam blog. Now I make no literary claims, but calling it spam is a bit harsh. I responded to the email they sent, and they did unblock it in two days, but still a bit irritating.

For those who liked the Christmas stocking, I got in touch with Debbie Abrahams, the designer. She confirmed that she is still planning to sell the kit on her website, but is very busy right now, so not sure when she will be able to do it. Just to clarify, this is not a free design, but Debbie is planning to sell the kit.

Gift knitting

I've been seriously working on my Christmas gift knitting. The multidirectional scarf is done, and I'm about 2/3 of the way through my mother's sea silk fishnet scarf. I had a false start with this, as I tried to choose a needle size based on a fairly firm fabric in the swatch, which meant that I went from the pattern 5mm to 3.5mm. After about six inches, I realised that I wouldn't have anything like enough yarn. I rummaged through Ravelry, and no-one seemed to have changed the needle size to less than 4.5mm, so I tried again with that. It looked loose and ragged to start with, but was easier on the hands, and soon started to take shape. With some length on the needles it looks a lot better, and starts to drape and twist.

Another black and white shot to avoid disclosing too much:

I've started the plaited fringe on the cast on edge. Other people have commented that the fringe takes ages (as well as loads of yarn), so I've pulled out the yarn from the centre of the ball and starting cutting fringe. I got this great fringe maker in the US for a few dollars, and it makes measuring and cutting the yarn easier and more accurate.

However the inevitable has happened, and the silk is in a horrendous tangle. I spent THREE HOURS untangling it yesterday, and there's still a mess to sort through now. Just what I don't need with limited knitting hours before Christmas!