Mitts for men

My husband loves his handknits, and is always interested in acquiring more. His old store-bought woollen gloves have worn out, and he'd like some hand knittted ones to replace them. I don't feel up to trying to tackle 10 fine gauge fingers and thumbs, so have offered him mittens instead. After initial scepticism about whether mittens were 'manly', he decided he would rather have these than nothing, so I set about finding suitable yarn and pattern. He specified natural sheep colours and nothing self striping. I followed the first stipulation but took a chance on the second, as I found some rather nice variegated Lang West yarn. Fortunately, he liked it, so I got to work using Knitty's mittens 101 pattern. Here's the training mitt.

A lovely present

A present from my sister!

2 skeins of Socks that Rock (my first!), a copy of the extraordinarily hard to find New Pathways for Sock Knitters and 2 pairs of Knitpicks Harmony needle tips.


A car journey provided me with enough quiet concentration time to make the first of the practise socks, using the sky architecture with increases across the instep. I'm not too sure about the result; the instep looks very high to me, and I have a fairly flat instep. The technique itself was quite easy, except that I found Cat Bordhi's right leaning increase tricky to do without leaving a hole.

Mystery rayon

I've been playing with ideas to use the ball of mystery rayon I bought at Ally Pally. I started with a drop stitch pattern for a scarf, but this just looked messy. I then tried double crochet and this gave a nice mottled effect with the variegated colours.



I got 3/4 of the way through the scarf, then my husband started saying what a nice tie the yarn would make. Except that it needed to be narrower, and knit not crocheted. He had a stitch in mind but couldn't describe it, so I had to knit him a sampler until he realised he was looking for moss stitch. I only had one skein, so I've been knitting off the scarf and letting that unravel as I go.

Bamboo shawl revisited

Work has been very busy and stressful recently, so I needed a stress-free knitting project. The Fyberspates easy peasy shawl was ideal. I saw a made-up sample at the iknit London day, and that persuaded me to buy the self striping sock yarn to make it. I quite like it, but am not that keen on the wide bright green stripe; the sample I saw was more subtle. The yarn is bluefaced leicester which is very springy, so hopefully this will blockout well. The main thing I learnt from the pattern was how to cast off using a crochet edging. This looks nicer and is more stretchy than a knitted cast off, so I'm sure i'll use this technique again.

I found my missing balls of bamboo tape I needed to complete the shawl I started in the summer, so pulled this out of the UFO pile and started work again. It's so much easier now I've charted the pattern. I can't understand how some people find it easier to work from written instructions than from a chart. It's now around 150 stitches wide, and I'm getting through a ball of yarn in just a couple of pattern repeats, so still think I'm going to need more yarn. I did leave a ball at my parents' house, so the shawl is going back to the UFO pile until I pick that up.

I've finished the main body of the moonstone cardigan, but can't quite face casting on for the sleeves. My sister has decided to adopt this project and spur me on to complete it in November.

The annual trip to Ally Pally

This time I did it all differently.


My usual routine:

Go on Thursday and/or Saturday
Order the catalogue in advance and plan a campaign of stalls to hit
Arrive before the show opens and queue to get in
Work through the main hall from A to P first, then hit the side halls and exhibitions mid-afternoon
Stop fleetingly to bolt down a sandwich and struggle to find anywhere to sit
Leave around 4.30 -5pm and wait ages for the courtesy bus
Can't resist buying too much, and have a nightmare getting home in the rush hour


This time

I went on Friday - which definitely seemed quieter. It never reached the point where you could not physically move, and I could generally get to the stands I wanted to reach.

Due to lack of advance planning this year, I bought the catalogue on the door, and didn't have time to mark it up. I decided to just wander through and only look up a few specific stands I already knew I wanted to visit.

Just couldn't get up and out early enough, and arrived about quarter to eleven. This had the advantage of not having to queue on the door.

Although I did spend the first hour in the main hall (the Colinette stand is temptingly near the entrance), I then went to look at the exhibitions and went through the side halls. I appreciated the exhibitions much more, as I wasn't yet tired and footsore!

I stopped for lunch properly, and ate a hot meal in the Palm Court. I found a seat, and even found two new companions, and chatted to them for a while after I'd finished eating to let lunch digest before hitting the trail again.

I did make purchases but they were mostly exquisite single skeins of yarn or pattern booklets, rather than huge sweater projects, so the long schlep home was manageable. My shoulders didn't ache the following day, and that's a reliable indicator. I paid cash for everything, and thought of my stash when deliberating whether to buy.

I left late, just before the exhibition closed. Surprisingly, the queue for the courtesy bus was shorter than when I've left earlier. I also missed the worst of the rush hour.


Net result: This was definitely less tiring, and I also managed to spend less! As the journey is a round trip of 4 hours, and I can't do anything about that, the most effective way to improve the trip was to choose the relatively less crowded Friday. Yes, some of the top bargains had sold, but really, there were plenty of things left!


Usually, Ally Pally is my one and only chance to see a lot of vendors and visit a knitting show. This year I've been to both Wonderwool Wales and the Iknit day, so the pressure was off, and I'd already seen a lot at those events.


The loot: