Yarn Blog | Adventures with Yarn

G’day,

It seems that one moment we were enjoying a typical “Indian Summer” and suddenly we have been plunged into the middle of winter! Thankfully the much needed rain, and snow in the Sierra’s held off while our back and side yards were freshly landscaped. It all looks lovely and I am sure by Spring will be well and truly settled.

My husband, the “have you blogged” kind of guy found a nice website for me to look at this morning. It is called www.yarnmagazine.com.au and is being launched by an American living in Adelaide which is a coincidence, as I am an Australian from Adelaide living in America! The site does look interesting and as soon as I have completed two knitting projects which have to be done I will certainly spend some more time going over the articles.

The one thing that continues to bother me and most of the experienced knitters that I talk to each and every day is that more and more of the knitting magazines, both new and long standing are catering for the new knitters. What this means is that we are not happy with the garments, which seem to show more and more of the body, so we will probably cancel our subscriptions and go back to using old magazines with beautiful classic designs. While it is great to encourage the new knitters to go beyond the fru fru scarves and felted bags the designers have to remember that the core of their support has come from the addicted knitters with years of experience who love classic designs with some challenges to the instructions. I for one will use old Alice Starmore books, early Rowan and Jaeger books, and even older Jo Sharpe and Debbie Bliss books for my next projects. I also have lots of books and magazines that I brought with me from Australia and most of the sweaters I knit for my husband come from those treasures.

Well I have chores to run and then I am off to work this afternoon at the yarn store.

Have a great day

Sally

Good evening,

I have got two projects ready for sleeves. Tomorrow I will get help from Alice in measuring the length I need to knit, and of course they will be shorter than the patterns measure!

Several months ago I started a sweater for my husband Alan, using a discontinued yarn by Annabel Fox called Oasis cotton. It knits at 22 stitches to 4 inches, which is one of my favourite yarn weights and so I bought enough to make two sweaters of course. I have the back and two sleeves knitted and started the front on Sunday morning so will look forward to making some progress on that project. Fortunately I do not have to alter the sleeve length on any sweaters for Alan as he is 6ft in height and I think patterns are designed for taller people all the time.

I have one other project completed that I had forgotten about. Recently I had purchased some Noro Iro in a sale, which was a discontinued colour, not a discontinued yarn line. A coat had caught my eye in a Noro book and I decided as it was a quick knit I would get it on the needles in between everything else I had to knit. Well the coat complete with hood is a joy to wear and only took about three weeks to knit. So that was a totally unexpected project.

Sally

At last I have found some time to complete the two backs and two fronts for the Yokohama jacket in the Silk Garden yarn by Noro. I need to work out over the weekend how long to knit the sleeves, bearing in mind my arms are not as long as the pattern assumes! I love the gentle striping of this yarn and done in garter stitch it is certainly looking pretty.

The bolero I started several weeks ago in a new yarn by Louisa Harding is almost completed. This is for an old school friend of mine and will, if completed in time, be her Christmas present. I chose buttons yesterday and instead of one as the pattern suggests I am going to put two on so that the fronts stay closed a little better. It is cold in London at this time of the year and I am hoping that she will enjoy wearing it going to formal and even casual nights out.

The unisex scarf I have been procrastinating over in an alpaca sport weight yarn is also almost finished too. While the pattern is nice, I would much rather be knitting another sweater either for myself or for my husband this time.

I have the yarn for some baby knitting waiting for me. Our friends in Seattle are expecting a little boy towards the end of February. They already have a three year old daughter and after I knitted her a sweater for her last birthday, they would like me to knit a few things for the new baby. That will be a lot of fun, and I have already looked at a few books choosing sweaters so am excited to get started after Christmas.

Sally