Tag: polaris

Mittens

Do you Christmas knit? I can’t decide this year if I’m going to it. Although I have been playing with mittens recently and they could be presents, right?

These are done in fingering weight wool by Waxwingyarns. I started at the tip of the fingers and worked down to the wrist roughly following my Any Gauge Mittens, Top Down pattern.

How about all those yarn ends to sew in?!

I didn’t have any. Huh??

I had one navy round worked between each of the stitch patterns. On that round I would weave in the colour I had just finished working with over the first 7 or 8 sts of the navy round, knit the navy round to the last 7 or 8 sts, and as I knit those last stitches I would weave in the new colour for the next pattern. No ends to weave in, magic!

More mittens. These are also knit from the top down to the wrist. In this case I worked 4 increases every round (1 increase at one side edge of palm and then on the other side and same for the back of the hand) until I had the number of stitches I wanted.

I’m working on doing decreases in the top section of the palm side so they conform to how we hold our hands while walking. The palm will be slightly narrower than the back of my hand.

I also knit my thumbs as a large I-cord.

Once I add the thumb in I decrease every round along the lifeline on the hand down to the wrist.

The goofy thumb is right there. I take a crochet hook and hook up all those ladders. This works great for any mittens knit with Aran, heavy worsted or chunky weight yarn.

After being hooked up.

I also finished knitting the Polaris Wrap as a blanket, in sports weight wool by Briggs and Little and Lichen and Lace. I am so very pleased with this blanket. I really enjoyed the modular aspect of it. I have a lot of ends to sew in but a couple evenings will do the trick.

I have posted a new Vlog post with more information and to show you several 3 Tier Shawls I have knit.

If you’re doing Christmas knitting what are you knitting? Small things at this point in time I would suspect.

Cheers, Deb

Cabin Fever patterns by Deb & Lyn and the cabinfever crew.

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free patterns by Deb

deb.gemmell on instagram

debgemmell 435 on youtube

Cast On, Cast On, Cast On

I am right in the middle of choosing patterns. Maybe this one, maybe that. Do you love doing this?

It’s amazing how much time I can spend deciding and undeciding (is that a word?). One little voice is saying ‘make up your mind’, another voice is saying ‘let’s look at one more ravelry page’. I also scan my library of patterns over and over. I downloaded those patterns for a good reason, at least I thought so at the time.

This one is from my library. I do love a long project. I am knitting the Polaris Wrap by Veera Valimaki as a blanket. I belong to the Rustic Heather Sport Club by Lichen and Lace, where I get 2 50g skeins of rustic sports wool every month. I am going to knit the blanket out of my club wool. It will be bigger than the wrap because I’m jumping from fingering (pattern) to sports weight (my wool) and a much bigger needle. I think it will make a great blanket.

Looking good so far don’t you think, ha, ha.

Next I cast on Romi Hill‘s Winter’s Finery shawl, again in the Rustic Sport wool. I am experimenting with what this wool can do.

A lace shawl always looks a mess before it comes off the needle. I am very close to being done.

I am also knitting from one of my own workshop instructions: 3 Tier Shawl Workshop. I have taught this do-it-yourself triangular shawl at several retreats. I give you a basic structure and you choose the stitch patterns from a list in the pattern. It starts with the normal tab cast on to knit a triangle shawl with centre increases. Then it breaks into sections where you can work different stitch patterns. It’s tons of fun and I will tell you more about it as I get going.

I have knit several shawls using this pattern. Here’s one of them.

The shawl here is a stockinette based version (wrong side rows are purled). This time I decided to jump on the wool/mohair band wagon and work a garter stitch based version (all wrong side rows are knit) of the same shawl. I’ll post the pattern on ravelry this week. (The title of the workshop pattern might change since ravlery quite often doesn’t like my titles.)

How many is that, 3 so far. One long project, one almost done and one shawl just started.

I have a sock on the go, of course. I am trying to see how I can make Timberyarns stripes dance a bit. Nothing too complicated. An increase at either side of the front of the sock and a double decrease in the middle, with a short row heel. Fun to watch the stripes move.

I guess that’s enough to get on with at the moment. I have one more I want to start but nothing on the needles yet.

How about you? Is this Cast On time for you? What is taking your fancy?

Cheers, Deb

Cabin Fever patterns by Deb & Lyn and the cabinfever crew

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free patterns by Deb

Debgemmell 435 on youtube

deb.gemmell on instagram