This is mostly a knitting blog. Sometimes pictures of things I've made, sometimes not. I'm a guy who knits, I usually attend a men's stitch 'n' bitch on Monday nights, and I prefer natural fibres to artificial ones. I have a love-hate relationship with bamboo yarns: I love what they can do and how they look, I hate how they are made. I've been knitting since about 2003, though I really didn't get into it until 2005, while convelescing with a broken leg. I must have discovered something good, 'cause I'm still knitting years later.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

David's Scarf

Last week saw David and me prowling the shelves at Stitch House in Dorchester, looking for a yarn with which to make him a scarf. He had said, when he asked me to undertake this project, that he'd had a green scarf that his grandmother had made for him when he was a child. It was a variegated green yarn, and the way he described it made me think instantly of acrylic.

I don't knit in acrylic.

No, not even baby things. For those I'll use cotton.

So with green yarn in mind, we looked at the shelves. What he ended up buying, Noro Kogarashi (51% silk, 49% wool), had some green in it, but like every other Noro yarn I've knitted with (Silk Garden and Kureyon), the colours were varied and moved from one to another. I was a bit surprised. But there is green in the yarn, and it's knitting up beautifully. I'm using a 1x1 rib, to give the effect of stockinette, but without the curl that stockinette inevitably has.

I've got about a foot of knitting done. The scarf starts with green, merges to brown, purple, grey, and back to two different shades of green. And I've only encountered one knot in it so far!


Detail of the golden brown merging into the purple and then the grey.

David is a newbie to knitting, and I am not sure he knows what he's getting into with this stuff. When I've got a few more inches done on it, I'll send him a picture to see if he likes it.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Back In Line

OK, I've been absent for a month. So sue me. I have been working on several projects and haven't finished any of them (well, I did finish a chemo cap last night, but I haven't photographed it yet). A friend of mine has asked me to knit him a scarf and today we visited the Stitch House to get some yarn. He picked a lovely Noro Kogarashi (51% silk, 49% wool). I've knit with Noro before (who hasn't?), but never with Kogarashi. We balled the two skeins whilst at the shop.

Here I am balling the second hank of the Kogarashi. The first one is between me and the swift.

We talked about patterns and looked at pictures of different ones, but he didn't think any of them were his style. I think with this yarn we'll go with a simple 1x1 rib, because it looks enough like stockinette and will show off the amazing colours of this yarn. I will post pictures of it as it comes along.