In regal company

This is Osborne House, country home of Queen Victoria on the Isle of Wight. We had an enjoyable visit here. In one of the corridors is a large oil painting of Queenie and her daughters knitting striped comforters for the troops. She was clearly not averse to stash enhancement as there was a large wicker basket containing a mountain of wool. So you see we are in regal company! Sadly I was forbidden of photographing this painting and there was no postcard to buy. In another room was her spinning wheel - I am not a connoisseur of such things, but it seemed very small to me. However,as with many things, maybe size doesn't matter or maybe it was a small wheel for a small lady.

This was the view from our bedroom window on the Isle of Wight. A good trip involving many crab sandwiches and some knitting.

Having checked my fave online stores, I see that Woolly Workshop has the new Kaffe Fassett sock yarns from Regia. Will I buy some? What do you think?

Two days at home before tripping again to see my old Mum up North. She is 86 this week. If I live to be as old as her, I will have used up all my stash easily. Therefore more stash enhancement is in order - you see my logic?

Back soon!

Holiday projects

Off to the Isle of Wight shortly so some thought required as to holiday knitting. I'm taking the Canada tubular scarf and I've started a stole in the Haiku mentioned yesterday. This is a pretty straightforward design incorporating simple lace patterns from Barbara G. Walker's "Treasury of Knitting Patterns".

I love these books ; there are four and I regard the first two as essential to my knitting development as a lace knitter. However they also contain cable and other stitch patterns. Mrs Walker was an acquaintance of Elizabeth Zimmerman - do you need any other recommendation? The first two books have written instructions and the other two have charted ones ; you can get them from Amazon.

Off line for a while now - check back soon!

Unexpected stash enhancement!

To knitting group last night where Tracey and Jo were having a clearout and brought a bag of Alchemy yarns which they were selling at a bargain price. So I got some Haiku mohair / silk in blue green Lovely Good colourway ( I'm thinking shawl ); also some Pagoda silk boucle in burgundy / purple / lilac A Breath of Fire colourway ( I'm seeing a scarf ).

Haiku has a massive 325 yards per hank and is very fine - I'm rather attached to it as it was this yarn I used for my first published pattern.Alchemy yarns come from California and I met the owners at the Knitting and Stitching show at Ally Pally a couple of years ago - charming people who had arrived from the US with a suitcase full of yarns to sell. Sadly, they were not there last year - maybe they felt it was not worthwhile.

Their yarns are not cheap ( between £12 and £17 a hank at normal retail prices ). However the quality and colourways are great and I happen to think that my efforts are worth goood quality materials.

Shrugfest

This is front and back unblocked. 3 balls of Adriafil Quarzo mohair from my stash on 5.5mm needles. Basis of my shrug is Aran Weight Top Down Shrug by Michelle Ciccariello on Elann's free pattern page. This is a quick knit! What's next?

To school this morning for exam results - lots of happy students and not too many miserable ones.It makes me cross when the media complains that exams are getting easier. They're not easier, they're different than they were when I sat them 40 years ago. Students are under pressure from day one of sixth form and are focused on passing exams rather than getting an all round education.Off the soap box!

To knitting group tonight and I will take my scarves to work on.

Knitting and videos

This was what I watched this afternoon while knitting my shrug. If you like war films I can recommend it. It's set in Holland and the dialogue is Dutch so there are subtitles. However this does not detract from the action. I guarantee it will keep you guessing till the end.

There is progress on the shrug - I managed to knit both sleeves by bedtime yesterday.

Met Sue for coffeee this morning and we did some knitting. My current takeout knitting is a tubular scarf in striped sockwool. This is for number 2 son who is off to Canada this winter.This scarf will be majorly warm.I got this idea from "Not Just Socks" by Sandi Rosner, a slim volume but not bad for sockwool ideas.

A level results day tomorrow, so I am going into school to mop up tears of joy and sadness!

Funkarama!

My experiment with the Adriafil mohair shrug is progressing - it's knitting up quickly and I'm liking the result so far.

New to Simply Sock Yarns is Opal Hundertwasser Cotton ( sounds vaguely rude! ). Apparently said Hundertwasser was a German artist and good old Opal have translated some of his colour palettes into yarn. I already have some of the wool ones, but the cotton is a new development. Yet again I'm thinking scarf - will I buy some? Probably!

Which reminds me, speaking of Opal, I saw a cute little baby jacket, socks and mitts in the Tiger colourway. This was a sample on show at Get Knitted. I can see myself making that for some as yet unnamed infant. I have just made a Baby Surprise jacket in Opal DK weight Flamingo sock yarn - very funky!Sadly no picture of it as I was in a hurry to give it to my friend. If you don't know what a Baby Surprise is , check out Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitters Almanac or Opinionated Knitter. Follow the instructions and you will get a cute jacket made in one piece. They are addictive to knit and samples can be viewed on Zimmermania ( link left ). It's official - the woman was a genius!

New ideas

I've had some Adriafil mohair/ acrylic yarn in my stash for about a year now and have finally decided to experiment with it. Those of you who know me will know that my experiments are not an uncommon occurrence!

I chose one of my freebie patterns from elann. www.elann.com - they are a good source of free patterns. I've never used them for yarn so can't comment on this aspect of the site.

The pattern is for a shrug - of course I've used different yarn and needle size from that recommended and will probably change the design slightly as I go. however, I'm hopeful it will work and if it does I'll post a picture and further details.

Work is also continuing on the scarf mentioned in my last post and I'm liking the result.

There are updates left on online sites for free pattern which I 've used.