KTHDSN

Headband with flower

Cabled hat

I have been doing loads of knitting lately, but because I have so many projects on the needles it’s been a while since I finished anything. Two things have now been cast off and finished up, so I thought I’d share/show them off.

The hat was knit from the snowtracks cap pattern in king craig aran tweed merino and cashmere and can be found on ravelery. I enjoyed the cable pattern, and while the yarn was a bit weird to knit with, I like the finished hat a lot.

The headband was knit from the knit ear warmer with crochet flower pattern in texere monaco cotton and can also be found on ravelry. The headband stretches a lot when I wear it, I wish I had made it smaller. Perhaps throwing it in the washing machine will tighten it up a bit.

Still on the needles but hopefully finishing soon I’ve got a beret hat, my first pair of socks and a sweater that I started back in September.

Ringo cowl

I thought it was about time I made something for myself so I looked through my list of bookmarked patterns and chose this cowl and some chunky wool yarn. It whipped up really quickly on a 6.5mm crochet hook and used less than a ball of each of the 4 colours.

I used Freedom Wool by Twilleys of Stamford in three shades of brown and a grey, and followed this pattern: Ringo cowl. Unlike the pattern, I also joined my last ring into the first ring, making a continuous loop rather than a strip of circles. I’m pleased with the result

See this project on Ravelry.

Drop spindle

This afternoon I picked up my long neglected spindle to have another go at spinning yarn.

I have tried spinning before without much success. I used poor quality wool and didn’t really know what I was doing. It came out very uneven, lumpy and quite ugly.

I thought I would give it another go, you don’t get better without trying right? So I grabbed some welsh mountain wool that’s been on my shelf forever, and my spindle.

Today’s effort was a little bit better than my previous attempts. I managed to get a relatively smooth yarn, although it was still a bit uneven. I struggle to get the spindle to actually spin for more than a second at a time, so it spends most of it’s time clamped between my knees while I try and get the wool to do what I want it to.

I also have trouble getting my yarn any thinner than super chunky without it falling apart. I do like super chunky yarn, so this isn’t altogether a bad thing, but I would prefer to be able to make super chunky on purpose rather than just because that’s how it came out.

I definitely need a lot more practise, and I should probably take a class at some point, but for now, I will enjoy the little bit of super chunky yarn that I managed to create.