Project Spectrum: Celtic Knot Stole

First things first: Monkey did the honours and pulled a name out of the (knitted) hat. The winner is Seahorse! Congratulations - please could you email me and let me have the address you would like it posted to?

Details of the finished Celtic Knot Stole

Yarn: Posh Yarn Camilla 100% cashmere in Memories
Needles: 3.5mm Inox circulars
Blocked measurements: 35” by 65”

This is the yarn I won from Posh Yarn in the photo competition last year. Thank you Dee for the yarn. It is so soft and has been a delight to knit with. Plus I’ve already had so many compliments on the colour.

I’ve seen a few posts recently about why people knit and this led me to start thinking about myself (Monkey might say that wasn’t unusual!). There are a lot of reasons but one of them is that it is a chance to extend the fantasy stage of acquiring an item of clothing. I’m sure that most women will understand this stage when I explain it. It is that period of time from when you first spot the article of clothing in a shop/catalogue/pattern book, during which you think that the said article will, for example, make you more popular, make you better at your job or make the guy you’ve always fancied at school finally notice you. After wearing the article of clothing a number of times, you usually realise that this won’t happen. However, by then you’ll have already seen that life-changing pair of shoes that will do the trick instead.

Anyway, as I was saying, knitting extends this stage for me and the fantasies I can build up about a particular garment can be pretty far fetched by the time I finally cast off. While I was knitting this stole, I pictured myself as the heroine of some Victorian gothic novel. Standing on the heathered brink of a lonely moor wearing a dove-grey silk dress and desperately trying to escape from some mad woman locked in an attic. But nope, here I am in my flat cooking gingerbread and modelling this in some rather crumpled old clothes. But I still love it and every time I wrap it round my shoulders I do feel a little closer to the windswept moors!

Catching up

This is just going to be a quick post. I’ve been so busy recently that I’ve not had time to blog much. Thanks for all the nice comments on my one year blogging anniversary. I’m looking forward to doing the draw on Sunday. That’s a couple of days away, so if there is anyone who still wants to enter you‘ve still got time! I was amazed at the number of comments I got and I’m enjoying working my way through reading the blogs of those of you I hadn’t ‘met’ before.

There is another reason I’m looking forward to this weekend and that is because I’m going to take some photos of my finished Celtic Knot Stole. Yes, I did say finished. Finally! I blocked it on Tuesday night using my new blocking wires from Heirloom knitting. I would definitely recommend using them, they made what would have been a very tedious task fairly painless. They also meant that I could get very straight edges.

By the way, you know I said how good I’d been resisting the Posh Yarn in my last post? Since then I have bought two skeins of Posh Yarns lace weight yarn, a ball of Opal sock yarn, 3 balls of Rowan hand knit cotton, two balls of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino and a ball of cotton to make dishcloths…. Yes, I’m hanging my head in shame. Photos on Sunday of everything I promise!

I almost forgot to tell you another exciting bit of news, Hip Knits have got the details of their 2007 contest up on their website. It is £5 to enter and for that you get a 100g of yarn with which to make something with lace in it. I received some gorgeous lace weight yarn in bright pinks and purples (pictured above - badly!).

Free wool...

I recently passed my first blogversary. I did my first real post on the 2nd of March last year and since then I have done 83 posts in total. I never realised how much fun this would be and how many lovely people I would meet online. I think that one of the main reasons knitting has become such a passion for me is the sense of community and belonging it has given me. It is so nice to have met so many people who share the same interests as me, both through various blogs and my knitting group.

In order to celebrate my first blogging year I’m giving away some yarn. The prize has an organic theme to it: -

-a skein of Helena 4-ply (pure organic merino - 360 yards) from Posh Yarn in the colourway Drama;
- a box of bite size Green and Blacks organic chocolates (milk, dark and white); and
- a little set of Annarella stitch markers - not organic but very pretty!

The yarn is gorgeous . The colours are just beautiful and I’m sure will look stunning knitted up. It is so soft that I am having difficulty resisting stroking it too much. I was very good last Sunday as I knew I wanted to buy something for a prize so I went straight on the Posh Yarn website and just bought this - nothing else! How impressive is my willpower!

Anyway, all you have to do to win the yarn is leave a comment on this post. I will do a draw on the 25th of March. Don’t worry about where you are in the world, I’m sure I’ll find a way of posting it to you!

By the way, one of my friends from my knitting group (Kate) has a new blog. She is lovely, the blog is great and she has some good photos of her knitting up there (including a really great Knitty Calorimetry). So please pop over and say hello if you get a chance. I’ve been telling her how nice you all are.

Lace update

Recently, I’ve been concentrating on getting my Celtic Knot Stole finished. I'm almost there now - just one repeat and the borders to go. I’m really enjoying knitting it. I love the colour, I love the yarn (Posh Yarn 100% cashmere) and I’m quite excited about the design. The photos that I’ve taken are truly awful. It is just dismal here today and I can’t find a way of getting enough light to take a pretty picture. But the lace is in the ugly-duckling, pre-blocking stage anyway.

Crafty Granny, you were asking about my sharing the stole. I’d be happy to let you have the charts once I’ve finished drawing them up.

This week I gave a new knitting group a try. I went to the Liberty group that meets on he 1st and 3rd Thursday of every week. It is a great place for a knitting group: large tables, delicious cakes and coffees, and a knitting shop close to hand. I did enjoy but I do have to admit that I prefer the I Knit London group. I think this is just because at the Liberty group everyone knew each other and, understandably wanted to spend their time catching up rather than meeting new people. I might give it another try some time though because the people seemed really nice.

By the way, I have bought Victorian Lace Today. It is wonderful. I adore it. It comes out top on every point: great photos, great designs, great writing, great techniques section, brilliant information on yarn and substituting yarn. If you love lace you can’t really go wrong with this book (unless you don’t like charts).