FO: Invisibility Shawl

I finally finished my Invisibility Shawl by Kerry Allman from the book Charmed Knits. It took a while, and I think I discovered that knitting with lace weight yarn is not my favourite thing in the world!

I got Charmed Knits from the library after randomly browsing for knitting books and really liked some of the great patterns in it. I’m very much tempted to try making a Weasley Sweater at some point and I have the Dobby’s Socks snitch pattern in the back of my mind for my first forays into colourwork in sock knitting.

I cast on for this back in September and it’s taken me a while! In the end I just decided to get it done so it’s a bit shorter than the pattern suggests. I think it’s a perfect length though and lovely and soft to wear. Especially at this time of year where the air is still chilly but the sun is starting to come out more and I don’t always need a coat!

This managed to be both a surprisingly quick and painfully slow knit at the same time. I love the look of the lace pattern and it’s repetitive simplicity is really effective but lordy was it boring to knit! I found that if I plugged away at it for a while, it grew quite quickly as each 4 row repeat added about an inch to the length. To be honest though I seemed to spend more time stretching it out and admiring the pattern than I did knitting and it ended up sitting next to the sofa for weeks at a time being passed over for a more fun knit.

That said, I’m really happy with it now it’s done :) It’s a gorgeous yarn and I do still have quite a lot left so I’m probably going to venture into some more lace knitting in the future! The colour is most accurate in the top photo – a lovely plummy purple. I hope everyone else is enjoying this recent sun as much as I have been.

Any recommendations on  a pattern for my remains of this yarn?

Recent-ish FOs and WIPs

Crazy amount of posting here atm but I want to make sure I have a record for myself of what I have done :)

First up, my first ever sewing from a pattern! I have made a few dresses and other bits and bobs before but never ‘properly’ and never anything that I actually ended up wanting to wear! I got the fabric for £1.50 from a charity shop – no idea what it is but I liked the colours. Turned out well I think, although unless you make them too small you can’t really go wrong with jammie bottoms!

With a special label in the back… :D

The other recently finished project is my vine mitts using the Kujeillen pattern by Tiina Kuu. As you might notice, they are not quite matching  as I wasn’t very good at counting rows in the pattern… since they’re only for myself I couldn’t be bothered to go back and fix it whenever I noticed the mistakes! These are knitted in Drops alpaca, a lovely 4 ply yarn in pretty colours.

As for WIPs, first is my Invisibility Shawl by Kerrie Allman from Charmed Knits. This is my first lace knitting and I’m using a beautiful mulberry coloured yarn – Drops Lace which is a lovely mix of 70% baby alpaca and 30% silk. The pattern is lovely and simple and though I’m finding the laceweight yarn a bit tricky to handle, it’s getting there!

And finally, a slow project of a big ol’ crochet blanket – made to use up odds and ends of handspun and dyed yarn ma has lying around from her early days of spinning. I don’t really have a plan but have made the colourful bits into granny squares and plan to use the larger amounts of grey and white yarn to bring it all together :)

Watch this space to see if these get finished! :P