Tuesday, November 06, 2007

6 November: Further adventures in yarn

The slipover in intarsia squares is finished -


It was suggested that plain sleeves might complete it, but the problem with that is why it's in multi-coloured squares in the first place - not a lot of yarn in any one colour!

In fact, it might eventually get sleeves, as I have been thinking for a while about knitting long arm warmers; like fingerless mittens, only armpit-length. As preparation for this, I've made a number of samples in slip stitch and/or rib variations. And there's still part of a ball of wool in each of those colours left in the Shetland crate!

Much thumbing of stitch pattern books has taken place; as well as Mary Thomas' Book of Knitting Patterns, there are 4 others full of different patterns. 'The Harmony Guide to Knitting Stitches' is dated 1984, and their recent Volume 3 offers 440 more patterns, while Volume 4 has 250 creative knitting stitches. The other book was my mother's, and the only date I can find on it is 1968. The price on the cover is 10/-, so it must be pre-decimalisation. It's called 'Knitting Dictionary 800 Stitches Patterns', and was published by Mon Tricot. I have followed Mum's example, and added notes to some of the patterns.

In spite of the wealth of patterns in these books, I have never used many of them, and I really don't know why not. Some of them, of course, are extremely tedious to work, and the final result is not worth the fuss, but there are some super effects that don't appear too hard to do - must add them to my list of things to try out.

Some lovely multi-coloured yarns are not shown to their best with complex stitch patterns, as I discovered recently with socks. And on the topic of lovely multi-coloured yarns, I have just finished spinning last month's Yarn Yard Fibre Club roving -


It may be a little darker than this in reality, but you can't complain about strong sunlight, can you? There isn't a project in mind for it yet, but I have just bought Pam Allen's "Scarf Style", and there's a little Vogue book of shawls somewhere in the downstairs bookcase, so there are plenty of ideas to hand.

4 comments:

KAZ said...

'Slipover' surely the clue's in the name. You would wear it over a long sleeved T shirt in a toning colour.
And why isn't it a tank top?
Whatever the name it's great.

I'd wear it now if I could as I'm just off for a walk.

Granny J said...

Oh, my -- my copy of the Mary Thomas Book of Knitting Pattern is dated 1946! It's a lovely book...

stitchwort said...

Yes, the slipover/tank top/sleeveless jersey will be great over a long-sleeved T shirt, preferably a plain black one.

Mary Thomas' book is quite old-fashioned in presentation, with only black and white photos (my copy is a re-publication of the 1943 edition) - but the content is still good.

Doris said...

I am impressed, as ever, by your creativity. I agree, the slipover will look great just over a plain black top.