SS20 Naturals Yarn

I've been testing a lovely new yarn called Stylecraft Naturals, a blend of 40% cotton and 60% bamboo. 

There are a total of 43 lovely chalky colours in the range. The yarn is DK weight in 100g balls and 250m in length. In this Spring/Summer 2020 season release there are 8 core shades with pattern support, they are Lilac, Lavender, Sea Foam, Surf, Citronelle, Spring Green, Pale Pink and Coral.

Surf and Sea Foam shades look particularly appealing to me.

Combining them to make a sweet little top down baby cardigan.

My regular 'go to' place for knitting patterns is Ravelry, on this occasion in search of a super easy pattern for a baby cardigan. The requirements of DK weight, size 0-6 months and yarn quantity of no more than 250m, the pattern ‘Baby Kina’ by Muriela fitted all the criteria.

Choosing to make the cardigan in the up to 3 month old size I used 3.25mm needles for the collar and 3.75mm for the body. The pattern sizing goes from 3, 6, 12 to 18 months.

There are instructions for both a short and long sleeved version. Having opted for the short sleeve version, I'm hoping the weather will be warmer when my intended recipient is wearing it.

The yarn is soft, smooth and easy to handle. As well as being a great cotton yarn to work with it has a lovely drape for garments. 

I loved working with this yarn and pattern. Knitting another cardi in a larger size using this yarn is a definite possibility in the future.

Emma's Yarn meets Baby Tea Leaves

This lovely skein of yarn was sent to me by Yarnworx.com. The company is an online store based in the UK. Most of their yarn is ethically sourced and hand dyed. 

Yarnworx are the exclusive importers of Emma's Yarn.  A brand label I had seen quite a lot on social media and was very interested to try some myself.  Incidentally,     Emma's Yarn is hand dyed in Florida. 

I was drawn to this 'Practically Perfect Sock' in minty greens and shades of pale to deep pink with a cream base. As I write it is well into January, even though I finished with Christmas weeks ago, 'Christmas Sprinkles' the colour way name, didn't put me off. 

After winding the skein into this ball the colours looked more evenly distributed. I couldn't wait to get on with a project. Needing something to start and finish reasonably quickly, immediately ruled out a pair of socks!

Having become a grandma for the first time, which makes me so happy,  every yarn I see is scrutinised for potential baby knits. This yarn being 80% merino wool, 20% nylon, 100g in weight, 365 meters/400yards and super soft, seemed an ideal option.

Browsing on the knitting website, Ravelry, I came across the pattern Baby Tea Leaves cardigan which looked suitable. Deciding to knit the smallest size 0-6 months helped ensure a swift completion of the project.  (The pattern is by Melissa DeBarre and instructions are for sizes, 0-6, 6-12, 12-18 and 18-24 months).

The cardigan is knitted from the top down in one piece with a feature ruched yoke and garter stitch trim. For the garter trim I opted to use some plain contrast yarn from my stash to highlight the yoke feature. 

Mother of pearl buttons complete the cardigan.

The way the colours are scattered across the knitting look so pretty. It does indeed look like Christmas Sprinkles. I loved working with this yarn and would definitely use it again. 

In this size the cardigan used half a ball of yarn.  I could have made one of the larger size cardigans easily with the skein. 

Now I'll need another project to use up the spare yarn, perhaps something for myself, we'll see...

Stranger Cardigan

I must have cast on this cardigan in April and completed it in August, which for me is pretty fast knitting for a garment. I've only recently taken a few photos of the finished item. This is the Stranger cardigan by michiyo and is published in Brooklyn Tweed Wool People Vol 4. The recommended yarn is worsted weight. I had in mind to use some of the Shetland yarn from our sheep which is DK weight, it's slightly lighter than the worsted. I test knitted a swatch using the recommended needle size 5mm which produced a more open texture but within gauge and acceptable.

I learnt a new technique while knitting this project, commonly known as a Three Needle Bind Off. This technique is used to join the two cable front panels at the centre back. It sounds complicated but in practice it's very straight forward.

The reason I chose this pattern was the cable detail around the stole like collar along with the simple construction. The cardigan is made up of five rectangular panels and is worked with no shaping. However, I did adapt the pattern to add shaping to the sleeves from the elbow to the cuff. Overall a very enjoyable project to knit.

Couronne Cardigan

It's been just over a year since I cast on the Couronne cardigan by Helen Rush. Other knitting projects took over for much of last year and now the cardigan is finished after spending most of 2014 neglected at the back of a cupboard. (I wrote a piece about this pattern and yarn back in January 2014 here).

The pattern is very well written and I enjoyed working on this project.  I used the same yarn as recommended in the pattern, the Ty-Dye yarn does make the colour changes easy compared to traditional stranded colour work. However, there is still a requirement to be careful with the tension on the colourwork sections, which I realised after I'd completed the yoke.

I'd definitely use this pattern again and recommend it to others.