In the time honoured tradition of pretending to be a fully functioning adult who lives in a clean and tidy manner I'm also doing a lot of housework. My family know this is a fiction, but it's important to observe the conventions, unfortunately the effect of tidying in my flat is to make it feel like it's breathed in. Hard. Poke anything and everything comes lose again, this is especially true of books which have been ruthlessly corralled under bed, sofa, and dresser. I still haven't quite finished the full I started in April - some really have to go.
I've also been finishing off a couple of knitting projects destined to be Christmas presents... The first is a monster of a thing (exactly twice as long as I am tall) for a friend who chose the colours and wanted something big. It's a sort of cross between a shawl and a scarf, I've been playing with it for a while and finally managed to find a way to wear it that worked. Which I've since forgotten. Apparently I'm giving the gift of spending quite a lot of time in front of a mirror wondering if that's the best it can be. It's warm though, and big, and pink and green, which fulfills the basic brief.
The second scarf is for my sister, I've had the idea in mind for it for a while, and this is a bit of a prototype. I'm basically pleased with the result. I think thevtree of life openwork pattern running up the centre looks suitably Christmas tree like, and the pom-poms are festive. It's come out longer than I wanted which tells me I need to improve my finishing skills. Whilst I was pinning it out I didn't think I was stretching it that much, but wet wool seems to have a mind of its own. I liked the spring and texture of it when it was undressed too, so perhaps the answer is not to bother next time (which is tempting because I don't enjoy the dressing part). Or I could just knit less of it.
You have been very busy, knitwise.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy the family visit.
I'm really looking forward to seeing them all, it doesn't happen often enough, hence all the effort to make it as nice as possible (Hoover) !
DeleteBeautiful projects, and if your tree of life scarf is a prototype, you should publish the pattern - it's gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteThe tree of life motif is a traditional Shetland openwork pattern charted in both the books I have in the subject, and quite often appear in shawls or fancy haps, it's one of the easier motifs and I've thought it would make a great Christmas scarf pattern for a while. The yarn I used was Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift in 'Pine' which is a really lovely rich green (I think I used about 5 balls). Knitted in 2 parts so the trees don't turn into leaves half way round and sewn together in the middle. I knitted 5 trees each side, but 4 would have been plenty given how much it stretched, on 3.75 mm needles. I swatched a tree to start with to see if the width was okay with 51 stitches, it was, but it didn't make the length issue clear. I started with 3 stitches, increased to 51 by adding a yarn over on each end on every other row, starting the trees at 37 stitches, and carrying on with yo holes all the way up. The red pom-poms are feastive, I did wonder about tassels instead... I need to knit a couple more - a shorter one, and one where perhaps I don't dress it, to be really sure how I want it to look, but long, short, wider, thinner, bigger trees or smaller would all be fine depending on what you want.
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