Stripey hat #1 (FO)

The autumnal weather has brought a few mornings cool enough for a woolly hat. I've been wearing this one which I finished a couple of weeks ago. 

It's not too thick, and squishes easily into a pocket - but, best of all it works perfectly with my purple rain jacket. I don't quite know how I ended up making a tam - there was no pattern involved, just instinct! 

The yarn was a gift, a ball of Lang Jawoll magic degrade, in a fabulous self-striping purple, pink and red. I think my mother in law gave it to me two or three years ago.

As soon as I finished the man socks the other day I cast on for the hat I promised the jelly bean. I hope to get the sizing right this time...

Charles (FO)

Finally, after aaaages languishing in my knitting bag, toddler Charles is finished. All sewn up with buttons and everything!  

I love it. For some reason the plain sleeves and self-patterning body appeal to me. (For the record I love the contrasting sleeve/body combo in the first one too). It's neat. I still find the neck finishing a bit of a faff, but didn't find any obvious way of improving it this time round.

Pattern: toddler Charles (size 1-2 years) from Jaeger book JB29

Yarn: Regia sock yarn (self patterning); Patons diploma gold 4ply (plain raspberry)

Mods: have made the body slightly longer than suggested in the pattern, just to try and extend wear.

Notions: pink heart buttons from the stash.

Man socks (FO) with squidgy toe

It was half-term here last week, and we went to the Lake District for a few days. I took a goodly pile of projects close to being finished, in the hope that I would get a bit of time to knit.

These socks were top of the pile - a gift for my dad which stalled somewhat when the little bean was born. As is my usual style I combined two yarns. However, for the first time I changed the way I knit the toe in order to create a thicker fabric and strengthen the area around the ball of the foot which - I find (YMMV) is the first place to develop a hole.

The effect, as you can see, is to change the pattern of the fabric and make the stripes run perpendicular to the those on the rest of the sock. All I did was to knit alternate stitches with my two yarns (rather than alternate rounds) and make a double weight fabric as you would in any Fair Isle knitting. It does shrink the width of the sock slightly, but I haven't had to adjust the number of stitches  to maintain fit (my dad tried on the first sock a wee while ago).

I'd be interested to hear from anyone who 1) already does something similar or 2) gives this a try. I need to refresh my sock pile, so I'm definitely going to make myself some squidgy toed socks to see how they work out.

Knittember

September turned out to be all about knitting rather than sewing after all. Autumn is here, and the morning school run is getting cooler. We've started thinking about hats and scarves again, and last weekend we got them all out of the cupboard for a sort out. 

Much to my husband's disgust we each now have our own bag for hats and gloves etc. Last year there were two bags - and I was the only one who could find anything! And, since I am keen to foster independence, the move to one bag each should mean that the children can find and, importantly, put away their own things. 

While we were sorting things out, the jelly bean persuaded me that she needed a new hat, so we went shopping in the stash and something sprang onto the needles. I don't have a pattern, I just made it up as I went along. 

Unfortunately it turned out a bit bigger than I anticipated, so it's turned into a hat for me (yay!). A smaller one will surely follow....