Rather exciting news.

You may have already heard about a lovely little magazine which has just launched. Pompom is a new UK magazine for knitting, thinking, embroidering and drinking. Now that sounds like my sort of magazine.

via pompom

Issue 1 has just launched and I'm pleased as punch to say that one of my yarns is used in the pattern for the beautifully styled Skipworth Mitts.

via pompom. I am loving the nail polish.

This is a Catherine of Aran-gon (there will be more Catherine in the shop soon, promise) in the shade To The Left.

I love the direction of this magazine. Pompom has such a great sense of style. It appeals to my sort of aesthetic as I've said (admittedly on my soapbox), many a time, I want to knit the sort of things I would buy in a shop (probably from gap) and I want to knit it top down. Pompom meets this urge completely and it's one of those rare magazines where I will actually knit everything in it. First up I shall be making the Netherton cardigan:

via pompom

You can show some love and buy Pompom here, either per issue or a buy a yearly subscription.

Featherweight Cardigan II

I've already made one featherweight cardigan and whilst it was nice there were some features that annoyed me, namely 1) the length of the sleeves as it blocked out to be ma-hoo-sive, 2) the the collar pick up and knit wasn't the neatest, and 3) the collar rolled back in st st and was annoying to wear. However, you know I love a good top down cardigan pattern and you can't keep a good knitter down so here is my featherweight cardigan II with minor tweaks:

I love the handpainted effect, especially on the front collar.

Design changes are the faux seam down the side. I like this little detail. Plus it doesn't mean acres of mind-numbing st st, at least there is some little feature to focus the brain, hitting you twice across the row.

Very subtle rib detail under the arms and a slightly longer rib section.

Another tweak, a garter stitch neck band. I still don't understand the pattern instructions for the pick up and knit. I find the instruction for the number of stitches to be picked up over the number of rows to be confusing so I've just picked up stitches at what seemed to be a regular distance and then garter stitched until I ran out of yarn and hoped for the best. This seems to have paid off.

I have also slightly tweaked the blocking method, which I will share with you in another post as it's worked quite nicely. I've also used a different yarn. This is my new laceweight yarn, Jane lace. This was knitted from just one skein and is 80% extra fine merino and 20% silk so it's perfect in the hot weather as a little cover up. I like this yarn as it's got a little substance to it, it's not a flyaway light lace, rather it feels like you're actually working with something instead of thin air. It's also lovely and soft...so I won't be taking this off until it gets cold again.

Euro special.

What you need for your own Eurovision party:


1. Nice English food...like Pizza.

2. Nice cake...German.

(it got stuck to the cake tin. One day I will bake something that looks nice.)

3. A healthy amount of alcohol (mostly french via Asda) to numb the pain of nil points...and Jedward (from outer of space).

I am "testing" the pimms in a can. Testing twice.

4. A small amount of chocolate (from an american owned company).

5. Your stripe sock (from 'ere!!). My needles snapped after getting squashed in my bag but luckily I've dug out a spare 2mm set (buying two sets - it's like I knew this was going to happen). I am still unsure what to do about the fit. Thanks for the comments/advice - the fit is fine until the heel, it's from the heel upwards so I might try and add extra stitches in and perhaps blocking may help a bit with the ease as well? I always thought I had cankles - this just goes to prove it!

p.s. I am not going to give up on toe up knitting, just need to find the right stitches:needle size ratio.

p.p.s I really hope we don't go and actually win - we've spent all our money on the olympics and the jubilee!

A Stripe For Europe! (Eurovision KAL)

I have finished my first stripe for Europe! Cue blurry one legged photo:

It is so hard to balance and photograph one's foot. Even for Europe. 

But...my toe up inexperience is showing. Sigh. This is why I do some many cuff down socks. It's a super tight fit from the heel up to the cuff. A really tight fit. The recommended needle size is 2mm (66 stitches) but I think 2.5mm might be better...any advice? In the meantime, I'll make the slightly larger size sock for the other foot, just so I don't have to shoehorn myself in and out of it. In the meantime this has not dampened my eurovision fever in any shape or form!

Georgia KAL - Week 3 - 4

I've made only a small amount of progress this week, as you can see. I'm finishing off another cardigan (more soon but the long rows on it are killing me) and my stripe for Eurovision has proven a distraction so I've not done as much this week. There's maybe what - 10 rows more than last week?!

Thank goodness this is a lazy KAL.

I have very carefully tried it on and the fit is good. I'm hoping that blocking won't make it stretch and will only neaten the stitches up - making the 36" chest was a bit of a gamble as there's a risk that it might be too big (I'm usually a 32"-34") but I'm reassured by comments in the ravelry Georgia KAL thread that the negative ease will kick in and this will be a snug fit.

I'm hoping that this week I will have a little more time to commit to the KAL cause (someone's finished already!).