tanked

In a feat of spectacular timing, I went camping this week, just after the sunshine ended and the thunderstorms began. There was a lot of sitting in the tent, listening to the rain and doing this sort of thing. Thank the knitting gods for headtorches!

Obviously the sun came out again once I was back home. But at least I emerged blinking into the daylight with a finished tank top.

I basically made this up as I went along then pinched the neckline from High Street, a pattern with the same stitch count which I stumbled upon serendipitously after casting on. My neckline is slightly different; I used 2ply jumperweight, rather than the sportweight in the High Street pattern. Mine's a finer gauge, so I needed to add a bit of extra straight stocking stitch in at the shoulders to keep the depth of the neckline in the same sort of place. This changes the neckline to more of a U-shape than a V-shape, which I think is no bad thing.

There's no waist shaping or anything, just straight up and down, knitted in the round bottom up to the armholes. It was unbelievably easy to make. If you're feeling chilly, it's almost less hassle to knit one of these than getting up off the sofa and going upstairs to get a jumper from the wardrobe. The most laborious bit was the knitted hem, but this only took one game of Scrabble to complete. And I like the sturdy edge it gives.

Also a good stashbuster for small amounts of nice yarn. The finished top weighs about 140g, and the blue stripe is just under one 25g ball of Shetland Spindrift, so ideal if you are a fair isle enthusiast with lots of leftover bits. The brown bit is gorgeous handspun from Wild Fire Fibres. It's spun so neatly you can hardly even tell it apart from the mechanically spun yarn in the white and blue stripes! I like this fact a lot, it's like a little secret that a casual observer would never spot.

It's quite a lot shorter than the tops I usually make, but I modelled the shape exactly on a favourite tank top which I wear all the time, so I guess it doesn't bother me so much for a tank top. I have a couple of longer shirts that I wear under it so I should avoid any alarming midriff exposure. The fit is nice and snug, after my third attempt at casting on! I put a bit of experimental zigzaggy stranded colourwork in, and it's still stretchy enough to put on comfortably. Its shetlandy embrace feels bloody lovely on.

Now then, if you'll excuse me I feel like I need to go and apply for a job as a librarian or a geography teacher or something...

more...

tank top thursday

I'm starting a new blogmeme because I missed WIP Wednesday. I suspect I may be the only immediate participant (although I could probably talk round fellow tank top fans Audrey and Vikki).

I love tank tops me! I have a couple of shop bought ones that I basically wore on alternate days throughout the whole of last winter. They are just really comfortable, nice fitting and cosy to wear. The lack of sleeves never seems to adversely affect my core temperature, they are easy to throw on under a coat, and they chime quite well with the massive-geek-about-town look that I generally favour.

It's silly, really, that I haven't made more of them so far. So this is one I started knitting last week to use up some leftover bits of lovely Shetland jumperweight, and to start on some beautiful Wild Fire Fibres Shetland handspun, from the trunk show. The bottom bit is 25g-ish of Natural Shetland, which I think is now renamed Shetland Supreme. The blue stripe is just under a 25g ball of Shetland Spindrift in Blue Lovat, and the dark brown is the handspun. I'm foolhardily making it up as I go along. I did a provisional cast on and a knitted hem, which gives it a nicely weighted bottom edge. There's some stocking stitch and a bit of fair isle type twiddling, because it seemed rude not to in Shetland yarn. I was thinking I was just going to be brave and wing the neckline but, jammily, I have just discovered High Street. This pattern is also bottom up and one of the sizes has exactly the same stitch count as my top! Which is full of win, as I am essentially quite lazy, and was nervous about the potentially ruinous amount of frogging and reknitting of lovely handspun that would inevitably follow any attempt to improvise the difficult bit. My gauge is smaller so it may need a bit of modification, but hopefully I can minimize Crimes against Shetland *makes sacrifice to appease ancient Pictish gods*. If it works out ok I'll write up a bit more detail for fellow trainspotters tank top enthusiasts.

more...

wild fire fibres trunk show

There will follow a small and probably quite welcome interlude in The Saga of the Cardigan to show you some pretty pictures of the Wild Fire Fibres trunk show at Purl City Yarns!

Wild Fire Fibres is the yarny adventures of Salford's finest handspinner, indie dyer, designer, mindbogglingly intricate lacy shawl knitter, pompom lover and all round thoroughly bloody lovely lady Vikki. She's been rather busy of late preparing a selection of very beautiful handcrafted woolly treats for all our recreational delight. I wandered down to the welcoming glow of Purl City after work on Wednesday to squish them on your behalf.

There was a dizzying selection of colours, fibres and weights. Difficult to know where to begin really.

This picture shows the handspun at the front. Some breathtakingly gorgeous skeins, all so different in character. Some shiny, some sparkly, some fluffy, some glittery, prethreaded with beads. There is handdyed sock weight in the middle, and at the back, shawl lovers were in paradise with all the luxurious lacey goodness. I particularly love the Pegasus alpaca/silk blend, with its metallic shininess. And the Angora laceweight, which is spun tightly enough to minimise shedding whilst still obviously being as soft as the sneeze of a baby unicorn falling into thistledown.

Some colours were mouthwateringly sweet-shop bright, some were natural world inspired neutral shades. All were eminently squishable.



Some (mostly the pink ones) were snaffled by IDreamOfCrafts before anyone else turned up.



Being a bit of a Shetland fetishist (Shetishist?!) I knew immediately which of the handspun I was going to have trouble leaving without. Then there was also free wine, a very interesting talk from Vikki about her work, and a couple of hours of knitting and enjoyable banter with friends. I overrelaxed, and became powerless to resist. This is the sight greeting mr rubbishknitter as he caught me on the cctv trying to smuggle yarnz into the house. (joke (c) audreym, twitter, 2011 )

(there is a bonus terrible handknitted pegbag in the background of this photo from my very early days of knitting, definitely pre-ravelry, possibly even predating this blog!)

So in summary, both Vikki and her yarns are lovely and you should definitely buy them, either from her website or you can catch up with her at Wonderwool Wales this year.

more...