You're Doing it Wrong:Stranded Colourwork

I like to think of myself as an experienced knitter; in that, most patterns don't faze me, and I do have some practice of test knitting patterns for a few designers. However, when it comes to stranded colourwork I feel I'm more of an intermediate-level knitter.  I don't work with this technique very often as I find it very frustrating and time-consuming; I have to keep unravelling my yarn as it becomes twisted and wrapped around each other. I also find,  more often than not my knitting looks tight, misshapen and a bit grotesque (and as a perfectionist this is a major bug bear for me).   So, being an Aries I tend to enjoy the thrill of the hunt, I will strive to find a solution; I'm not one for backing away from trial or risk.  Cue lots of video watching,  researching online and pattern reading, after ten minutes I found a new tip; two hand stranding, and then I looked over Erica Heusser's hat pattern again and a bold, underlined sentence jumped out at me "remember to keep floats loose!"  For years, I've been strangling my stranded colourwork by pulling my floats so tight their practically pleading for air.  You see, I don't want holes, holes in my kniting would pretty much mean failure; my knitting would end up on the naughty step for sure.
Armed with this new information I set about trying them in my knitting. I was a bit cautious at first but as the rounds of stranded knitting started appearing and mutiplying I became more confident. So confident that I couldn't put the piece down...can you believe... I finished the hat in one night! This never happens to me!

Excited by my new mastered skill, yes I have been a very busy squirrel,  I decided to finish my mittens too!  I then celebrated my achievement with a hot orange (fighting a chest infection at the moment) and an episode of:

I'm totally addicted to not only the series but the theme tune...and, oh what the heck,  maybe  the lead actors too.

Have a lovely weekend. xoxoxo

How to use unicorns to stand out in the crowd!

This week I decided to go on an expedition; not anywhere fancy, just into the deep dark cave that is my yarn stash cupboard. Yes, a whole walk in cupboard dedicated to my favourite craft, I like to think of it as my piece of Narnia.  I could disappear in there for hours on end; squidging and stroking all the  treasure I have accumulated over the years. However,  I don't venture in there very often for fear of never returning, but yesterday I had to rummage as my fingers and hands felt restless.  This perpetual agitation seems to happen to me quite alot and when I experience this urgency to make, I do tend to listen and act on it straight away.  Sometimes I find the pattern first, then I look for the materials, however, yesterday was different;  I decided to enter the cave and on doing so I stumbled across a red shiny postal packet, and anyone who is familiar with this will know I'm talking about Knit Crate.  I've been subscribing to this company on and off  for about a year.  I usually go for a three month subscription and then have a rest, I more often than not  miss out on some cool stuff during this time and have to subscribe all over again.  I just wish I could afford an ongoing subscription but with only one wage coming in since Paul was paid off two years ago,  this isn't going to happen anytime soon, sigh!  Anyway, going back to the red shiny packet; I found some yarn I've never used before: Madelintosh Unicorn Tails in antique lace.  So, with my new found treasure tucked neatly under my arm and with much excitment building in my hands that I was about to start something new, I skipped  off to my laptop. An hour later I appeared with a new pattern, yarn and needles tucked under my arm, stitch markers in one hand and a hot chocolate in the other.  "What are you making?" I hear you ask. The pattern is passerine hat by Erica Heusser.  The contrast yarn which is similar to the Unicorn tails in weight and  texture is Schoppel wolle zauberballe-100 in colourwave Blaukraut Bleibt Blaukraut.  I will post more pictures of my progress next week.

Just off the needles and blocking is my manic panic cowl, made from samples and scraps of yarn found in my stash.  I'm looking to join this in a Mobius Twist* this week.  Not sure why I knit it in the straight rather than in the round, but hey hoo!  My mind and the decisons it make are a curious thing in deed.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mobius Twist

 * Discovered independently by the German mathematicians August Ferdinand Mobius and Johann Benedict Listing in 1858. Mathematicians refer to the closed Möbius band as any surface that is homeomorphic (space that is continous) to this strip. Its boundary is a simple closed curve, i.e., homeomorphic to a circle. (Wikipedia: 2016)

Möbius strip: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B6bius_strip