On My Needles

I thought you might like a glimpse of some of the designs I'm working on at the moment. So ... let's start with the basket. That holds what's going to be a rug, made up of thickly textured squares. There will be 150 squares when it's finished and so far I've knitted 88. I've got to the stage where I've made a little chart so that I can tick each square off as it's finished. It will probably have some sort of border too but I don't know what yet.

The red stripey thing is a scarf - that'll probably be the next thing to be published as it's quite a quick knit. It's another one of those designs where I made up my own stitch pattern as I went along. The yarn is Adriafil Zebrino - a variegated yarn, about halfway between a DK and an aran weight (125 m / 50 g). I really liked this shade (68) with its strong reds and oranges contrasting with the grey.

What's next? That pile of shapes is the start of something - I don't know what yet - that I'm making with the yarn from last year's Opal Advent Calendar. This was a big box with 24 doors, one for each day of Advent, and behind each door was a mini ball of yarn.

I had one of these calendars last year too (thank-you Rose) and that became a Patchwork Pelerine and a set of Advent Stars . In case you're wondering, a pelerine is a shawl that's square at the front but dips to a point at the back. I was inspired by the garter stitch pelerine in Elizabeth Zimmermann's book Knitting Workshop .

My pelerine is made up of squares;
it's very handy if you live in an old, chilly house as I do.

The stars were knitted with the leftover yarn from the pelerine - I used up every scrap.

This year I'm planning to alternate my knitted shapes with plain ones in a dark grey yarn ... although I'm wondering if that will be the right colour. If not, look out for a design in the future in dark grey 4 ply.

Do you see that little bit of green knitting at the back of the picture? That's the start of a scarf or wrap, using yarn with little beads in. The yarn is called Moonstone and I have no idea how this pattern is going to develop. So far all I've got is a little holey piece that's starting to twist.

And finally ... not on my needles but on my hook, the squared fabric underneath everything else is two sections of a crochet blanket. Quite a lot more to do on that one.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing some of the things I'm making. I always work on lots of designs at the same time like this, trying to plan ahead while still finishing things regularly. Those of you working on my mini quilts will notice that there's no sign of the February Quilt. That's because it's all done - knitted, photographed and written up - and I don't want you to see it until it's published.

Let me know if you'd like to see more 'On My Needles' posts in the future.