Matching the Stripes

I am a big fan of variegated yarns and use them a lot in my knitting. When making socks, I never worry about making the colour pattern on the two socks match. In fact I feel cheated if they do. You can't do this with matching socks.

I'm a bit more fussy when it comes to knitting clothes though. I rarely get time to knit anything for myself but I do have a longstanding project on the go - a jumper using two shades of King Cole Bramble DK. I'm switching between the two every four rows which of course gives me stripes.

Just to make the matching more difficult, I've worked the ribbing in one row stripes too. This has led to much re-winding of the yarn when I start a new piece so that I can try to start at the same place in the colour run. Have you noticed that sometimes balls of variegated yarn are wound in opposite directions too? All in all, it's a bit tricky.

I was reminded of this when I knitted one of my Baby Kite Jackets for a new baby in the family earlier this year. The patterned yarn I'd chosen had a longer colour run than I'd used before so I made the effort to match the two knitted halves.

This worked out well and the jacket is now keeping baby Kiana warm in the Zimbabwean winter.

Inspired by this, I decided to try another yarn with a longer colour run when I knitted a Tolly Baby Jacket for another baby this spring. The yarn is WYS Signature 4 ply; the cream is 'Milk Bottle' and the variegated 'Rum Paradise', quite different drinks for a baby jacket.

The front body sections are worked on fewer stitches than the sleeves and the back so the width of the colour stripes varies but I think it still looks planned.

See what I mean?

I didn't match the stripes with the matching booties and the hat was knitted in one piece so there was nothing to match there.

I hadn't actually designed a hat to complete the set when I first published the patterns for the jacket and booties so I've done that now. You can download it for free as normal from my ravelry shop.

What about you? Do you match up the stripes in variegated yarns when you're knitting? I must say, I found it easier to do with a small baby jacket than with my adult sized jumper but clashing stripes do bother me.

Eleven Stitch Lace

It's been a long time but I've finally managed to publish a new pattern. Don't be fooled by the name, this is really an addition to my large stable of Ten Stitch Patterns.

Eleven Stitch Lace

I've been wondering about doing a lace version of the ten stitch for years and finally got round to starting it last year. The simple, one row pattern is a variation of one I found in Mary Thomas' Book of Knitting Patterns (the 'patterns' are actually stitch patterns) but I had to add an extra stitch to my knitted strip to balance the two lines of eyelets.

There were several challenges in designing this one, notably how to maintain the lace pattern while working the short rows for the corners but I got there in the end. I thought a lace blanket would be good for a baby so I changed colour every 'round' and used a range of different pastel colours.

As ever, I used Stylecraft Special DK for my blanket. You get a more accurate idea of the colours in the actual blanket in the picture below.

I was definitely out of my comfort zone with these colours as I normally favour much brighter shades but I think they worked well together in the end. I don't normally add an edging to my ten stitch blankets but, what with all that lace pulling it around, I felt it needed something. After a lot of experimentation I settled on an I cord edging worked in garter stitch which was just right. You can see it at the bottom of this rather dreadful photo. Oh the trouble I had taking photos of all these pale colours.

I hope you like this pattern. Next up will be a baby hat as I work through a collection of projects that I've finished but not yet written up.

Meanwhile, my mostly wild garden is full of flowers ...

... and indoors, the paeonies my daughter brought me last weekend are showing off on the mantelpiece.

A Bit of Work and a Lot of Roses

Those of you who despaired of me ever publishing another pattern will be glad to hear that I've started working again. I'm only doing about half an hour at a time but it's a start. All this week I've been writing up my pattern for a lace version of the Ten Stitch Blanket.

It's hard going as a) I knitted it a while ago so it's not fresh in my mind, b) my notes for it are scattered all over my current notebook and c) it took me a while to remember how to use my pattern writing software. I've got as far as the garter stitch I cord edging now though so the end of the first draft is in sight.

I've also just started work on a new bunting pattern to go with my Spring, Autumn and Christmas bunting patterns (no links for these as they messed up my formatting). This one will be inspired by Summer and, so far, I've sorted out the colours I'm going to use and knitted the first of the twelve flags.

I used my cross stitch Summer sampler from Little Dove Designs to find the colours for this one as they're probably going to be displayed together.

This is a straightforward project at the moment as I can just copy my pattern for the flags from the other patterns. The tricky part will come when I have to design little knitted motifs to represent Summer. So far, I've though of an ice cream but I can't decide whether it should be an ice lolly or a 99 cornet. For the non-British, this is a vanilla ice cream with a chocolate flake stuck in it. Personally, I would never touch the whippy sort of ice cream often used for these which is the work of the devil. 

While I'm on the subject of ice cream, you might like to try my late Mother-in law's lemon ice cream which has got to be the easiest recipe ever. You take equal quantities of lemon curd and double cream (I use a 300g jar of the curd and 300 ml of cream), whisk them together until they're well mixed, pour into a container and freeze. That's all there is to it. You don't need to take it out of the freezer in advance as the spoon goes into it straight away and it's very, very tasty. The amounts I use fill one of these square 750 ml boxes.

Now for a rose update. No sooner had the first one flowered than all the rest decided to get their acts together and join the race. I give you ...

Kew Gardens

Buff Beauty

and the wonderfully named Tottering-by-Gently

As you can see, this last one is in the front garden by the railings, showing off to passers by. Just along from it is The Poet's Wife which isn't in flower yet but is absolutely full of buds.

Meanwhile, the first rose of this year has got lots more flowers on the way.

Lady of Shalott

I love my roses but I'm also fond of the common flowers that some call weeds. The grass out the back is getting long and tatty now but it can't be cut before the ox-eye-daisies have flowered and they're very nearly there, along with some woodland buttercups. Any day now ...

The First Rose

I'm enjoying listening to Spring is the Only Season by Simon Barnes at the moment, a wonderful tribute to this time of year which is punctuated by his 'Signs of Spring' lists. I don't keep lists but I do like noticing the arrival of the first flowers, birdsong and butterflies. In particular, I wait eagerly for the first of my many roses to bloom.

For the last few years this has been Kew Gardens, a pretty little white rose which flowers right through from late April until the end of the summer. This was its first flower back in April 2024.

As normal, it's got masses of buds this year but ... just as I was waiting for one to flower, I spotted another contender further up the garden.

This one is Lady of Shalott, one of the marmalade coloured roses that I particularly like. Yesterday, a week later than the first rose normally appears, it produced this.

Isn't it beautiful? My daughter has had four different roses in flower for a while now but she lives twenty miles further south than me which makes a difference. How are the roses doing in your garden?

Now I'm on the lookout for the second rose ...

Hello again

Four months after my last blog post and my mantelpiece has changed from Christmas to Spring time.

I've tried to plan things to write about here over the months but I always ran out of energy halfway through sorting out the photos. I haven't been able to design new things either ... well, not until very recently anyway.

Every time I thought of writing, I was daunted by how to fill in all those months of silence until it occurred to me that I could just say "Hello, here I am" and then start again. So that's what I'm doing today.

Now I'm going to sort out some files of photos in the hope that I can turn them into a few short posts. Fingers crossed!