Knitting With Love

I have recently finished these socks for my niece with my leftover Poprocks yarn. As something special I have added small hearts into the heel. The heels are knit with slipped stitches, but the hearts are knit with regular stockinette stitch, which makes them slightly raised. I think they are very cute.

I have also tried a new cast-on recommended in The Handknitter’s Handbook. You cast-on using the tubular cast-on and on the first row you knit and purl almost like you normally would, you just twist the purl stitches. I think it works well.

Here is the chart, if you want to add hearts to your heels:

And here you can find it in a pdf document for easy printing.

Summer Tunic

I crave colour these days and sewed this tunic while it was still cold and rainy outside. The pattern is a free download from the German Burda Style website. Unfortunately I could not find out in which issue it was originally published.

For once I made no alterations to the pattern. It has huge sleeves that end up in your spaghettis if you are not careful ; ) I think it is meant as a cover-up for the beach, but I have been wearing it with a red tank top underneath.

What I absolutely  love about the tunic is the fabric. I bought it last year and it is a cotton voile by Anna Maria Horner. It is just wonderful: soft, smooth and feels like silk.

Pattern: Burda Style

Fabric: Anna Maria Horner, Little Folks Voile: Coloring Garden – Berry, Baby Bouquet – Sweet

Gift For a Teacher

I found this cute pattern on Ravelry, but decided to crochet it instead of knitting and made it up as I went along.

The yarn is from my stash. It is a superwash wool in worsted weight, but I do not remember the brand.

I think, I will gift this in a brown paper bag. Fitting, no? It is for the same teacher who lent me her spinning wheel. I believe, she will appreciate it.  

Here is how I did it:

I started out with a small ring of 5 slip stitches that I increased with single crochet (increasing every stitch) until I had a disk 12 sts around. I placed a marker to show the beginning of a round. Then I increased 4 sts * every round until I had 60 sts. After that I went straight for 2 rows,  crocheting back and forth from this point to create an opening. In the following rows I decreased 4 stitches every other row.  When I had only 12 stitches left, I crocheted a small loop and cast off. 

The stem I made with 5 slip stitches, turned and then stitched 1 single crochet into every loop. For the leaf I made 3 slip stitches, crocheted in single crochet 2 rounds, increased to 6 sts the next round, continued straight for a few rounds and decreased until I had 1 stitch left. 

The embroidery is a simple back stitch. I folded the leaf in the middle lengthwise and stitched it together in the end to give it more shape before I attached it to the apple.

* stitch 3 increase 1, repeat ;  next row: stitch 4 increase 1, repeat;  next row: stitch 5 increase 1, repeat  etc. 

Look At These Marigold Socks!

Marigold SocksOriginally uploaded by Lamby Knits

Lamby Knits made these wonderful socks out of Sunnyside Ellen yarn in the colourway Blue Lagoon. It was actually her idea to dye the colourway striped and not variegated.

I love, how these socks turned out. Thank you so much for showing them to me and to allow me to blog about them. I believe the pattern is from here. It is very pretty!

Pumpkin Hat – A Pattern of Sorts

I have been asked, how I made the Pumpkin Hats. I used a cotton acrylic blend (50/50) sport weight held double. For sizing I used a chart from here. I aimed for a 17 1/2 inches (44cm) head circumference. I cast on that many stitches accordingly minus 5 (about 1 inch worth) and knitted stockinette in the round until I had a nicely rolled brim.   Then I increased 5 stitches evenly  and ended up with a number of stitches dividable by 11. So I started a pattern of knit 10, purl 1 all around and knit until the hat was  about 5 1/2 inches (14cm) high.

I decreased by ssk (or skp) at the beginning of every segment between the purl stitches and k2tog at the end of every segment. I followed the decrease rounds by knitting 3 rows straight.

When every segment was only 3 stitches wide I changed to the green yarn and decreased every other round with k2tog until I had 4 or 5 stitches left. ( The first round is a *k2tog, k1* repeat, the following are k2tog only.)

I put these on one DPN and continued to knit these into an I-cord for about 1 inch (2.5 cm). I cut the yarn and threaded the tail through the 4 (or 5 )stitches, pulled them tight and I was done! (Well, except for weaving in the ends, of course.)