Month: March 2022

We’re in person today!!! It’s been busy busy for us both, but we managed it! You can check out the podcast here.

What we’re knitting

Gillian cast on a WestKnits Reis Jersey with lots of her gorgeous handspun, including yarn spun with roving from Heavenly Wools, Fibre2go and a few other kiwi indi dyers.

Kylie has been busy with the Sock Madness competition. The first round of the competition is a gorgeous pair of socks called Ipomoea knit out of a Crazy Zauberball which i won from Loopine during the Socktober Competition last year, so it’s lovely to have knit this yarn up!!

Gill has been knitting some gorgeous socks too using some King Cole on the Crazy Sock Lady Heel Toe Do Si Do pattern, which is a gorgeous chevron pattern – a wonderful way to make a self striping sock yarn sing!

Gill has also cast on a very pretty cowl called the Gambit Cowl which is a chessboard/houndstooth pattern, double sided cowl. Yarns used are a sparkle sock from Harnie Hoolies and a Tweedy yarn from Yeah Yeah Yarn.

Kylie has finished crocheting all of the squares from both of the Waiting Blanket kits purchased from Little Woollie Makes. Each square was made using a ball of Moya Trilogy. The squares are being joined using a Moya shimmer yarn with slipped stitches through the back loop to crease a flat seam.

Finished!

Kylie has been busy with the Sock Madness competition. The qualifying pair was the pattern Engelkristal knit fraternal in a green/blue combination out of Outlaw Sock Bandit yarn. They have ended up a bit small, but i’m sure we’ll find someone they fit!

Kylie made a Comfort Coffee Cozy as a swatch – a very simple brioche coffee cozy – so i don’t burn my hand when i drink my long black coffee!

Gill has finished her Fiddly Bits Cowl out of random leftover striped and it looks fantastic! Another finished project that couldn’t be shown (because they have already been posted!) are the Easy Mosaic Socks which were knit out of yarn from Purple Sprouting. Here’s a picture – aren’t they beautiful!

Another gorgeous project Gill has finished, is a cute little Flax Light from Tin Can Knits using some super soft Miro Yarns.

Kylie has finished her Scrap Yarn Basket using 3 fingering weight yarns and 3 DK yarns held together and a 9mm crochet hook.

Stash Enhancement

“Sunflower Safari” from Inky Fingers Yarn was purchased by Gill. The proceeds of this yarn went towards Ukranian Relief funds.

Gill visited Nancy’s Stitch Studio in Wellington and purchased a Kaffe Fassett Mille Fluer embroidery kit and a ball of Regia Design Line also by Kaffe Fassett, which she kindly gifted Kylie since she found it was already in her stash! She also bought a ball of Joy! Opal Joy yarn from The Yarn Queen.

Kylie was fortunate enough to win some yarn from Yeah Yeah Yarn – a sweaters quantity to make the Yeah Yeah Sweater by Dana Kikic Nemmert Boredom Kills Designs. This was a competition back in January between the designer and the yarn dyer – so very generous and i’m so grateful for this gorgeous yarn!

Books

We talked about a couple of books we both got recently. Brioche Knitting for Beginners and Beyond is the first printed book from Knit Grafiti Designs. Kylie has already started swatching for Coffee and Jewels, while Gill has her eyes on Glitz and Glamour.

We also purchased a book together – The Shetland Trader Book 3: Heritage since there was a pattern we both liked in it. There are lots of gorgeous patterns such as Vair and Maywick – lots of colourwork and chevrons which we can’t seem to get enough of!!

Sustainability

Kylie has been listening to a podcast called Check Your Thread which has been challenging. It has challenged me to think more sustainably about making and teaching me new ways of doing things, like using Waste Free patterns and working more from stash “The most sustainable fabric is the fabric you already have.”

Click here to view podcast.

Apologies for such a large gap in our podcasts – we got hit by germs!! Thankfully neither of us have had Covid, but it seems we have fallen victim to another lurgy of sorts! We’re back! But Kylie still has a sore throat, so you’ll just have to bare with us today 😀

Finished Objects (FO’s)

Kylie has finished a hat! Pattern is the Barley Light (free!) from Tin Can Knits in some gorgeous 50/50 Merino/Silk yarn from Yarn Floozy in her ‘Savant’ base. Colourway is “Tourmaline”. This hat has been knit as a swatch for an upcoming garment project, and my daughter has already got dibs on it! We think it needs a fabulous fluffy pom pom – what do you think?

Gill finished a cardigan – and didn’t rip it back!!! It’s a design by Ambah O’Brien called the Ochre Cardigan and it looks devine! Gorgeous lace detail on the bottom of the cardigan as well as the edge of each sleeve. It is knitted by holding 2 yarns together – one yarn is from one of our local group’s alpaca farm (no longer trading), and the other was from Harnie Hoolie’s.

Gill has finished some amazing spinning – some hot pink yarn which she has chain plied. This yarn has ended up sport-DK weight. And some incredible dark purple yarn which was constructed by corespinning, then spiral plying!! This yarn was spun from some purple fibre from Nelson. It might become the edging for a sweater Gill is working on.

Works in Progress (WIP’s)

Sock Madness is on again this year, and Kylie can’t help herself but join along!! The first pattern is a qualifying pattern called Eingelkristall which is a gorgeous 2 colour stripped, cabled sock pattern. Yarn is Outlaw Yarn’s Sock Bandit in colourways “Adventure Jelly” and “Frolic Jelly”. Kylie has 2 weeks to knit these socks in order to qualify for the competition.

Gill has cast on a Lightweight Hipster shawl by Joji Locatelli. She can’t remember what the yarn is but it’s a lovely tweedy yarn purchased at Woolfest. Gill is altering the pattern to suit her whim! Lots of texture in this one.

Gill cast on a Flax Light (another free Tin Can Knits pattern!) as a baby gift project but had some needle woes!

Kylie has been slowly working on her Misurina top by Caitlin Hunter. Nearly through the colourwork section! Yarn is from fibre2go.

All the scrappy knits!

Gill and Kylie have both been channeling a bit of scrappy knitting this year! We’ve found that weighing scraps and sorting them into ‘sizes’ by weight can be helpful for planning out scrap projects.

Kylie has started a Scrap Yarn Basket (another free pattern!) using a 9mm hook and 3 strands of 4-ply yarn + 3 strands of 8-ply yarn.

Gill has started a Scrap Happy Triangle designed by Stephen West. This is a lovely scrappy shawl project with a very funky spine design!

Both Kylie and Gill have started a NorthEasterly scrappy blanket designed by Skeinanigans. Kylie shared hers this week as she has been working on it quite a bit. If you are looking for some scrappy kits, Little Woollie Makes does some amazing mini kits each month – join her on instagram and get on her mailing list to be advised of when they come available as they sell out quickly.

Kylie also shared her Vivid blanket project because she has knit a few recently and has also been reblocking them recently – to 7″ squares. There are 26 squares completes so far but lots to go!!!

Knitting Chat

We talked about our knitting styles a bit during this podcast. Kylie likes the more difficult, patterned sections, while Gill prefers the ’round and round’ sections. We both agree that ‘chunking’ is the way to get things done – little bits of pattern followed by plain sections for example. Patterns that can be broken down into little bits – where it feels like you have done a bit and achieved something!

Gill is thinking about doing a colourwork garment – with small sections of colourwork followed by a bit of plain.

Acquisitions

Gill got to visit the Ribbon Rose in Mount Wellington while she was working! She purchased a “Schoppel Zauber Perlen” in colourway “Piano Forte”. This is a fairly recent release from Schoppel and includes 7 mini balls across a gradient from one colour to the next. It’s like one of their Zauberballs, but you get to control where the colours change – very cool!! She also got a skein of “Broadway Yarns” in the Autumn Days colourway and a skein of “Malibrigo”.

Both Kylie and Gill bought some raffle tickets from Little Acorn Yarn for the Ukraine people – funds going directly to Red Cross. This fundraiser finishes at midnight 11th March so get in quick!!

Kylie discovered a new-to-her Wellington based yarn company – Good Wool Hunting. They had 20% of Chiagoo Needles, so she got a set of mini’s to add to her tools. Kylie also purchased a ball of sport-weight Opal sock yarn (Colourway ‘Rain of Smiles’ – 150g ball!! I haven’t seen this before, so thought it would be good to give it a try. The Chiagoo needles discount is no more, but they now have 20% off their West Yorkshire Spinners Yarn, so go check them out!

Kylie also signed up for the WestKnits annual YAL (Yarn a-long) which is a fully inclusive kit for 3 exclusive shawls purchased through the Stephen & Penelope Shop. They are still available if you are interested in joining me, you can check it out here.

We also both got a new Brioche book – but we forgot to bring them along, so we’ll show this next podcast 😀

Knit-a-long’s (KAL’s)

Kylie is joining the Loopine “Sweata Weatha” KAL which starts Friday 11th March and goes through to 28th May. The KAL is to knit a sweater using yarn purchased from Loopine. This is kicking off with a Virtual Knit Night on Friday 11th – check out her instagram for more information.

We also talked about the Drea Renee Knits KAL which also goes from March to May hosted on her ravelry group – the KAL is to knit one of her sweater designs in this time. You could join both of these KAL’s by knitting a DRK sweater design using yarn from Loopine!!