Friday 13 January 2006

Birthday Celebrations

I nearly forgot - Six Skeins Under is now 1 year old. Happy Birthday blog! To mark the occasion, we have a FO:

Woohooo! Martha is done! As you can see, it fits, and is lightweight, cuddly, and cosy. The colour is "Chilly" but the finished item is far from that, the yarn being Rowan Cork which is almost all merino wool.

I used 8 balls (400g) as stated in the pattern for the medium size, and I used every last inch. So much so that I had to use a stash yarn to finish off the side seaming tonight. Thanks to the lovely lace-up seaming technique I used last year, the substitute yarn isn't visible at all. I'm chuffed!

It would have been finished earlier this week, but my 2 doughters and I have all been smitten by a horrible heavy cold, so I didn't even feel like knitting much. (That's my excuse for the dishevelled look in the photo too - not that my mind-of-its-own hair ever looks much neater than that!) My 2 "free" (i.e. non-work) days this week were taken up with looking after my 2 little ones as they were off school feeling so poorly. I think we're all on the mend now though, thankfully.

So.... what next? I know I have various other projects still on the needles, but as usual my eye has been taken by a newbie - namely this
Rain Dance Shawl which is a free pattern from Elann. I have 500g of DK wool/acrylic blend yarn in my stash which is unallocated project-wise, which I'm thinking of trying out. I don't know the yardage of it, but maybe I should just suck it and see! it's a bit brighter than the colours I usually go for, but hey, summer's on the way!

The question is, should I try to measure a 50g ball first to determine the yardage (after checking the tension of course)? What do you reckon?

6 comments:

Sharon J said...

Martha looks good :) Could you tell me what the yardage is on the Rowan Cork? I'd just like to compare it with the Rowanspun I bought yesterday. I can understand why you've fallen for the Rain Dance Shawl - she's beautiful! If I could wear shawls (is there a way of learning to wear them and getting away with it?) I'd consider knitting one myself. ~Sharon

Anonymous said...

Martha looks wonderful! It's a good color on you. :) Good job!

Daisy said...

Happy Birthday blog! And Martha looks fantastic!

MandellaUK said...

Martha is excellent, and I think you look like you're ready to take on all comers, not in the least bit dishevelled. Sorry you've not been feeling too chipper though.

As regards measuring the yarn, there's something on the Knitter's Review site about how to do it, but it seems to require a niddy noddy and a yarn meter, or yarn balance. The pattern only calls for 300g, and you've got 500, plus acrylic tends to go further than pure wool. If it were me, I'd go for it!

PURLPOWER said...

Fantastic FO and in colours that match your blog - what excellent planning! I have also found with Rowan yarns sometimes I seem to need a wee bit more than patterns state.

Iris said...

Happy Blog anniversary!

And what a wonderful FO - Martha looks great on you. :-)

Iris
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