Everything I have Ever Knitted – Continued

This week I have been trying to finish the cardigan I have been knitting for Oxford Yarn Store and trying to finish the Creative Cables throw – at the time of writing I still haven’t finished either of them.

I decided to makes some progress on something by writing a bit more about some of the things I have knitted over the years.  This first piece is a sample of probably the first multi-coloured yarn that I ever used.  I knitted a short-sleeved jumper in about 1984.  It was the time when summer yarns were being promoted for the first time.

I did wear the jumper – I remember wearing it under a black suit.  I had totally forgotten about it until I found a ball of the yarn. It was called Robin Diamante and was supposedly double knitting yarn – but it is very thin.  It was 87% acrylic and 13% nylon.  It is described as “lustre crepe”.

This second piece is similar  to yarn I used for a plain fluffy scarf.  It was mohair but tempered by nylon so it didn’t shed hairs everywhere.  I knitted it on the train travelling backwards and forwards to Oxford – so that was in 1984 as well.

This third piece is also fluffy.  I can’t remember the exact name of the yarn but it was “Funky Fur” or something like that.  I bought it to make a jumper for a little girl.  

She would have been about 4 at the time and she is 21 now – so it would have been in the summer of 2002.  I do like novelty yarns but prefer it if they don’t make a lot of mess.  They are fun and knitting should be fun.

Boxes and Bowls

This week’s topic for the Oxford branch of the Knitting and Crochet Guild meeting tomorrow is knitted and crocheted boxes and baskets.  

I decided to try to make a bowl using Noro Kureyon and single crochet.  My first attempt was a small bowl starting with a ring and working outwards using some rough crochet.  I intended to felt the finished bowl to hide the imperfections and this I duly did.  It is not too bad.  

I then had another go - again with single crochet and Kureyon but I have not felted it.  I also made a much bigger ring to start with – about 8sts and tried to keep the crochet flat for longer to make the bowl larger.  

I think the bowl shows off the colour change of the yarn and the single crochet is so stiff – it makes quite a good soft bowl.  The normal disadvantage of crochet – its stiffness and lack of drape is an advantage in this case.

I then found a pattern for a box made with string in the book Simple Knits for Easy Living by Erika Knight.  You are supposed to use string and starch but I have used green garden twine.  It was only about £1 and the whole roll makes one small box with twine leftover.  It is quite stiff but I could still starch it or paint it with glue if I wanted it to be stiffer.

I have now started knitting a small box using raffia – I will carry on with that tomorrow but now I had better get back to knitting the cardigan that I mentioned last week.