A Selection of Hats

Recently I have been neglecting this blog again, but I have been knitting.  The Knitting and Crochet Guild want items to sell at a Christmas Fayre – so I have knitted some hats.

They are quite similar to the tea cosies that I normally knit - but I think more people wear hats than use tea cosies!  Knitting a hat is quite satisfying – it can be done quickly and does not require difficult techiques. 

100 Yarns Throw – Finished Version

I have finished this throw.  I am pleased with it and think it is a good way of using up odd bits of yarn.

I knitted a border on the throw but decided that it curled up too much – so I unravelled it and crocheted a simple edge – like one of the throws that inspired this project.

The idea for this throw was originally conceived while I was knitting the colour blocks blanket from Martin Storey’s Afghan Knits book.  The difference being that the colour blocks throw is knitted in garter stitch rather than stocking stitch, in 4 colours rather than about 100, has 63 squares rather than 42 and no border.  There are 2 main similarities.  I cast on the same number of stitches – 89 (although using 6.5mm needles instead of 4.5mm) and I knit the squares flat and then sewed up the seam on each one to make a square.

Before I knitted the colour blocks blanket – I had seen a throw in the book Knitalong by Larissa Brown and Martin John Brown.   This was a “Barn-Raising Quilt” knitted where each square had been knitted by different people.  The appearance of the quilt is similar – in that it is squares arranged in groups of similar colours and I knitted the same number of squares - 42. The differences are that the Barn-Raising Quilt was knitted in the round on four needles and using sock yarn.

So although I was inspired by 2 other knitted throws – mine is different – in terms of needle size and yarn used.  The general weight of yarn is between aran and chunky.  I have included sock yarn but in combination with something else to make it thicker. Each square was cast on using a main colour to make the squares easy to sew together.

100 Yarns Throw – Progress Report

There has been a bit of a gap in this blog – for 2 reasons – firstly I have been away, but secondly my camera has decided to stop working.  Whilst I was away I didn’t get much knitting done.  This project is not very portable.  In theory it should have been because I have knitted 42 individual squares – but they each involved so many different yarns – it would have been too difficult to carry more than enough yarn for a couple of squares.

I have now knitted all 42 squares.  I know it sounds odd – but this throw really knitted itself.  I just decided to knit a green square or an orange square – picked some yarns and knitted it.  I didn’t plan it at all.  On Sunday I arranged all the squares on my bed – and then I rearranged them and rearranged them.  I decided that I had better stop doing that and start sewing some of them together.  I sewed them into groups of 6 or 9 and then washed and blocked them.  This was easier than blocking individual squares.

A few days ago I tried to take some photos of the blue and green squares – but my camera would not work.  I knew that my phone ought to take photos – but I had never tried to use it.  Today I did – and the photos in this post are from my phone.  I didn’t really know what I was doing (you can probably tell) and I could not get them to save into the right album – but I have succeeded in taking some photos to show you the current state of the throw.

The varioius pieces need to be sewn together and then I want to knit a border around the edge.  I should get this done in the next few days.