Tag: knitting

Armoured Gloves

I started a new knitting project a few days ago, and I’ve been knitting to destress after my driving lessons, so I’ve whizzed through the project and finished it already. It was a really fun thing to knit, using basic garter stitch and looping metal scales into every second row to create a scale maille effect.

I was looking for a pattern on ravelry a few weeks ago and thought it would be good to try a new technique, and this jumped right out at me.

I ordered four packs of small anodised aluminium scales from The Ring Lord in black, bronze, gold and champagne. The gold and champagne scales look quite similar to each other in some light conditions and quite different in others. I’d have preferred a more distinct colour difference between them, but other than that, I like how the colours go together. Read more

Cowl Neck Sweater

In December 2009 we moved from Toronto back to the UK. My brother and sister stayed over there, and it sucks that we live so far apart now. My sister visited the following summer, and when she left I bought some yarn to cheer myself up.

I bought 10 balls of Artesano Inca Cloud, a sport weight alpaca yarn that is lovely and soft. It came with a free pattern, and I selected the Nico sweater by Jean Moss. I had only knit one sweater before, a chunky acrylic man’s cardigan, so this would be the biggest project I’d started for myself, and the second sweater. Read more

Sock Knitting

I’m not sure where I heard the idea that real knitters knit socks, but I’d been knitting for probably over a decade and had never tried to make a pair of socks before. I was curious, were they really so difficult? It was time to find out.

My friend bought me some lovely alpaca sock yarn for my birthday back in 2012 and I started knitting. I chose a toe up pattern as that meant no seaming on the toes, and a short row heel as I thought they looked the nicest. I went with Elfine’s Socks, a free pattern with a pretty lace design, with both a chart and written pattern. I prefer to knit from a written pattern, but many lace patterns only provide charts which I find frustrating. Read more

Moss Stitch Tie – Free Pattern


My brother asked me to knit him a tie. He chose the yarn (a cheap acrylic) and described how he hoped it would turn out. I had previously knit him a wool tie in stockinette stitch that curled terribly, and he wanted one that wouldn’t curl. I assured him that moss stitch was the way to go and started knitting. A few inches in, he told me he wanted a “flat bit” at the end. He wanted a few rows of stockinette to make a neater edge. He could have told me that at the beginning.

I stuffed the unfinished tie into my yarn storage box and forgot about it. Then his birthday came around and I thought I would be nice to him. I ripped out the original tie and started again with the “flat bit” he had asked for. Here’s the result, along with a free pattern in case you also have a fussy brother who wants a hand knit tie 🙂 Read more

Curled Cowl Knitting Pattern

Flat knitting has a natural tendency to curl up on itself that is usually considered to be annoying. It is often “fixed” by adding a few rows of ribbing or moss stitch. For this pattern, that curl is what we’re looking for.

You will need:

  • One 50g ball chunky yarn eg Freedom Wool from Twilleys
  • 10mm circular needles
  • About an hour, depending on how fast you knit

Step One – Cast On

Cast on 60 stitches using your preferred method. Join in the round. Gauge is not terribly important, but you should get about 10 stitches to 10cm.

Step Two – Knit

Continue knitting in the round using knit stitches only, which creates standard stockinette in the round. You should be able to knit about 15-20 cms before running low on yarn. Read more

Cabled hat and headband with flower

I have been doing loads of knitting lately, but because I have so many projects on the needles it’s been a while since I finished anything. Two things have now been cast off and finished up, so I thought I’d share/show them off.

The hat was knit from the snowtracks cap pattern in king craig aran tweed merino and cashmere and can be found on ravelery. I enjoyed the cable pattern, and while the yarn was a bit weird to knit with, I like the finished hat a lot.

The headband was knit from the knit ear warmer with crochet flower pattern in texere monaco cotton and can also be found on ravelry. The headband stretches a lot when I wear it, I wish I had made it smaller. Perhaps throwing it in the washing machine will tighten it up a bit. Read more

Andalutheean Knitted Dishcloth

This morning I picked up my needles to whip up something quick and easy while I was waiting for lunch time to roll around.

I went for the Andalutheean dishcloth. It was a very quick knit, and the simple stitch pattern was very easy to remember whilst knitting, but looks a bit fancier than plain stocking stitch.

I have been talking about making my own household items for a long time, and finally have my first dish cloth. Yey!

View this project on ravelry.

My first attempt at a handmade christmas

This christmas I wanted my gifts to be a bit special as well as inexpensive, so I chose to hand make a lot of the things that I gave.

As usual, I envisaged all sorts of beautiful things, and with six weeks to go I figured I had plenty of time to sort everything out and get it all finished in time. Of course I would…

I spent the last few days before christmas frantically knitting, crocheting and sewing. In the end, everyone got their gifts and seemed to like them, so I guess finishing things off at 2am on christmas eve night was worth it. It didn’t feel like it at the time though! Read more