Eastwood Bag, The Knitter issue 26

I’ve been really lax about posting over the last couple of weeks but I honestly haven’t been idle, though I must admit to watching a few too many episodes of ‘Law & Order’ whilst I work. My latest design for The Knitter is now available and the photos look brilliant. It’s always difficult to imagine exactly how a project will look when photographed especially when you’re not the one holding the camera. (In my case I should say it’s sometimes my husband who does my photographs – well it IS his job and he’s far better at it than I www.samsloan.co.uk).

Eastwood is a curved bottomed bag worked in a combination of techniques. The front & back sections are knitted in an argyle inspired intarsia pattern using the wonderfully richly coloured Noro Kureyon on 6.50 mm needles. Of course when working intarsia it’s normal to work with a new ball / colour for each different motif but in order to accentuate the diamond pattern you need to prepare the yarn before casting on. This means using each major change in the colourway as a ‘new’ colour and  seperating the 100g ball into lots of mini balls. You can then pick out the neutral or hot tones within the yarn ( I chose to focus on the hotter orange, pink, yellow ) and plan out where you want the colours to occur on the chart .

The gusset and pocket are worked on smaller needles in fairisle using a doubled end of Jamieson & Smith’s 2ply Jumperweight in colours that echo the tones of the Kureyon. There’s a nice textural contrast between the chunky reverse stocking stitch of the front/back and the finer weight stocking stitch gusset. Felting ( or should I say fulling ) after it’s knitted blurs the colours and shrinks the bag for a more sturdy fabric and although I don’t usually line my bags I really felt ( oops – no pun intended ) that  in this case it was necessary to help with the bulbous shape. The gorgeous leather handle in delicious chocolate brown comes from U-Handbag, mmm I could spend some serious money there.

I hope you enjoy this design, stay warm

J

Officially Winter

Here in the UK it’s officially winter as the clocks went back this weekend. There’s been a lot of talk about whether we should still be changing the clocks for the end of British Summer Time but we didn’t get much of a summer here in Edinburgh so the change at least means that we can officially stop looking to the skies first thing in the morning in the vain hope that the sun will make an appearance impressive enough for us to only need one layer instead of three. As a January born baby I like this time of year for lots of knitting, wrapping up warm in long boots with skirts ( plus a top of course ) and  storing edible goodies, hence Mrs Sloan’s Homemade pickles.  ( By the way, just one of Mr Sloan’s pickled chillis nearly took our heads off on Saturday ). So to celebrate November  and the official start of British Winter Time I’ve got 2 more patterns for you which are available for download from the website.

Firstly there’s Gladstone Bag which was first published in The Knitter issue 10 so if you missed that issue of the magazine this is your chance to get a copy of the pattern.

Knitted in Jamieson & Smiths 2ply Jumperweight the bag is beaded in 2 colours with intarsia motifs on the sides with a brightly contrasting base worked in slip stitch stripes. Felting helps to give the bag it’s structure and embroidery stitches such as backstitch, bullion knots & Pekinese stitch create a riot of texture reminiscent of the Marrakesh souk that inspired the design. If you haven’t tried felting or colourwork before I probably wouldn’t recommend this as your first project but if you have tackled basic intarsia & beading and fancy a bit of a challenge then this is a satisfying project to knit. The stunningly classy Lucite bag handle is the final finishing touch and available from Pavi Yarns here

The bright bullion knots and buttons are applied after felting

The chainstitch & Pekinese stitch edges are applied before felting and the tassels are attached afterwards at the centres

Next there’s Clem’s Lace which is a beautifully soft scarf named after my grandmother Clementine.

Worked in an undulating lace pattern the double decreases and yarn overs give the scarf soft bumping side edges. It’s knitted flat in two pieces which are grafted together at the centre using Kitchener stitch so that the pattern is mirrored towards the centre. I’ve used my Worsted spun 100% cashmere and the yarn takes on another level of softness when you block and pin out the scarf. Just give it a gentle blast of steam with an iron and it becomes  much more full and rounded which makes the finished scarf even more dreamily soft. The pattern includes both charted and written instructions and is suitable for knitters of advanced beginner level and upwards.

Enjoy the new patterns and  pinch and a punch for the first of the month. (No returns )

J

Make and Bake for Mencap

Knitting, tea AND cake – surely a match made in heaven, yes?! Well why not combine all 3 for a good cause

The Knitter magazine and Mencap are urging knitters everywhere to grab their knitting needles, bung on the kettle and put on a Make and Bake tea party, to help raise money for the learning disability charity Mencap. Not only that, but if you hold a Make and Bake event you could be in with the chance to win a fabulous prize  – 2 tickets for the Knitting & Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace in October.

The tea parties are a simple, enjoyable way for knitters to raise money for a good cause ( as I said you’re off to a pretty good start with the tea and the cake ) so to help people get started, Mencap and The Knitter have put together a fundraising pack which is packed full of handy fundraising tips and recipes for delicious summer treats.

To enter the  competition all you need to do is take a picture from your Make and Bake event and send it into Mencap. The winning shot will be the picture that best captures the spirit of Make and Bake and the winner will be the proud owner of two crisp tickets to the Twisted Thread Knitting and Stitching Show 2010 at Alexandra Palace on 7^th – 10^th October 2010.

The closing date for the competition is Monday 20^th September, so be sure to submit your entries to Mencap by then, you can submit up to five images per person and the sizes  shouldn’t exceed 2MB per image. Either email your pics to ruth.attride@mencap.org.uk or post them to:

Make and Bake competition
Ruth Attride
123 Golden Lane
London
EC1Y ORT

Make sure you include your name, full address, email address and a contact number.

I’m off to put the kettle on . . ..

Chrysalis Cardi, The Knitter Issue 18

Just taking a quick break from blocking a new design before I get started on the embroidery to post a couple of pics of my latest design published in The Knitter. It’s a pretty child’s design called ‘Chrysalis’ which I think is the perfect party cardigan for a little girl and is knitted in Lang Yarns’ Merino 150. I’ll be posting more next week with tips and how to’s for the embroidery-shy amongst you but for now . .

Miss Galloni Shrug, The knitter Issue 16

Copyright The Knitter magazine

Remember the 80′s? All that bold colour and graphic pattern not to mention the shoulder pads, flicked hair and Duran Duran – or was that just me?! This design is a little salute to Missoni and their trademark colourful chevron knits and here’s one of my hilarious ‘fashion drawings’ that shows where the idea began – note the Nick Rhodes hairdo . My sketches are designed to get the idea ‘down’ rather than be a work of fine art and you can tell from it that I did textiles.

Knitted ( by my very good friend June )in Noro Kureyon sock yarn it’s worked from cuff to cuff in a combination of rounds and rows with columns of vertical lace holes travelling across the back whilst the deflected stitches create a zig zag effect at both cast on and cast off edges. The stripes are knitted by alternating two balls of the same shade of the Noro, each at diifferent points in the colourway, in order to make the stripe effect more obvious and I’ve emphasised these edges with Debbie Bliss Rialto 4ply. Once the main body of the shrug is complete and all the ends have been sewn in, use a scrap of contrast yarn to sew a line of running stitch along the sleeve edge in order to mark where to pick up for the cuff

Marking out a line of sts to make picking up easier

the pointed edges can then be ‘set’ by pinning in place and blasting with a steam iron a few times before allowing them to cool

Once cool the stitches can be picked up for the cuff which is worked in the Rialto 4ply to pick up the contrast of the cast / cast off edge. . .

Pick up and knit for the cuffs

A very shallow rib is added to the opening neck edge to finish off which was flattened with a blast of steam to take the elasticity out of it.

Enjoy

Maggiore – a slight cock up

So it seems that there was an error in the materials given for the Maggiore wrap in Issue 16 of The Knitter. I’m so dippy these day I didn’t notice. So if you’ve been hunting high and low trying to find Twilleys Gorgeous sh 409 in 4ply, it doesn’t actually exist – I used DK for the wrap but having knitted it some time ago now and  moved on to a number of new things since then – on top of which my ‘senior moments’ are coming thick and fast -  all I can do is say sorry for not pointing it out sooner. ooops!

Alternative yarn for Maggiore Wrap

I’ve been asked for alternative suggestions for the ‘Crocus’ shade of Gorgeous 4ply used in the Maggiore shawl as it’s proving hard to get hold of. I know it can be really annoying when a yarn featured in a design isn’t available but we ( myself and those in the know at The Knitter) checked as much as we could that the yarn would be available when the design was published. So having done a bit of research here are a couple of options;

- you could use the Gorgeous DK in ‘Crocus’ but just watch as this will add to the weight of the wrap and you’ll also need more yarn than the pattern states – I make it around 6 balls – so this probably isn’t ideal

- Lang Yarns’ Merino 150 comes in a deep purple sh 0080 and although it’s a pure wool rather than a bamboo mix like the Gorgeous it’s a beautiful yarn to work with and should give great results. Have a look at it here

Hope this helps!

Maggiore shawl, The Knitter Issue 15

The Maggiore shawl is my latest design for The Knitter.

The undulating areas of sheer are created by working variable drop stitch contrasted against bands of slip stitch / garter stitch in combination with 3 different yarns from the same intensely rich purple colour palette. It may appear very easy but sometimes quite nice to show a bit of design restraint and let a simple concept and the yarn do the talking.

Guess what? It’s cold

Happy New Year! I don’t know why we seem so surprised considering how much snow there is on the ground but it’s freezing and every morning I look out the window to be met with the sight of more snow in the garden. Edinburgh has never looked so beautiful but I AM BALTIC!! The only thing for it is to knit, knit ,and knit some more.

As Jessie from the Fast Show would say ‘Today I am mostly working on’ . . . finishing the pattern for a shrug  and swatching for what should hopefully be a very pretty childs cardi, both for upcoming issues of The Knitter, sketching some design ideas for another magazine and catching up on emails oh yes and throwing another smokeless fuel bricquette on the fire. Carry on!

Baird Neckwarmer, The Knitter Issue 13

I’ve just added a fantastic shot of the Baird Neckwarmer designed for issue 13 of The Knitter to the ‘My Designs’ page. It’s knitted in Lang Mille Colori Big which just wasn’t big enough for me so I’ve used it doubled throughout.

This chunky little number is named after my bezzy mate Margo, not because it’s a chunky little number but because it makes you feel warmer to have it around. She’ll kill me for that no doubt . . .