Viajante

Imagine a poncho. Now imagine a shawl. Now imagine they're one and the same garment. It's a Viajante!

Viajante is a genius pattern by Martina Behm. It's a versatile garment that can be worn as a poncho or a shawl in various styles. I knitted my Viajante in 2-ply Shetland wool in graphite grey, I'm not sure about the meterage but the finished garment weighs 270 g.

I have gotten a lot of use out of my Viajante, it's still warm enough to wear it over a sweater and let the jacket stay in the wardrobe.

Crafternoon

Friday afternoon I felt like crafting a little and got out some of my crafting stuff. I had a bracelet to repair and a jar of assorted beads that I got from a friend, perfect time to sort through them a little. Very soon the table exploded of crafts supplies. Mr A just laughed at the mess that just appeared from nowhere.

I get the Mollie Makes magazine and with every issue there's a small crafty gift and I decided to make two of them, one of them was supposed to become a mug cosy in felt. I liked the design but have no use for a mug cosy, so I made a needle book in the same design, I'm really pleased with the result!

I had a small piece of felt left over from this project and some bicycle inner tube which I cut small squares from and fastened together with mother of pearl buttons to create a supereasy but cool bracelet. The earrings in the photo are from last year and are small tassels made from inner tube from a bicycle as well. Such a fun material to work with! I have so many ideas but I need to get more tubes before I can continue. Watch this space for more to come!

Lastly I got out another freebie kit from Mollie Makes and made a cool bracelet from felt and faux leather. I must admit a was a little sceptic when I first saw it, but it looks really awesome, I have every intention on wearing it a lot!

The Yarn Fairy came for a visit

This week has been a bit low for me, for various reasons, the dark evenings is one.  Yesterday I was even lower with a cold trying to kill me. Lucky me the Yarn Fairy came for a visit and left some yarn for me. Cascade 220 fingering for a shawl and lots of Drops Fabel for socks. I am going to have warm feet this winter!

I also got a Knitpro Thames bag, to keep needles, cables and other notions in. Even a small project would fit in it. It feels a little like an old fashioned doctors' bag, but with all the tools you need for knitting! I can't wait for an excuse to use it! And all the yarn certainly made my day a little better and the cold seems to be going away!

Knitpro bag model Thames

Space for needles, cables, measure tape, stitch markers and more

Cascade 220 fingering and Drops Fabel

Grey Monday

Mondays always seem to be a bit greyer than all the other days, today is not an exception, grey skies and rain. I'm waiting for replies to job applications and my head hurts. At least I have hand knit zebra socks and a couple of knitting podcasts to cheer me up and of course 2 skeins of Wollmeise twin that just made it to my door!

Pimlico - my first pattern published

Yesterday I published my first pattern Pimlico on Ravelry! I'm so excited and have to sneak a peak every now and then to see how many people have faved the pattern and how many downloads. This morning I woke up to see the first project had been started! I am so happy to see such lovely response to my first pattern!

The pattern is a fairly easy hat with contrasting stitches creating stripes which and the decreases create a twirl in the stripes. It may not look like it, but there's not much purling in knitting this.
Check out my free pattern here! 

Restart

I have really been a bad blogger and I'm intending to make up for that. It's easy to make promises to be better at posting more photos, or more knitting, or less private posts or to actually post more regularly. I am promising no such thing, my only promise is to try and take myself and life less seriously. I am going to post when I feel like it and I'm going to write about whatever I want and I'm going to do it because I feel like it.

Meanwhile, here's a couple of my knits since May

Big Apple

In the middle of May we packed our bags and took a big jump over the pond to New York. When we got to the apartment where we were going to stay we discovered that the whole street was closed off for an international food market over the weekend, win! The atmosphere was through the roof.

We enjoyed 10 days of walking around Manhattan, seeing most touristy places, enjoyed the view from Rockefeller centre, walked over Brooklyn bridge in dusk and watching the skyscrapers come to life in the night sky, cycling in Central Park, enjoying the vibrant city.

We went to McSorley's Old Ale House, a proper spit and sawdust pub, where we could choose between dark or light ale. At the table next to us sat uniformed US marines enjoying Fleet week.

One of my favourites was walking on the High line. The high line was a raised railroad track for freight trains used between 1930's and 1980 and now transformed into a park. The high line park opened the first part to the public in 2009 and now about a mile of the old tracks are open.

The last 4 days we also went to a swing dance event, Frankie100, to celebrate one of the pioneers of lindyhop. Some of the remaining golden oldies from the era joined the younger stars and put on an amazing show at the Apollo theatre in Harlem and we got to dance at the Alhambra ballroom. It was a weekend of dance and joy and we were part of something really amazing and special. 2500 dancers can't be wrong, lindyhop is amazing!