I felt so confident after making myself handwarmers! Plus I was still wearing my legwarmers every day! And nothing could be as boring as the cowl that I finished. I've never progressed through skills like this before in knitting and the feeling of confidence - that I could start a project and conceivably finish it successfully - is really addictive.
So I decided to try using up the rest of my Malabrigo Rios and making my friend Helen, who is obsessed with knits, an earwarmer. I saw her wearing one a few months ago and she's moving to the depths of northern Scotland soon so I reckoned she needed another one. Plus this gave me a chance to try out another new skill - cables!
I trawled Ravelry, as always, for something that fit my criteria and came up with this free pattern: the Chevron cable headband by Kirsty Grainger. I wanted something with clear cables but not with too many of them and this fit the bill.
I cast on initially using size 4.5mm needles, as the pattern recommends, and knitted about three rows before deciding I thought it was too loose, so I sized down to a 4. I was happy with that. I found the c4 cable pattern to be pretty accessible, although of course with an extra tool in my hand things seemed to go awfully slow, I definitely gained confidence with the pattern as I saw my beautiful cables emerge! This was a really fun project for that reason - I got faster as I went along, and I couldn't believe that I was making such a nice result!
I got to the end and kind of winged it regarding sewing the ends together. The join looks a bit rough but I think it's not going to be too visible, and it will hold pretty well. I used a tapestry needle and the ends from the earwarmer and just weaved it through the obvious loops on each side. I am not sure how you are supposed to knit pieces together. There's always something more to learn in knitting!
Anyway my success with this bolstered me to pick my Miette back up. That's a project I started over a year ago, when I was living in Arizona, and then put down early on. Because of the lace, plus being a sweater, it seemed overwhelming!
Also this earwarmer took very little yarn. I made two legwarmers and this from two balls of Malabrigo rios and I still have half a ball left - probably enough for another earwarmer!
So I decided to try using up the rest of my Malabrigo Rios and making my friend Helen, who is obsessed with knits, an earwarmer. I saw her wearing one a few months ago and she's moving to the depths of northern Scotland soon so I reckoned she needed another one. Plus this gave me a chance to try out another new skill - cables!
I trawled Ravelry, as always, for something that fit my criteria and came up with this free pattern: the Chevron cable headband by Kirsty Grainger. I wanted something with clear cables but not with too many of them and this fit the bill.
I cast on initially using size 4.5mm needles, as the pattern recommends, and knitted about three rows before deciding I thought it was too loose, so I sized down to a 4. I was happy with that. I found the c4 cable pattern to be pretty accessible, although of course with an extra tool in my hand things seemed to go awfully slow, I definitely gained confidence with the pattern as I saw my beautiful cables emerge! This was a really fun project for that reason - I got faster as I went along, and I couldn't believe that I was making such a nice result!
I got to the end and kind of winged it regarding sewing the ends together. The join looks a bit rough but I think it's not going to be too visible, and it will hold pretty well. I used a tapestry needle and the ends from the earwarmer and just weaved it through the obvious loops on each side. I am not sure how you are supposed to knit pieces together. There's always something more to learn in knitting!
Anyway my success with this bolstered me to pick my Miette back up. That's a project I started over a year ago, when I was living in Arizona, and then put down early on. Because of the lace, plus being a sweater, it seemed overwhelming!
Also this earwarmer took very little yarn. I made two legwarmers and this from two balls of Malabrigo rios and I still have half a ball left - probably enough for another earwarmer!
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