I’m very lucky to have such a sweet niece to knit for.  I knit this gilet for her at Christmas, and you have to agree that it looks pretty sweet on her!  I had a hank of Colinette Prism with a wonderful varigated colorway and I was trying to figure out how to knit it.  I loved the way it knitted up from the side and once you added in some short row shaping it was so fun!

The addition of the fuschia pink was a fortunate accident.  I was using the pink to hold some stitches and really liked to way the two colors looked together so I unravelled the start and gave myself matching pink sleeves and sides.  Now maybe you don’t like contrasting color – then just knit it all in a single yarn.  If you perfer solid color you should be able to get gauge easily knitting two strands of dk weight yarn together.

If you want to see some more details take a look at ravelry.  I hope to have this for sale around the same time as Laced Leaves at the start of May.

If you want to be emailed when the pattern is released just let me know.

The temperature is dropping here in Cork again, what a good excuse to get my heavy wool jumpers out!  It’s great as a knitter to have a positive side to cold weather.

I’ve been slowly working my way through a cotton hoodie for my oldest son.  I made one for him last Christmas and he has grown so much that it looks like a belly top on him now!  (Maybe it shrank a little in the wash too).  Last time around I just knitted a plain stocking st hoodie with bright colourful stripes.  However this time I had lots of one colour so I decided to add some cabling to add interest.  Now while the plain body flew I am now knitting 12 inches of a hood with cables on the front and it is taking me an eternity.  I really need to sit down for a day or two and just get it done so that I can move on to something else!

I’m back from my holidays in the UK. We spent a week in a yurt in Devon which was just heaven – if someone has told me that having all four little boys in a glorified tent for a week would be heaven I’d laugh at them but it was so perfect. The weather never rained, they could run free and we all went to bed at the same time at night. Needless to say knitting didn’t get much of a look in! The next week we were more civilized and stayed in a cottage so I did manage to finish Lucas’s Robin hood.

I was a bit worried about the fact that I had two such different colors in the yarn but I’m happy with the end result. I added raspberry stripes after the fact to the front bands and made the arms in stripes of the two colours. I’ve never tried striping a cable pattern before and I quite like the effect. As it was every two rows there was no need to break the yarn so it was tidy.

By the time I came to the hood there was only Raspberry yarn left so it is a solid colour. I had originally envisioned this striped also but it works still!

Best of all it is very loved by my son. In fact even though it is August (but not too warm) he wouldn’t take it off for bed last night.

I finished my son’s hoodie yesterday.  He was just delighted with himself!  He likes the Shine yarn so much that he just keeps telling me how soft it is…now hopefully it’ll stay that way.

This was mostly done on the knitting machine but all the edging and the hoodie edging was done by hand.  I have to tell you with this many colour changes I had about 3 hours worth of solid work just to weave the ends of the yarn in.  If he wasn’t standing over me waiting to wear it I probably would have chickened out and left it for weeks.

I am currently working on a piece made from Araucania Patagonia Nature Cotton.  I got a skein from This is Knit several months ago and have been wondering what it will become.  I swatched it a few weeks ago and came up with some lovely results so now you will have to wait for the surprise outcome…I must figure out what to do with the resulting pattern.

I finished the second sock for my toddler last weekend and he really likes them.  I’m happy that they aren’t too thick so I have no problem fitting his shoes over them.  Their feet are so small I was a little worried about the extra thickness of hand-knitted socks causing problems with the shoes.

I am being very good and also finished the second one of my husband’s socks.  I will not allow myself to start on anything new until this is done.  I better finish up fast – there are two many interesting projects sitting waiting for me to get started on them!

I haven’t had a chance to post for a while, I’ve been busy working on a whole lot of non-knitting jobs.  All of my boys were on a mid-term break last week and we had fun with less to do.  It is amazing how little you end up doing in a day though if no one gets dressed until late morning!

I’ve been working on a lace summer knitting top that I have just finished – seems like a long way off before I’ll get a chance to wear it here though.  We had a brief glimpse of sunshine and warmth at the start of the week and it was gone before we got a chance to blink.

My little Opal  socks for my toddler are very nearly complete – just need to graft the toe of the second sock and weave in the yarn and I can post a photo of my proud little boy.

I got the Zoe Mellor ‘Adorable Knits for Tiny Tots’ for Christmas last year and have been dying to knit it for my youngest.  However the Rowan Cork yarn has been discontinued.  I managed to pull a few balls of it together from Ebay but not enough for the pattern – I think I might try it without the hood, should just about scrape by.  (However will probably have to wait until next winter as we are nearly in Feburary!)

I got 10 skeins of Berroco’s Memoirs yarn from Elann a few months ago.  It feels so nice I’ve been trying to figure out what to knit with it.  I think that I’d like to do something with some lace work,  the subtle colours would work best with that I think.

Another lovely yarn that I’ve got stashed here in the office is the Rowan Tapestry in Pot Pouri.  I love the colours and the feel of the yarn and I’m trying to figure out what to use it for to do it justice.  I guess that’s the problem with having such special yarn, you find yourself almost afraid to use it as the end product needs to be a beautiful as the yarn.

Ok, just to make sure that I have as many unfinished pieces in my house as possible I started another pair of socks. This time they are for my almost 2 year old son.  I love the colourway of this opal yarn, I knitted a pair for my mother last Christmas and it looks like there is enough left to finish a toddler pair also.  Hopefully the remaining yarn will hold out to finish the second one!  I can’t believe how much faster it is to knit this size rather than a man’s version.