The Accidental FO

The accidental FO

How does one accidentally create an FO?

If like me, you tend to jump into things with both feet, it's quite simply really.

A chance mention by Victoria of the wonderful Eden Cottage Yarns about a forthcoming KAL made my knitterly ears prick up. The pattern in question is a wonderful shawl - Quadratic - designed by David O'Kelly. Using 1.5 skeins of sock weight yarn this is a generous garter stitch shawl which uses small scraps of leftovers or mini skeins to create fun, colourful and rather addictive stripes.

Garter stitch - check

Mini skeins - check

2 skeins of delicious ECY Titus sitting in my stash - check

Faster than you can say KNIT! I was off and away.

The work week from hell, kids homework woes (curse you, long division) and a husband working on a different continent meant that I was sorely in need of a soothing garter stitch (and red wine).

Quadratic shawl by David O'Kelly

Without giving away the "secret sauce", the pattern has you start out with a large number of stitches and then work decreases until the end. At the beginning the more closely spaced stripes spur you on to work "just one more row". And once you are past the half way point, the ever decreasing stitch count means that the project just flies off the needles.

It is rare for me to knit a shawl so quickly, especially one with 150m of yarn but this was a true pleasure. A sort of "perfect storm" of pattern, yarn and stress and I am truely delighted with the finished product.

The shawl measures a generous 55" by 25" after very gentle blocking and patting (lots of patting) and it is wonderfully wearable.

Quadratic shawl - in action

Of course there is the minor detail of the fact that I have managed to start and finish the shawl before the official start date of Dec 1st.

Drat! Oh well, I will just have to make another. It's a hard life ;)

For all the KAL details check the ECY group on Ravelry - here

See you there :)

Sock Design Challenge: A final vote

Apologies for the delay but I am pleased to be able to show you the sample for this challenge sock and also to ask you to vote one final time on a name for the pattern.

The names currently up for debate are:

1. Copper Mine
2. Bracken Wood
3. Rosthwaite
4. An other?

As you can tell, my name choices are skewed by my recent trip to the Lake District. The yarn colour really reminds me of barley sugar sweets but that name is already used :)

Seriously, please do vote and let me know what you think or feel free to suggest one of your own - in the true spirit of this challenge.

Sock design challenge: Week 4

So, it looks as though you would like a little bit more adventure in the heel department. The 'something different' option won by quite a margin.

We are looking at a unisex sock with a simple, easy to memorise cable repeat and something a little out of the ordinary for the heel. It's a good job I have been doing my homework and have a few tricks up my sleeve.

I have left the most difficult question until last.

Most of my designs I like to offer in both toe-up and cuff down formats but due to the time constraints of this project only one option will be on offer.

So, over to you...

1. Toe-up

2. Cuff down.

Leave a comment below or head on over to the Ravelry group to cast your vote.

Sock design challenge: Week 3

Ooops...

A technical hitch meant that this didn't go out on Monday as expected.

We are on to Week 3 and having determined that you fancy working on a simple cable repeat we are now thinking about heel options.

Would you prefer:

1. Standard heel flap and gusset

2. Short row heel

3. Something different that you might not have tried before

Leave a comment here on over on the ravelry group to have your say.

x

Sock Design Challenge: Week 1

Welcome to Week 1 of my Sock Design Challenge.

Once a week for four weeks I'll be posting a question about an element of sock design for you to vote on.

At the end of the month I will use your answers to come up with a unique sock design - hopefully one which will be ideal for gift giving - enabling us to have a knit-a-long and produce a fabulous sock gift for someone in the run up to Christmas.

Once we get going we can use the hashtag: #sockdc2014 to keep track of our sockie goings-on on various social media platforms and I dare say there may be the odd prize or two for those who fancy joining in.

You can either vote in my Ravelry group: HERE

Or you can leave a comment below giving your answer as either 1 or 2.

So, for Week 1 a nice easy question...

Would you prefer the main design element of the sock to feature


1. Lace

2. Cables


I'll post the next question on September 7th, so you have a week to ponder.

xx