First of all, hello to everybody who came here via The Quilt Show, hope you'll be having fun with the owls. I am thinking hard to do something regarding a template, let's see if we can finally find a solution for that.
Last week I have starting to sort photos and remove them from my hard disc, so here is the next, "old" knitting from last winter. A hat I made twice because I chose very bad colours when I knitted it first. The contrasts were so subtle, and the colours so wrong, you couldn't see a thing... parts of the pattern were visible, other parts were absolutely hidden... I thought it should be fine with the first colours I chose, and I kept hoping the pattern would, row by row, getting more obvious, but it didn't, which I only was ready to admit when the hat was finished.
So, on I went, with different colours.All from stash, therefore I had to make things work with material I already had (Puppy New 4Ply and Hamanaka Pure Wool Fingering).
The pattern came from Kazekobo's Fair Isle Knitting (ISBN 978-4529046763) which I picked up in a local book store and which made me get Alice Starmore's BOOK OF FAIR FAIR ISLE KNITTING (978-0-486-47218-8), a book originally published in 1988 and republished last year. Kazekobo's book has some pretty projects that might lure you into Fair Isle Knitting, and Alice Starmore's book provides you with all useful and interesting information about it.
I didn't like some of the patterns in the hat because they looked too dominant, so I changed that a bit, and the ear flaps were done in only two colours, as the first set of flaps I made according to the book really didn't suit the hat - way too busy. Again, great, I noticed only afterwards...got a lot of practice making this hat!
The hat's been worn a lot until getting photographed, so you see, the yarn is holding up well, both the Puppy and the Hamanaka. They are a good deal finer than the recommended RichMore Percent, but worked well for me as my head is smaller than the pattern's size.
The new cardigan I spoke of last week has been assembled, s l o w l y because it's mattress stitch and I used the Beaverslide which meant having to work really carefully to prevent the yarn tearing apart.
It's very sunny today, lots of light in our washitsu, so I will try to get the cardigan photographed.
Take care and have a beautiful day!