Two Twit Twoo

I was very kindly gifted the knitting pattern by a fellow ravelry member to make the popular Owls sweater by Kate Davies a couple of month back. I was originally planning to knit it using Debbie Bliss Merino chunky that I bought on ebay last year, but the pattern said it suited more rustic yarns.

So I broke into a knitting kit of Alafoss Lopi that I bought in Iceland in 1996 - there were 700g of a nice charcoal black which should be more than enough. As it was, being short in arm and body, I completed the sweater in four and a half days using just 550 grammes!

I have ordered buttons from Ebay - cheaper to buy 600 buttons from China than the 38 required for the Owl's eyes in the UK. They should arrive in a couple of weeks time...

And then I decided to go straight ahead and make another one...

I have a cunning plan.

Janet gave me some Icelandic Soft Spun yarn earlier this year - not enough to make a sweater on its own but it is an almost perfect match for the remaining Alafoss Lopi from the kit. It should be enough to make the body and sleeves up to the owls. And then I will finish off the black for the owls which should mean that any slight variation in colour on the top of the yoke/neck will not be noticeable.

Using Up The Scraps

I finished knitting  my Interlock Socks and am really happy with them.

And posted them on Ravelry.

And someone sent me a message saying they would love to test knit them. So I wrote up the pattern and posted it in the Free Pattern Testers forum. I now have half a dozen people testing my pattern and so far the feedback has been good :)

I went straight on to playing with my next idea. Colourwork socks with no stranding to use up those gorgeous scraps of sock yarn. I had great fun making up colour charts and decided to start with a relatively simple one as a test run to prove whether the technique works. And it does!

I wrote up the pattern after sock 1 and proof read/tested it on sock 2, incorporating the comments from my testers above where relevant.

I used Wollmeise Sockenwolle 80/20 Twin as my main colour for these, which is a relatively thick sock yarn and gave me a woman's M width (8") sock with the chosen test chart and needle size.

I am having another test run using thinner sock yarn and a different colourwork design to make a narrower sock.

I have just turned the heel on sock 1. I think I should have gone down a needle size too as I am a slightly loose knitter! These are coming out at about 7.5" width, which is fine for me but half an inch over size small. Once I have finished I will be able to work out the formula for the contrast colours yarn requirements fairly accurately and slot these in to my patterns.

My only problem now is that I am being tempted to break in to full skeins to get 'oddments' for the contrast colours :)