knitting neels

This month, my blog is an innocent one year old. Yay! Happy Birthday blog! There have been a lot of ups and downs. The downs: failed embroidery, the tam o’shanty, and the purple jumper that had a neck hole the size of a pencil. The ups: Mum’s birthday present, my first wearable shrug, and my crowning glory of 2006, the green cardigan. Onwards and upwards!

I actually have something to show on my Dad’s Christmas socks. I ripped them out four times. Ribbing is a weird thing but I got it to work for this sock at least. The nice thing about knitting with aran weight wool is that it is super-quick to knit with, so despite ripping it out four times, it still didn’t take me very long to get to the heel.

I keep thinking, is it too big? The purpose is to fill up the wellies and make them extra snug. Also, my dad has a penchant for tucking his jeans into the welly socks, so maybe the bagginess at the top is a good thing. Hope springs eternal. I am particularly proud of the heel, which I worked out using Dodgy Maths ™, ie I started where I thought looked right and who would’ve thunk it, it worked!

Yesterday, the Winter issue of Interweave Knits finally came through my letterbox. Oh joy! Oh rapture! I have been waiting very impatiently to have a better look at this Refined Raglan pattern. But you know? I don’t really like it now that I’ve seen it up close. It has a traditional EZ hem, which is fine, but I prefer a ribbed hem and cuff. I am not partial to gusts up the sleeve. Then there’s the funnel neck – both the name and the shape. The name conjures up images of cold, greasy car ferries. The shape is just awful and I suspect prone to gusts. I loved the idea of having a cable running along the raglan decreases, but I don’t like the one in this pattern. So! I knitted a swatch and decided to just knit my own variation on a theme.

The yarn is Debbie Bliss Donegal Tweed, a bag of which I picked up on discount at Yarn at the weekend. I love the colour (a grey blue)!

Use number 9 for tea mugs

Gauge-wise, I got a very convenient 5 stitches to 1″. I propose knitting a basic bottom-up raglan and sticking in the cable you see above at the raglan decreases. I tried out three different three different positions for the decreases around the cable in the swatch. However, I think what’s used in the pattern (from what I can tell from the photo anyway) looks the best: ssk, purl 1, knit 1, purl 1, cable stitches, purl 1, knit 1, purl 1, k2tog. The extra knit 1 and purl 1 gives the cable its own enclosing border. I think for simplicity’s sake I will just put the cables on the front and not on the back.

!!! I have just looked at the last posting dates before Christmas. I’m going to have to abandon all else and get my sister’s presents done straight away *rushes off*

PS The welly sock is just something I’m making up as I’m going along but if anyone else wants welly socks, I can put up the pattern here when I’m finished the first sock.