knitting neels

I think good weather brings out a subtle difference in people. I got the train down to Galway on Friday and there was something about the combination of the sun and the long weekend that got everybody talking. I spent most of the journey knitting away on 154 and chatting to the two lads beside me. Somehow I don’t think that would have happened if it was just another weekend in winter! The two lads, who were strangers, got on so well that they went for a pint when the train got into Galway. I was on my merry way down Shop Street and I passed them sitting outside a pub, laughing their heads off. That’s the essence of Ireland I guess 🙂 It reminded me of the time Alb and I were coming back to Prague from a day trip to Dresden. We managed to pick a compartment with another Irish couple who had come prepared for the tedious journey and very generously shared their booze with us. It was great craic and made the journey pass so quickly! I’ll never forget that.

Anyway, here’s the 154!

I had such fun watching the colours emerge from the ball! I am really pleased, too, with the colours I ended up around the band.

As for the pattern? I knitted it from the top down. I cast on 8 stitches on to some DPNs, knit a round, knitted f&b in each stitch for a round, another round plain, and then continued increasing the same way you would decrease for the crown of a hat (K1, K f&b for a round, one round plain, K2, K f&b for the next round, etc). I kept trying it on but even so, I managed to overshoot the width just a little bit. I like my hats to be snug, but this is still wearable. The one skein of Kureyon was just perfect – I had about 50cm of it left over when I cast off. The joy of knitting a hat from the top down is that gauge doesn’t really matter! You just keep increasing until it’s wide enough to fit your head.

I came back from Galway yesterday afternoon and had the joy of sitting alone on a very empty train. I decided to finally bite the bullet on my Cashsilk top and ripped out the waist darts. This is the third time I have knitted these darts, but I hope you agree with me that they look much better.

They look much better and will be much easier for any Josephine Knitter to adjust for their hip-waist width. I plan on zooming up the waist today and getting to the armholes for tomorrow.

I had to leave my new books behind for the weekend so I enjoyed getting stuck back into them last night and this morning. I love the Opinionated Knitter as it has lots of extra little tit-bits that are missing from the other books. I have fallen in love with the ski sweater at the front of the book. There are about four different photos of the same sweater showing very different colour combinations, but there is one version in a pale white with various blues throughout the fair isle yoke that I am in love with. There are some other variations on the Baby Surprise Jacket and the Bog Jacket that, although I would probably never knit them, make for an interesting read.

Lastly, I have decided to abandon River, the KSH wrap I’m knitting for my mother. I found a much nicer – and straight forward – lace pattern in the first Barbara Walker Treasury and I think I will make a rectangular wrap based on that instead. Stay tuned for details!