knitting neels

Hello again! I didn’t pass the eliminatory round in the competition in Italy so I came home the day after I got the results. I know some people were very disappointed not to pass through to the next round but I genuinely wasn’t. For a start, I knew that I didn’t play well enough and, even though I had practised a lot what I would have needed to do in the next round, I still was not at all comfortable with what it would have entailed. So, I was just as happy to go home. It was a fantastic experience and I am already preparing for my next one. My goal for this is to make it through the eliminatory round. In the meantime – thankfully – there is always wool.

When I got back, I gave the house a thorough (albeit late) spring cleaning. I decided to whip up a few handtowels using my souvenir linen from the Cantu market. I had two balls of each colour.

The top towel has already been used and washed in the machine. You can see how it stretched lengthwise on the line and pulled it in. But the stitches have really fluffed out! Next time, I’ll hang it horizontally and hopefully it will return to its original shape.

For the record, there was about 105m in each 50g ball and I used 1.5 balls of the main colour and half a ball of the contrasting colour for each towel. The pattern I used is a free pattern from the Lion Brand website here. I think you have to sign up to the site to see the pattern but signing up hasn’t had any consequences for me yet – apart from nice handtowels!

I used a 4mm hook throughout. The linen was a bit scratchy to work with but not nearly as unpleasant as I had initially anticipated, and it really softened up and bloomed with washing. I think I will make a few more of these!