June Round-Up

Wowee, can you believe we are halfway through the year, it's supposed to be summer but the weather seems to be undecided. One day it's sunny, then next there a storm, the day after that it starts off cool and bright and then ends with another storm.

The great thing about crafting is that it's not affected by the weather and I have some great things to show you.



The accompanying video for this round-up can be found at the bottom of the post.

Done and Dusted

Socks

I wanted my June socks to be very simple, I didn't feel like following a pattern and wanted the yarn to speak for itself. The yarn I used was Rico Designs Superba Poems in the Gray colourway. This yarn is a single ply and produces a gradient shade. I was excited to cast these on,but soon wished I hadn't. The yarn broke three times as I was working the cuffs and I had to do a felted join.

As I continued to make progress, there were no other issues, but the thickness of the yarn wasn't consistent causing it to split. Even though they were vanilla socks, they took longer to knit up as I had to keep checking that the yarn hadn't split.

I worked my first afterthought heel on these socks, this is where you knit a tube, placing scrap yarn at the point where you want your heel to be. Once you've finished the socks, you pick up the stitches around the scrap yarn cut/pull this out then work the heel as you would a toe.

This heel technique has always intrigued me, but I can no say I won't be eager to try it again. It was very fiddly and left a gap in the corner of my heels, despite the fact that I found a video on YouTube for a gap-free afterthought heel. I think this type of heel is best suited to self-striping/patterning yarn.

Design Project

In a previous round-up, I mentioned that I had received a Firefly club yarn package from Third Vault Yarns.

With my May/June shawl already finished I decided that it was the perfect time to work on a project for this yarn. As it's a DK weight and I only had one skein, a cowl, I thought, was the best option for a pattern. I already had a few ideas for a stitch pattern but wasn't sure how best to implement it and after three restarts I came up with this...

It's called Find Me In The Valley, I thought it only right to keep up with the Firefly theme. The name refers the Battle of Serenity Valley, where the Independents (Browncoats) fought against the Alliance in the Unification Wars.

This pattern is currently being tested and should be released in the second week of this month. I'm very excited about this pattern because I think I may have made up a new stitch. I'm not sure what to call the stitch and won't settle on a name until after testing, so keep an eye out for updates.

On The Needles/All hooked Up

This month I started two mitred square blankets, one knitted and one crocheted. For the knitted blanket, I will use my scrap 4ply yarns and in the crocheted blanket I will use both 4ply and DK yarn.

 

I'm going to make a note of the yarns that I use so that when I finally finish the blankets I'll have a reminder of what each yarn is. 

Goodies Galore

I know I mentioned in the last round-up that my goodies would be on the light side for the next few months, but in  June a few treats came through my door. The first were the yarns I will be using to make the Atlas jumper for the tripolatas. 

TVY Quarterly Yarn Club

The second and most eagerly awaited goody was the second quarterly club package from Third Vault Yarns. This quarter was based on the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett, I'm  a big fan of Discworld and was so excited when this arrived.

In the package was a 100g skein of the main club yarn, 4 minis, some stitch markers, buttons and a shawl pin.

The club yarn is called 'Cosmic Turtle', named after the turtle on which the four elephants who carry the Discworld sit. From left to right, the minis are A Very Unmagical Sword (Guards, Guards), (The Wee Fee Men), He Who Loves Cats (Death), and The Colour of Magic. The buttons represent three of the many guilds on the disc. Then the stitch markers and pin relate to various characters and themes in the books.

I plan to do a design project with this too, I have one idea but will keep it under wraps until I'm ready to work on it.

Crochet Club Box

The final goody I received was part of the crochet hook club from For The Love of Yarn. If you read my last round-up you would know that I wasn't ecstatic about the crochet hook. This month the hook is a lot better but still not what I would go for. The yarn, on the other hand, is lovely, and along with the hook is called 'Purple Envy'. This will be a very welcomed addition to my blankets.

WWKIP Swap

It was World Wide Knit in Public Day on the 18th of June and I attended a met up in Central London. I had such a great time and there was a better than expected turn-out, next year we plan to be a lot more pro-active in contacting companies, promoting the swap and organising prizes.

I took a bunch of minis to swap with other attendees and came home with a skein of Wendy Roam and a leftover ball of sock yarn. The lady who gave me the sock yarn wasn't sure what it was, It looks a little like West Yorkshire Spinners, but even if it isn't I still love the colours and look forward to seeing how it knits up.

I would like to use it for something other than my mitred squares blankets, but I'm unsure of what that would be. A Ravelry search is definitely in order.

Waiting In The Wings

Kid Makes

As mentioned before, I will be making each of the tripolatas an Atlas jumper. I only have enough yarn to work the main part of each jumper and I will get the contrasting colours when I need them.
The grey is for Manny and the red for Jimmy Jnr. the beige was going to be for Mr Mic but it's lighter than I thought it would be and doesn't suit him. I may go for a dark blue instead.

Shawl

My chosen shawl for July/August is Linus on the Line by Midwinter Yarns. I picked up the kit for this at Unravel in February. The yarn is from Ullcentrum and is 100% Swedish wool. The skein on the left is Blue Blend and the one on the right is Cold Grey, both a worked in alternating stripes. This pattern is perfect for the summer holidays, it's worked completely in garter stitch so I'll have one less thing to think about with a house full of children.

Word For The Month

The word for July is taken from John 13:34

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another."

I go into more detail at the end of the round-up, but this verse tells us that we should use the that Christ showed to others as an example of how we are to treat one another.