Orange

For me and it's color! As I was knitting this simple little jumper, I kept telling myself that I'm going to overdye the yarn once it's finished. I don't really wear any colour at all. My wardrobe consists mainly of gray, black and taupe garments. But my friends persuaded me to keep it orange and it grew on me.

As always, I have turned to the genius EZ for a simple raglan construction. The lacy pattern ir from Vogue stitchtionary, volume ! and I believe it is called 'crab walk'.

I have inserted short rows into the back of the jumper. Great fun to keep it in pattern... The hems are twisted 1x1 rib, a current favourite. The yarn is HF Blue Faced DK, also a current favourite of mine. The colour is Rusty nail seconds, the shade wasn't quite right for the shop, but I liked it, so I have kept it.

It is soo warm and cozy! I wear it almost every day and the yarn is holding up so well. Still crisp and sharp looking after almost two months of almost daily wear. (I'm being quite slow to blog this one :))

Cursed

I have a new man in my life and I'm knitting the dreaded boyfriend sweater. I chose Merino aran in Ink on 4.5mm needles and it is flying! Day 5 and I'm almost at the underarm.

What do you think of the sweater curse? Any experience?

As you may know from our appearance in her Contemporary Irish Knits book, we have a very happy working relationship and friendship with superstar designer Carol Feller. In a very exciting development Carol is going to teach a class in our studio on Tuesday May 8th. She will be teaching her Short Rows class, which I’ve taken before and is excellent. Not only did it fix my gappy short rows, but it taught me a huge amount about shaping and design. You can sign up for the class here: www.stolenstitches.com/classes/

Carol also regularly teaches at This is Knit in Dublin. If you are following her teaching tour around the country, you can pick up their exclusive Hedgehog Fibres sock colour, Powerscourt, sold exclusively in their store. This is Knit isa great shop and we have a long history with them, so we were very happy to oblige. The colourway they requested was a semi-solid blue, similar to the blues in Lagoon or Mermaid. The only logical name for the new colour was Powerscourt, that being Ireland’s highest (non-seasonal) waterfall, and This is Knit is located in Dublin’s spectacular Powerscourt Townhouse Centre.

You can check out their website here: www.thisisknit.ie

We are currently finishing up the dyeing on the yarn for Stephen West shawl club and the colours look amazing. It will be really exciting to see the reaction to that. Obviously, we can’t post any pictures until after the club is released, but we’ll keep you posted!

The way we knit

Floyd and me. He's the happiest on my lap and under a blanket.

Na Craga

I'm very pleased with how it turned out. I've been wearing it a LOT and the yarn is holding up amazingly. This is by far the warmest cardigan I own.

The yarn is HF Blue Faced DK and pattern is Na Craga by Alice Starmore, but modified heavily. I made the whole thing in the round, with a steek for the front and saddle shoulder shaping (Elizabeth Zimermann's books). I've made the smallest size and it still looks a bit big. But very cozy.

I'm pleased, can you tell?