The Knitting Catch Up - Barcelona Alpaca Jumpers, Soft Merino Cowl, and the rebirth of the Ombre Shawl

Hello Dear Blog Friends,

A quick preview of my first finished project (finished on 1st January 2016): More in a moment!

The knitting catch up

I mentioned in one of my recent posts that I have done some new knitting, finally here is my chance to tell you in more detail about it.



Two Alpaca Jumpers called Barcelona

First of all, this time I am following a pattern for a jumper from this lovely book: Jules & Julie by Julia Jaeken featuring 35 patterns for the entire family! It is photographed beautifully and features members of Julie's family!

She is the owner of Julija's Shop here in Antwerpen.
I love her shop, she stocks some of my favourite yarns!
This is already her second book, her first one is full of delightful knits for small children!

Jules & Julie

Unfortunately it is only available in Dutch so far. I guess if you wanted to, you could mail Julie whether you could purchase the pattern in English, might be worth a try...

You find Julie's website, blog and shop here!


So I am currently knitting an Alpaca jumper for one of my daughters. The thing is, before I could get the light grey) wool for hers, I bought a different shade (dark grey) and got started - this will be a jumper for myself. So in fact I am actually knitting 2 jumpers at the same time, in different sizes, but from the same pattern. (Barcelona).

Here you can see what Barcelona looks like (both adult and child sizes)

Here you can see work in progress on the two jumpers that I am making:
Not only am I making 2 jumpers, I am also working on front and back together!!! I am using the same wool as Julie in her book - Drops Alpaca Boucle which I bought in her shop. I already worked with this super soft yarn last year!

 

I am making progress, slowly.... (well because I have also been doing crochet of course!)


My first finished project - a knitted cowl

Then in mid December I started on a large Merino loop shawl which is a present for a good friend!

I finished it on the first day of January, what a good start into the New Year!

Measurements: 188 cm all round, knitted in the round, 21 cm wide. This is large enough to wrap around the neck 3x. I love this yarn, it is unbelievably soft and squishy, yet warm! I knitted quite loosely, so it is very elastic and stretchy! The colour is 174 (Olive Green). I used moss stitch.
I've already made quite a few of these super long loops!

 

My Alpaca Ombre Shawl

I also decided to frog the ombre shawl I had been knitting and to re-work it because I wasn't happy with how it turned out. Luckily I am knitting on large needles (9mm). This is from the oh-so-soft Alpaca Silk yarn from Drops.

Well, that's it for now on the knitting front, we'll talk about crochet soon!!! ;))

Again, I am looking forward to hearing from you, please leave me a comment or two! See, that even rhymes! Looks like we're off on a good start for 2016!