My finished Colourscape Cowl, Knitting an Alpaca Jumper, some yarn love and tiny beads

Hello again!

Hope you are all having a good February so far? Thanks for all your lovely comments on my last post!

With the colder weather here I seem to have concentrated on my knitting lately!

One of my intentions for this year is to look at old WIPs that have been put to one side and left unfinished! Here is one of them that I managed to finish last Friday morning!

My finished Colourscape Cowl

It's a large cowl, knitted in a simple Rib pattern with lovely Rowan Colourscape Chunky yarn, on 10mm needles! The finished size is 70 cm x 40 cm (140 cm circumference). This is large enough to wear as a cape!!! It could also be worn as a cowl, wrapped around twice! I decided to thread a simple knit cord through it, so I can pull it tight! I do not even know why I had left it unfinished!!! At least now I can get some wear out of it in the cold!

The yarn is pure Lambswool, designed by Kaffe Fassett. It has long been discontinued.

The finished cowl laid flat

My unfinished WIP

My finished cowl/cape with a knitted cord!

Knitting an Alpaca Jumper

On Tuesday I sat down and began casting on stitches with Drops Alpaca Boucle yarn, to start a jumper. I experimented with different stitches, I tried out adding a fine colour yarn to the light grey Alpaca, but in the end this is what became the beginning of my Jumper. I started late Tuesday afternoon, then did quite a bit of knitting in the evening with the knitting group 'T Arm Schaap in Zurenborg.

Needless to say that I'm not really following a pattern, but it is somewhat inspired by this jumper which in turn is based on this one here. I also quite like a similar version as a cardigan. It's thecombination of a simple look (Garter Stitch) and using fabulously soft yarn - the prerequisites for a favourite jumper.

This is what it looked like by Tuesday evening: the first 5-6cm!

03.02.15 Starting my new Alpaca Jumper

05.02.15 Making progress

08.02.15 Laid out on top of a favourite jumper dress

08.02.15 The first 37cm

As you can see, it will be quite a large size Jumper, almost a dress, and I am knitting with 2 balls of yarn at the same time! The result is wonderfully light and fluffy and oh so soft!

I am also knitting in the round, because it means that I can knit front and back in one go. Once I have reached the armpits, I will finish by knitting either front and back panel separately. This has the advantage that there are no side seams on the lower body.

Yesterday I had a bit of an indulgent afternoon with continuing my rewatching of 'TheKilling' (Season 1 with 20 episodes!) and lots of knitting. (No, I'm not watching all episodes in one go!) By the end of the evening I had managed to get up to 46cm!!

I always wanted a jumper just like this and I'm pleased that I found such a great yarn to knit with. It will be worth the effort. I'm using 9mm knit-Pro needles with a 100cm cable.


Some Yarn love

Here a little glimpse of my recent purchases, I am trying to be careful with buying more yarn. However, I decided to expand my knit-Pro needle tips collection by adding 6.5mm and 7mm sizes to my arsenal.

I found this wonderful rainbow yarn (by Swedish label Marks&Kattens) on the last day of the January sales! It seems to be similar to my Scheepjeswol Invicta sock yarn. In the Tiger shop I found Sockyarn (last one) for 1 Euro and round knitting needles for 3 Euros. I also got another ball of Lang Mille Colori Baby Merino wool.

My recent purchases

A charity shop find - a small coin purse - in the trend colour for 2015: Marsala

Tiny beads

On saturday I had a laptop and knitting free day - I spent the afternoon playing with my tiny seed beads. I made a necklace which can be worn double and a thing that looks like a pendant, but I think I will make it into a bead brooch instead. I also made a tassel pendant (not shown). I forgotten how fiddly it is to work with such minute beads, I used my strong magnifying Craft lamp - especially useful when you need to get the thread onto a small needle!!! I enjoyed getting caught up in doing something a bit difficult!

I'm sure most of you had quite a bit of snow by now, we had a small amount here in Belgium. This is the view from the upstairs window last Thursday morning.

05.02.15 Snow

This is all from me for now. I must do a bit of studying for a Dutch test this evening! Hope you are keeping warm and cosy, sitting somewhere nice with your crochet or knitting in hands!

Please feel free to leave me some comments, you know I enjoy reading them. I need to catch up on my own blog reading, too! There seems to be never enough time for everything!!!