winter woollies

I know I should be writing about the arrival of spring, with photos of pretty spring flowers, but this post is about knitted winter accessories. Unfortunately, it is still cold enough to wear them here! I saw a pattern for Union Jack mitts back in December and thought I'd like to have a go. I knew it was going to be a challenge as the pattern required carrying three floats at the back of the work. I had several false starts as my tension for the floats was too tight. I did eventually finish the mitts, although I'm not particularly happy with the end result. The pattern is by Suzanne Stallard and for details click here. The photo on the right shows the inside of the mitts.

Once I had finished the mitts I wanted to knit a matching scarf. Ravelry is great for sourcing patterns and I saw a nice pattern for a scarf knitted sideways by Barbara Albright click here. The pattern is published in a book which I didn't have, but from the photo it was clear that the scarf was knit lengthwise, using garter stitch. I used a different colour for each row and left a long yarn tail at the beginning and end of the row, which I later knotted to make a fringe.

 

 

Both the scarf and the mitts were knitted using Drops Lima, bought in the Textile Studio, Ballyhackamore. A beautiful soft yarn, 65% wool, 35% alpaca, which was lovely to work with.

After trimming the fringe I had lots of end yarn bits and I'll be making them into something, but that's for the next post.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend, Ali