The Empire Knits Back

Cowl Challenge 2013!

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Samples of the new Amuri yarn arrived at the Old Mill warehouse this week and Beth and Lynn both fell in love with it – so they decided to have a little friendly (if Beth wins) competition – click here to check our Facebook page for the details

Beanies!

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IMG_0327

A note from Bev Nimon:

I was at the Handarbeit & Hobby show in Cologne, Germany a few weeks ago and I was amazed at the new fad. Hats, actually Beanies to be exact! Apparently it all started with the London Beanie which caught on hugely with young men after David Beckham was seen wearing one at football practice. At H&H they were everywhere. People have written books on just knitting Beanies! Thin yarn, thick yarn and everything in between. I have started my Beanie in Zara ( in progress shot attached) and will post a final pic once I am finished. Pom Poms are big as well. Almost every Beanie had one. There are lots of easy patterns out there but remember these are not fancy hats, just simple caps. Let’s start a Beanie Club. Knit your Beanie, take a pic and post it to the blog. Let’s see what imaginations are out there.

Bev

IMG_0324beanie start

BE AFRAID!

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2nd Monster

“No – don’t be afraid of the Monster. Be afraid of just how much I love him! Like any new mother, I don’t care about his faults – the eyes too close together, the one foot longer than the other, the oversized tongue. To me he is beautiful.

Pattern : Monster Chunks by Rebecca Danger (free on Ravelry – thanks
Rebecca!)

Yarn used : 2 balls of FAST by Filatura di Crosa for his head/body **
30 yards of Zara Plus for his feet.

**(new for Fall/Winter 2013. Also comes in Red, Lime, Yellow, Turquoise, Brown, Black, White, Cream, Grey. I will be ordering many bags for my own private use.)”

Beth

Monster in the making…

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Beth writes:

“Yesterday, I promised pictures of the Monster.  I thought it would be easy to make his 2nd foot last night and get him all sewn together in time for pictures today.  However, there was a small snag in that plan.  A snag the size of one bottle of beer.   We went out to dinner and I had one single beer.   It turns out I can’t drink and double point.  I messed up the foot about eight times (twisted my stitches, knit into the wrong side, knit onto the wrong needle, forgot to knit with my spare needle, dropped all the stitches off one needle, etc.)  So he is not done.  So instead you get pictures of the Monster in progress:

 

1st picture is half of his head/body.

monster 1a

 

2nd picture is his whole head/body.  Not sewn together yet – I can only imagine how I would have messed that up.

Monster 1b

 

3rd picture is his two feet.

Monster 1c

 

 

Tonight there will be no beer and unless there are complications there will be actual completed pictures tomorrow including details on the pattern and yarn used.”

The scarf is done…

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Beth Scarf

Beth writes:

“It’s finally done! My Linen Stitch Scarf is knit in Misti Alpaca Pima Silk Handpaint. I used 3 colours of blue (# 02 , 11 , 25) and I love how they blended together.

This was a beautiful yarn to knit with and the colour changes kept me interested through all 1000 rows (ok that may me a bit of an exaggeration but you certainly have to do a lot of rows to get anywhere).

I will definitely make another one of these someday. If I like a project I seem to feel compelled to do it a second time – I call it Noah’s Ark knitting.

Check back here tomorrow. My monster (a real one this time) is getting his feet tonight so there will be pictures.”

Beth’s latest…

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I know I said my next project was going to be more cables (and my cabled scarf is started) but it was put on hold when I discovered that I could knit Monsters!

Monsters brought up a whole new problem due to my almost complete lack of knitting skills. However, after a couple of YouTube videos and a quick lessons from the BS I was ready to Magic Loop. I cast on 20 stitches – yes I cast them on myself – and started looping. As my little orange tube grew and grew it reminded me of those horrible baby carrots (I say horrible because they freak me out. Carrots are supposed to be big and dirty with green tops). So, anyways, voila – my tube became the baby carrot monster complete with deranged smile and crooked eyes. He is looped in Zara Plus with Liberty Wool features. Pattern available by request (just kidding) (sort of).

Beth’s update…

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Now I know why my friend Fiona Ellis is always so happy – it’s because cables are fun!

I had a great time knitting this Cherry Garcia cowl designed by Adrian Bizilia (free on Ravelry – thanks Adrian!) I used 1 skein of Misti Alpaca Handpaint Chunky in colour # 47 Sea Jasper. I wanted a light colour to show off my cables and the muted green multicolour turned out even nicer than I had hoped. Special thanks to the BS for casting this on for me (and hopefully blocking it for me on this nice sunny day).

Ps I did cast this off myself – I am making progress!

Pss All projects should be this quick – 1 evening and 1 afternoon.

Psss Next project already underway. (there was a lot of knitting time this weekend with the Masters being on TV). Will post pictures once I get a little further along. Yes, it has more cables.

We’ve created a monster!

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Melosmom Knits Again

It’s Melosmom’s sister writing and it is official she has joined the ranks of us knitters.  She has three projects on the go right now and is searching on Ravelry for the next one.

I cast off (yes, you are reading that correctly) her second Inspira Cowl knitted with Liberty Prints 7860 for the main colour and 7891 for the contrast.

I think that I will teach her how to block tomorrow, the way she is going she should be able to handle that task.

Knit along with CEY!

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A “Shawls, Wraps & Scarves” knit along – click here to learn more and start having fun!

She has the bug…

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This is the BS (big sister) writing again. Melosmom is busy knitting and won’t put down her needles (Lantern Moon of course-only the best for Melosmom). There are 3 projects on the go right now but I’m going to show you the one I just cast on for her. Yes, another Linen Stitch Scarf. She is addicted. Her knitting goes everywhere with her now. She takes it to work in case there is a few minutes to knit. She recently took a trip and I asked her if she got much knitting done. She told me that she knit on the plane. Who is this person?

Misti Alpaca Pima Silk Hand Paint
83% Peruvian Pima Cotton
17% Silk

300m on a 100gram ball. I didn’t type that wrong-there is huge yardage. 22-24 stitches = 4″ in stocking stitch on 3.5mm-4mm needles. The yarn feels great. I’m jealous. I need to get me some. The colour shown is 25, brand new for spring (no images on our site yet). If I can pry the knitting out of her hands I will get more pictures.