Project: Fuss Free Festival Shawl

 

Fuss Free Festival Shawl

I've been a fan of Louise Tilbrook's for quite a while, she's actually pretty local to me, was until quite recently a scientist like me, and her designs are simple and beautiful. I was a member of her Everyday Knitter group on facebook, although it soon became a bit too big to keep up with (and FB algorithms never help) but when she said she was setting the group up on Mighty Networks I was happy to join up there too. The Mighty Networks layout is really clean and easy to follow (no ads!) and it shows you stuff in chronological order, which is nice. To celebrate the new group we held a Knit-A-Long, although this time it was no mystery, it was Louise's Fuss Free Festival Shawl (FFFS).

Not a sponsored post.

This is a nice, asymmetrical triangular shawl. Really good for one skein of fancy hand dyed yarn your not sure what to do with. There is also an option to have stripes. You could probably work it in any weight yarn to make it really big and squishy if you wanted.

Yarn:

Witch fibre co. - Dream Country (75% merino, 25% nylon) Fingering weight (400m). I brought this from a fellow knitters destash, I would share the link to the shop but I can't find it.

Needle/Gauge:

4mm. There's no gauge given, just instructions to make a fabric you're happy with. As it's a shawl you don't want anything too tight, like you would have for a sock, but also doesn't want massive holes in like lace (unless that's what you want!)

Difficulty:

Very easy. This is all garter stitch, knit every row. You need to know how to increase and decrease, but once you've got the hang of the pattern repeat then the tricky bit is remembering which side is the right side (and I stick a stitch marker on the right side so I remember). The cast off is a picot cast off which can be a bit fiddly, but some people in the group did an I-cord bind off instead or even just a regular bind off.

Worth Repeating:

Definitely. I've made this one as a Christmas gift and it's so easy to make I'll probably make more at some point. It took something like 3 weeks to make, but I was also working on something else at the time.

Kitchen

Its not a pan, its a cauldron.

After finding that massive marrow in the garden, I found a chutney recipe for it. I don't know what sort of courgette this should have been, but the skin was really tough, it's not the sort I usually grow. I haven't tried eating this yet, but when I made it I expected it to break down more and it hasn't, so some of my jars have a lot of stuff but not much fluid in. The jars were properly sterilised before filling so I'm hoping that they won't spoil, I've had them on the side to keep an eye on and they're ok so far.

I did find a slightly smaller marrow in the garden the other day, so I'll have to find something to do with that.

Art

Since Covid and lockdown started a million months ago, the Natural History Museum (London) started a weekly #NatureDrawingClub. I've really enjoyed joining in when I can, but this morning I just felt like doing a quick drawing of my little carnivorous plant Errol the Engulfer. It's a small sundew, which has really flourished since I moved it to the front room window where it gets a lot of light. It's sent up loads of flower spikes recently and they're just so pretty and delicate. I wanted to try doing an ink and watercolour (although mine are watercolour pencils) and apart from the pen bleeding slightly I'm really pleased with it. Someone suggested using a dip pen and ink, so maybe I need to add one of those to my wish list as well as proper watercolours.

Errol was very impressed with his portrait.

Lots of little bits.

Recently, and for some time in the future, I've been making things for mostly small people. Now this has been quite fun, planning things for people not yet here (not mine, this is not my way of announcing anything) and trying to make something a bit more unique and special than something just bought off the shelf.

For the baby my friend is expecting I've made a baby bag. It's kind of become a bit of a thing for me to make these; this will be the third. When I made the first one nearly three years ago whenever I explained what I was making people were always like "a bag you put a baby in?" But I believe recently they've become more popular as it's like a sleeping bag so babies can't kick it off and get cold. I've also found that self striping sock yarn is really good for these too, the first one I made was plain, but this latest one is very bright. The twisted rib cuff is really effective too, maybe it's lost a bit in the multi colours, but its very simple to do and looks a bit like cabling.

Fancy twisted rib.

For my birthday in July my husband bought be a book of crochet animals, I'd been a fan of the menagerie since I saw them at an NEC event and they had a very cute bunny called Emma (and as Coke can testify, giving things names is a very good marketing tool). I had bought a PDF with some of the animals, but the book has more patterns and better instructions for the different fur stitches. They're such lovely toys I had no problems making one for my friend's little boy's first birthday. The wool I used was free from a friend clearing out her stash when she moved; it's grey flecked with green and pink which gives it a much more lifelike quality. I made an elephant because out of the more basic patterns (I'm not as confident with crochet as I am knitting, and I really like the book is set out in levels of difficulty) it seemed to have a lot of character. Since the intended received it and I put some pictures on instagram a cousin has expressed an interest in receiving one for the baby he and his wife are expecting.

Really pleased with the tail.

 And so, I've had a quick break to make something for me. A year ago I was planning to make a hat and bought some lovely llama wool. I decided that the wool was too variegated in colour for the hat and chose something else, but this wool was going to be something beautiful. Luckily my wool shop keeps it in stock so I was able to get a second ball. On Ravelry I have a whole list of things I'd love to make, and this particular pattern had been in that list for a while, since I saw Michaela Strachen wearing something similar on autumn watch last year, and decided this would be the perfect pairing. Casting on is fairly straightforward, but it took me three goes to join all the stitches without it being twisted and becoming like a Möbius strip, and every time I had to start again I was putting on more and more stitches, until the final time I had 300 and managed to get it joined without twisting (I know, I could just have undone some but then I didn't think it would have been as loopy as I wanted it).

The pattern is a really simple but effective repeat, using yarn overs to create the eyelets. Because I had two balls of wool I alternated which one I used over every couple of rows so that any colour changes between them would be evened out, but I possibly didn't need to as the changes in each ball over the whole round were amazing. Due to casting on a few more stitches than originally called for I did run out of wool a bit earlier, cutting a repeat short and eventually having to sub in a dark, not so lovely, yarn for the final bit of finishing off, but I don't think its noticeable.

Trying not to make duckface.

The binding off row is quite a bit tighter than the other rows, but I think this gives it structure and holds it all together; if it was as loose as the rest it might just be a bit much. As it is I can still wrap it around my head three times if I want to, but I'll probably just do it twice most of the time (trying to get the third wrap off my head was difficult, trying to find the last loop and it kept getting stuck on my ear stud). I really enjoyed this project, it was quite quick and easy to do watching the TV and I think it might make a really good present for my mum if I find the right wool. Also, I think doing it in something lighter, like a cotton, might make a really good spring/summer scarf (I'm going to end up with a selection of these, I can see it now).