Winter pattern round-up

There are some amazing new knitting patterns coming out this season, which I'm dying to try. Here are my favourites:


1) Cable Luxe Tunic from Lionbrand


This is a completely brazen knock-off of a lovely Pringle jumper from last winter which caught the eye of many a knitblogger. No-one actually came up with a pattern from what I remember, until this came out. I saw it first on the incredible Posie Gets Cozy blog, and she's knitting it in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran. I was thinking of either Rowan Pure Wool Aran or some Jaeger Matchmaker Aran that Jannette has on sale in her Ebay shop. The jumper has quite an interesting construction - the cable yoke looks seamless but is knit a different way round to the garter stitch and body and sleeves. So what you do is knit the cable band and seam it at the centre back, then pick up stitches for the body and sleeves, and pick up stitches for the garter yoke. So simple, yet ingenious!


2) Tangled Yoke Cardigan by Eunny Jang


I absolutely loved this, even from the very intriguing first glimpses on the blog. Jug and a couple of others I asked think it looks 'granny' but the few I've seen finished on Ravelry look great, especially in Felted Tweed. I have a whole cone of Jaggerspun Zephyr DK which sits on the shelf and looks at me, willing to be made into this. However, I am quite put off by the number of people knitting this on size 3 needles - after Thermal, never again. Or at least not for a very long time.


3) Endpaper Mitts by Eunny Jang


Something small, interesting to knit and comfy to wear. That's all I ask. I have some Cashsoft 4ply in the stash in dark purple and beige to make these.


4) Drops Cardigan, according to Flintknits


My goodness this girl is talented. Everything she knits is gorgeous, and I especially love this cardigan - functional, textured, and stylish. I was thinking RYC soft tweed.


5) Cobblestone Pullover by Jared Flood


This was going to be Mr C's only-getting-one-in-a-lifetime jumper, but maybe he won't be getting even one so far. He does have half a jumper, but as I have sold the remainder of the yarn I think that one is heading for the frog pond. The Cobblestone looks good, but the miles of stocking stitch are definitely putting me off, although it might be the only way of forcing me to master continental knitting, I suppose. I actually bought some dark brown Kilcarra Tweed to knit this, as I was led to believe it was quite soft from other bloggers. But its pretty scratchyand will make my fingers sore when I'm knitting, so I thought I'd rather cut my losses and send it back. Maybe some Cascade 220 or Rowan Pure Wool Aran would be better.


I have some miscellaneous baby things to get on with, as well as my Pomatomus and Clapotis, both of which are in various states of incompleteness.


Btw, am I the last person to discover the wonderful Yarnstorm? She bakes, knits and writes books called 'The Gentle Art of Domesticity', besides having the most gorgeous blog ever. And she made a hot-water bottle cover in the right colours for the publisher of Persephone Books, who hardly anyone else seems to have heard of. Liz Hunt wrote an incredibly mean article about Jane in last Sunday's Telegraph (not a newspaper I buy) but she appears to be one of those embittered, cynical women who ridicule anything the least bit quaint and old-fashioned. Jane will be at I Knit on the 20th of October for a Crafternoon tea, if anyone is interested in coming along.

I'm heading for a seriously stressful weekend - 3 days on call on an empty stomach! I was on yesterday as well, and while fasting wasn't too much of a problem, it does tend to make me a bit more intolerant of the usual ridiculous referrals to orthopaedics without x-rays, bloods or even a proper clerking by A&E. I even went to the great lengths (for me) of berating an A&E Middle Grade for sending me a patient that needed a cannula put in, which the nurses refused to do. On the other hand, I saw the sweetest old lady yesterday, and when I left she insisted on giving me a kiss on the cheek!

I am also the proud recipient of my first IRIS form - I'm not sure what it stands for, but it's basically an incident reporting form, which is used to report accidents and near-misses. My crime was just that I didn't answer my bleep twice, to put up a drip in a patient who couldn't drink and hadn't had any fluid the whole weekend. Instead of calling someone over the weekend, they had left it until Monday afternoon to be sorted out. The whole thing is a bit complicated and involved, but I think I have managed to prove myself innocent after all, so it should be ok.




Jug and I didn't blog about the Knitting and Stitch Show in Birmingham - that could be because it was a sad disappointment to us. We made the pilgrimage from Manchester only to find a fairly meagre selection of yarn shops and most of those the hippy handspun itchy wool or even worse, squeaky acrylic variety, so we mainly interested ourselves in the workshops. Despite owning a vintage Bernina, I haven't managed to use my vast supplies of embroidery materials yet so regretfully didn't end up buying much at all. I may get a chance to visit the London show instead, which is (from last year's experience) another show altogether. We did see some incredible felted art by Jeanette Appleton (who was very nice to us) - she makes lovely huge abstract landscapes by building up layers of felt in different colours.

On that note, I bought a painting for my flat. i'm not really a pot-of-flowers kind of girl, so I got something a bit more abstract. Unfortunately, Mr C is not at all keen on it. What do you think?







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