Big herringbone cowl from Purl Soho

Finally!

It started like this, on Tim's gorgeous houseboat in Seattle.. 

Then there were some rainy evenings while I was volunteering in Cozumel.. 

 After which we went to gorgeous Tulum!

 And I finally got to wear it (unblocked) in Italy :)

 And now it's blocked and I'm home in gloomy Rotterdam..

Sorry for the dark pic, there is no sunlight whatsoever here this week..

I've been wanting to knit the Big Herringbone Cowl from Purl Soho for a really long time now. Two years ago we travelled to Patagonia, Chili and stayed in an old sheep slaughterhouse (it had been renovated into a gorgeous hotel, so don't worry!). There I bought wool to make this cowl, but since I was just getting into knitting again, I had no idea about wool weights and stuff.. After some research I figured out that if I held the yarn double it would be about the same weight as the worsted suggested yarn. Let me tell you that knitting with yarn held double is not a good idea for a herringbone stitch. I just couldn't figure it out! 

So 2 years later when I spotted the Shibui Knits merino alpaca at Knit Purl in Portland I knew I had found my perfect yarn!

I love that this yarn is really squishy and soft, but still firm enough to keep its texture. It also really shows off the stitches. I cast on the same nr of stitches as suggested, I knit it on size 15/10 mm needles, so a bit smaller then suggested. Therefore my cowl is about 3-4 inches shorter then the one from Purl Soho, but for me that's long enough! It is 10 inches wide and I used about 3.5 skeins for it. 

Just for an idea of the length

I changed one thing from the pattern, following the suggestions on Ravelry (don't know where I found it excactly..) which is if you want to keep the seam straight (yes please) that you have to place the stitch marker after the last stitch on every knit through back loop row and before the last stitch on every knit row. 

Nice and straight

I was able to correct small mistakes (quite difficult with the stitch pattern) but one evening I made a large mistake after drinking some red wine/watching lotr/just not paying attention. 

Aargh! 

I tried to fix it, but ended up ripping back about 6 rows after putting in a lifeline. I think it has something to do with all the stitches being knit twice, that you can't get a smooth transition (with the old stitches) once you've re-knitted them. 

Fixing it didn't work

This cowl really benefits from a blocking, before blocking it was really curly and almost completely bunched up. After blocking it feels softer and it doesn't really have the curling tendency anymore, yay!

Milo felt like he should help with the blocking, so one morning I came downstairs to find this.. 

Thanks Milo!

Luckily it wasn't super bad so I could gently ease them back in their normal place..

Our trip was amazing, Burning Man was really special, Mexico was awesome and I especially liked all the cool yarn shops in Portland! I bought myself some presents for in my new sewing room from Fringe Association and they're being framed right now :)

There was also lots of shopping in The Fabric Store in Los Angeles, but I'll save that for another post..

Yay!

I loved reading all of the new blogposts during our trip, although commenting was quite difficult without a laptop.  So I'm sorry for the silence, but I have been posting on Instagram quite often! And I'm hoping to comment more now that everything is back to normal.. 

Are you knitting/sewing a lot for the christmas deadline? I know I am, just started a silk kimono for my granddad yesterday, wish me luck!

My first cabling projects, Phildar hat and cowl

I figured it was time to try something new to improve my knitting skills... So I went to my LYS (they are soo super grumpy there, I wish there was another store nearby..) and noticed two super cute projects with cabling in Phildar's magazine.

These patterns are from the Phildar magazine nr. 98 (autumn/winter 2013-2014). The hat is pattern 46 and is knitted with their Partner 6 yarn on size 6 needles. I made a swatch first to try and practice my cables, but it looked like crap. So I just decided to start and see how it went. After a row or 6 it started to look like cables, so I'm glad I just decided to start.

I love the colour of this wool, somewhere between grey and purple! They call it Bruyere. I made the hat shorter then they suggested, instead of 54 rows I knitted around 42, because I prefer my hats more snuggly at the top.

In the store they only had thinner wool than suggested for the pom pom, which is the reason that it is not super nice and round, since I got tired of winding the wool and decided this was enough wool for the pom pom. Cutting it to make it rounder only made it look weirder..

The cowl (or snood) is pattern number 50. I had to take a good look at the pattern to try and decipher it. It is knitted on size 4 needles and wasn't as nice and fast as the hat! I really liked the wool, which is the zephyr line combined with the partner 3.5 (that is the pink colour). 

I'm loving my cables!

I did find an error in the pattern, they ask you to put the stitch on the cable needle and then bring it in front of your work, well, that doesn't look good! You have to move the stitch to the back of your work and then knit the other stitches. 

When I finished it I thought that the cowl was a bit too big to wear it without wrapping, but too small to wrap it twice around my neck. Now that I've worn it for a couple of days I'm really happy with it. When I wear it with my Minoru jacket I just fold it up a bit and it is super nice and warm. 

Are you working on any knitting projects? I've almost finished my Happy Triangles sweater and I'm starting with The Crash sweater soon, knitting along with the Holla Knits Knit-a-long!

Milo also really likes my cowl, he just jumped right in!

Wool and the Gang: my Stripy Coco Mariniere sweater

Hi guys!

Thanks for all the super sweet comments on my bikini post, it felt really strange putting photo's of me in my bikini up on the internet, but I'm happy I did it. 

I've still got enough pics that I made my bf take while we were in Bali for two more posts.. Let's pretend it isn't freezing here in The Netherlands right now.. 

 I finished my second knitted sweater! The pattern is from Wool and the Gang and it's the Stripy Coco Mariniere top. When I fist spotted it on their website they also had a picture with sleeves. So I really wanted to make it. After buying the pattern, there were no sleeves included! So I emailed them and got a super quick reply with a sleeve pattern.. The only thing they didn't include were the stripes, so I had to do some math before I could begin..

It is knit in cotton, so that's why I don't look like I'm about to melt in these pictures.. Since I already had the feeling that it might turn out too big, I reduced the number of stitches. It's still pretty big/wide, but nothing too bad. The only part I don't really like is the sleeves, which are too long.. Even for me with my long arms, I get a whole bunch of bunching up around my hands..

When I did all the sleeve math I tried to calculate it so that the stripes would line up nicely with the bodice, only I forgot that the sleeve also had to be attached to the body.. Smart me. Rather then taking the whole sleeve apart I figured I should learn to live with it.. Overall the stripes line up quite well, so I'm still kinda happy.

 When we were in Ubud we visited Threads of Life, a fairtrade business which works with people in rural Indonesia to make textiles and baskets using local materials, local techniques and natural dyes. I really loved seeing all these gorgeous textiles and in my next post I'll show you what I bought. I couldn't afford the gorgeous ikat sarongs, but I can always look at the pictures again..

I love the bottom one.. 

Beautiful indigo table cloth 

This fabric was absolutely gorgeous! It was quite heavy and woven in this amazing pattern, I believe it was about 300 dollars, which is out of my price range, but look how beautiful it is!

Have you been knitting recently? And what do you prefer, wool or cotton? I think I prefer wool, but for summer I've already got yarn for two more cotton sweaters..

Next up will be another sewing project, I promise! And more fabric pics :)