Mostly Brown

There are many browns, some are evocative of the earth and nature, some speak of chocolate and cakes.

Current knitting project is a quick, big, warm cardigan for my daughter - Bendigo Woollen Mills 12ply Classic in a sweet tan colour they call "Ginger". When it arrived it reminded me of those South American Alpaca / Llama jumpers worn by all cold uni students and hippies in the 1970s - yes, you know the ones! They usually had a row of alpacas / llamas marching around the chest or hem and they are vaguely trendy again. So, I grabbed another ball of the 12 ply in almost white and consulted daughter about what sort of critter? Answer: rabbits.

I've a lot of charts for rabbits and bunnies, mostly from vintage knitting patterns for children - decided to use them in a random manner. So Random Rabbits and Bouncing Bunnies ...

That's the back - this chap is on a sleeve.

Picture knitting / intarsia is my least favourite style of knitting, I just can't get the stitches to stay neat, they always get twisted about and there is always show-through of the un-used yarn. However, with a bit of blocking and some over embroidery I'm sure these bunnies will look OK.

Have also been spinning - and whereas that knitting is definitely in edible brown, this is brown a la nature.

Naturally soft brown coloured, corridale fleece spun with about 12% alpaca, also natural and undyed. The alpaca is mostly a light tan colour but there are cream bits too, the alpaca had patches or a pale chest? I spin this deliberately thick&thin with the alpaca thrown in as tufts - then it is plyed with the corridale done plain and quite thin. The result looks just like wood or bark, and it knits up like that too; really natural.

Not Brown. Just can't resist sharing this with you - the sunlight was shining through the petals.

We've 2 of these camellias, darling hubby rescued them 10yrs ago, they were very nearly dead when he brought them home - poor thin twigs in dried up pots. Well it has taken 10 yrs but they are glorious now.

Knit knit knitty knit

Just off the needles - 1 very small pretty project and 1 large & rather ugly theatrical project.

The pretty one first - a neckwarmer or scarflette for my niece. She likes all the mermaid colours and when Bendigo Woollen Mills sent me a card about their newest yarn "Highland" I thought she would the teal blue shade (called Loch) for a quick little birthday pressie.

Invented the pattern as I went, using a couple of lace patterns that have wavy edges, nice blue/green buttons and some beads on the points for added prettiness.

Now the less than pretty theatrical project - a shawl to be part of a very tatty and broken down costume. By the time it gets to the stage it will have been dyed and will look somewhat different - but here it is as it left my needles.

Tatty costumes are actually rather difficult to make - when they are part of a long running stage production they have to look the same in the last performance as they did on opening night. A previous run of this show had a shawl made from some machine knitted fabric “broken down” with holes and lots of ladders. Of course, this had continued to disintegrate - so I had to replicate that “look” in hand knitting that will be relatively stable with permanent holes and ladders :-)

They also wanted the fabric between the ladders to have a bit of a roll / not completely flat. I’ve never knitted a Clapotis but remembered seeing them and remembered that they have a bouncy roll between the dropped stitch ladders … looked up the pattern … there are Knit through Back of Loop stitches either side of the ladders, an idea I copied so I'm calling this a "Clapped-Outtee".

As the ladders and holes had to be quite random, the Clapped-Outtee Shawl was actually rather difficult and time-consuming - I was using 26 colour-coded stitch-makers at the widest point. I am quite proud of this completely tatty and rather ugly shawl :-)