Holiday Knitting

Had Archie not been ill with a tummy bug since Christmas Eve (it's currently day 5 of him having no appetite, but at least he is drinking again), and had D not been plagued with headaches for the duration, I might have been telling you that we had a lovely relaxing Christmas. Instead, I'm on first name terms with the local vets and have used a lot of disinfectant... plus anything and everything that smells better than a sick dog (he stinks!) to clear my nostrils.

Sitting with a shivering Schnauzer allowed me to get some (unexpected) knitting done. I'd been looking for something to do with the various oddments of handspun yarn - especially the earliest which were neither very even, nor very strong. When I saw the Langfield hat pattern by Martina Behm I was smitten - garter stitch and an interesting construction - that well and truly ticks my boxes! As regular readers will know, Martina is one of my favourite designers, and I wasn't disappointed with this pattern, which was finished in just a few hours.

The short dark days makes picture-taking difficult but you get the gist. It's actually sized to fit me, but turned back to form a large brim, it's rather cute on Little Miss - perhaps we'll share it. The pattern is lovely - very easy to knit, and quite relaxing. I'll be making more of these with better yarn, but I'm happy to have finally made something with those small quantities of handspun, and it's very soft and cosy.

I also started another relaxing project. This one came as a limited edition Scheepjes yarn kit. Various lovely colourways are available from Deramores ('m using the Burning Flames Colourway)  with €2 from each sale helping children's cancer charity KIKA. The kit included five balls of yarn, a pompom maker and Scheepjes label and both a knit and crochet pattern to choose from. I was seriously tempted to make the crochet version but in the end I chose the knit option so I could do it on auto-pilot with the dog on my lap (you can see both here).  There's nothing like comfort knitting when you're worried, is there?

It's the first time I've knit with Invicta Colour, and I like it a lot - especially the subtle colour changes. In fact I've already planned another project (a shawl design) which I think will suit it perfectly. Come to think of it, it would also be great for one of those hats....