Opinion time

Dear all,

After my post I made a journey to Islington to the LYS there, Loop, to pick up The Bird Collection book mentioned in a last post (it turns out her new book – Finstickat – won’t be translated to English anytime soon, so thought I should grab the book while it was still at Loop. Things there move FAST).

My restraint slipped a bit, and though I was just supposed to get the book, here is what I came home with:

Naughtiness.

My question from the last post answered. I am going with the Robin:

They didn’t have the yarn recommended in the pattern, though they had a sample of the Robin jumper knit up in the Spinni wool, and it was VERY itchy. I decided I would substitute with the much softer Alpaca 1. The hue is still a desaturated pink, though more magenta than the one in the picture in the book – no. 61.

Now the recommended yarn is a 3 ply and this is a two ply, so both are very fine knitting, though this is finer, and I knew I would be pushing it a bit with the patience factor … but thought it might be good for me. A new level, so to speak.

That is until I cast on a swatch this morning and it took me nearly an hour to knit a 5×2 inch swatch. Gulp.

There is the 3mm swatch of pain with a new swatch cast on with 2.5mm, as I am not at gauge.

In red below is where I have picked up not only the stitch on the needle, but that below, as I am not used to knitting with yarn this fine.
And it is VERY fine for me and quite splitty.

Thing is, I am wondering if I am struggling so much because of a) the fact that knitting with needles this small and yarn so fine is terrifying me, b)the yarn is just too splitty.

Here is where I need some opinions. Those of you that have knit with teeny yarns- what do you think ? Should I tough it out and try to view this as a learning curve, or am I just setting myself up for an expensive fail?

This decision is a bit time sensitive, as I want to go back tomorrow or monday and get Isager’s Highland yarn for this if I give up (before it is GONE with London’s crazy lack of physical yarn shops)…so really stressing!

Help please? What are your opinions?

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Cropping it up

I am trying to distract myself from my Odilon troubles by thinking of my next project – as one does!

These are the two things I keep stopping at over and over on blogs and boards – cropped crew necks…

left to right – Band of Outsiders, Ella Catliff, Visual Optimism

And peachy hues, the more desaturated the better!

Wrap, Humanoid, Amimono

The first slightly androgynous and the other kind of girly.

Which will win out?

FINSTICKAT

Isager yarn’s Amimono publications have recently been making the rounds of the more stylish knitting blogs in the blogsphere. The family run business has seemed to hit on a perfect combo of beautiful yarn/stylish contemporary patterns/young and hip styling/ and ethereal photos!

Having recently contacted Helga Isager regarding her beautiful new book The Bird Collection,

I was pretty chuffed to find out that they have published it in English! It is retailing at approx £19 and you just have to indicate you want an English language copy in the notes when you order.

I have been putting off purchasing, and just went into the site again today to drool. Look at what I found!

A NEWER and LARGER book that has recently been published with nearly all the patterns I was interested in the other books (plural) all in one place…with NEW PATTERNS.

How pretty are these shots?

And the yarn colours are divine.

I am thinking of holding off until this one is translated. It is a bit more (approx £33), but has more of the adult patterns that I want, and I figure if I am going to pay for shipping, I may as well get the motherload of patterns in one go!

Waiting with baited breath for Helga to get back to me. Fingers crossed it comes out in English soon!