Project Polar

With the stark winter sunshine beaming straight through my window it seemed the perfect opportunity to get the camera out for a little knitting update.

This is part of Project Polar - nothing to do with arctic bear conservation or the weather - a couple of years ago I bought two big bags of Rowan Polar in the sale. It's lovely stuff - soft, squishy, knits up quickly on 8mm. And yet. For some reason everything I've tried to knit with it has been a disaster. I think the main problem is that it's so floppy. It's great for hats and scarves but jumpers just seem to become heavy, shapeless sacks. I knit them up, never finish them, or never wear them, and then frog them every few months and try again. Finally, I think I am onto something that might work. This scarf is the same pattern as the giant throw I made a month ago. It still needs blocking to smooth out the kinks from the yarn being knitted into other things so many times, but otherwise it's done.

This is the Icing Swirl Hat from Ysolda. Great pattern, quick knit, although my gauge was off so I knitted the larger size on bigger needles to get the small size. Two balls of my Christmas stash of Rowan Cashmere Tweed. It's so soft, drapes beautifully and is incredibly warm. I love all the flecks of colour hidden amidst the brown. The only problem is it's an awkward weight. It knits up on 6/6.5mm, so it's too chunky for aran patterns and not chunky enough for most bulky patterns. I've got another few skeins and I wanted to make a cowl. The simplest thing might be to just use the yarn over spiral from the hat.

Meanwhile Project Polar continues:

This is Kate Davies' Owls jumper - named Plop, obviously (see earlier post). I only started this on Monday night so it's knitting up incredibly quickly on 7mm. I've already done the body to the armsyce and half of one sleeve.

I know it looks tiny, but it's very stretchy and the finished jumper doesn't have any ease, so it's meant to be close fitting. My only worry now is that I'm going to run out of wool! I think I might manage it if I use every scrap I can find (after so many froggings there are lots of tiny balls a few metres long lying around so it's hard to judge how much I've actually got). If all else fails there appears to be at least one person on Ravelry who has some they're willing to sell. I really like the waist shaping on this - it's done at the back, rather than the sides, which you can just about see here:

Very simple but it makes a nice shape I think. And for those of you wondering what the hell I'm doing with all these when there's still the Beast to contend with, you'll have to look over on Ravelry. I'm almost there. Reckon I'll crack it over the weekend. I just hope it's going to be big enough....