I know I said in my last posting I was going to show you my queue but it is quite a mammoth task, lots of yarns to photo and pattern links so I’m pushing that one back to next time.

Instead I’m going to take you through the process of my work on my latest finished item, with a review of some new yarn I’ve been using, details of the project I made with it and a video of me working on it.

If you love shopping online for wool you’ll probably have seen the Ice brand yarns pop up a bit, me too and I was very curious – so I thought I’d order some from luxuryyarns4less, which is actually run by a great lady in one of my online knitting groups who helped me choose. I got a pack of 8 balls of luxury premium 50% merino wool 50% acrylic, worsted weight in shade lilac. Now if you’re in the UK and ordering stuff from outside the EU like this, do be aware that you will have to pay extra taxes if your order is worth over £15 in total and also that the regulations change from time to time on that. This is an impartial review, I bought the yarn myself, no discount, no obligation to plug it.

My order totalled just £10.89, no postage charges - for the 8 (50g) balls, so the price was certainly right! The order took about a week to arrive. Here’s a picture of some of the yarn.

 And the ball band

I will say it isn’t the softest blend I’ve worked with, but not bad and it knits very nicely. What I like most about it is that it isn’t spun into a tight ply, I like this kind, it suits my knitting style, it feels “neutral” and I feel a bit less like I’m working against or with the grain with it and it gives it a soft look. I do sometimes run into yarns that I’ve found don’t cooperate with me too well in their twist so this was nice to use. I used 3 and half balls for the project I made, I found a join in one of the balls but not knotted (hooray) it was properly spliced together which was refreshing. When knitted up the yarn is really really warm and thick and plump for a blend, I was pleasantly surprised at that, so I think it’s great affordable stuff for winter gear. The colour is gorgeous and it is exceptional value for money for the fibre content. I would be happy to use it again. I'm thinking of making mittens with what I have left.

Now onto the project! Because this yarn is a worsted weight, which still isn’t always so easy to pick up in the shops here in the UK I got most excited! I love vintage patterns as you may know from my previous posts and some of the nice old patterns I have from the US need worsted weight. I can substitute with DK but then I have to play with the needle size a bit, so for me it’s a treat to get the right weight yarn to knit something vintage with.

 I chose “Knitted Stocking Cap” by the American Thread Company. It’s a free pattern.

As far as I can gather from my research it’s from 1947. Isn’t the picture just lovely! I adore the huge tassel on it, the way it is long enough to go around the neck for warmth and the colourwork rib on the brim.

Onto the knitting! The cream is just Red Heart worsted weight I was able to get here and had already. It’s a simple hat to knit, alternating blocks of colour in the ribbing for the brim, then just stocking stitch and decreasing. I needed to calculate evenly spaced decreases for this so I used this handy online tool, the even decreases calculator.

Here is the work in progress

I also made a youtube video of myself working on this, it was intended for my friend who was interested in how I knit as a lefty but as she assures me the video is not bad I will be very brave and share it here in case anyone is interested. It shows not only my lefty mirror knitting, but also how I work in the combination knitting technique working left-handed for stocking stitch. I purl “eastern” and then knit through the back loops on knit rows.

The hat took me about 6 days, it was fun a project for something to knit without thinking too much about it because it’s mostly just stocking stitch.

Here’s the finished article!

This one was knit flat and seamed, true to the original pattern but it would be easy to convert to knitting in the round to avoid the mahoosive seaming job! The giant tassel was so easy to make following the instructions and just the most fun, I think it really sets the whole thing off perfectly and I really like the hat.

Hope you are all enjoying progress on your current projects too!

For more information on the combined knitting method (right-handed) take a look at Annie Modisett's excellent website