Autumn draws in...

I've noticed of late that I've been mainly knitting in autumnal colours - lovely rusty coloured tweeds and copper cashmere blends. There's a skein of dark brown merino dk looking at me from the 'planned projects' box and some stunning Crannog in the same colours as Lime trees as the leaves turn with the changing season just arrived.

I've never really noticed this seasonality in my knitting before. I'll quite happily knit mittens in July and floaty lacy shawls in January with a varied palette through the year but this year Autumn seems to have had quite an impact.Maybe it's the very wet and grey few weeks that we've had in Manchester that makes me want to have the wonderful Autumn colours on my needles even I can't see them on the trees through the drizzle.

Today though the sun is shining and it's one of those crisp, cold Autumn days that are perfect for walking up hills and ending up in a pub although sadly other duties call instead.

Some knitty Autumn colours for you...

On the top there is a new design in progress and one that I'm so far very pleased with. I saw a woman in the post office in a beautiful machine knit lace cardigan so when I got home I started trying to swatch it out. One thing led to another and I started to design a new pair of fingerless gloves. So far this has involved me learning how to do a no seam picot edge as show in SillyLittleLady's blog tutorial here and unventing a no lean central double decrease (I'm sure it exists properly but I worked it out without referencing anything). I don't have a name for this yet so if you have any thoughts...

Tutorial - starting a shawl with a garter tab

When I first started knitting shawls this was one of the things that flummoxed me. Why would you faff about with knitting a tiny garter stitch rectangle and picking up stitches (my pet hate) when you can just cast on the right amount to start with? Well I asked on Ravelry and was told that it creates a neater and more flexible long edge on shawls knit from the centre neck outwards. Meh, thought I - bet it doesn't. Two versions of "198 yards of Heaven" later and I was converted.

Recently someone asked the same question in one of my Ravelry groups and I was able to give the same answer I was given all that time ago. As I was about to start knitting up a new shawl design I also took some photos to create a tutorial and here it is:

1. I'm using a 2 stitch garter edge on this shawl so I've cast on two stitches:

2. I need to end up with 13 stitches so knowing I have two stitches cast on (and therefore will have two stitches at each end of the garter tab) I need to knit 18 rows, giving me 9 garter ridges:

3. Now I have a long thin rectangle so I knit the two stitches, then start to pick up stitches down the long side of the rectangle:

4. Once I've picked up one stitch per garter ridge I will have 11 stitches on the needle and just need to get two more. My knitting looks like this:

5. And now I just need to get my last two stitches which I get from picking up two stitches from my cast on edge:

6. Now this looks a little awkward but I have my 13 stitches on the needles and a lovely flexible edge which allows me to start knitting my shawl. This particular pattern is based loosely on the Pi Shawl model so I am increasing on row 3, row 7 and row 15 to start with which starts to create a curved, almost semi-circular shape:

I have now finished the shawl and the yarn/pattern combination hasn't worked so I've overdyed it with green and blue to create a deep turquoise with some inky pools.Finished object photos to follow but here's a picture of the shawl blocking: