Purl City

Manchester has a new yarn shop!

Since Kendals stopped selling yarn a few years ago the only yarn shop in Manchester has been Abakhan which, whilst great in many ways, is mostly a fabric shop. Now we have a new yarn shop on the block - the lovely Purl City Yarns. Based on the Piccadilly station edge of the Northern Quarter in a recently renovated row of shops off Newton St, this gorgeous shop is providing a home to some very nice yarns including a range of yarn from local independent yarn dyers like Six Skeins, Green Eyed Monsters and Wild Fire Fibres. The shop is spacious with lots of natural light, a sofa, and quite a lot of samples showcasing the lovely yarn on offer. Upstairs there's a gallery space which I didn't investigate but I'm sure is as nice as the rest of the shop.

I was going to take a picture of the yarn I bought (Wild Fire Fibres Hercules wool/silk DK) but me, the yarn, and natural light haven't coincided for a few days so I don't have a decent picture.

Well worth a visit and handy for Piccadilly Station

Knitting Updates:
Lymond Socks - on the ankle gusset of sock 2, definite progress being made
Through the Woods (toddler size) - waiting on head measurements but otherwise on the ribbed hood border. I'm convinced it's too small so I don't want to do anything more until I get measurements

Pattern Updates:
Whipple - testing nearly finished, should be available soon
Pie Crust - waiting for yarn
Unnamed pleated and cabled scarf - yarn bought, must finish other things soon

Quilting update:
It's been washed and pressed and it SURVIVED

Friday FO: Lap Quilt for Mum

I actually finished this a few days ago but it's been a very busy week so I haven't got round to writing about it. This is my very first quilt using about half of a Moda Layer Cake from the Little Fabric Store in the Fandango fabric range. It's backed with a plain ivory calico and lightly hand quilted horizontally and diagonally, and then finally with buttons. The binding is a shop bought reel of satin biad binding from Habbyworld all handstitched (because I'm insane)

Here's a close up:

It needs to be washed before being wrapped up for Christmas but first I need to stop being terrified about it disintegrating.

In other news:

• No progress on the second Lymond sock as yet
• 75% of the way through a Through the Woods hood using dk rather than chunky in the hopes of it fitting my smallest niece
• Two testers have finished Whipple successfully so that's going well
• I have commissioned some custom pie inspired yarn for a new pattern
• I've just bought some lovely Wild Fire Fibres Hercules yarn for a further new pattern that's brewing in my head. This yarn came from Purl City Yarns which is a new yarn shop in the Northern Quarter. More on this place next time...

FO: Whipple (a new design)

This is my latest design which I'm calling Whipple after one of my favourite authors. I'm about to have it tested and then will release it into the wild. It was a very quick knit (2 days) and is a lovely textured piece. I've used two yarns to give a subtle striping effect (Knitting Goddess 4ply 100% wool and Natural Dye Studio BFL) but it will work with one skein of sock yarn.

 And a detail look at the pleated ruffle border

And finally, Mizzle is out for free download on Ravelry and doing quite well.

FO: Limestone Shawl

I've been getting things finished this week. The picture above is a detail photo of the Limestone One-skein Shawl from Fickleknitter (linked in previous posts). It's a lovely quick knit with a very pretty border. I knit it in about 12 hours I think so almost instant gratification although it's not for me.

The quilt has made huge progress and is now mostly quilted (all by hand, all yesterday - must buy thimble). I'm quilting it very simply with corner to corner diagonals across the squares. I will be adding some buttons to the quilting I think and have yet to start making the binding strip. I'm not looking forward to doing the binding at all. It looks very precise and I'm using to lovely fudgy knitting where mistakes can be easily dealt with or covered up.

I'm rather impressed at my progress this week as it's been a very busy week and I've spent an awful lot of time asleep trying to catch up with myself. I like sleep

Autumn is really here

Fog at the station

Yesterday we were driving back from Yorkshire and it was truly eerie. The M62 was shrouded in fairly heavy fog, there were crows pecking on the had shoulder, and it was Halloween...

However crossing into Lancashire we soon came through to clear skies (unusual) and heavy traffic (normal). Our early Autumn days have been quite nice so far with clear crisp mornings, blue skies and hard frosts. The colours on the trees have been amazing this year - everything from vibrant pinks to ochres. The ferns round our pond have gone a wonderful rich golden brown and we can actually see them after some intensive tree felling a couple of weeks ago.


To continue the eerieness this morning I woke to find the fog had followed us home, creeping round the M60 in the dead of the night...

The picture above is my local train station about 8.30am. Suitably Autumal I thought.

So as the nights are drawing in my thoughts turn to stocking up on things to knit, sew and read over what is seems likely to be a long cold winter. This was my postal delivery on Saturday

At the top is a skein of Posh Sylvia in Cotillion, named after the Georgette Heyer book and presumably the colour of one of Freddie's waistcoats. The book stack is a haul from Abe Books and is most of the Lymond Chronicles and the first two of the House of Niccolo all by Dorothy Dunnett. Should keep me going for a while...

WIP: Man Socks

Lymond Socks?

This is my latest WIP. My husband discovered all his hand knit socks were in the laundry and it was cold outside and he was sad. He requested more socks and despite the fact that his feet are a foot long (pun intended) and hand knit socks therefore take ages I agreed. He picked his yarn (Shetland/nylon 80/20 sock kettle dyed in two stages to give a glazed look, dyed by me with food colouring), he specified his sock requirements (plainish with a subtle ankle cable), we looked at Ravelry for patterns and couldn't find anything.

So I hit the books and found a lovely ribbed cable and put together a sock pattern for myself. I've adapted the cable to work in the round and done Hard Sums to make sure the right bits of the cable continue down the  instep and the rest gets absorbed in to a twisted rib heel.

The picture above was taken yesterday under less than ideal conditions and with a less than ideal camera.

Having asked about on Ravelry there seems to be some support for having these available as a proper pattern so I will write these up and publish it, probably in two sizes. The working title is Lymond Socks after my new favourite book character

I have also started a test knit for Fickleknitter which is a lovely lace triangle shawl with a knitted on border. I'm knitting it in YarnAddict Fantasy Sock which is like knitting kitten fur it's that soft. Progress pictures to follow when I've taken some in decent light

Finally finished featherweight

In terms of knitting time this was more of a heavyweight. Also I stand very badly and my new phone doesn't have as good a camera as my old phone. Still, it's finished. I was starting to think it never would be.

This is my Featherweight Cardie (pattern by Hannah Fettig aka Knitbot) in recycled lambswool laceweight from a M&S jumper. It weighs an enormous 80g so will be ideal for travelling and looks far better IRL than in that photo. I wore it to work today and it was much admired. I've been trying to decide how many compliments it will take to outweigh the boredom of the knit and it's definitely a lot. This was definitely a product not a process knit but at least it's finished and I can make a start on something new.

The something new will be some socks for my husband who has picked the yarn from the stash (hand dyed turquoise Shetland/ Nylon 4ply) and made his request (ankle cable only) and so I've picked a lovely ribbed cable pattern from Vogue Knitting: the Ultimate Knitting Book and will make a start in the next few days.

In other news I have put Mizzle out for a formal test so that pattern should go live after November 16th. I'm sketching for a couple of new patterns but struggling to get anything just right at the moment. Inspiration isn't being accompanied by patience unfortunately.