A quick dash to the wool shop…

Had to duck in today to get some more of that Patons cotton in case I run out before I finish the frills on those fancy pants and also to get a circular needle so I can preserve my DPNs from the cotton!  Also this morning, Alexandra suggested I make a little top to go with the fancy pants with a frill round the bottom.  Found a lovely little knitted kimono pattern on Ravelry.com that I’ll use and make a frill for round the bottom of it to match the fancy pants! 

A plug for my wonderful wool shop – Wondoflex on Malvern Rd in Malvern Victoria!  It’s just divine!  Rows and Rows of pigeonholes of wonderful yarns of all colours and types!  The prices are pretty good too and the specials are great!  I have my eye on some merino….but I think my project list is getting dangerously long!

Something for the baby….fancy pants!

My friend Anita is one of the greatest mums I know!  Certainly amongst my friends she’s one of the bravest while pregnant!  Her baby is due in under a month and she’s still at work!  She’s been sick for her entire pregnancy and has soldiered on at work and with mothering her 4 other children!  I’m making some little girly fancy pants for her expected arrival out of the same bamboo as I used to make Jackson’s only I’ve made some changes to the pattern as well.  I’ve also added some extra frilly bits using some Panda ‘Regal’ 4 ply cotton.  This involved me staying up last night after having this creative idea on how to do it till 2am!

For each frill I cast on 225 stitches – 4 times the cast on stitches minus 3 or so my stitch book said was the formula!  The next row was knit two, pass first stitch over the second till the end.  The third row is just pearl 2 together.  After that I worked a few rows of stocking stitch and one row of k2, yo, k2 tog till the end to make eyelet holes.  The last 2 rows are two rows of garter stitch to make the ridges. 

I made two for the bottoms of the legs then got creative and decided I’d put 2 on the back to make it really girly!  During the process of experimenting with the cotton I snapped a bamboo DPN It was the only needles I had that were 2.5mm which leaves only 4 in that set I will replace those next time I need them for socks.  I promptly ran to the wool shop to get a circular 2.5mm metal ended needle so that I don’t have stitches falling off the end of the DPNs or break any more of them because of the tightness of the pure cotton.  Highly recommend metal or nickel needles for knitting cotton.  OK for bamboo or bamboo cotton blends…but  not for pure cotton 4ply.  Lovely yarn but a pain to knit.