Freestylin'

I have never been great at doing things by the book, when cooking I much prefer to make it up as I go along or if I am following a recipe I will often take out any ingredients I don't like and replace them with those that I do! (which has led to some amazing meals and to a few culinary disasters over the years). The disasters have not deterred me as I tend to take the same approach to knitting.

I love to experiment with different yarns and colours and see how they look knitted together. Below are some photos of different experiments from down the years, I will leave you to decide whether they are beauties or beasts!

   

                                                                                 
As my knowledge and skills of knitting have grown and are still growing (my proudest day recently being mastering the magic loop technique) I have put them to the test by creating items following the basic principles rather than a specfic pattern.

Once I got the hang of magic loop, I started knitting hats, using the trial and error method to get the size and shape right, though you could also call it the pot luck method! The first hat was for a friend's baby in a lovely pastel coloured self striping  dk yarn from my stash (currently the size of a small hill so I have much work to do yet to bust it), which sadly got sent out unphotographed otherwise I would pop it on here. I worked out the size/stitches ratio based on a sizing chart I found in a vintage pattern and took it from there, my friend reported back that it fitted perfectly so that was a win.

The next hat was for an adult done in Twist Aran and has been consigned to the bloopers file, due to a miscalculation on the number of stitches and impatience on my part that resulted in premature casting off....but live and learn, the next attempt will be better.To post a picture would be cruel, best to let the poor mis-shapen hat go to its resting place without the added humiliation of being put on public display!

My most recent hat is for my niece/nephew that will be arriving mid april (if all goes to plan), for this one I stuck to traditional cream, figured I can knit more colourful things once he/she has got here.

Well thats it for now, time to go do a bit more stash busting me thinks, thank goodness the evenings are getting longer!  Before I sign off though, what projects are other people working on?  seeing other people's projects always inspires me to try new things, so add a comment on here and let us know what you are working on.
Bye for now
Liese