I am a huge fan of Kate Davies - her patterns, her work and her general attitude to life - so when she printed her first book "Colours of Shetland" last year I told FB that it would be no bad thing if it was under the Christmas tree - and, lo, it was!
The front cover features her simply divine Scatness Tam:
which my wonderful sister-in-law, Sharon, immediately leaped upon and asked for for her birthday in May.
Now - I love Sharon and I love Kate's work but I am not a confident (or particularly happy) fairisle knitter but everyone else on Ravelry raved about the pattern, how easy it was to follow and I could see what great results they were getting. So - I took the bull by the horns, ordered the wool (which kind of goes against the grain when you actually own a wool shop!), did loads and loads of research into different fairisle techniques - and jumped in.
And I have to say, I'm pretty chuffed with the result:
Even the inside is cool:
and even Mrs naughty chicken who escapes from the run (protected by an electric fence) every day seems to like it:
I love it so much that I've decided to knit one for me and, having weighed my remaining wool, I actually have enough to knit another one - yay! This is a good thing as, having carefully wrapped it and sent it to Sharon a mere 3 months after her birthday, it turns out that Sharon's mop of glorious hair is too much for her tam and it's too small!! It is now back with me and is MY tam and I shall shortly start knitting another on bigger needles ... for Sharon ... in time for winter.
I can feel a fairisle frenzie beckoning ...................
No comments:
Post a Comment