Baby Goth

October 2015

This project was a joy from start to finish. I bought the yarn at Yarndale 2015 in Skipton during a lovely knitting holiday with friends, and cast on shortly after I got back. It seemed to knit up in no time, and I've had a lot of very kind compliments on it.

I know skulls aren't everybody's cup of tea, and I'm not sure that the grandparents approve, but for anyone with a bit of an inclination towards the gothic like me, it is the cutest pattern ever. As soon as I saw it I knew my little girl needed one.

The skull pattern is made using intarsia, which is a technique I often tend to avoid since it can be a bit of a faff. In this case it wasn't quite as bad as I'd remembered. Ok, every skull means two loose ends to sew in, but if you embark on this project knowing what to expect it's no big deal, probably because it's so tiny.

If I can get some cute modelled pictures after she is born I will try to come back and add them, although something tells me I might not have as much time for blogging at that point!

ETA: voila!

Pattern: Baby Goth Cardigan by Baby Goth Knits
Size: Newborn
Yarn: Garnstudio DROPS Karisma Superwash dark grey/ off white
Needle: 3.5mm
On ravelry: here

Skull Mittens

July 2015

Having recently made this sweater for my little boy, I had quite a lot of the beautiful rainbow coloured Kauni 8/2 Effektgarn left over, and so I thought I would treat myself to a pair of these mittens.

I'd spotted the pattern some time ago during one of my random searches of ravelry for goth inspired projects, so it was good to have the excuse to finally knit the mittens up, even if I wasn't going to get much use out of them at the height of summer. A non-fingerless option is also included in the pattern, but I find fingerless more practical on the whole.

The Kauni 8/2 Effektgarn is a pure wool, and not the softest, so mixing it with some super soft merino made a certain amount of sense as well as providing a nice plain background to show off the rainbow colours. Sticking to one background colour meant that as the skulls made their way through the rainbow, some of them were bound to stand out more than others, but I love the overall effect.

During the course of knitting up these mittens, I discovered the Addi make 30cm and even 20cm circular needles, which are short enough for mittens like these, socks, etc. It wasn't easy to justify buying a pair when I already owned DPNs in the right size, but I was so curious to give them a try that I bit the bullet. I have to say that I'm very glad I did, as I found they gave a far smoother result and weren't in the least bit uncomfortable to use, as you might expect with such a short cord. Colourwork on DPNs is something I can do, but it's no fun, and never looks very good (pre-blocking at least).

I made the second mitten slightly differently from the first - after finishing the thumb gusset, I worked the thumb itself and then went back to finish off the top of the mitten rather than vice versa. Doing it that way was definitely better from a technical point of view, as it meant that the colour transition ran a lot more smoothly, as making the thumb used far less yarn. Working the top of the mitten and then the thumb made for a bit of a violent jolt.

Pattern: Skull Mittens by Jennifer Thompson
Size: Small
Yarn: Garnstudio DROPS baby merino (black) and Kauni 8/2 Effektgarn (rainbow)
Needle: 2.00mm
On ravelry: here