Eskimimi Knits knitting blog

Look, there!  It’s an F/O!  Is it a bath puff? Is it a brain?  No, it’s the Simple City shawlette:

Simple City simplicity

I designed this triangular scarf as a project to best use my prize Zauberball, won on Stephcuddles’ blog. I wanted to make something simple, but with just a little bit of flair. It is an uncomplicated but attractive scarf – classic with an added touch of structured femininity in the form of a precise, neat foxglove ruffled edge.

foxglove ruffle

The ruffle sits ‘just so’ as it is worked differently from a standard ruffle, which just sees the number of stitches increased to form a additional gather of fabric at the edge, but I worked this ruffle in a way so that each undulation is prescribed into a neat wave, giving a modern, tailored feel – almost like a pleat.

I love triangular scarves and thought this would be a great addition to my Autumn accessories wardrobe.  The bright, primary colours of the yarn will chime with just about every cardigan and jumper I own, so I think this will become an absolute staple when a chill starts to set in during September afternoons.

Simple City triangular scarf or shawl can be easily adjusted in size.

This is a versatile shawl and I made notes on the best method to scale the shawl up or down for a larger or smaller pattern.

The shawl will give quite markedly different results depending on whether you knit it with a solid yarn for a very classic, versatile scarf, or knit with two yarns to form stripes, or knit stripes with a single 100g ball of colour progressing yarn.

The pattern is now published and available from Ravelry, or you can click the button below to purchase if you don’t have a Ravelry account:

Flutter butterfly mittens by Eskimimi Knits

My latest, and proudest, Finished Object.  Here they are at last, my Flutter Mittens.  I do love them so very much and I am inordinately proud to have them finished and the pattern written up and published.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, the design is based on a recurring motif in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s book One Hundred Years of Solitude. One of the characters on the story is a young woman called Meme, who in an act of defiance takes a mechanic as a lover.  The mechanic is forever surrounded by a cloud of yellow butterflies that accompanies him everywhere.  One day, during a surreptitious tryst, her lover is caught visiting Meme and suffers a bad fall and is injured.  From this moment Meme is the one who becomes enevloped in the cloud of butterflies which now follow her everywhere.  As her lover lays ill the butterflies start to slowly die and drop away, and she knows of his death only when the last butterfly finally leaves her.

These mittens are a reminder to hold onto your loves and your passions and to treat them gently:

A butterfly in the palm of your hands

In the palm of the mittens is a single, detailed yellow butterfly, like the last one that Meme beheld before it dropped away from sight.
I designed these mittens to have a thumb gore, which means that the gloves may be worn with the large butterfly on the back of the hand and the more numerous butterflies on the palm as and when the mood takes the wearer (plus I find a thumb gore construction on a mitten far more comfortable, having never met a person who has a thumb positioned on the palm of their hand).

Now, as the title of this post suggests, I am celebrating an anniversary today.  Eskimimi Knits is one year old!  174 posts and 1580 comments down the line I can look back on my very first post.  In celebration of that fact I would like to give away this brand new copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude.  As I wrote in my previous post, I can never seem to hold on to a copy.  Maybe I am just not meant to actually own one for any length of time.

Enter the giveaway to win this book.

To enter, simply leave a comment.  remember to fill in your email address as a way for me to get in touch with you if you win.  If you already have the book (and I imagine that many people may) then why not enter to win a copy to pass on to a friend?)
The Flutter Mitten pattern is available from Ravelry or is available for free with the purchase of Eskimimi Knits Twingles Yarn on Etsy.  the listing on Etsy contains plenty of yarn to make the mittens plus an e-mailed PDF of the pattern, including high quality charts and written instructions.

Flutter Mittens

So, thankyou to readers/followers for all of the good thoughts and support for the first year, and thankyou for making writing this blog so very enjoyable.

Today I have a finished object fresh from the needles, a free downloadable pattern to share and also a giveaway which is free to enter. Today I am cooking with gas.

Linen stitch coin purse

Last night I completed a small but colourful coin purse.  Made in linen stitch it is strong and sturdy with very little ‘give’ in the fabric, meaning that it works perfectly well without a lining for anyone who is sew-phobic.  I’m not – in fact I love hand-sewing, so I lined mine, but it is totally optional.  I made my purse from the Rowan Pure Wool 4-ply which I had dyed with Kool-Aid:

Kool aid dyed yarn in green and red

I knit the purse in only a few hours whilst watching Gran Tourino (little was I expecting a Clint Eastwood movie to make me cry like a baby, but I wept buckets, big softie that I am) and even had time for a little embellishment, made of a simple circle of felt adorned with three green eyelets and a co-ordinating button.

Coin purse frame giveaway

To be in with a chance of winning one of two purse frames identical to the one used in the pictures above, simply leave a comment explaining your fantasy drink (in honour of the Kool-Aid dyed yarn).  What would the flavours be, what colour would it be in the glass, and, most importantly, what would it be called?  The wilder and wackier your suggestions, the better.

There will be two winners, each receiving a purse frame with which they can do what they please – use the pattern below, another pattern, or make up one of your own – it’s totally up to you.  I will choose one winner according to my favourite answer and another winner will be chosen at random using an online number generator.  The giveaway will close on Sunday, June 6th 2010.

Free linen-stitch coin purse knitting pattern

This pattern is extremely simple.  Minimal shaping and a simple repetitive stitch makes this a quick and easy knit.  The purse is knit in two pieces as the seaming at the sides and bottom of the purse give the finished item better structure than if it were knit in the round. This pattern is designed to work with a 10cm (4″) square purse frame, but due to the simplicity of the pattern it should not be too hard to adjust for other sizes.

Needles: 3.25mm
Gauge: 44sts per 4″ in linen stitch (this number seems quite high, but linen stitch is very dense and the stitches sit very close together)
Abbreviations: SL1WYIF = Slip 1 (purl-wise) with yarn held in front of work.  SL1WYIB = Slip 1 (purl-wise) with yarn held to back of work.

Pattern: (make 2) c/o 43 sts.
Row 1 (RS): *K1, SL1WYIF* until last st, k1
Row 2 (WS): K1, *P1, SL1WYIB* until 2 sts remain, P1, K1
Repeat these two rows until piece measures 7cm, ending with a WS row
Row 3 (RS): P2tog, *K1, Sl1WYIF* until 3 sts remain, K1 P2tog
Row 4 (WS): K1, *SL1WYIB, P1* until 2 sts remain, Sl1WYIB, K1
Row 5: K2, *SL1WYIF, K1* until last stitch K1
Repeat rows 4 & 5 until piece measures 11cm from cast-on edge, ending with a WS row.
Row 6 (RS): K2tog, *SL1WYIF, K1* until 3 sts remain, SL1WYIF, K2tog
Row 7: K1, *P1, Sl1WYIB* until 2 sts remain, P1, K1
Row 8: K3tog, *SL1WYIF, K1* until 4 sts remain SL1WYIF K3tog.
Bind off all stitches.

Making up: Place both pieces right sides together and sew bottom seam and side seams up until the pint where the two sides meet. Turn right side out and attach to purse frame b filling the channels in the frame with a strong multi-purpose adhesive (such as UHU glue) and using a toothpick or similar thin pointy object, push knitted fabric well into the sides, top and corners of the frame.  Leave to dry overnight.

Please don’t forget to leave your answers for the giveaway in the comments section below and make sure to fill out the email address field so I have a way to contact you if you win.  Good luck!

Squoffle

Squoffle is a short buttoned scarf, made with a single skein of bulky/chunky weight yarn. Though it is a very easy pattern every sixth row makes a departure from the established garter stitch to add a row of interest with knitted eyelets, some of which are later utilised as button holes (an additional boon to those who do not enjoy making buttonholes, of course!)

Buttons for security and style

This scarf lays completely flat with no curling, so whether you choose to block your finished piece or not is a matter of personal choice, not necessity.

The name Squoffle comes courtesy of my other half, who phoned me whilst I was travelling to say he had picked up something special for tea.  As he poured through descriptions of gorgeous starters and a sumptuous main course and what wine we might enjoy, I of course only had ears for what was to be for dessert.  Looking at the packaging, he said over the phone in a confused voice ‘Squoffle?’  A Small tear in the cardboard had partially obscured the ‘o’ of ’soufflé’, and so the word squoffle was born.

I like to think of the squoffle as meaning a ’squishy waffle’ and with it’s frothy texture and grid of eyelets, it’s a name that seemed to suit this little scarf quite well.

Download the PDf for Squoffle

Marram

Here is my latest pattern, ‘Marram’.  Featuring spiralling slipped stitches and a secondary spiral of stepped colour changes in thin, graphical stripes. I have been wearing this hat, knit in a blend of warm alpaca, merino, and even a touch of silk, quite a lot over the last week or so, now that the temperature has dipped into a cold that bites just a bit harder, but here it is warming the head of my other half. I wanted to show how suited I thought it was to a man as well as to a woman, especially in the season of knitted gifts when sometimes it is a little harder to find small knitted items for male recipients that have interesting aesthetics as well as an engaging but quick project.

"look over there, it's the Goodyear blimp!"

After I managed to trick Craig in taking part in a spontaneous photoshoot I had to settle upon a name, as the pattern was written up and ready to go.

The name ‘Marram’ came from my last blog post where I asked if folks might have any suggestions over what I might call this hat.  I was actually quite surprised by the number of kind and thoughtful responses.  There were a few I have to admit that I had to google: ‘Sphagnopsida’ and ‘Sphagnum’, both meaning a type of peat moss from what I gathered, and very apt given the mossy appearance of the hat as had been noted, but they also kept making me think of bolognese.  A few suggestions based on the spiralling design: ‘Fibonacci’ (another I need to check the spelling of) and ‘Ammonite’.

Craig’s favourite was not a comment left in suggestion of a name, but rather a very kind response to the hat itself by Jane – ‘Great hat!’.  Craig actually suggested I call it ‘Great Hat!’, which, though cute and funny, I didn’t have the nerve to do.  For one it sets a dangerous precedent.  Clearly my next hat would have to be ‘better’ than the Great Hat, otherwise it would be the ‘Not-So-Great Hat’, or the ‘Well, It’s OK Hat’.  If the next hat was to be better, it would then have to be the ‘Even Greater Hat’, and the following one the ‘Best Hat Yet!’, and then where would my lack of modesty take me?  So I had a look at the other suggestions: ‘Sea Grass’, which  could imagine spiralling in the movement of the water, and finally ‘Marram’.  Similar to the Sea Grass suggestion, I could imagine the curving lines of long grass blades, and it seemed to fit perfect.

Marram Grass

Also, it is of course a palindrome, which scores extra points as I am a nerd. These few lines of poetry seal the deal:

The spiked marram’s springy knitting-needles
Purl and entangle what concrete cannot conquer
And the green holds back the brown.

From ‘The Rock-Face’ by Norman Nicholson

Thankyou to Linda for the suggestion, and to everyone else who took tome to comment and give me suggestions when I lost inspiration.

Download the PDF for the Marram Hat

Untitiled, for now

I’m hoping that someone might be able to help me out of a quandary. I can’t seem settle upon a name for this hat.  It is always the first thing I decide upon when writing out a new pattern as it helps to confirm the character of the knitted object (if articles of knitwear can have character), but I am having troubles with this new design.  My first thoughts were that it reminded me of moss, probably because of the colour, and this was confirmed when I stepped in the lift with my other half last week and he said ‘oh, your new hat looks good on, it reminds me of moss’ (I tried not to take this to mean that I must have a face reminiscent of a boulder).

When I was later thinking about writing the pattern up I wondered about the two names ‘Geology’ and ‘Palaeontology’.  ’Geology’ as the slip stitch pattern and broken lines of the stripes reminded me of layers rock strata that had come under stress and fractured, and ‘Palaeontology’ as I have a version of the hat planned with an embellishment, knit in an increasing spiral in garter stitch, something like an ammonite:

idea for an ammonite-like spiral embellishment

But I’m really not sure if either of these ideas are ‘right’.  Maybe I am just feeling uninspired these last few days.  I’ve been frustrated with the lack of light when I have tried to take photos, the absence of a helpful volunteer head to model the hat (or useful tripod for self-modelling), so maybe it is because I wanted to get the pattern written up and photographed properly.  As such the pictures I have at the moment are of a hat still awaiting a head.

I also love the very top of the hat:

detailing the decreases

It was, at the very least, challenging to work out a method of decreasing whilst maintaining the spiralling pattern of the slipped stitches and broken stripes, but once I figured out a formula I was delighted with the way that the two forms of diagonal patterning intersected and created the radiating pattern on the top of the hat.

So, with that in mind I am stuck, so if anyone reading this post happens to have any flashes of inspiration, please, please, please suggest away, and hopefully I’ll be able to find the motivation and inspiration to write up this pattern for the weekend.

Graphic and eye-catching buttons on a background of skinny stripes

Have you ever been given a random ball of yarn, of unknown origin, that you know you’ll never be able to find another of and which you don’t know what to do with?

When I once took part in a magazine swap, the issue that I received from my swap partner came unopened with two (different) balls of random yarn. One, in shades of pink, green, cream and brown I still have in a sweet jar on my desk, the other, black and white, became this mug cosy.

With about 30g of unknown weight, fibre or length, it needed to be something small, and my chilly hands soon dreamed up this simple pattern.

Taking only about ½ and hour to knit and just as little yarn, it’s a quick and easy pattern for when your fingers are bored.

Buttons... I can never have too many.

download the PDF for the Mod Mug Hugger

Promenade Scarf

Last year, a few months after I had started to learn how to knit, and when the weather had started to turn cold as the first signs of winter approached, I turned my mind to the possibility of doing a bit of Christmas knitting.  The person I most wanted to knit something for was my grandmother – a wonderful, kind and loving person who has spent so many hundreds of hours over the years at the sewing machine, making any and everything I could wish for.

After thinking on what to make her for a while I settled on scarf.  She would often come in from a cold day saying how cod she felt around the neck of her coat.  She also disliked the look of her neck (which is stupid as she looks wonderful), but would often put her hand to her throat self-consciously as she spoke to people.  My grandmother never often wore scarves though, because as she has lived practically her whole life with only one working arm (after a terrible accident she had when she was just 3 years old) she found scarves unmanageable on a blustery day when they might start to slip and she was trying to carry her usual accompaniment of handbag and shopping.

easy to wear

I decided I wanted to knit her something warm and elegant, made from something soft and luxurious, but mostly something which she would not have to worry about once she had put it on.  I eventually settled on this shorter length scarf with no unnecessary ends.  The double layer of fabric in the front of the neck keeps you warm no matter what neckline you are wearing, and the two buttons keep the scarf secure and comfortable.

Made from a soft, warm yarn this is an extremely fast knit and so it is perfect for quick or last-minute gifts, but it still shows that you have made an effort  and made something beautiful.  The gift is even nicer to give when it is for yourself.  Note: It is recommended that you knit this scarf in a natural fibre as it does benefit from being blocked.

ready to give as a gift (to yourself?)

download the PDF for the Promenade Scarf