Autumn Knitting Plans

After a scorching hot couple of days last weekend, the weather has turned decidedly cooler in the past few days and with it my thoughts have been turning towards Autumn knitting.

As I mentioned in a recent post, I am currently working on a striped sweater which is progressing quite nicely and I think the weather will definitely be right to wear it as soon as it’s finished – you watch, now we’ll have a heat wave mid-September!

I spent a bit of time the other day going through my “favourite” and “queued” patterns on Ravelry to come up with a bit of a plan for what I would like to knit for Autumn/Winter.  So far I have a list of three items, all of which I’m hoping to knit with stash yarn. 

The first will be a skirt, the Chelsea skirt by Cecily Glowik MacDonald.   This is a free pattern that can be downloaded here, from Knitting Daily.  

It’s knit in a worsted weight tweedy yarn.  I often have problems with tweedy yarns because I’m very sensitive to scratchiness in fabrics, knit or woven, and I find that tweed is terrible for being scratchy.  I’m slightly less worried about this as the skirt will not be directly next to my skin, but I was still apprehensive when I ordered the yarn. 

I’m using Donegal Yarns Soft Donegal that I found on Great British Yarns website.  The site says the yarn is soft, so I thought I’d give it a go.  And it is certainly much softer than many tweeds.  Not soft enough to wear around my neck, but as it’s destined to be a skirt, that shouldn’t be a problem!

The colour is scrummy – it’s called Eggplant and it’s a really dark purple shade with flecks of olive green,  violet, rose pink and fuchsia pink.  I'm really looking forward to starting this.

 

Next we have a Still Light Tunic, by Veera Välimäki, available on Ravelry.   I was tempted to knit this last winter and in fact bought the yarn I’ll be using and started knitting another tunic dress.  Unfortunately that turned into a massive failure as my gauge was way off, so it’s sat languishing in the cupboard for the best part of a year.  I’m going to have to rip it all out, skein and wash the yarn before I can start again!

 

I’ll be using an orange extra fine merino fingering weight from Colourmart for this.

Third on the list is a chunky cardigan.  The pattern is Kelly by Jo Storie, available here. 

 

Unfortunately, it’s knitted in a yarn that I know would make me itch just looking at it!  I find that many chunky yarns are very high on the scratchiness scale if they’re not a blend that contains a high percentage of acrylic.  I’ve got nothing against acrylic really, and in some cases it is exactly what is needed, but I do find quite a few of the heavier acrylic yarns have a tendency to look “cheap”.  (No, I’m NOT a yarn snob, I just like things to look worthy of the effort I’ve put into making them.  If the yarn that gives the look I’m after contains acrylic, I’m happy to use it!) 

I’m hoping I can use a yarn that I already have for this cardigan as well.  In fact, it’s yarn that is currently knitted up into a cardigan! 

 

I knitted this cardigan a couple of years ago, and while I still love it, it has stretched beyond belief, now almost reaching my knees.  I’m going to rip it out (I was planning on doing this anyway) and use the yarn doubled to hopefully get the right gauge.  I have a bit left over, so I’ll try with that first!  It’s another Colourmart yarn, this time a Cashmere/Silk/Viscose/Merino blend.

I think these three new projects should keep me going well into Autumn and possibly Winter as well!

 

Have you got any knitting planned for the coming months?  I'd love to hear about them.