Christmas headway

I've been adhering to a strict 'buy no more knitting yarn' vow for a couple of months, making small inroads into the 3 drawer knitting yarn stash I have accumulated. At the recent Guild stash sale I caved and bought these three balls of acrylic with sparkle. I immediately saw beanies to wear at Christmas lunch. In the past I have made the Christmas bonbons from reusable cloth, cardboard cylinders, a snap and ribbon, knitted beanies and a non-plastic novelty. Last year I trialed eco-friendly bonbons from the Leprosy Mission Shop. They were well received, so I've gone for them again this year. The only thing in them whose eco credentials I doubt are the paper hats. I still have 4 of the Christmassy beanies I made in 2023,  These balls of Christmas bling struck a chord. 

Buying them was the easy bit.

I began with a ball of the red and k2 p2 band. While knitting I began to wonder if I could make crowns, or coronets instead of beanies. Beanies are not especially appropriate on an Australian Christmas Day. I went on a hunt for a pattern, and found one. It had a k2 p2 band and garter stitch peaks. I didn't much like the garter stitch peaks, so thought I'd just substitue stocking stitch. I  had already knitted the band, so began on a peak, using stocking stitch. To my surprise the peak kept falling over at the stocking stitch row. When I switched to garter stitch it staightened up, although it flopped at the stocking stitch rows. I had no similar problem when I used garter stitch all the way on the next peak.

I finished the coronet sticking with the pattern, then found some wire to insert in the weak peak and moved on. 

I wasn’t fond of the garter stitch peaks, so my second try  kept the rib going on the peaks. I liked the result.

Next I tried the band in plain stocking stitch. I should not have been surprised when it curled over as I knitted it, but I was. I stopped and did a bit of reading. 

Yes, stocking stitch always curls because the knit side pulls tighter than the reverse. This can only be countered by edging with  either rib or garter stitch. In 70 years of knitting I’ve never thought about this - although I’ve experienced it. When you mostly follow patterns, you rarely ask why. It also explains, of course, why my stocking stitch substitution above did not work!  I’m very pleased to have (belatedly) learned this.

To confirm, I switched to rib and, lo, the curl was contained. 

I decided to make use of it on a headband, hoping the curl would work neatly on the cast-off as well, which i did.  

The band sits nicely with a bit of hair adjustment.

I continued with the ribbed coronets, shortening the peaks, one with a k1, p1 rib, one with k2,p2. 

I wasn’t confident the 10gm of wool left would make another, so switched to the ball of multicoloured chenille.

It has a chunkier, firmer, knit. Although the finished coronet looks smaller, it has more elasticity and fits as well as the other.

I used the remaining red to work, first the centre of a headband edged with a multi-colour roll, and then the reverse, red edge with coloured fill. I think this is my favourite.

It was hard to judge how far the remaining yarn would go, so I used a k1p1 rib to knit a band, then judged I had enough for peaks. This resulted in the one at the top of the right hand column. You can see the left-over. It might stretch to 4 rows. Not sure I will try. I'm pleased with the results and will put them away for Christmas Day. 

More knitting

I've been on a bit of a knitting binge of late.

I had the best part of a ball of wool left from the jacket and hat I knitted for myself. It was  Bendigo Woollen Mills Bloom - a heavy 8 ply and very warm. (It is now on special until the end of the financial year -tonight!)
As I am trying to use up wool as I go and there were a couple of simple things I had wanted to try for a while now, I used up the left-over wool to knit, first, a headband for Veronica.

I was well into the swing of cables, so stuck with that, measured her head and knitted this simple headband, secured by a button.

I'm not sure she will ever wear it, but I have at least tried it out - and used a bit of wool!

My second project was a messy-bun hat for Niamh. I have always wanted to try one of these too. Again, I stuck to the cables. This was harder to get right.

Before I congratulated myself, the hat turned out to be much too long, so I undid the last rows and shortened it. I think I am more enamoured of messy-bun hats than Niamh, but again, I've made one, satisfied my curiosity, learned a bit - and used up all the wool!


I then launched into using up some of Bendigo's Mystery (no longer available) with a pattern for the Brindabella Cowl from Australian Alpaca Yarn. It's more a poncho than a cowl, and I could see it in this wool, so thought I'd try it out before buying any more alpaca.

Even though Mystery was listed as 8ply and I had 100gm more than the pattern recommends, it felt more like 10 ply and did not reach the length needed to pull over the head as a hood.

It nevertheless looked fabulous - such great texture. I love the really chunky cables and it knitted up quickly in the round.



After some consultation with, and modelling by, family I brought it in at the top to keep it snug around the neck and shoulders.
It is very warm.

I'm so pleased it proved to be useful for Katherine at the Netball carnival this morning - and the girls are through to the semi-final!