Iona

It's taken me two years to complete these socks - far too many distractions with other projects!  It's been well worth the wait, I'm so pleased with the result. 

Wollmeise yarn is such a joy to knit with and produces such wonderful stitch definition.  This cable pattern is one I found in an old stitch book.  I love the stitch so much I decided to create a pattern with it.  The beauty of this cable pattern is that although it is an 16 row pattern repeat, only 3 of the rows are cabling, the rest are knit and purl - so easy to execute and memorise. 

The sock pattern itself is toe up with a simple wrap and turn heel.  Aimed at the intermediate knitter with experience of cabling.  I've called it 'Iona', which is a small island off the western coast of Scotland - a island renowned for its tranquility and natural beauty.

Yarn:  Wollmeise 100% Merino Superwash
Colour:  Saffran
Needles:  2.5 mm
Size:  Medium-Large
Pattern:  My own - it will be released as soon as I've written it up.

Enjoy the rest of your Bank Holiday weekend UK peops :)

Karen

9" Circular Sock Needles

It's about time I blogged about these fantastic little needles, a few people have approached me about them recently; asking for info about where I got them and how to use them etc. I started using them for my sock knitting in about May/June this year after getting my hands on a set of bamboo ones in varying sizes from America. Whilst they're a little fiddly to use at first, you soon get used to them and I have to say they have made my life so much easier, especially when knitting lace socks or doing colourwork.

The cable is only 9" long, so to enable you to knit completely in the round the actual needle size has shrunk to around 4 cm. See the picture below to give you an idea of the scale.

The second photo below shows how you knit completely in the round. The only exception to this is for the heel flap (for a top down sock) and the toes for toe up or top down socks. I usually swap to dpns or Magic Loop for this bit. It's quite easy to adapt a dpn or Magic Loop sock pattern for use with these needles, but you do have to do a little bit of fiddling about when it comes to the heel and toe. I have actually just written a basic top down sock pattern specifically for use with 9" circular needles, but it's still very much in note form and I think at the moment only I will be able to understand it! ;)



Sadly at the moment the only outlet in the UK appears to be Sarah at Brownberry Yarns. I think she has been inundated with requests for the smaller sizes and has now consequently sold out, however I'm fairly certain you can pre-order from her if you're desperate to try them. Maybe I should keep this quiet, so Shhhhh don't tell anyone ;)

If anyone knows anywhere else that sells them in the UK please let me know, or even an overseas stockist with reasonable shipping costs to the UK. I could do with a few spare pairs! :)