Long back and sides

I've finished the back, but as it looks almost identical to the front, I've not bothered photographing the whole thing. My friend Bella came round today to get some help with her maths homework, and while she was getting on with it, I finished a sleeve, and here it is.
As you'll observe, it's a bit different from the front
and back, but that's the general idea. (The back is on the left of the pictures.) As you use up one yarn, you attach another one, and I happened to have three balls of a pink/blue/grey super chunky Rowan sitting about annoying me. In they went.

Sleeves.
I cast on 15 (meant to do 16, then realised I hadn't) and knitted 10 rows in single rib. That was just about long enough so I switched to alternative knit and purl rows.
Rows 13 & 15: increased one stitch at both ends - 19 stitches.
Row 19, 23, 27 etc, increased one stitch at both ends.
I kept going until it was long enough. For me that was 40 rows in all. Then I cast off 27 stitches.
(Measure the front to see how far it comes down your arms, then knit so that the sleeves are the right length and width.)

Now to sew it up. And next, I think I'll do big fluffy indoor socks.

A Woolly of Two Halves

That was a football pun, by the way.
Commentators are given to saying "Well it's a game of two halves," meaning that the first one can be very different from the second. And so it is with 5 Degree Woollies.
Here's the front.

(I promise I was smiling behind there.)
I knitted 15 rows of rib, 50 rows of knitting, cast off 10 stitches for each shoulder and kept 16 for the cosy high neck, then knitted another 10 rows ad cast off the 16 neck stitches.

Next: the back. That's going to be the same size, but will change shade again as I start to run out of some of the yarns.

If you don't have much else to do, you could knit one of these in a day. I was about to speed up when it turned into autumn last week. Now that summer's back, I'm not in so much of a rush.

Half Way up the Front

"It's mine now."
Mocha, the cat.

Our cat likes my work. This summer she has been using my first woolly as a bed, and has tried to lay claim to this one too. My fault; I have now put it away in the orange and pink beach bag (free with suntan lotion)  in the foreground.

As you see, I've made some progress with the 2010 5 Degree Woolly. I knitted 16 rows of K1P1 rib, but that was only because I forgot to stop and switch to knit rows and pearl rows.

Once I remembered I switched. (No point pulling stitches out if you don't have to. I just decided to make it longer.) I've now added 32 plain rows. I changed colour at one point as one of my balls ran out. I liked the green flecks, so I added in some apple green mohair; you can see the second hank on the end of the chaise.

In the background there's a tie I'm knitting from some rayon/raw silk yarn. We'll see how that turns out too.
Here's how the 5 Degree Woolly looks in detail:

You can see where I changed colour about 6 rows after the rib.
That's the whole point really. Just use up what's handy.

At some point soon, I've got to decide what to do with the sleeves and neckline, but for this one, the first (technically the second but the first I'm knitting in public), I think I'll stick with straight lines up the sides and a very simple polo neck. If you're more technical, feel free to adapt yours.

This is about two evenings' worth of knitting. If you've ever been put off because you thought it would take you a year to create a reasonably sized chunk of knitwear, I hope this will cheer you along the way. So, raid your nan's yarn stash, get a pair of HUGE needles and join in. Please let me know when you do.

The first swatch

Here you see my test swatch, 15mm needles, 10 stitches and I decided that 7 rows were about enough to show me where it's going.
At this rate, I've decided on 36 stitches per row to get me a bit sweater that I can throw over whatever else I am wearing at the time.
Next, I'll pull this out and start again. I've a bad habit of starting a sweater without doing the sample swatch, and I'm forever knitting things which I drown in. This time - because I'm doing it in public - I'm behaving myself. Knit in haste, repent at leisure!

Keeping out the cold 2010

A New 5 Degree Woolly: 

Start now and join in. I've been rifling through the yarn stash and came up with that bunch of yarns in the picture for my autumn-winter collection. First, I'm going to knit a huge sweater that I can throw over all the clothes I'm wearing at the time, instead of switching on the heating. 
I'm using 15mm needles, some grey mohair I bought off eBay, a purple boucle from Texere (see previous post), and a cashmere/silk mix (the bight pink cone) that I got years back from a company that sold off spare stuff from Scottish woollens companies. (Shame that he seems to have disappeared with the advent of cheap, Chinese cashmere that isn't at all kind to goats.) There are also some beautifully fluffy balls of pink wool, and those two balls of mixed colours from DBNY in the US. I got another DBNY delivery this morning and have added in another pink ball of 100% wool. It might change as I go along, when I run out of something, but that's the point really. Just use up what you have around, and see what happens along the way. I'll be posting my progress. Please do join in, and send pictures of your own work too.

By the way, do go and visit the girls at www.discontinuedbrandnameyarn.com/shop
They have wonderful yarns at amazing prices and it's even worth shipping it to the UK, although the transport miles worry me a little. My bamboo yarn came from Italy, via DBNY in the US, back to the UK and I've no idea where the bamboo was grown in the first place...

Happy knitting.