ConnieLene – KnitDesigner

I have been so tied up with establishing this new garden here in Miranda, where there was none before, and have not been knitting nearly enough.

We are also in the midst of a drought like no other on record in New Zealand and we use rain water for all of our watering needs. Best Beloved and I did install an additional water tank at the end of 2011, quite soon after we arrived back in New Zealand and that gives us 50,000 litres of water storage. Sounds great but sadly I left the hose on some weeks ago which depleted it somewhat. We save dish washing and hand washing water for the trees and to flush the toilet. Our rain water is used for everything else from drinking, showering, water for the chickens and for the steers when they are in our paddock and obviously to water our extensive vegetable gardens.

The steers belong to next door family but our paddock is used in turn to help feed them and to help maintain the health of our paddock.

Knitting – well not much is happening. I am playing with ideas, trying things – but making little progress – it has been too hot with temperatures about 28 to 30 degrees Celsius (82 to 86 Fahrenheit – doesn’t sound so hot but it is for me) on most days since late December and right now at 11 am on an April autumnal day it is already 23.6. When it is too hot over the mid 5 or 6 hours of the day it is also too hot to be shrouded in knitting.

So my stack of books by my seat grows, my swatch pile grows as do my very bad sketches.

Surely it will soon rain and cool down and I can get on with the knitting.
Hope so!!

I know I have been a bit quiet over the past 18 months or so. I am still knitting at odd times and have now set up a Craftsy Pattern Store. There are 3 patterns there so far – my Kiwi Cape, The Capelet of many Colours and the Connie Cowl. Hope you will take a look. It is free to join Craftsy and it does offer many opportunities for learning new skills, finding patterns and selling your patterns.

and it made me rethink my pattern details.

My original multicolour capelet was created using stash yarns and small lengths of yarn. I weighed the completed capelet – and added 10% (if I remember correctly) and gave that weight as the required yarn for the piece.

BUT as I have discovered, and should have realised a long time ago that in the US yarn quantities is given in yards or metres. There is no way I could give the length of the yarn required for this capelet because I used many oddments of yarn to create it.

SO I have just recreated the capelet in response to the question and using only Moda Vera Bouvardia yarn, made in Turkey which is 70% acrylic 30% wool I used nearly 200 grams of this yarn. The length about 360 metres. I used 5.5 mm circular needles. The tension was 16 stitches and 34 rows knitted in garter stitch.

The result is quite lovely but I need to do further testing.

So I have knitted the capelet using Naturally Vero 100% wool from New Zealand. It is not quite finished yet – so photos to come. Sadly the yarn is now discontinued, is a standard 12 ply yarn. The amount used is approx 225 grams and the length will be about 340 metres.

So you live and learn.

When I am done testing – I will rewrite the pattern and send a copy to all those who have already purchased it.

This pattern can be downloaded free now download Simple & Sweet Beret pattern now

The pattern includes information on knitting in the round and with stripes.

The buy now link enables one to purchase without being a member of Ravelry.