the cables keep coming

I have finished a third cabled beanie; this time I had help in designing: I checked The Harmony Guide to Knitting Patterns to see if my memory of double cable was correct [it was]. It is knitted in a discontinued, reduced price yarn called "Starshine" [by Panda] which I picked up in Spotlight in Tamworth last year for 99c per 100g. It is an 70% acrylic/20% wool/10% polyester blend. The yarn itself is very soft but the sparkly thread can be a bit harsh. I had intended to knit a child's sweater from it but thought it would be irritating on bare skin so decided to use it for beanies as hair will keep the scratching thread from the skin. It will join the previous beanies going to Australian Inland Ministries for distribution to indigenous Australians.


This beanie is too small for me so it is a bit stretched in this photo. It wouldn't even fit DD's relatively small head, but I'm sure some young person will love it. What looks like white flecks in the photo is actually a silver polyester thread, thus the name Starshine.

I have also completed a pair of small adult fingerless mitts - they used about 35g of a thin 8ply acrylic. No cables here because the variegated yarn is interesting in itself. They fit DD and she wanted to keep them but I told her I would knit her a pair of Fetchings - she's more than happy to wait [it's still too warm here for mitts].


The Winter of Textured Knitting continues apace; five people have now joined me which is a real buzz! Even if no-one had shown any interest I would have knitted cables this winter so it's really exciting to have some blogpals to share the fun! So, welcome to the latest three: Lilypily, Pass the Slipped Stitch Over and Pins and Needles. It was actually Lilypily's owls that inspired me to start knitting cables again; I had been carefully avoiding them because of all that fiddling around with a cable needle. RoseRed told me it's possible to do cables without one - I tried it and lost my stitches! But now, I'm feeling the cable love again!

And not only cables, many kinds of textures are in for a work out over the next few months. Care to knit along? See the sidebar for more information.