YOTD: Rowan Cashsoft DK

Happy Sunday Everyone!! I hope you are all well. It's actually not raining here so thats a bonus. Can you believe a year ago my Mum was getting married? Wow, I cannot believe it has been a year since we were in France and we have had so much happen in the space of just a year. They are off out today to celebrate and I hope they have a lovely day. Happy Anniversary Mum and Dave!!!

Today's YOTD is Rowan Cashsoft DK. It is a beautiful yarn which is a blend of 57% extra fine merino, 33% Acrylic microfibre and 10% cashmere. It is a very soft lovely yarn and knits to a tension over 10cm of 22sts over 30 rows on 4mm needles. It normally retails for £5.75 which is pretty good for a cashmere blend, but I found 2 balls in an odd ball bin (good old John Lewis) for £1.50 per ball, which is in anyone's book a blooming Bargain!!! You get 115m or 126yrds on a ball too so not bad for a 50g ball.

It knits up to a lovely thick fabric. There is one little issue with the plying of the yarn, as in both balls I had there was a couple of bits that were big and fluffy and white!! Which shows really badly!! I had to cut them out and reattach the yarn a couple of times. But actually it is so worth it!!

From the 2 balls I got, I managed to make the Puerperium cardigan above, and the Hospital Hat below, and have about 10g left of the ball too, which will go later into something stripy, so I was really impressed. I enjoyed knitting it, and the yarn is lovely to work with. I would probably buy it again, and I would pay £5.75 a ball for it. It went a long way

It is machine washable too, and you can iron it. It is not tumble dryable, but I would tend to dry hand knits flat anyway so I am happy to ignore that. It is also available in over 20 colours, and in various deep and pastel shades. I have shade 508- Ballad Blue, and it is a lovely colour, and the pictures do show the true colour.

Have a lovely Sunday everyone!!

POTD: Newborn Hospital Hat

Well, Happy Bank Holiday Monday Everyone!!! Hope you are all well. I am prepping for the drawing of the competition tomorrow- remember it finishes at midnight tonight and I'll be publishing the names tomorrow in my blog post from work, so get excited!! Of course, I have had to organise some sort of hat to draw the names from, and if it wasn't knitted then that would just be silly!! That has inspired today's POTD. Now these little baby hats aren't quite big enough to pick the names out, but they are still so blooming cute, and perfect for little ones, and for gifts.

The Hospital Hat pattern uses up all those leftovers from the balls you have used to knit the cardigans. You can knit a matching set for a gift and with minimal effort and yarn. This hat is also so so quick, so emergency knits for mums-to-be are no longer a problem. These also knit up with any DK which can be shown in my picture below!! I've knit them to match most of the little cardigans that I have knit.

As you can see I've made them above in Wendy Bambino, Sirdar Snuggly and in Sublime Baby Silk and Bamboo. They are all roughly the same size on 4mm needles. The silk one is the smallest but it is still about newborn size, and feels like a dream!!

With the Baby Silk and Bamboo and Snuggly I also added the pattern rows from the cardigan I knit so that they would match. It was a perfect fit too for the pattern and I'm really pleased with the end result. I also know that this pattern is a great basic one and therefore you can add whatever pattern you need. I also like this because instead of rib they have a garter stitch band, and this then also matches all the other garter stitch parts of my cardigan.

This hat was knit on 4.5mm needles instead using Wendy Bamboo and this has really made a great hat and slightly bigger than the newborn size, but I've heard that babies do have a habit of growing so that is probably a useful thing!!!

Have a great rest of the bank holiday, and enjoy yourselves all. I'm knitting another little cardigan in a lovely soft cashmere blend- its lovely- so that's what the rest of my day is shaping up like. My mum seems to have decided crochet is the new black so that's what she is up to- makes me want to pick up my hook again and make another blanket- but we will see. The lure of the needles is certainly strong!!