Sky scarf update

This is my sky scarf from New Year’s Day right up to my birthday a few days ago.

There’s been quite a lot of blue, it was certainly a perfect blue autumn sky the day I took this photo, but we’ve also had some overcast days recently.

Luckily my skein of a new colour “Clay” arrived just in time, white with flecks of grey and blue.

Vintage knitting patterns – the Tony Bonner jumper

Another vintage men’s knitting pattern book, and this time I’m actually knitting one of the patterns!

Villawool Book 141 features eight designs for jumpers, jackets and cardigans. The photos are all shot around Circular Quay and it looks like the Sydney Opera House is almost finished so I’m guessing this is from the very late 60s or early 70s.

One of the models is the actor Tony Bonner who must have been between gigs, but I must say he pulls off some great poses and he also seems to have a fondness for tight trousers and cravats (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

I’m knitting the set-in sleeve jumper in the picture below, designed for Villawool Avanti or Focus, which are of course now a distant memory, but Rowan Felted Tweed DK seems to be a perfect gauge match on 3.75 mm needles.

I’ve got the back almost done, so I’ll need to decide soon whether to make a crew-neck or vee-neck for the front. The colour is Pine, a rich dark green with tiny flecks of black, white, blue and brown.

Peace Fleece

These beautiful swatch cards of Peace Fleece yarn arrived in the post box yesterday…

I’m going to ask Wayne to pick out a colour from the Peace Fleece swatches for a Christmas jumper or cardigan.

I bought 2 skeins of grey Peace Fleece from Brooklyn General Store last year for my dad’s socks, appropriately named “Father’s Grey”. Wonderful and full of character, from a distance the colour looks charcoal but close up you can see the different shadings and tiny flecks of white and brown and green. It comes in 200 yard skeins so I have quite a bit left over and I’m thinking of combining it with my single skein of Brooklyn Tweed Shelter in a Jane Ellison scarf pattern. The Shelter is almost the same colour, a charcoal grey called “Soot”.

Speaking of “Soot” that’s also the colour name of the Rowan Felted Tweed Aran which also arrived in the post yesterday. I really just wanted to try it out so bought just 2 skeins which are destined to become fingerless mitts for early morning bike rides to work.

And finally, the four vintage wooden buttons I bought on Etsy to finish off my button collar pullover have arrived with 2 extras I wasn’t expecting. As I now have 6 beautiful weathered wooden buttons, I might save them for a Christmas cardigan.

Stash plans: Rowan Felted Tweed

I’ve got one skein of Rowan Felted Tweed left over from one of my first knitting projects, the striped beanie by Martin Storey. I love this tweedy grey green colour “Dragon”, but sadly it’s been discontinued.

The label says it knits up at 22 to 24 stitches to 4 inches on 3.75 to 4 mm needles so I did some gentle swatching last weekend and I decided it definitely works best as a sport weight yarn on the smaller needles.

Hunting through my vintage pattern books I found a nice classic jumper design which would work so I’ve ordered 10 skeins in a deep green colour “Pine”. It’s the same green as in my first striped beanie…