All Taped Up?

Not so long ago, when you went to the wool shop you would just find various weights of wool to knit with... 3 ply, 4ply, DK, Aran, Chunky but in the last few years there has been an explosion in fancy yarns particularly the tape yarns.


I first came across tape yarns at the Knitting and Stitching Show at Ally Pally in the 1990s when I bought this knitting kit from KnitWits in Cumbria (if anyone knows what happened to them, let me know, I loved them).  This was knitting on the edge, it was a cotton tape which knitted up quickly to create crunchy summer styles but still knitted in the conventional way.

No, they are not dropped stitches... and yes, I will sew buttons on soon, I promise!

Then Rico, pushed the boundaries even further with CanCan from which you could make fabulous flouncy scarves with block or jewel like graduated colours hit the shops.  However you did not use the yarn as you did before, you cast on by opening out the yarn and literally sticking your needle about a quarter of inch below the top of the tape, then moving along about two inches you did the same again -  no thumb method, continental, cable, long tail end, this was new order - stab and grab!  Then to knit with it, you used placed you right needle through the left stitch to knit but instead knitting the whole of the yarn you stabbed a hole two inches further with your right needle and pulled it through as a knit stitch so that the rest of your yarn created the flounce and not only could you knit with it, you could crochet too.  As an experienced knitter, it drove me up the wall as I could not thread the yarn through my fingers but new knitters love it with the exaggerated movements to wind the yarn around the needles.

More yarns followed from Rico - Loopy and from Katia - Triana, living up to its name where the tape is a series of loops sewn together.  

Like CanCan, you cast on by putting your needle through the holes of each loop along the top of the yarn and then knit in garter stitch through every second stitch over just seven stitches to make a brilliant narrow flouncy scarf with a great lacy effect, these scarves tended to be much narrower and wound several times round the neck.

And the latest I have found is Woolcraft - Tango, which forms a very closely looped jabot style scarf but yet again an entirely new form of tape.

I worked up this scarf in front of the telly in just a couple of hours, I can just imagine if peeking out from a black coat this Winter.  And this is my contribution to HandMade Monday, so don't forget to take a look and see what everyone else has been up to.

If you wondered if I finished my socks from last week, they can be found in the blog below this.  However I happened to be passing the LYS, having walked up to the bus stop and spent 10 mins waiting for the bus and 20 mins sitting on it... so like I say, just passing when I found some super Alpaca sock yarn which will make such lovely bed socks.  It is deliciously soft and I am trying something called butterfly stitch which took and inordinate amount of swearing and ripping back for me to work out how it was done and then I realised I was over-complicating things - KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid).

I will let you know how they go, and I promise the applique tutorial will be here shortly when I am happy with the pics.

The Monday Make

Do you know, for a couple of days after a show, I never want to see a sewing machine or a pair of needles ever again but then my fingers start to twitch and I need to get cracking again.  I had planned to do a tutorial on Cathedral Windows and have even got as far as cutting out and folding the fabric but then I went to the woolshop Bodkins of Thundersley.  


Well, I was well and truly scuppered and ended up buying a few balls of Can Can to create a handbag... which is progressing slowly but steadily as I work out a pattern for it.  However I also came across another new wool from Katia - Triana.  Now this yarn is almost like a mesh when you open it out and you literally knit into the holes a bit like just using the thread between pompoms on PomPom wool.  It was an extremely quick knit and I finished it in a couple of hours on Saturday night.  I admit to being a bit sniffy about the yarn when I saw it in the shop but I think I may be going back for more...


So here is my piece for Wendy's  Handmade Monday but there is a problem... if you are the one from the UK Craftsforum whose Easter bunny I am... please look away from the screen now... cos this little Summer scarf is going into the post for you this afternoon.

I promise to have the Cathedral Windows tutorial completed later this week... just the hand sewing to complete, so we might just make it.