FO's Baskerville and Paddle

My Baskerville Hat

I know it's summer (apparently) but I wanted to share with you my Baskerville hat and Paddle gloves I recently finished.  Small projects like these are brilliant for trying out new yarns that your not familiar with.  For just over 50g of yarn each I got to knit a brilliant hat and some very cosy gloves.  

I purchased two balls of yarn from Dodgson Wood.  The yarn is a Castlemilk Moorit and Cheviot blend.  I first came across them through the power of Twitter. Dodgson Wood have their own farm in the Lake District where they specialise in rearing rare and native British breeds.  They have recently started to get their fleeces spun into yarn and selling the yarn locally.  I couldn't resist dropping them a line and making a purchase.  I decided to use the yarn to make a Baskerville by Karie Westermann.

Castlemilk and Cheviot yarn

     

The blend in the yarn was not one I was familiar with so I was really interested to see how it would feel and how it would knit up.  The yarn in the ball has quite a rustic feel to it (which is a positive in my opinion) and once knit up had great definition.  It also withstood lots of tinking (knitting lace on an evening when tired perhaps was not my smartest idea!).  

Despite my mistakes Baskerville was a quick hat to make.  You do need to keep an eye on your stitch count and where your stitch markers are throughout the pattern as the end of the round sometimes changes its place.  I am super happy to have another knitted hat to my collection ready for the winter!  

Paddle Gloves

The second FO was my Paddle gloves by Tin Can Knits.  These were cast on to test some new yarn I was interested in stocking, so each glove is made in a different yarn!  Only one of the yarns made it into the shop - the UK Baby Alpaca.  These were another quick and simple project.  I  used some of my left over Dodgson yarn from my Baskerville for the stripes.  The UK Baby Alpaca is so, so soft, probably the softest yarn I have ever knitted with! 

Over the coming months BritYarn will start to stock a range of yarns from smaller producers.

Have you started or finished any unseasonal projects recently or using any new to you British yarn?   I would love to hear from you on Twitter, Instagram, Ravelry or comment here on the blog.