17 February 2020

I don’t know if you’ve seen those lovely, oversized very thick, knitted throws which have been showing up on hygge-inspired scandanavian style interiors for a while.

Many are arm knitted using bales of yarn that I covet but can’t afford to splash out on just now as our spare cash is going on yet a other wave of renovations (study and bathroom).

This is my take, using up all my partial balls of neutral coloured yarn. I’m using three strands and 6.5mm dpns to make a very long three stitch i-cord. The yarn I’m producing isn’t thick enough to be arm knitted but perhaps finger knitted … is that a thing?

It reminds me of the first knitting I did as a very small child with a wooden cotton reel and nails “knitting machine” made for me by my dad. I’m changing colours one strand at a time to get a bit of a fade going on and I’ll keep going til I use up all my neutral leftovers. So far I’ve got 25 metres of cord and it weighs nearly 300g.

12 March 2020

Update on my (now huge) ball of i-cord, I’ve been laying it out flat to measure it. Here are some factoids:

It weighs 780g so far
Gauge is four rows to the inch
It takes me a minute to knit an inch of i-cord
It’s approximately 65 yards long (2,356 inches) so that’s 39 hours of knitting to date
I’ve got only 50g of yarn left in suitable colours so pretty soon I will be getting my 20mm (!!!) needles out (purchased from @wool_zone) to knit this i-cord into a hygge-inspired throw.

15 March 2020

I’ve finished making i-cord out of all my partial neutral balls of #stylecraftyarn DK yarn. So I’m ready to start knitting my hygge-inspired throw! I want it to be a rectangle but I’m not sure how many to cast on … there’s only so much yarn .

I’m going to make a swatch and work it out. I’m keen to get started but for me, half the pleasure is the anticipation and just thinking about it is helping to distract me from the news … I may just sit and stare at it for a quite while!

21 March 2020

I have started knitting my hygge-inspired throw with these enormous knitting needles. I’m using 25mm now as the 20mm was too tight. It’s quite slow going as I’m trying to check the stitches are as even as I can make them. I do a few rows a day on it and am delighted with the way the colours blend into each other.

I started with three knit rows before switching to stocking stitch and will do the same before I cast off. I am slipping the first stitch of every row to make a neat edge. The next photo I show should be of it finished.

25 April 2020

I finished this about a month ago but have only just got round to photographing it. The finished dimensions are 31 inches x 31 inches, using 830g of yarn so it ended up being a square really rather than a rectangle and not really big enough to be a throw.

However, the principle is proven that this would work as a larger project. It’s been an enjoyable and interesting experiment. I’m also delighted with the interest from others on Instagram. When/if I make a bigger one, I would try a Prym knitting mill to produce the i-cord quicker as I’d need so much.

It’s a good size to go on Bongo (my dog)’s bed and as its super thick and snuggly, he loves lying on it. My next photo will hopefully show him on it, he hasn’t been posing well today, getting up just when I’ve got the camera, so I’ll try and catch him on it another day.