[Knitting] Raving about Ragna!

[kniteracy]

A few weeks ago, I posted this entry, with poll about my next complex aran project. As you can see, I've chosen to knit the less popular Ragna, and I'll tell you why. It's because I found the wool I needed, on Craigslist, the discontinued Rowan Magpie Tweed, exactly as many skeins as I needed, for $55US. That's less than half what I'd pay for comparable new wool here. It came in the post on Friday, and only three hanks had even been wound into balls; one looks like it's been knitted and something ripped out, but everything is the same dye lot, the colour is a lovely flecked blue (as you'll see below), and I've been wanting to knit the Ragna, so that's next. We'll save the Donegal for when I have lots of ready cash to spend on Alice Starmore's own wool, because I'm seeing it in some of her colours.

The swatch stage went well, so I moved on to making the matching hat for the jumper. It didn't take the whole skein it called for, so I still have some breathing room with the jumper, and most patterns overestimate the amount of wool you need, anyway.

I cast on for the jumper last night and have about 1/3 of one panel knitted up now.

The Ragna Hat! I cast this on after doing swatches on Friday night and knit it over the weekend (mostly Sunday). It fits beautifully, and now I'm familiar enough with the central cable of the Ragna that I can knit it with no trouble now. The hat is constructed by making the cable,then picking up stitches along the top edge for the crown. The wholet thing is knitted flat and then sewn up after. I think it would have been more fun to graft the two cabled ends together and knit the crown in the round, so I'll try that next time I make a hat like this. For something that looked quite complex, it knitted up really fast, and the cable band fits snugly around my forehead and ears, so it's quite warm. It also fits fairly well beneath a cycle helmet, so it adds warmth to winter cycling as well.

knitting, jumper, ravelry queue Just to remind you all, here's what the Ragna looks like. The cable motif on the hat is repeated several times around the Ragna itself. So far I'm very pleased with the cable relief on the Rowan Magpie Tweed.