Knitting shops in France

On my holiday in France I did manage to find some yarn shops although most of them are also cloths shops. We were staying in the Charente region of France

We found a Phildar shop in Cognac so I bought some 100% bamboo yarn and some 75% cotton 25% seacell to try. I'm always interested to see if the know manufacturers are producing yarns using new fibres. Most do have a bamboo yarn now but I haven't seen much in the way of seacell mix yarns.

There was also a Phildar shop in the Intermarche Hyper market at Chalais. We also found two yarn shops in Riberac (in the Dordogne region). One shop was also a fabric, patchwork and tapestry shop with Katia yarns. The other shop (which was also a cloths shop) sold Berger de France, some Katia and another French brand I hadn't seen before called Cheval Blanc. They did a cotton bamboo mix so I got some balls of this as well.

When I get around to knitting samples I will post some pictures.

Top Down Jumper competed

So much for thinking I could access and update my old blog. It seems that as I now have a google account I have to sign in with this account and can no longer sign in to my old blog with my other email address. Someone who knows more about blogger could probably tell me how to change this or at least combine the 2 blogs but I don't have the time or energy at the moment to try and work it out myself! Bloody computers!!!!

Anyway to get onto pleasanter things i have finished my top down jumper so am posting pics of the finished garment. I'm not totally happy with the way the colour pools but it does look as though it is a part of the design, almost as if there was one pattern for the yoke and another for the lower part of the jumper.

I knitted the body section of the jumper and then went back and knitted the sleeves and neckband. I tried it on again after finishing the sleeves and neckband and decided that the jumper wasn't long enough so unpicked the cast off and border and knitted the body section till it was the longer length I wanted.

I've used moss stitch (seed stitch) for the borders but with garter stitch either side of the moss stitch to make the edging look more like a braid. I think it works quite well. I also used a 'make 1' increase for the raglan seam lines as I wanted to create the look of a classic fully fashioned raglan seam. On the whole I am happy with the finished garment and it fits well which is the main point of knitting from the top.

I've just started a cardigan from the top which is a variation on my design published in the July '09 issue of Knitting magazine. The cardigan in the magazine was knitted in Garn Studio cotton viscose 4ply but I am knitting the new cardigan in a cotton linen mix from Knitting4fun which is a DK weight. I am also making it with longer sleeves although I haven't decided yet whether they will be long sleeves or 3/4 length, but I don't have to make that decision yet. I'll try and get around to posting pictures of this garment in progress as well.