Ten Toasty Designs in Rachel Coopey's New Book

I mentioned in a previous post that baa ram ewe had brought out some new shades of their Titus wool. I
treated myself to a couple of skeins of Bramley Baths, and it's new being put to good use to knit a hat from Rachel Coopey, aka Coopknit's, latest book of designs - Toasty.

Extraordinarily-talented Rachel arouses in me both great admiration and envy. Her Ravelry entry mentions that she's only been knitting for four years. I'm hoping that text was written about ten years ago otherwise I can't get my head around how she can design such fine designs with cables and colourwork with only a few years' experience, unless she was born a knitting genius!

Rachel is best known for her sock patterns, but in Toasty she has branched out to hats, scarves and mitts. All the patterns use Titus yarn.

None of the patterns are for beginners. All require skill in cables, stranded colourwork or knitting in the round - or a mixture of the three. The book is lovingly photographed by baa ram ewe's Verity Britton and it's the sort of tome that's a pleasure to browse and look at again and again.

I've started so I'll finish ...

My favourite design to challenge my needle skills is the wonderful, slouchy hat Catterick. In the book it's knitted in Filey, a yellow yarn, but on my needles is the lovely Bramley Baths. I've cast on using a 2.5mm circular needle. For me the first couple of rows on a round needle are always the hardest part. Once I've made sure the stitches aren't twisted, the ends are joined together properly and the marker is in the correct place it's all systems go!

Toasty costs £12 and is worth every penny. The ten projects are all delightful and for me this will be a 'go to' pattern book when I'm looking for a shorter project to knit for a gift. It's worth mentioning that this is Volume 1 of Toasty. Please Rachel, give me enough time to finish my hat before you tempt me with Volume 2!