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Saturday 28 June 2014

Finished! - Poppy Girl

Knits are happening so fast around here these days that I don't even have time to show them as WIPs before they become finished objects. 

Here's one I'm really proud of - Poppy Girl. 


There are few children in my life but those that are somehow connected to me were all born in July, so June is a month of baby knits.  My niece is turning two in a few weeks and I had been brainstorming about something pretty for her since May.  I hope Poppy Girl will be just the thing - if, that is, it fits!

I sneakily measured the soon-to-be birthday girl so I shouldn't be too far off mark.  Just in case, I worked the top part in rib to make it stretch extra wide.


Poppy Girl is knitted from bottom up on circular needles.  I used extra elastic bind off technique (really worth checking out) and instantly cancelled any benefits it gave me by adding not-so-elastic crocheted edging *sigh...*. 

Do you recognise the flowers?  I fell in love with this simple but effective design and now I'm adding them to (almost) all of my knits. 

I am absolutely smitten by the flowers-on-lattice combination:


Each flower is stitched on, first the centre with yellow thread and then petals with red.  It took ages (ekhm...  two days...), but the effect is worth it -  flowers lie nice and flat and I dare say they will survive washing, too.  It may not look so great on the wrong side but hey, nothing's perfect.


Speaking of not perfect, my Poppy Girl has one serious snag.  When adding crocheted edging around shoulder straps, I made too few stitches and the whole thing curls up no matter what I do to keep it flat.


I might yet rip the edging off and re-crochet it, because I feel this curling really spoils the effect.  I might.  We'll see.

PATTERN:

My own, except for crochet flowers (found here). 

Wednesday 25 June 2014

Positive ease

One thing that I keep forgetting about is that positive ease is good.  Unless you have a perfect, gymmed up body, positive ease is ALWAYS better than zero ease.  Case to prove the point?  Here you go. 

My partner's Mum, W., is staying with us this month and since she is about two dress sizes smaller than me, I lost no time in coaxing her to model for me.  Right after she put Negativium on I knew that it's going to stay hers.

knitted cotton top

On me, Negativium looks just about right.  If I remember to hold my belly in and not to slouch, everything's fine, more or less. 

When W. puts it on, she instantly looks stunning.  The word here is EFFORTLESS. 

Positive ease, that's the key.

In my defense, I had only limited amount of yarn for this design, so I had to be stingy with any extra fabric. 

To tell you the truth, parting with Negativium didn't actually break my heart.  I bought the yarn because I found a bargain too good to pass by and colours are not exactly mine.  Plus, earning brownie points with (almost) mother-in-law is always a good thing :).

By the way, this time I managed to get a good shot from the back.  Just in case you wondered why the pattern is called Negativium...

knitted cotton top

In other news, here's my puppy (she's nine months old, so technically still a puppy) sleeping on three paws for a pillow.  I should've added a dog-shaming message saying I ATE THE FLOOR...

sleeping sheepdog


Friday 20 June 2014

Finished! - Negativium

With Carefree Blue officially done, it was time to get Negativium off the blocking mat (ekhm... carpet...) and back to the workshop.

knitted cotton top

Initially, I wanted to add a few decorative elements (like crochet chains threaded through the fabric) but in the end I decided to keep things simple. I stitched two parts together and voila, I had another hand-knitted garment in my wardrobe.

knitted cotton top

Despite my worries of Negativium being too small, it fits perfectly.  Too perfectly, in fact - there is exactly zero ease in all the crucial areas and I'm seriously unsure if I have body for this anymore.  After seeing pictures from the photo shoot (and, believe me, instantly deleting a few), I decided to say a tearful farewell to my beloved sweets.  Wish me luck, and strong will.

knitted cotton top

Negativium was knitted on straight 3.5 mm needles, with three skeins of cotton worked simultaneously and fourth added at neckline (x2).  It ate up slightly over 300g of yarn.  Where colours meet, I simply knitted two yarns together although now I think that intarsia technique would probably work better.

PATTERN:

My own.  I charted stitches up as I went so I can write up a pattern if anyone is interested.

Monday 16 June 2014

Finished! - Carefree Blue

I'm proud to announce that I perservered and finished my Carefree Blue pullover.

blue raglan pullover

It turned out pretty neat, so much so that now I'm not quite sure why I wanted to destroy it in the first place.  Must've been a case of almostdoneitis.

Let me explain.  Very often (about 95% of the time), when I'm about three quarters through a knit, I suddenly get a feeling that whatever I'm working on at the moment is awful, is not going to fit and generally sucks on all fronts.  It's a very strong feeling too, a source of genuine frustration and unhappiness.  I always knit on, if only because it would be a shame to just rip all this work and in the end everything turns out to be just fine.  The garment fits and is just what I had planned it to be, frustration becomes satisfaction.

Do you ever get that, or is it just me?

blue raglan pullover on model

Anyway, Carefree Blue survived almostdoneitis intact.  What do you think?

It's very warm (not necessarily an advantage now in June but I'll sure as hell appreciate it in November) and comfy, with really nice balance between attractive waist shaping and diplomatic positive ease.  I can already tell that it's gonna be one of my favourites for a while :)

twisted stockinette stitch

It's almost all twisted stockinette, with matching accents in garter stitch on sleeves and hem.  I prefer continental knitting and my favourite technique automatically twists stitches when working in the round.  I can correct this if I want to, but in the case of Carefree Blue I kind of liked the effect, so twisted the stitches remained.

PATTERN:

My own improvisation :)

a curious chicken

Bonus:  one of my chickens, Hades, watching the photo shoot.  Despite masculine name, it's a girl and it is a special day in her life:  today she laid her first egg ever!

More finished objects coming soon.

Saturday 7 June 2014

To rip or not to rip - that is the question

As you can see from the picture below, my blue raglan pullover is coming along nicely.

blue raglan pullover

I'm improvising all the way, discovering things in the process.  For example:  NOT taking notes when making up a pattern can feel extra liberating.  With my last couple of knits, I had been meticulously charting up each stitch and it's cool to go with the flow for a change.

Another thing I discovered is not so joyful, because it endangers the very existence of my Carefree Blue*.  I should've used larger needles.  3.5 mm is too skinny for DK yarn, goddamnit.  At the beginning of work I couldn't make my mind up whether the emerging fabric is too stiff or not and now, when I'm sure that it is, I'm almost done.

To rip or not to rip?  Early findings suggest that body of the pullover will probably pass muster, but fit around the chest is little funny.  Can I live with little funny?  More important:  can I live with ripping up almost three weeks' worth of work?  Actually, spread out on grass, Carefree Blue looks rather nice.  Maybe the photo shoot saved the knit...

Destiny of Carefree Blue remains to be decided, in the meantime let me show you a neat trick I also discovered recently:

sleeve stitches on hold

Weed whacker line is a great stitch holder!

* I'm probably not great in making up romantic/funky/cool-sounding pattern names.  Oops.