Finished! - Verca

As mentioned before, July is a Month of Small Knits for me.  Another soon-to-be birthday girl, another toddler garment.  This time a pullover, named after the future owner.

The pattern is really simple, no armhole shaping and only a few gentle decreases on sleeves.  I'm sure even a complete beginner will fly through it with no difficulty.

Pieces are worked separately on straight 5 mm needles and stitched up afterwards.  I used acrylic self-striping yarn, DK weight.  By pure chance I achieved colour symmetry - stripes on front and back are a perfect match, sleeves identical.

Both front and back are worked in a neat, square grid stitch, with a garter stitch border.  Back is a bit wider than the front, hence the trapezoid neckline.  Sleeves are simple stockinette with border to match the body.

Surprise, surprise, I've finished the sweater off with crochet flowers.  Yes, I know, it gets monotonous.  I am through with the crochet flower binge though and you won't be seeing them here for another while. 

Neck opening is edged with a simple crochet stitch, with a button added on each side.

As you can see, my puppy is always eager to assist in the photo shoot!

One more toddler knit coming soon:  a textured hoodie for a one year old. 

PATTERN:

My own (with the exception of crochet flowers). 

The Verca pullover will be gifted away in another week or so and if it turns out that I achieved a reasonable fit, I will share the pattern here, for free.

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). 

Twins - empire waist pullover in red or blue

If these are twins then they are definitely not identical.  They were knitted from the same pattern though, so family resemblance is surely there.

Red pullover was born first, a good while ago - in fact, this is one of my very first knitted garments (hence minor snags here and there and rather untidy seams).  I still love it to bits and wear it as often as I can.

It doesn't look like much on a hanger, so I decided to overlook my hatred for camera and snap a few pictures on Yours Truly. 

Did you spot my dog lurking helping in the photo shoot?

Blue pullover is destined for my sister.  I promised to make this for her over a year ago and it doesn't really matter that it took me forever, what counts is that I'm finally delivering, right?  Right?  Lucky creature, she's two sizes smaller than me and I wanted her version to be a bit fancier, so I improvised with crocheted flowers. 

This particular picture lies terribly about colour, others are more accurate.

Flowers can be moved around, or even removed.

I wasn't sure if crocheted flowers are exactly my sister's thing, so just in case I stitched pieces of velcro to the back rather than stitching flowers on permanently.  It may not be a durable solution, but for now I'm very happy with the result.

A closer look at stitches used:

PATTERN:

Pattern comes from a Polish knitting magazine, Dama w Swetrze from April 2006.  I have no idea if the pattern is available in English anywhere - sorry. 

Original instructions specify chunkier yarn but my pullovers are knitted from DK.  I had to recalculate pretty much everything, but well, little counting never killed anybody.

Crochet flower pattern comes from here.   It's free and really worth checking out - flowers are sweet and extra easy to make.