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). 

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.

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...

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...

Finished! - Negativium

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

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.

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.

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.

Finished! - Carefree Blue

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

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 :)

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 :)

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.

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.

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:

Weed whacker line is a great stitch holder!

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

Purring happily - new yarn

I got my hands on a whole lot of new yarn and I'm a very happy creature indeed.  If you happen to be a fellow knitter, you must know the satisfaction of enlarging your stash and if you're not - take my word, or better still, become a yarnophile and experience the feeling yourself :)

Here are my spoils:

Three shades of red may look the same but believe me, it's my camera lying again.

This little baby will join another four skeins already in my stash and one beautiful day they will become a pullover (I think). 
Shade:  beetroot red 
Fibre:  acrylic

Another prospective pullover, or a warm weather vest (depending on whether I have 3 or 4 more skeins stashed away).
Shade: dark magenta
Fibre: acrylic

I love bright colours, but this orange is too bold even for me.  As a one-tone garment it would never do, but I can quite clearly  picture it combined with something more reasonable in a fair isle knit. 
Shade:  eye-blasting orange
Fibre:  acrylic

Another random buy, with no clear idea what to use it for.  The stash must grow, right?  Right?
Shade:  capuccino
Fibre:  acrylic

Finally, my most precious loot in this batch:  500g of pure cotton in my favourite colour of all time.  At some stage it will become a tank top (hopefully before the summer is over...), but for now I'm simply happy to look, touch and sigh in blissful admiration. 
Shade:  red wine
Fibre:  cotton

I'm purring happily, because looking at new skeins and dreaming up patterns for them is probably my favourite part of knitting process.  Anyone out there feels the same?

Knitted vest in (awful) electric blue

Would you like to see the very first garment I ever designed?  Yes?  Your wish is my command.  There you go:

When I was about 8 years old, I decided I want to knit a sweater.  My wonderful Mum took me to a yarn shop, let me choose whatever materials I wanted and patiently guided me through the knitting process.  As far as I can remember, I almost finished the back of my sweater before I lost interest and the project was abandoned. 

20 years on I asked Mum to share some of her stash and that very same yarn arrived in the post.

One thing I know for sure - the eight year old me had the most awful taste imaginable.  I almost wept, because there was no way in hell the adult me would wear anything in this horrible shade of electric blue, oh no. 

Luckily, my partner's Mum, who was staying with us at the time, expressed moderate admiration for the colour.  On a blonde like her, she said, the shade would look great.  On the spot I promised an electric blue garment just for her.  That's what you get for being polite, hah hah. 

My passion for knitting freshly rediscovered, I decided to design my own pattern.  I got quite ambitious, and even though I had never knitted cables before I chose the most complicated one in my book*.

The cable was a bitch to knit - please don't choose it for your introduction to cables, unless you like challenges - but many swear words later the vest was complete, embellished with buttons (ah, buttons...  There will be a post about buttons, I promise) and gifted away. 

It may not be the most beautiful or intricate design in the world.  Still, for the very first design in my portfolio, I dare say it's pretty decent.  Would you agree?

Oh, that weird neckline is not something permanent, it's just how the vest was laid out for the photo :)

PATTERN:

My own but most likely unrepeatable, because I have no clue where my notes to the project might be. 

* The book, if you're interested, was called The Knitting and Crochet Bible.  I've outgrown it since but for a beginner knitter (or crocheter), it is a fabulous resource.