For fun I thought I'd knit a poncho for my daughter, using up old wool and the easiest pattern of all: cast on three stitches, make one stitch at the start of every row. But the edge didn't look very neat so I thought I'd try it by making two stitches at the centre of every knit row. It took me several goes - and much pulling out - to get to this point. Except I had no idea that this kind of increasing, though it leaves a pretty lacy hole, also does something to the knitting that "bends" it i.e. it wasn't flat. A poncho really needs to be flat! I'd had so much fun sorting out the different stripes I was going to do but realised after several days of intense knitting that this was going to be disastrous. The wool was too thin and it wasn't ever going to lie flat and it was going to take me nine years to finish the poncho!
So I did the next best thing: I found a pattern for a super chunky poncho, bought some Sirdar Squiggle on sale at Black Sheep and in less than ten days, I had one completed poncho, ten thousand tassels and all!! In fact, I was tying the last of the tassels while my daughter was hunting for easter eggs on Easter Sunday! Needless to say, she hasn't taken it off since, except to bath and go to bed!
This is probably the most popular thing I've ever made! I'm so impressed I think I might make myself an elegant cream on and cable it, with a cable edging rather than tassels (otherwise they'll end up in my illicit mugs of coffee....!)
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| Fantastically easy to knit - you end up with a large rectangle with a bite taken out! |
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| Ready for blocking |
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| The weight of the wool drags it down a little so that it hangs well and ends up quite long! |
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| The pattern asked for a cast-on and cast-off neckline - I knitted two rows to make it stronger |
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| We love this Squiggle wool - easy to knit with and great fun |
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Take care to cut all the tassels EXACTLY the same length - Squiggle is very curly and we inadvertently ended up with different lengths! Much shouting ensued but in the end, you don't notice it too much. Tying the knots for the tassels is very easy. When I first looked at this pattern, I thought it was crochetted!!
The pattern used is Sirdar 2359 for Denim Ultra. Yarn used is Squiggle shade 0603 Funkadelic. Currently on sale at www.blacksheepwools.com |
Hi, I'm really struggling with the knots for this, can't work it out just from the pattern. Do you have any tips?
ReplyDeleteHi, Alison. The pattern I used didn't give any instructions - I had to figure it out from the diagram! Make your usual tassels all the way around the garment. After that, take HALF the strands from one tassel and HALF the strands from the tassel immediately to the right of it, then knot. You should end up with a nice V-shape with a knot at the bottom of a V. So each tassel is made from half of two other tassels. You keep going all the way around until you've used up all the tassels. I hope this makes sense - it's really hard trying to describe this in words! Please let me know if you have any more questions!
DeleteAlison - I've just found a fantastic video tutorial on YouTube which really shows you how to do this! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYvI2z-qC0g If that link doesn't work, it's called Adding Knotted Fringe to a Scarf or Shawl by Robin Hunter. Good luck!
DeleteSusannah