Stripy Knit in Bamboo Cotton

I've spent most of the summer - the hottest part of it - knitting a jumper for my daughter.  I bought the yarn last year as soon as I spotted it in Simply Knitting [issue 107] in this delicious coral shade.  Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be available anymore, but there are other lovely colours, with new ones recently added.  It's King Cole Bamboo Cotton DK and seems to be generally available.  It was lovely to work with on those boiling hot days we had - light and easy to hold.  Really lovely to work with too as it didn't split.  The pattern has three-quarter sleeves (or what I would call two-thirds sleeves, surely the most useless length of all) but I made them full-length and also added stripes to the sleeves to match the body.  Luckily, the stripes matched the body for positioning!  The pattern also has buttons on the neckline but I honestly couldn't work out how to knit the shoulder bit so blithely ignored the instructions and did an ordinary seam!  Fortunately my daughter could still get her head through the rather small neck hole!  I bought the same yarn for myself but am reluctant to make myself the same jumper - my daughter is very slim (oh, to be 14 again...) and it looks stunning on her.  With my multitudinous curves, I'm not convinced I'll look as good!  Perhaps I'll find another pattern in the same yarn.....

I used flower-shaped shell buttons for the front opening but did not make buttonholes as I - correctly - thought they were superfluous.

I'll get my daughter to wear this tomorrow and take a "live" pic!

Striped jumper for Spring

Owing to a shoulder injury that suddenly got a lot worse in January, my Gedifra jacket is currently on hold - the very large needles were really difficult to work with....like ski poles!  Also, I was trying to knit the collar, which meant holding the entire project on my lap - very heavy indeed.  (What actually happened is that I messed up the collar and had to pull it out....great reason to abandon it for the moment...!)

Fortunately I can still knit with fine needles and a lightweight wool.  I made some terrific leggings for my daughter out of my stash and and currently knitting her a stripey jersey which is ostensibly for Spring, but it's slow-going so will most likely be for early Summer!

Delicious stripes for Spring

I'm using what I've got left of the Bergere de France Ideal (featured elsewhere in this blog) and Hayfield Bonus DK, which I used when making that toy owl.  The Ideal is 4 ply and a better quality wool than the very cheap Bonus but you don't notice it particularly unless you went very close!  My daughter chose the stripe pattern, which I wasn't sure about at first but seems to be working out.  The colours are very fresh and it's lovely working with something that's so easy when my shoulder hurts so much!

Read my previous blog featuring Bergere de France Ideal plus photo:

http://badknitting.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/endless-banana.html