Butter Yellow Poncho

It was hotter than hell last week and there I was, finishing off a poncho!  Typical!  The cable edging was the most boring thing under the sun to knit, so I was most relieved when it was done.  I've not done anything like this before and was delighted with the outcome.

Debbie Bliss Como.  Colour:  19017.  90% Merino wool, 10% Cashmere.

The pattern for the cable edging couldn't be simpler:

Cast on 8 stitches.  Stocking stitch for 7 rows starting with a knit row.  Eighth row is the cable row:  knit two, put four stitches on a cable needle to the back, knit four, knit four from cable needle.  Repeat these eight rows several thousand times and you've got your edging!  

It took nearly 300 rows to get around the poncho!

Doesn't it look just like a rope?

I overlapped the end and added a button just for show.

Now I just need a cold day to wear it!

ps.  A virus recently attacked my computer (everyone's nightmare) and I had to restore my computer back to factory settings.  I managed to save everything that was important onto a memory stick, but not my photos.  I still had all my photos on the camera card, though, so it wasn't the end of the world, but I have lost all the cropping and crimping and work I did on the photos.  I can't imagine doing it all again!  Fortunately, the best ones are still here, on my site, for my pleasure, at least!

On the needles (5)

My daughter's poncho was so successful, I decided to knit one for myself.  I fancied one in an elegant cream with a simple cable and twist pattern.  But then I remembered my huge stash of Debbie Bliss Como in pale, creamy yellow (17) and thought I'd use that instead.  The trouble with chunky wool that although they make lovely, er, BIG cardies or jumpers or whatever, you can't wear them under a coat in winter, which means you're stuck wearing them at home.  Honestly, I've got enough ancient jersies to wear at home, so it was an ideal choice for the poncho.  I bought it on a sale at least two years ago (or was it only last year.....?!) and liked the colour so much that I bought another bagful, thinking the colour was about to disappear forever.  There are a few places on-line that you can buy it but the colours that remain are lovely.  On some websites, the colour looks very yellow - it isn't.  It's quite a gently creamy yellow.

I then started work on the cable pattern.  I think I did this really just to relax - I haven't had so much fun for a long time!  Turned out to be a huge waste of time but it doesn't matter.  It's nice to know I can do it.  I used Excel, about which I've forgotten more than I ever knew, and by the time I got to the end, I began to feel quite expert!  This is the cable pattern I came up with.  It's part of another, very large cable pattern.

I then got going, only to discover several crucial factors.  It's murderous cabling with a very soft chunky wool.  No matter how tightly you pull the wool when knitting, you end up with a ladder next to the cable.  Also - time consuming!  And not the sort of thing you can do while watching TV!  Well, I can't anyway, not being any kind of cable expert.  I was hugely impressed with my twisted stitch though, as I've not managed that before.  The thing that finally turned me off though was the realisation that cabling tightens a garment which means I would have ended up with a very small poncho!

Oh dear....

So I restarted it and in less than two days, am already more than halfway!  I'm going to knit a cable edging to go around the whole thing.  I thought that would be a bit more grown-up than tassels!

A Poncho for Easter

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....!)

Fantastically easy to knit - you end up with a large rectangle with a bite taken out!

Ready for blocking

The weight of the wool drags it down a little so that it hangs well and ends up quite long!

The pattern asked for a cast-on and cast-off neckline - I knitted two rows to make it stronger

We love this Squiggle wool - easy to knit with and great fun

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