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!

Wool with a history

At last - something to wear

Followers of this blog might have become familiar with this cream wool and it's long and (not so) illustrious history.  It started life in South Africa, where my mother knitted me a cardigan, using two strands of wool to make it thicker.  And thick it was, so thick and stiff that it was virtually unwearable!  It was too tight and there was something odd about the sleeves - there seemed to be too much of them under the arms!  A couple of years ago I braved old memories and pulled the cardigan apart, reknitting it into another cardigan, with short sleeves and two buttons at the front.  It was still too thick and too stiff so I never wore it.  Time to think of something else....

Unraveling the second cardigan was murderous, but finally it was done and I began my own creation, copied from a Rowan pattern.  Except that it was supposed to be a softly draping silk yarn.  Disastrous.  I didn't even photograph the final result because it was just too hysterical for words.

By this time, I'd finally realised that half of what was wrong was the wool itself - those two strands knitted together just didn't work.  So I decided on another cardigan, knitted with a single strand.

Have you EVER unraveled two strands of yarn????!!!

Torture!  It took hours and hours and hours.  The knots were Biblical in proportion.  I thought I was never going to get it done.

But then it was...

Same pattern as my last cardi - wonderfully simple and very smart

Held together with a hair pin!!

I knitted into the back of each stitch for the first row, giving a neat edge

Why bother?  Why all this work for wool that is some kind of cheap acrylic?  Nice colour but was it worth it?  Yes.  It was the last thing my mother knitted for me and I wanted it to be something that would please both of us.

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

Success!

At last I've knitted something I not only like but can actually wear.  Something with practical use!  Isn't the colour just glorious?  It's Sirdar Escape Chunky (Shade 0197 - I can't remember the proper name for it!) which I got on sale.  It was a spontaneous purchase, completely unplanned.  I then glanced through my knitting magazines and discovered a simple cardigan pattern for a chunky wool.  It's supposed to have a fur collar, which was the main feature, not really my thing, but the plain garter stitch collar I thought worked out really well.  It's warm without being too thick, just right for the wildly random London spring weather.

It looks particularly fantastic closed with a shawl pin I got free from a copy of Simply Knitting.  At the time, I didn't like the colour much as it isn't a colour I wear, nor did it match anything, but by chance, it looks fantastic with this cardigan!  

Details:  Pattern is from Simply Knitting Issue 89.

Things I would have done differently:  the hem.  You're supposed to cast on with the thumb method but I have no idea what that is.  I presume it gives a neater edge?  Whatever, without a rib, it naturally curled up several inches.  I blocked it carefully with damp cloths and about ten thousand pins but it began to curl up again.  Realising this was going to be a problem (AFTER I'd finished the back and front sections), I decided to do a proper sew-up hem for the sleeves which was also a mistake.  Too chunky!  What I should have done was just knit the first row into the back of the stitch.  I'd forgotten about this!  It produces a neat edge and might even have prevented all the rolling up it does.  

No matter.  The delicious colours and practicality make up for any errors!

I've got a letter and pic in Simply Knitting!

My coffee and Kindle covers have been published in Simply Knitting magazine!
Always a thrill!!!

Tangerine Dream

Isn't it lovely when you find success after total failure?!!  After trying on my new cardi and discovering it was, well, bloody awful, I went off and did what I was supposed to do:  I sewed on the buttons and I laid it out flat on a towel, pinned it into shape (though there wasn't much shape to it) and covered it with a damp cloth.  I've never done any blocking before....too much bother in my book.  Golly, WHAT a difference.  I mean, the cardi looks exactly the same but somehow it just seems to hang better.  The hem is flatter and even the set-in armhole looks smoother.
Sigh....WHAT a relief.  So I'm not a total knitting write-off after all.

Isn't the colour lovely?!

That strange white fleck you see was in the yarn itself.  I thought it looked rather interesting!  The beautiful crochet blanket you see is on my bed and is a work of art created by my mother when I was in my late teens, so I've had it a while!  Many years later when I asked her how to crochet granny squares she said she'd forgotten!  What a shame - I would so love to be able to crochet a granny square blanket for my daughter.
And yes, the third button is different.  I didn't have a third one but since it's in a different position, I hoped the Button Police wouldn't mind!!

Tangerine Big Softie

As projects go, this one went quite easily, despite the fact that I decided to knit a bigger size AFTER I'd finished the back.  Studying the pattern picture closely, I realised it wasn't going to have enough swing and I didn't want yet another knitted item that felt too tight under the armpits (despite knitting the right size!)  So I had to pull out the back and start again.  I also made the ribs a little deeper which meant, of course, that I ran out of wool just before the end!

Fortunately, when I ordered two more balls from The Black Sheep, I could actually specify which dye lot I wanted, an unexpected service!  So I didn't have to worry about the shades not matching.  I actually finished it this weekend.  Spent hours and hours sewing it up, probably longer than I spent actually knitting the thing.  I then cried after I tried it on because it doesn't look very nice.  The sleeve seams kind of fall down my upper arm a bit (you think it might be too big?) and somehow it just looks like, well, something someone knitted, and not very well, with rather cheap wool.

I'm not entirely sure why I bother.  Do you think if I called myself "The Good Knitter" I'd be better at it?