I have a lot of pictures in my 'Ready to blog' picture folder. But somehow none of them seem particularlyinspiring at the moment. After the fun of Bea, there are clearly knitting doldrums waiting for me.
Here's a close up of the fairisle on the Debbie Bliss Ski Sweater.
This is how far I had got by the end of the week.
Check out the fairisle yoke. I love the yoke.
Unfortunately, having sewn up the sweater, I am horribly aware that it is too big for me. The sleeves are way too long. As is the body. But those can both, although I hate the very idea of it, be remedied. But I also think that the top of the sleeves are too big. There's a bit of me hoping that if I wash the sweater it'll all get better. But there's another bit of me that is painfully aware that's just wishful thinking.
Here's another gratuitous shot of the fairisle. Just in case I never get to wear it, I figure I'll enjoy it while I can.
So after the glory of Bea, I am now concentrating my efforts on some more FOs. At the top of the list is the Debbie Bliss ski sweater. Pics to come soon but I have 2 more rows to go to finish the knitting and then I'll sew her up. I've never knitted a garment with a yoke before but I am guessing that I will need to sew her up before I block her seeing as all the bits are already incorporated into the knitting. If I am wrong, please shout now!
Meanwhile, I've been knitting Dandelion on the bus. It's a lot of stocking stitch so it doesn't demand too much knitting and I've now done the back and one of the fronts. I'd forgotten how tiring cotton can be to knit so 30min on the bus to work and 30 min back is about right. Here's the back before it was finshed.
And I've been doing short row shaping on the shoulders (a big thank you to Polly for patiently answering my daft questions) and 3 needle bind offs so I am a bit proud :)
I particularly like the way the fully fashioned shaping is done.
Just lovely.
On an unrelated note, my company is moving offices at the end of next week, away from Oxford Circus (2 min from Liberty and John Lewis) to Clerkenwell. This is a good thing as it should do my wallet a load of good once the temptations of Rowan, Jaeger and the Liberty fabrics are removed from under my nose.
Here are the shots of me wearing Bea as promised. Kris and I had quite a long conversation where she explained that it was my duty as a blogger to post pictures of me wearing the garment and that if I didn't I might be booted out of knitting blogging land. I wasn't aware that the rules were quite that strict, but there you go.
So here are the shots. Close up:
With me (looking proud as punch...)
Another shot of Bea (I think that the husband was trying to get a bit artistic at this point...).
And here's my favourite bit of it, the waist. Isn't that shaping lovely?
If I show you this.
You'd be right to conclude that Bea is finally finished! WAY HAY and WOO HOO! I am pleased as punch with her. Here's a rather extended entry about the trials and tribulations of finishing her.
First I decided that I would go with the icord after all. And discovered that you can knit 1.4m of icord in less than the time it takes to go from London to Manchester on the train. Which might come in handy to someone some day, who knows.
Then it was time to move on to the actually finishing bit. It was Sunday morning and I was, to be fair on a bit of a mission.
The first task was to clear some space on the dining room table.
And prepare all of the elements that are so essential to a day of finishing.
There was some use of the 3 needle bind off technique.
Which worked well. Which is good as it was my first time. And my first time using short row shaping on the shoulders. All good stuff.
A lot of picking up stitches, a bit freestyle, as I didn't do the whole divide and work out the number of stitches for each section thing. But somehow it looks ok.
A lot of matress stitch. That went on for hours and hours and hours. Especially the setting in sleeve bit. Shudder.
And then there were the buttons.
Here they are all laid out.
The cardigan has a picot edge all the way around the fronts and the cuffs. I found that quite difficult to get right and ended up changing the way I did them. I think the issue was that I wanted the picot to look perfect and it didn't. So I tried what felt like 100 ways of doing it and settle on kfb on one side and casting off on the other.
And, dah dah! Here is the finished item.
And here's another beauty shot, just because I can. And because I am so proud.
The kit includes a very pretty little label and I can't decide whether to sew in my 'Handknit by Amelia' label or this one. So, for now, she's labelless.
I'm on a mission to get the husband to take a pic of me wearing it later today so hopefully I'll have an action shot.
So, beyond Dandelion, what's next? Well, it's what ever's in this box.
I'll leave you guessing for now.
Bea
The pattern Bea from Kim Hargreaves (Bought as a kit from her site)
The yarn Rowan Wool cotton in Dream which is now discontinued although you can still get the kit in that colour from Kim's site.
The needles 3.25 and 3.75 Addi Turbos.
Size Small. Mmm. A bit of a close call. It fits, but only just. No putting on any weight for me. Maybe I should have made the size above. It's difficult as my chest size falls above a small but only just and I always think the next size up is too big. It doesn't matter with sweaters much but on cardigans, the pulling on the button band is just not a good look. In this case, it's ok. Just.
Started Well I know that I swatched on the 3rd of September.
Finished I am ashamed to say that's over 6 months to knit a cardigan.
Thoughts As Kris and Jacs will tell you, I got rather muddled around the button hole placements. Mostly because the button bands were pulling in due to the tension differences between the stocking stitch body and the garter stitch button bands. But in the end, after a rather severe blocking, it worked out rather well.
I am left with 138g of yarn. I may well have bought the size above mine to account for the extra ball of yarn that I usually buy but this seems excessive. I will be contacting Kim to ask if she includes a bit of extra in case. Anyone know what to do with that much wool cotton? There must be a baby top somewhere that needs that amount.
So having said, about a month ago, that I was going to make some progress on some of my wips, I finally have some decent progress.
And about time too.
Yes, I managed to finish both of the Debbie Bliss Argyll cardigans on the same day.
And no, I didn't use the buttons that I'd originally planned. I went to John Lewis and chose some new buttons. I wanted to get some pretty little baby ones but the classic girl in me just can't buy cute buttons. I tried. I promise. There were some really sweet ones but somehow the blues were all wrong and it just didn't work. So I fell back on to the classical mother of pearl.
Here's a final picture of the two little cardigans moment before they were wrapped and made ready to take to the post office on Monday. One to go to the other side of London and the other to go to New Zealand.
I am quite proud of my two little cardians, even if I should have done the argylle. I've been looking around my favourite blogs recently and am just a bit ashamed that everyone else seems to be trying new things when all I seem to be doing is stocking stitch. So I think it might be time to try something a little more challenging.
The details
The pattern: Argyll Cardigan from Debbie Bliss's Special Knits book.
The yarn: Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino in Wedgewood and Indigo.
The needles: 3mm and 3.25mm Addi Turbos.
The size: Size 2 (3-6 months).
Buttons: 6 buttons in mother of pearl from John Lewis.
Modifications: No Argylle to start. And the pattern calls for 5 rows to be worked on button band on one side and 4 on the other side. I think that's an error so I worked 5 on each. Not that it makes much of a difference...
Cast on: February 12th 2007
Finished: March 10th 2007
Thoughts: I did like the fact that the entire body is knitted in one piece. But I didn't much like the fact that it meant that the sleeves had to be sewn up first and then fitted into the armhole. Admittedly it was only a baby sleeve, but like others, I don't much like sewing in sleeves.
Peter Jones held a coffee morning a few weeks ago where they took us through the new Rowan and Jaeger books and yarns. I feel a little sorry for the ladies who do the presentations as we're an opionated lot and we don't hestitate to say so when we think that a garment is badly designer, badly knitted or just plain wrong.
They brought along a few balls of each of the yarns with some needles and so we got to have a play. Oddly I decided that I really liked the new Jaeger yarn called Ascot. Trust me on this one, it's a LOT nicer than it looks on the shade card. And the patterns in the magazine are just lovely. On the ball it wasn't much to look at but I tried on the Mia jacket and it looked lovely.
Without the blouse underneath, obviously.
And Penelope rather caught my eye in a Chanel kind of way.
There may well be one of those in my future somewhere.
As there was a 15% discount, I bought some cotton to make this.
I know. Purple, not very me, huh? Well things are changing here and there is colour in my life now. Funnily enough a Liberty lady who hadn't come on a Thursday for a while was commenting on how I was no longer knitting in stone, black and grey. I felt oddly proud. I can knit with a bit of colour. Not too much mind you.
Anyway, I am knitting Dandelion in the Rowan Handknit Cotton in Delphinium. It's perfect knitting for the bus, lots of stocking stitch so I don't need to pay too much attention. I am finding that the cotton is tiring my hands out (I've lost the habit) so being able to knit 20min on the way to work and 20 min on the way back is just about right.
Recently there's been a really lovely ad campaign for Lloyds TSB on TV. For those of you who don't like here, Lloyds TSB are a bank with branches all over the UK.
The image below is from the final seconds of the ad.
Yes, at the top of one of the buildings, the neon light says "The knitting club". (It's a bit hard to read but I can't find a bigger image of it.)
You can watch the full ad here (you'll need to have QuickTime installed to be able to watch it). I love it.
I've been making some progress on the WIPs. Not as much as I'd have liked mind you, but then time has this funny habit of running away.
I successfully blocked the fronts and back of Kim Hargreaves' Bea last week. Here they are sitting on the back of a chair all flat and lovely.
Then I went to block the sleeves.
Ah. That's right, the sleeve caps were of seriously different lengths. Not a row or two but more like 6. And despite my best attempts I couldn't see where the error was in either of the caps so in frustration I frogged both sleeve caps. And reknit them. They are now both pinned out and have been suitably drenched. I'' spare you the pictures as blocking does not, for me at least, make for great photography.
I do have a question for you. The belt in the pattern calls for icord.
However, I am not an icord fan. And I am going to have a lot of it to knit when I start Mermaid as you get to knit the world's longest bit of icord and then pick up stitches along the edge of it. So, do you think it would look ok with one of those twisted cords instead? (I dont' want to cut the yarn and then realise it was a huge mistake and that I've got no yarn left to knit the icord instead).
I've decided against the purple buttons for the light blue DB Argyle cardigan as they are just not quite right so I am going to go and buy buttons tomorrow instead. For both cardigans. The navy blue one is nearly done too and is just waiting for me to sew in the sleeves.
Birch is getting close to completion (phew!) and DB Ski sweater is slowly getting there. Slowly mind you. But hey, at least I am making some progress and hopefully my pile of 'stuff to do' will look markedly smaller soon.
