The Sock Yarn Sweaters

Last year, whilst branching out into more luxury yarns, I bought two skeins of Araucania Lonco Multy with absolutely no idea what I was going to knit with them. They were reduced to clear and I couldn't resist myself. 

I hand wound one skein as it was knotty, which cause a few expletives to come out of my mouth. As I couldn't face the other skein, I cast on for a shawl with it, but ended up frogging it as I didn't like how it pooled.

I came across the Kaleidoscope pattern and knew it would be perfect, but it needed an accent, which had me frog a sock from the this-will-never-get-finished pile so I could use my  Knitting Goddess 4ply merino/nylon sock.

I extended the ribbing, omitted the waist shaping, worked my first garment with a provisional cast on for the sleeves! Hell, I even worked magic loop on the sleeves for the first time, go me!

I just love it. I love the colours, the shape, even the buttons (bamboo and not sewn on when I took the photos).

I loved knitting it so much that I decided I needed a tunic from the same pattern. I grabbed a ball of King Cole Zigzag from my stash in what I thought was a variegated colourway. Nope. Just a very thin self-stripe, but given that it would be on a project larger than socks I let it do it's thing. I had to buy a 2nd ball of it, but more on that later.

 

I cast on 10 stitches more than what I required using a provisional cast on, as I didn't know how I wanted the bottom to look. I knit for a while, gently decreased to the number of stitches that I required and knit for a while longer.

I worked out where the cast on would have been on what I'd knitted and placed a stitch marker so I could follow the pattern for the waist shaping.

I joined in the provisional cast ons for the sleeves, then I worked out the neckline I wanted. So some stitches went on a holder and I started the back and forth with the decreases for the shoulder shapings. I carried on decreases more than the pattern says so that it'd stay on my shoulders.

I grabbed my leftover yarn from my colour affection to knit the contrasting ribbing. I love the green against the pinks and yellow.

I had to join in the 2nd ball at the neckline, only I had checked before hand which way the pattern went, it started reversing, but given that that section was worked flat I didn't think that it would matter too much.

In other news, I knit and designed a shawl using a Crazy Zauberball, I call it "Monster Hugs" on my rav page, but now I've knitted it it's certainly more "Mike Goes To University" as in Monsters University. I also knit 4 hats and a pair of gloves last week, but they're Christmas presents and can't be shown.

And now I've been rummaging through my project box and have chosen a sweater and a pair of gloves to get finished, so [hopefully] they'll be shown soon.

Ciao.

My Peggy Sue

I've knit a few sweaters/cardigans now, my husband [yeah, we got married last month] has 4 now, my nephew has one, my mom has one and I've knit myself one in the past. They've all been bottom-up. Well, I've recently cast off my first top-down cardigan!

Woohoo!

P-A-R-T-Y? Because I gotta!

I chose to knit the Peggy Sue, with my own modifications of course. Here's My Peggy Sue (links to my project page).
It's a free pattern on Ravelry, a delightful little 1950's style cropped sweater, very feminine, very flattering. The neckline follows your collar bone whilst the cabled ribbing accentuates your waist.
And you'll notice that mine has no such effect, well except the neckline, I like that neckline. There's also the stripes, I haven't seen anyone else do stripes yet.

I did omit the shaping in the body as I was extending it.

I based the stripe pattern on one of my favourite cardigans, which is blue/brown/yellow, and I really wanted a green one.

So, below are my modifications.

Let's start with the yarns. I have 5 colourways in my cardigan. All being from the Stylecraft DK ranges.

Colour 1 - Fern (Collar, button band & stripe) (100g ball)
Colour 2 - Daffodil (Stripe) (100g ball)
Colour 3 - Zingy (Ribbing & stripe) (Will need 2x 100g balls)
Colour 4 - Charcoal (100g ball)
Colour 5 - Pebble (100g ball)

Cast on with Fern and work the collar and raglan set up row.
Change to Daffodil for 14 rows.
Change to Zingy for 18 rows.
Change to Charcoal for 18 rows.
Change to Fern for 18 rows.
Change to Zingy for 18 rows.
Change to Pebble for 18 rows.
Change to Daffodil for 18 rows.
Change to Zingy for 30 rows of 2x2 ribbing.
Cast off and rejoin for sleeves, and keep the stripe pattern (above) the same as the body.

When you rejoin for the sleeves, pick up 5 stitches on the under-arm and decrease them down the next few rounds. I chose the slp1, k2tog, psso method.

The sleeves are bracelet length on me, though still a little baggy. I decreased 6 stitches in the Pebble section as it's where my forearm starts to get narrow.

There are 8 buttons which are 15mm wide and spaced evenly along the button band which is followed by the pattern only with more stitches picked up and a little maths which meant the button holes were being worked after every 19 stitches.

I hope these notes are helpful, or just of interest to you.

A stash depletion update

Firstly, I am going to admit that I have bought yarn, I bought a semi-solid sock yarn from TheKnittingGoddess.co.uk for a test knit. I needed it as I didn't have any suitable yarn in my stash.

I am one whole ball down! Haha it doesn't sound like much, but I knit up a baby cardigan and have now knit up a 100g ball and some stash yarn on it. It's knit in James C Brett Magi-knit baby DK and Robin DK. I matched the buttons to the colours in the yarn. It's so cute.

Also used part of a ball to knit a teddy bear to accompany said baby cardigan.

I'm further along on the aran sweater, I'm now knitting the back of the jumper with a stitch pattern change as I really didn't like doing the diamonds, so I've swapped them for columns which I think give the back a nice sturdy structure. It's also knitting up a lot quicker, which means it'll get finished sooner.

I used part of a 75g ball of acrylic DK on a glasses case for my Mom, it's a nice little thing, so I may write up a quick pattern. Might.

I've discovered another way to knit hexipuffs; centre outwards and back in again, makes a nice little 'puff with self patterning yarn.

Chicest Link

You may remember in my blog post; Knitting and a Period Drama, that I had cast on for a purple cardigan, so I'm here now to post photos of said purple cardigan.
In the end I didn't knit the Chilli Pepper jumper, but a simple crew neck jumper, post soon).

Though I did cast off on this project a few months ago, I've only just got round to photographing it. The flash has made it look like different shades though it's all the same deep purple.

It's knit in Hayfield Bonus DK (produced by Sirdar) and the shade is Purple. (You can buy it from Deramores)



You can see the detail a little better here, the waistband is shaped by changing the needles to a smaller size, thus giving waist definition.

The lace was repetitive and tricky at times, seeing as when I cast on I couldn't do lace very well.
The neckline is a lovely graduating V that has simple repeating decreases so you can't really go wrong.

I didn't knit the ties (that go on the waistband) as I liked the cardigan as it was once I'd finished it, and it looks better wrapped around, almost like a kimono.

The sleeves are nice and simple, this project was the first time I'd tried a garter stitch cuff instead of a ribbed cuff, and I like how it fits on my wrist.

The pattern is from Simply Knit magazine (issue 80, I believe) which you can probably find on ebay.