Tag: cardigan

WIP Wednesday: Pomme de Pin Cardigan

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This story is the knitting equivalent of ‘A Tale of Two Cities’… “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” Only really it should be “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, and then it was the best of times again”. ‘A Tale of the Two Pomme de Pins’. 😉

I have knit this pattern once before back in 2015 and I was in love. The pattern is lovely to knit, and I loved the yarn I used (although no longer in my preferred wardrobe colour palette). Here it is:

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Not a great pic but she was gorgeous

I loved it so much. I wore it over and over for the first week before I’d even given it a wash and block. The arms were the perfect length, it was long enough to almost cover my butt and it was beautiful. I thought that after that week of continual wear I should probably give it its first bath. The yarn it was knit in was KnitPicks Wool of the Andes Sport and I’m well aware that that yarn is a fabulous felter so I was being extra gentle. I washed it in lukewarm water, no agitation, a small amount of gentle swishing followed by a gentle squeeze out. You can see where this is going, right? As I usually do, I popped the cardigan into a delicates bag and put it into the washing machine to have a spin (on the lowest speed setting), as I have done a million times before (well, it feels like it! 😉 ) with all different types of yarn, both superwash and non-superwash, and guess what (you’ve already figured it out right?) it shrunk and felted slightly. It was now too small for me to wear. The armholes were far too small for me. I was crushed. It had been my favourite knit to that point, and now it just made me sad to look at it. 😦

So, of course I vowed to try again. I almost immediately jumped onto KnitPicks to see what they had in the way of sport weight superwash yarns (I wasn’t risking that again!!!) and I found that my only option was to get some bare Stroll Sport. At this point I didn’t know how to dye yarn so I purchased 7 skeins of the yarn along with a Greener Shades starter set. I used one of the skeins to test different dye formulas but I couldn’t settle on one. So I put the whole lot away for over a year.

At the end of 2016 I created a colourway called ‘Wisteria Arbour’. I had it. This was my colour. So I dyed up my 6 remaining skeins in this colourway and I used the project as my Christmas Eve cast on. I was worried slightly that the colourway would be too variegated for the lace in the pattern but I needn’t have concerned myself. As an Instagram friend commented, it seems I have the perfect mix of colour and pattern:

I just love this. It’s all I hoped for and more. And I can’t wait for it to be completed and for the cold weather to come around again. I’m gonna wear the crap outta this cardigan. 🙂

Have you ever had a disaster happen to a beloved hand knit? Let me know in the comments.
Pattern: Pomme de pin by Amy Christoffers (US$7.00 Ravelry download)

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I know I’m a day late…

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But how about a WIP Wednesday?!! I’ve got a few of knitted projects that tie in with a KAL (knit along) I’m participating in.

I recently signed up as a headline sponsor for Down Cellar Studio’s Pig Skin Party! Which means I am providing a prize (a prize pack actually!) and a discount code for my Etsy shop. If you love KALs, head on over the the DCS Ravelry board to sign up and get my discount code! The KAL runs for the entire football season in the US (Sep 10 – Feb 8, I think?) so plenty of time to knit and get some points together. Also, if you use one of my products, you get a bonus 8 points as I’m a headline sponsor! And now onto the WIPs!

My first cast on for the KAL was the Aisling shawl by Justyna Lorkowska. My project page here.

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This is my cast on pic, and I’m now up to my third stripe of the lighter colour. I am knitting it out of Knit Picks Stroll Tonal in the colourways Shale (lighter) and Inverness (darker). It’s a very simple knit so far, very easy to work while watching TV. It’ll get a bit trickier I think when I get up to the applied border at the end. I’ll be sure to let you know how I go!

My second cast on is a Hitofude cardigan by Hiroko Fukatsu. My project page here. No pics of this one just yet. If you’re part of the knitting community, I’m sure you’ve heard of this cardigan. It took the knitting world by storm and is still a very popular pattern. I’m knitting it out of Knit Picks Stroll Tonal in Raven. It’s sure to be an awesome finished item. 🙂

My third and final cast on (so far!) is the Morning Mist tee by Annie Claire (Annie Rowden). My project page here.

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Again, I am knitting this out of a Knit Picks yarn! Actually, I think every item I’m working on currently is from a Knit Picks yarn. I love it! Such great quality for an awesome price. 🙂 Anyways, this is being knit from CotLin in the colourways Whisper (purple shown) and Rocket, a powdery grey. I’ve been focusing on this project more than the others this week. It’s knitting up so quickly that it’s addictive. I am now knitting the front down to the point that I can add stitches for the back then it’ll be even quicker as I’ll be working in the round. Probably more boring knitting but quicker. 😉

So there you have it. That’s what I’m knitting so far for the Pig Skin Party 2015! Head over to the Down Cellar Studio blog or Ravelry board if you’re keen on joining us. It’s lots of fun so far!

ETA – You know that Hitofude I mentioned? Yeah well, it’s well and truly in the frog pond. The yarn was knitting up too variegated and not showing the lace well enough. I shall try again in another yarn. Oh and the Raven yarn is knitting up a beautiful Rust & Stone cardigan… 😉

Knitting WIP: Pomme de Pin Cardigan

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I was thinking that I haven’t regularly posted any of my craft projects lately, and I had just taken some photos of a current WIP so I thought I’d share. 🙂

This is the Pomme de Pin cardigan by Amy Christoffers. It is available as a Ravelry download for US$7. My project page can be found here.

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I’ve never knit a cardigan with this type of construction before. It is knit from the bottom up; body, then separate for the sleeves, knit the back, then each front including the back of the collar. Then sleeves and pick up the button bands. All my previous projects have top-down but I think I like bottom-up better. You get all the boring body knitting out of the way while you’re still excited about starting something new. Then the rest of it is interesting enough, and you’re close enough to the end to actually work on it instead of getting bored and moving onto something else. Or is that just me that does that? Guys…?!! 😉 I must say though, the pine cone pattern is pretty fun to work. It is easy enough once you memorise it and it’s more interesting than stockinette stitch. Although, I do love myself some stockinette.

I’ve found the pattern to be very well written and easy to follow. And even though this is my first bottom-up project, I’ve had no problems understanding the process. That being said, I’ve yet to seam the shoulders, the back to the collar or the sleeves in so we’ll have to wait and see when it’s finished how I go with those instructions.

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I’ve been listening to the Knit Picks podcast all over from the beginning lately and Kelley was speaking about knitting socks two-at-a-time (TAAT) on two circular needles. So I figured, if socks can be knit TAAT, then surely sleeves can be? So, that’s what I’m doing. I’ve never done this before, so I jumped onto YouTube and found an awesome tutorial by VeryPink Knits where she teaches you how to knit a full pair of socks with the TAAT on two circ method. I had two balls of yarn left so used one each for the sleeves. I’m going well with my ribbing and enjoying getting both done at once. No second sleeve syndrome! 🙂

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What the colour actually looks like

I am knitting this out of Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Sport in the Bramble Heather colourway. I must say, for my first project in Knit Picks yarn, I’m extremely happy with the value for money it provides. This yarn is soft but robust feeling. And the yarn for the whole project (~1200 yards) was only AU$31.50. Bargain. And the colour range, colour descriptions and pictures are just phenomenal. I’m a fan.

So that’s one of the things I’m working on at the moment. What’s on your needles, please? 🙂

FO: The Lush Cardigan

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Wow, has this one been on the needles for a while! The Lush Cardigan by tincanknits.

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While I love the finished item, this thing was an absolute bitch to knit, quite frankly. And it wasn’t even that the pattern was hard. I think that really, it just didn’t want to be knit. But, as you can see, I beat it into submission. 😉

I have knit the body of this cardigan three times. Count it with me – 1, 2, 3 times. 😦 It went kinda something like this:

  1. Knit the lace yoke, all good. Pick up the neck and collar stitches and complete including short rows, just fine. Pick up and knit the body, separate the armholes, knit down to the bottom ribbing including waist shaping, start bottom ribbing, realise you’ve used the smaller ribbing needle size for the whole body. F**KING WHAT?!! ARGGGGGGGGHHHHH!!! You know what comes next: RIIIIIIIP!
  2. After ripping out the WHOLE BODY up to the underarm, the stitches were picked up again along the lace yoke with the RIGHT NEEDLE (I was sure to get it right this time!), knit, knit, knit, complete waist shaping, getting close to the bottom ribbing, realised one of the edge stitches had fallen off the needle about 8″ down. YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME?!! Searched about online to find a tutorial to help with picking up edge stitches. Attempted to unravel a few side stitches and pick up with a crochet hook but the edge ended up VERY tight. As I still needed to pick up button bands I knew the tight, curving edge would not do, so 8″ of knitting got ripped out. 😥
  3. This time I got it right 😀

The only thing I did realise is that the top of the sleeve is still knit in the smaller needle due to the construction of the cardigan and the fact I only ripped up to the underarm. After what this cardigan had already put me through,  I let it slide.

I knit this one out of Cascade 220 Superwash in the Jet colourway which is a heathered black. The pattern was very easy to follow and mostly well explained. I did have one criticism of the way the lace yoke is written however. Instead of saying knit x number of repeats of the chart the instructions say to knit (for my size) 152 rows! You know how hard it is to keep track of 152 rows? I spent ages trying to calculate the number of chart repeats 152 rows was. Didn’t help that I kept forgetting that the even numbered rows weren’t charted… >.<

I chose to do wrist length sleeves (vs 3/4 sleeves as per pattern) on my cardigan as I had the extra yarn (still have some left!) and I prefer longer sleeves. I made them just hit my wrist bone so I can comfortably put on some fingerless mitts with my cardigan. 🙂 My project page can be found on Ravelry here.

yarma_medium2So in the end, I got a great cardigan that I love despite all the near-tears.  My sister tried to get me to give it to her last night when I took it to show it off. So I guess that’s a good sign too. It’s now been added to her list of things she wants me to knit for her! 😉 Just have to get the one I have going for her already finished first…

What have you been knitting lately? 🙂

FO: The Alpinia Cardigan

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Ok, so I’ve finally pulled my finger out and I will be posting not one, but two FO’s today! Both are of the knitting variety but only because they are in chronological order. I have three sewn items to blog about too but they came after the knits and I haven’t photographed them yet. So there. 😉

So this post as you’ve probably guessed from the title is for the Alpinia cardigan. Ain’t she purdy? 🙂

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This is a pattern by Claire Slade and is available through Ravelry download for GBP3.50 (~AU$6.62). It is a top down knitted cardigan that’s great as a layering piece. I knitted this in mid-spring and I was able to wear it a couple of times before the weather heated up. Although today is very mild (23*C) so I could probably get away with wearing it today!

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I threw it on today to take some piccies for y’all. I’m also wearing my favourite Anita Ponte Pants today in the blue cheetah print. They make me so happy! 🙂 I made the Alpinia in size 1X and included a fifth garter eyelet section before the stockinette body. I figured being of the bigger busted variety, that it would look better with a longer yoke.

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When knitting this, I also opted to make it longer than specified. For my size is said 10.5″ of stockinette body but when I tried it on, this fell at my natural waist and even with the 1.5″ garter eyelet section on the bottom, I didn’t think it would be long enough so I added about an extra 2″ to the length.

IMG_0785Looking a big smug. Well, it is my first completed knitted sweater!

I used Bendigo Woollen Mills Neon yarn in Claret. The main coloured strand has a variegated contrast strand wrapped around it to create the mottled colour you see. I had 11 skeins of this in my stash and used almost exactly 6 skeins (642 yards/587m). I had about a foot’s length of yarn leftover from the sixth skein which I used to sew on the buttons. And speaking of buttons…

IMG_0802Englarge the piccie to see a bit clearer. The picture isn’t quite as good as I thought it was! 😉

My very clever husband found these beautiful carved metal rose buttons when we stopped in at Lincraft. Even better, the day we went in they had 30% off store wide so I only paid about $4.50 for these gorgeous things! I just love how this cardigan has turned out and can’t wait until it’s cardigan weather again. Although, I reckon I could get away with it today! 🙂

Ravelry notes are here.