A day late on this post because I didn’t have pictures done. I took one inside but it was dingy – yesterday was sunny so I got a second one.
Malia is a pattern for 12″ fashion dolls from Hankie Chic. (That’s an Etsy link.) There are two skirt variations included for this dress – a fuller below-knee skirt and a straight full length skirt. The bodice has pleats over the shoulders, which form short sleeves. There’s a long-waisted bodice piece, too.
I made this from a cotton with a tiny print in navy. I ordered this fabric from Charlene Lu’s Etsy store, and she has it in several colours in 70 x 50cm squares. It’s really a very delicate print, a great scale for dolls.
This dress is lined with cotton voile and was machine sewn – except for the bodice lining, which I sewed by hand. The pleats that are formed over the shoulder open up when the dress is on the doll in a very attractive way.
Isn’t this a pretty dress?
Here’s the dress off the doll. (I’m not sure the details are more visible, though that was the idea.) It has a couple of snaps at the back waist.
I have another one cut out in cotton, also with the full skirt. I’ll have to try one with the long straight skirt, in a shiny fabric. The one on the pattern image looks like it might be made of that Chinese brocade, which is beautiful but also quite thick. I’ll probably try a crepe back satin first, even though it’s slippery stuff.
This is one from the vaults. Last year, I went through all of my unfinished projects and found this quilt top, which I’d forgotten about. It’s a pieced quilt top in the Storm at Sea pattern, which was always one of my favorites. I bought cotton for the backing and folded it up to put it away, maybe 30 years ago.
It’s not a perfectly flat top by any means, so I layered it up to quilt on the machine. I figured it would be good practice. Here’s where I’m at.
Of course, I had to use a stripe with red roses on the border to liven up that blue and white. I just love red. 🙂 I haven’t decided on the binding fabric yet. Looking at it here, maybe it should be navy.
This might be the test quilt that I toss in the washing machine to see what happens.
You can’t really see the quilting in the photo – maybe a bit at the top right – but it’s about half done. I decided to do a wavy pattern on the diagonal that turns back at the centre – so overall there’s a big X and I never have more than half of the quilt under the arm of the sewing machine. I quilted the Escher quilt that way and it was comparatively easy. Big difference there, though, as the top was absolutely flat. (This one has some puckers and tucks.) That was a good size for machine quilting – as a max – so that will be my new benchmark.
Finished Escher quilt
I’m using my vintage Singer 185 for this, because it’s such a rock. My stitches are more even this time – progress is made! – so that’s a good thing. The thread is a Gutermann cotton quilting thread in variegated shades of blue.
I don’t love machine quilting. I don’t love how it looks and it’s hard work – my hands hurt after doing a bit of it – so it’s teaching me to make fewer quilts and certainly to tend to smaller ones.
After this is done, I’ll quilt the mermaid quilt, which is a teensy bit bigger. More diagonal lines turning back at the middle, methinks. I’m debating whether I should quilt the blue dragon myself or not. I’m also wondering with those two whether I could do the borders of the blocks on the machine, then quilt inside the blocks by hand. Hmm. So many details to ponder!
Mermaid in blue jeans quilt
In the beginning blue dragon quilt
I still have a couple of quilts that I’ve started to quilt by hand, which need to be finished up. The pineapple star has corners now and is about half quilted – in lime embroidery thread. 🙂 The ourobouros dragon banner needs more quilting on the black background. The dragon is done.
Pineapple star quilt in progress
Ourobouros quilt in progress
Then there are two big ones to go to the long arm quilting place. Phew. I think I’ll leave that until the fall. I got all the borders on the Moonglow, so it’s ready to go, as is Jumpin’ Jack Flash.
When things go awry in making for myself, I often make for my girls instead. This is a pattern available on Etsy from Elenpriv, who also makes and sells finished garments for fashion dolls. It’s a pdf download without instructions – which means I made a mistake or two. 🙂 I’m pleased with how it came out even so.
At right is the garment picture on the pattern download.
You can see more pictures in the Etsy listing, right here.
This is a double-breasted tailored and lined jacket, with matching slim pants. In the little video in the Etsy listing, you can see that she uses narrow Velcro closures on the jacket and pants. I don’t like getting velcro close to my girls, so I used plain old snaps.
Here’s one of my Silkstone girls, modelling her new suit. This is Best in Black Silkstone Barbie, but she has a new do – all the girls have ponytails for the summer. The colour is a bit dingy because we’re having rain like it’s time to build an ark.
I cut the suit out of a yarn-dyed stripe silk, and lined it with Bemberg rayon. I used rhinestone buttons on this one. As you can see, I ended up with a notch collar instead of a shawl collar. Evidently, I should have seamed those edges together. Maybe next time.
I also added pleats to the front of the pants and darts to the back as they had no waist shaping. I’m not sure how the pants would have fit into the waistband otherwise.
Next, I made a lined sheath dress of the same fabric – ha! I drew my own pattern for this! – so B has some options. It even has a little ribbon belt and yes, it’s lined with the Bemberg rayon.
Here’s the suit flat. It’s much more of a pale mauve-pink than it appears here.
Best in Black is an articulated Silkstone, which means she has a thinner body sculpt. This suit fits the regular Silkstone girls, as well. The pants run a little short for Jade, who is a Fashion Royalty doll and has a different body sculpt. The main difference is that Jade is taller, so when I make her pants, I’ll cut them a little longer. Sleeves are perfect for Jade just as they are, probably because they’re a teensy bit long for B.
All in all, a good pattern and one I’ll make again.
Tegna is a pullover designed by Caitlin Hunter – that’s the pattern picture on the right, which is linked to the Ravelry page.
I cast this on with Koigu KPPPM in colourway is 534 a long, long time ago, but this week, this story had its resolution.
The pattern is unusual in ways I didn’t anticipate.
First off, every size sets up with an odd number of repeats in the lace pattern at the hem. My size requires a cast-on of 340 stitches which means (20 sts per repeat) 17 repeats of the pattern at the hem. So, the front and the back will be different and the side seams – there technically aren’t any, but there is a midpoint on the side to divide for the armhole – will be in the midst of a pattern repeat. I knew this would drive me nuts, so I cast on 320 stitches, putting me between sizes. This way there are 16 repeats, which is 8 for the front and 8 for the back, a change that gives me joy.
You might remember this pic of my Tegna on the needles after I completed the lace hem. I really wasn’t loving this colourway or its inclination to pool, so I began to switch between three skeins for the plain stockinette body.
The biggest issue is that I thought the t-shirt had an a-line shape, but it doesn’t. There are decreases over the lace – I decreased from 340 stitches to 224 – but then the body of the sweater is knit straight to the underarms. So, it’s actually more like a straight shirt with a frill on the bottom.
Here’s the schematic from the pattern:
It’s also intended to be a cropped sweater, but that’s not for me. I knit three inches more before dividing for the underarms. This is when I began to really doubt my pattern choice.
When you split the work for the underarms, the instructions are to add stitches at each side, front and back, for several rows after the split is made. I’m not sure why this would be, as it’s already got a dropped shoulder. I knit this and frogged it back. (On Ravelry, some knitters say this made a little bulge at the underarm. Hmm.)
I don’t love sweaters with dropped shoulders as I feel they look frumpy on me. Instead, I had a look at my gauge and stitch counts, and dug out my Hebrides cardigan pattern. The needle and gauge is the same. I’ve used those decreases to convert this sweater to having a fitted shoulder.
I would need to use the sleeve pattern from Hebrides to figure out a sleeve for this modified Tegna, so that the sleeve cap fits into the shoulder. I could start just below the cast-off for the underarm in the Hebrides pattern. I could go with a plain sleeve that is more-or-less fitted, or put the lace on the hem so it flutters a bit more. I was thinking this would result in a swingy top with a fluttery hem.
At this point, I’d made enough changes that I began to doubt the outcome. Plus, the sweater looked small. Here it is, fresh off the needles with the back done.
What’s interesting is that switching skeins didn’t seem to avoid the pooling of the colours – each skein more or less lined up, light and dark, with the others, creating the swirl. That’s either a strange coincidence or some kind of magic.
I gave it a soak at this point and blocked it out to check the sizing after all my mods. It did stretch, as Koigu does, and you can see the lace pattern better even though I didn’t block it hard.
And here it is with a t-shirt that fits me well, for comparison.
It is a straight t-shirt with a frilly hem. I decided to chalk this up to experience and frog it.
I also have the pattern for Latitude, which is a swingy sweater with stripes. This Koigu might end up there, maybe alternating with a solid-ish dark blue that I have in my stash.
I’ve thought for a while that I might like Latitude, but without the long sleeves. Just with fronts and backs, it ends up with a kind of short sleeve. I’ll wind up this Koigu, have a look for that blue and think about casting on.
Vogue Craft 7010 is another sewing pattern for dolls that is out-of-print but available as a downloadable PDF from vendors on Etsy. I’m not sure which vendor I bought this one from, but it’s one of the better downloads I’ve ever bought – there’s a measuring tape on each page of pattern pieces. It’s also kind of nice to have a pattern with cutting layouts, line drawings, grainlines and dots to match on the individual pieces. Yup, call me old-skool.
Although I bought it for view E, the first dress I made was view C. That’s the little teeny one in pink. It has a great yoke – but then a lot of the designs in this particular collection have some great seaming details.
It’s just so cute. Here are the girls in their new dresses and sunhats.
The pink one is a quilting cotton, lined with cotton voile. I made the hat with two layers (the pattern specifies one) because I wanted to finish the inner circle rather than just gluing it (as specified.) The inside layer is the same quilting fabric as the dress, while the other is a plain white linen. I put the two fabrics right side together, sewed the inside circle using the pattern piece as a template, trimmed the middle so there was a 1/8″ seam allowance, clipped the curves and turned it. I pressed it, then topstitched around the inner circle. The outer binding on the edge is a bias-cut strip of coordinating cotton voile in hot pink. I sewed it to the linen side, then turned and pressed it, hand-stitching it on the pink flamingo side.
I wasn’t crazy about the order of the seaming on the dress, so I cut another one of green quilting cotton with green cotton voile for lining. On the pink one, I followed the directions, sewing the dress and the lining fronts and backs, then the shoulder seams. I sewed them together at the neck, sleeve holes and hems, then sewed the side seams and the back seam. I ended up doing a lot of handstitching on the lining because it was very tight to manage on the machine.
For the green one, I sewed the side seams first. Fronts and backs, seamed at the shoulders, in both the lining and the dress, then sewed them together at neck and sleeve. Then I sewed the side seams, and the back. I sewed the hems, turned it through the open center-back skirt seam, then hand-stitched that closed. I’ll use this method in future.
Here are the backs and you can see the linen side of the sunhats, too.
This dress also has a placket at the back for the overlap, a very nice detail. I cut it of the lining for the green one to reduce the bulk, which worked out well for bulk – though it was tough to sew the snap to it.
The girls also have had their earrings removed. I knew the regular dolls could get green ear from the earrings – and had noticed a teensy mark on my repro ponytail girl – but saw a horrible pic of a Silkstone, never removed from box, with a bad case of green ear. It’s possible the vendor had never even opened the box. What a nasty surprise! So, all the girls had their earrings removed this past weekend. Only one pair was actually finished well enough to save – the others were already corroding and/or broke into bits while being removed. Why doesn’t Mattel include earrings in a little bag for the dolls, stapled to the inside of the box, like other vendors? Why don’t they stop making earrings of cheap metal that corrodes? These are the questions. In the meantime, take out your girls’ earrings.
Next up, the shirtdress from this pattern, while I hunt down something suitable for that leopard print evening coat. 🙂
This was a kit of the Quintessential Cardigan designed by Churchmouse Yarns & Teas. The yarn is Jody Long Alba in the colourway, Moss. I knit the body two inches longer than the pattern specifies. (There’s another blog post about it here.)
I quite like the sweater and it fits well. The colour is great and I love the tweedy flicks in the yarn. It was a bit tedious seaming it up, but that’s always the way – and yes, this yarn was almost as inclined to snap as Rowan Felted Tweed. One great thing is that the sleeves fit perfectly into the armscyes. Yay!
Here’s a detail shot of the front buttonhole band, which has slipped stitches on the wrong side.
The colour’s not very true in this pic – the wool really is that lovely lime shade. In this shot, though, you can see that my miscalculation, the one that made the last button before the collar band a little higher, isn’t really that bad once the buttons are sewn on.
I don’t love this slipped stitch on the band. It looks too different from all the other ribbing, although I understand that it’s intended to keep the button bands from being too long. Another way to avoid that is to pick up the stitches for the button band after the fronts are done and knit them sideways.
It took 3.4 balls of yarn or just under 1200 yards.
I do have another kit in Plum so will be making a second one, with a few changes. • Since I lengthened the sweater, the waist ribbing falls at my hip, which isn’t ideal. I’ll change that to a garter stitch hem or a moss stitch hem instead and let it be a bit swingy. • The cuffs are on the narrow side – it’s fine when they’re worn down, but I always push up my sleeves. I’ll make them a bit wider on the next one. I’ll work them in whatever stitch I decide to use instead of the waist ribbings, too. (I don’t love ribbing on my sweaters.) • Because of that slipped rib stitch on the button bands (which is over 7 stitches), the buttons aren’t centered on the band. You make the buttonhole on stitches 5 and 6. This kinda drives me nuts. 🙂 When I work the button bands in another stitch – to match the hems – I’ll put the buttonholes in the middle of the band, over stitches 3, 4, 5, which will also make them a little bit bigger. It’s snug to get these buttons through the holes, but I don’t think smaller buttons would look good.
Overall, I’m pleased. It’s a very basic sweater, but the colour keeps it from looking frumpy.
I really want to cast on the plum version immediately, but am trying to finish a project first. We’ll see how I manage with that goal!
There are two new-to-me Tylers who have moved in lately.
The first one actually is Sydney Chase, and the outfit is Mosaic Modern from 2004. The collar on that coat is something, very Mad Hatter, but I like her colouring and haircut. Red boots, too.
The second is Tyler Wentworth, It’s My Party from 2005. Serious Audrey Hepburn vibes with that dress. 🙂
Sydney Chase Mosaic Modern 2004
Tyler Wentworth It’s My Party 2005
And there’s a new Silkstone Barbie on pre-order this week. The Sapphire Anniversary BFMC, which has an articulated Silkstone body. Not my fave sculpt and I tried to resist temptation – but lost. 🙂
I kind of like that she has blue hair.
She’s still available to members at Mattel Creations right here. (If you’re not a member already, you can just add $10 to the cost of the doll to become one.)
I’ve seen a rumor that the next Silkstone is that blonde in pink and black in the background of this image.
She’s also front and center on the Uno card deck – you can see Ms. Sapphire on the box at the right, too.
That deck of cards is also available from Mattel Creations, right here.
(Have you ever played Uno? I’m pretty sure I haven’t…)
And finally, Grace Fitzpatrick has left the premises. I just didn’t love that RTB-101 body and having one doll with such different proportions from the other 16″ girls was making me a bit nuts. I did keep her shoes, though, just in case another RTB-101 girl catches my eye one day.
I have some sewing projects for the girls finishing up and will show you them soon.
Plus I bought another miniature kit, which is proving to be kind of an addictive little build. Even though it’s my most recent acquisition, it might be the first of these kits that I actually finish.
Finally, I’m knitting the collar band of my Quintessential Cardigan. After that, there’s just the seaming and blocking, so that lime sweater should be done soon, too. I’m proud of myself for sticking to it with this one and getting it finished at a reasonable speed. After that, I’ll pick up an abandoned project, probably my Tegna pullover in Koigu. It would be good to get that one done while I can still wear it this summer – since I missed finishing it last summer. LOL
I told you about this one, a kit that I bought and cast on right away. It’s the Quintessential Cardigan designed by Churchmouse Yarns & Teas. The yarn is Jody Long Alba in the colourway, Moss. I’ve finished the fronts and the back, and made them 2.5″ longer than specified in the pattern.
I did muck up the calculations slightly. After knitting the left front, I counted the rows to space the button holes. (The pattern suggests that you place markers, then compare the right front as you knit it to the left front to choose where to make a buttonhole. I went with the strategy I know – but still messed it up. LOL) It worked out that they should be every 23 rows, but the buttonhole is made on a RS row. I decided to alternate 22 and 24 R between buttonholes, but my top bottonhole before the collar is a little higher than it should be. I should have just done 22R between each one. I’m not going to frog back to fix it. I bought the kit in another colourway – Plum – so will do the buttonholes right on that one.
This pattern has a lot of small touches that are interesting and some are new to me. They suggest, for example, some short rows immediately above the ribbing at the hem to keep the hem hanging straight. I’ve never had an issue with the hems of my cardigans, and actually, I was so busy with the buttonholes that I forgot to do it on the right front. (Not frogging back for that either.)
The front button bands are ribbed but have slipped stitches on the wrong side, again to keep the ribbing from hanging too long. It also changes the look of the ribbing, and I’m not sure I’d do that again. I might just knit the bands in seed stitch on the plum version.
So far, I haven’t found any jazzy buttons in the right size and colour, so it looks as if this one will have abalone shell buttons, which is pretty much my neutral answer to buttons.
I’m now working on the sleeves and am up to the elbow or so, knitting them both at the same time. I find that the easiest way to make sure my increases match. Progress is steady and this is good TV knitting. I should be finished soon. 🙂
Well, May vanished in a hurry, didn’t it? I have been crafting but not finishing many things – partly because the day-job has been busy. I’ll catch you up in another post, but today, let’s talk about an interesting conundrum.
I found a stash of yarn at the thrift store this week. It’s kind of a puzzle when this happens. The first thing I want to do – if I like the yarn and bring it home – is try to figure out what project the de-stasher had in mind when the yarn was originally acquired. In some instances, that’s easy; in others, not so much. Ravelry is such an awesome resource for that. You can use the Advanced Search to specify the yardage you have, the weight of the yarn, even the name of the yarn, then sort through the results.
Last winter, for example, I found a stash of Briggs & Little worsted, with the old label. No colour names or numbers, just dye lots. I think this weight would be called Regal now. (That’s a link to B&L’s website.) Briggs & Little is located in the Maritimes and the oldest yarn mill in Canada. I really like how sturdy their yarn is and particularly like the heathered colourways.
This stash was nine skeins when I found it: 1 red, 1 grey, 1 cream, 1 light blue, 1 navy and 4 medium blue.
Skald, a Järbo SE design
I think this last one might be Quoddy Blue. It has a lovely heather look to it. (As does the grey.) Someone likely planned an icelandic or fair isle sweater, so I had some fun looking at options on Ravelry. (There are lots.) The skeins are over 200m each, so this is a lot of yarn.
The mister likes blue, so I found this pattern called Skald (that’s a Ravelry link) which I think will work out. (Here’s the designer website, but it’s in Swedish.) There might not be enough of one colour to do the lice. We’ll see.
My inclination is to leave out the red, but it might make a nice pop if used as an accent. Hmm. That one’s waiting for me to finish up one of my projects on the needles.
This week’s thrift store find was eight skeins ofAllHemp3. (That’s a Ravelry link.)
Seven shown here because one is balled up already. 🙂 This is a fingering weight 100% hemp yarn, from LanaKnits, which is located in BC. It’s black – the colourway is called Licorice. Here’s the page on the LanaKnits site for AllHemp3.
My Ravelry search came up with this pattern, Flaming June from Knitting 2012 (that’s a Ravelry link – here’s the one on Knitty), as a likely candidate spurring the initial stash. The designer is Cheryl Niamath, who designed the Fetching fingerless gloves that I’ve knit a bunch of times. (That’s another free pattern from Knitty.)
Eight skeins is enough for the main colour in the middle sizes, in which case there would have been two or three skeins in a contrasting or coordinating colour, too. Someone might have grabbed those for string bags earlier. For a teeny size, eight skeins might be enough for the whole sweater.
I read the pattern and learned that hemp grows in blocking. My first swatch on the recommended needles had perfect gauge, but wasn’t blocked yet. I went down to a 3mm, which resulted in a much tighter fabric, then washed and blocked it. The hemp was interesting to knit, similar to cotton in that it has no boing at all, but even stiffer.
The hemp softened nicely when washed and this swatch now has perfect gauge. I read the project notes on Ravelry from others who had made this sweater and it seems that many of them found that the sweater grew a lot in length after blocking, when they wore it.
I’m between sizes and already know the sleeves as written will be too long either way. My inclination is to make the smaller size of those two. From the notes on Ravelry, I should maybe go down another size again. Hmm. I also know I need to watch the width of the shoulders, because mine are narrow.
One variable is the effect of weight upon the finished garment. My sweater coat knit following that Kaffe Fassett pattern gets longer all the time – just the weight of the garment pulls it down, making it grow. (I actually took a repeat off the bottom of that coat after it was done, because it had gotten too long for me. I was caught once in a drizzle, which just made it worse.)
The other wrinkle is the tightness of the knitting. The looser the stitches, the more likely the garment is to stretch in wearing. Only one person who specified their needle on Rav was using a small one (2.75mm in that case, while I’m using a 3mm) – most were using 3.75mm or so. Are they tighter knitters than me? Did they wash and block their swatches? It’s hard to be sure.
So, I’m going to knit a sleeve first as a big gauge swatch, maybe even wash and block it to see what happens before knitting the body of the sweater. It’s a weird plan, but I’m hoping it will save me frogging the whole thing and knitting it again.
I may have to buy another skein or two of the Allhemp3, but at least it’s still available. I don’t want a second colour, and with any luck, the black dye lots will be close, if I do have to add more to finish the project.
One thing about making a discovery like this at the thrift store is that it’s a good way to play with a new yarn or fibre.
The girls aren’t the only ones claiming my time – their things are just finished more quickly! Here’s what’s on my needles for me right now.
This is my second No. 9 sweater, knit as a pullover this time with a different yarn and weight. (These are all Ravelry links.) The Berroco Blackstone Tweed Chunky was an impulsive buy, once upon a time, because I loved the colour so much. (It’s called Salt Water.) I *thought* I had a bunch of patterns specifically for the yarn and figured I was golden – nope, the patterns are for the other weight of Berroco Blackstone Tweed, which is an aran. This one is bulky. So, this pretty yarn sat in the stash, waiting for its moment.
This winter, the moment arrived. Sweater No. 9 calls for a bulky yarn, but not one like this. The pattern uses two yarns held together, a silk mohair and a fingering yarn. The result is just not as bulky as this bulky weight yarn. Gauge is on a 7mm needle, with 14 stitches and 10 rows to 10 cm. Gauge is of course highly personal – the needle size is less important than the stitch count, which ensures the result is the right size. On 6.5mm needles, my swatch was 12.5 stitches to 10cm and I liked the feel of the fabric. I knew the finished bust size I wanted so figured out how many stitches that would require in this gauge. I then followed the directions and stitch counts for the size that ended up with that many stitches in the bust.
For my first No. 9 sweater, in contrast, I was getting 16 stitches to 10cm on 5mm needles with the Kidsilk Haze Trio. I did the same calculation, then followed the directions and stitch counts for the size on the pattern that resulted in the right number of stitches across the bust. That resulted in a sweater that fit me perfectly in that yarn.
The big different between my chosen yarn and the specified combinations, even though the weight is close, is in the rolldown collar. This robust yarn just doesn’t fold over well. It’s really thick, so I’ll probably wear the collar up under my chin.
I’m stalled at the sleeves because I’m positive I must have a 40cm 6.5mm circular needle. I just can’t find it. (I mean, really, I have buckets of needles. How can I be missing one?) If I’d been near a knitting store, I probably would have just bought one by now, even if it meant ending up with two. Instead, since we don’t have a LYS anymore, I have to make a pilgrimage to a store and that hasn’t happened yet. It’s okay. This yarn is used to waiting.
I do like how the ribbing is more defined in this wool. I changed the stitch counts on the collar and hem to make them line up again, and continued the ribbing from the raglans down the sides, and I like both of those elements too. 🙂
Meanwhile…I bought a kit. I’ve knit the back so far and am really liking it. The pattern is Churchmouse Yarns’ Quintessential Cardigan and jewel-necked cardigans are one kind of sweater I wear over and over again. (I may even wear out the Kidsilk Haze Stripe Hebrides or the Lunenberg in Koigu KPPPM.) The yarn is Jody Long Alba, unknown to me before I indulged in this kit. It is kind of an amazing thing to knit with a yarn that isn’t discontinued yet. This colourway is Moss.
That makes sense as Alba is quite similar in feel to Rowan Felted Tweed, which also comes in a lot of colours. The composition is the same, too. Both yarns are 50% merino wool, 25% alpaca and 25% rayon/viscose. Alba isn’t as soft as Felted Tweed, though, which might be a good thing in some ways. It’s hard to sew seams with Felted Tweed because it breaks all the time, but Alba would be fine. Hmm. I wonder why. Is it the “felting”, however that’s done, or is the Alba made of fibre with a longer staple? I don’t know. The put-up is much larger: Alba comes in 100g balls of 350m while Felted Tweed comes in 50g balls of 175m.
Here’s the back of the new sweater.
I love all the flicky colour bits of the tweed!
We were talking a few weeks ago about cropped sweaters and I discovered in the knitting of this one that it was intended to be cropped. (Feh.) I first knit a 12″ side seam as specified in the pattern, thinking that would result in a high hip length which I like, but the armscye is shorter on this pattern and the sweater hem ended up just below my waist. I ripped it back and added two inches into the length before binding off stitches for the armholes.
I actually bought two of these kits, the other in a heathered plum called Kilt, and may knit that one another inch longer than this. I’ll see whether I run out of yarn on this one first.
I did knit a sweater in Felted Tweed a few years ago and here it is again. I did like the feel of it while I was knitting and this pattern was a bit addictive. This sweater has some miles on it, if not a lot of wear. My mom admired it and I gave it to her, then she didn’t wear it (she didn’t like the pink) and she gave it back to me. I don’t wear these colours so much now that my hair is grey, so it’s waiting on a day in the sun.
The pattern is Bute by Lisa Richardson, which was shown in two colourways by Rowan. That’s the link to the version I knit on Ravelry, and here’s the link to the blue variation. The blue version is shown as a man’s sweater, but actually the pattern is unisex. Hmm. Yes, it had suede elbow patches, which I left off. I also recall that I had to take in the shoulders for a better fit. The mister liked the blue one, so I stashed all the yarns. There’s another project I should get on the needles to free that yarn from the stash. So much string, so little time!
Alive & Knitting 