Fine Lines

About the time I began writing this blog (about 6 years or so ago) my children decided that handmade knitwear was actually something you could wear, be seen in public with, acknowledge to all and sundry that 'Yes, it was in fact hand-knitted and my Mum made it for me' and be proud of it. Only a fellow knitter understands the myriad proud feelings that come with your teenage / young adult children arriving at this realisation. We started slowly with accessories and gently progressed to whole garments.

Since then I've made the boy a handmade jumper, a scarf and five hats (as well as a knitted stuffed deer head for the Boy Cave). That reminds me, I've made three of these hats fairly recently. Stay tuned for a hat blog post featuring the boy wearing hats! He also has a queue of matched yarn and jumper / cardigan patterns waiting for me to get around to knitting them.

Not so Little Boy Blue and wearing Graeme the hat!

Examination in brioche

The middle daughter Mel (The Fanciful Fungirl) still lives at home and so is in a prime position for subtle nagging and tempting suggestions of what she really needs knit for her next. Her tally so far is two berets, three beanies, a knitted cloche hat, two pairs of fingerless gloves and two jumpers (and a knitted cover for her tablet computer complete with bumble bees). She also tends to bring out my design instincts, commissioning unique hand knitted pieces.

Funky Chunky

Cables of Europe

Sunrise / Sunset using hand dyed yarn

The eldest Doctor daughter has sadly missed out on her fair share of the knitted bounty to a certain extent. Oh, I've knitted her three berets and a slouchy hat but that is it... (The fact that she knits herself does contribute to this a bit. She made her own intricately cabled cover for her laptop and a lovely seed stitch cowl and last time she was home snaffled some knitting needles and raided the stash for squishy wool  to make some more accessories and cushion covers).

Selbu Modern

Slow Flurry on me, the daughter wearing her own hand knitted seed stitch cowl

She hasn't yet got a hand knit jumper and I decided in November it was time to remedy that. After all November is NaKniSweMo - National Knit a Sweater (of more than 50,000 stitches) Month. This time my needles were going to be dedicated to making a jumper for the Doctor daughter.

Making a jumper for an adult with their own distinct personal style is a process of research and negotiation. We began with looking at the European runway fashion for knitwear for the upcoming Winter season. Brioche, rib, cables and fair-isle (often in monochrome colourways) were the common knitwear themes. Oh and fringes!! Let's not go there, ever! She sent me photos of jumpers she had found in the shops that she had debated buying. It looked like something in a defined rib with shaping flaring out towards the bottom was on the top of her list. The colour choice was easy - grey. We often joke until fairly recently my daughter's entire wardrobe was shades of grey punctuated with black exercise wear and the odd other neutral (cream, white, denim and occasionally mushroom).

A knitted jumper is a big commitment and if done right out of good quality yarn should last for 20 or more years. So what ever we made should be classic enough not to go out of style too quickly. But it needed a modern edge. The jumper we eventually chose is classic fisherman's rib but with very modern lines and shaping - Fisherman Redux.

Pattern: Fisherman Redux by Vera Sanon
Needles: 3.75 mm and 4.5 mm 
Yarn: Bendigo Woollen Mills Stellar 8 Ply, Colourway 105 Shell - 4 by 200 g balls. This is a wool and bamboo blend with a lovely soft drape and lustre.

So we tried to knit this in November... I ordered yarn 1st November as I didn’t have anything suitable in the stash. (Thank Bob for online mail order). I did swatch with some op shop yarn but the texture didn’t do the pattern justice. The yarn arrived Thursday 5th November - swatched to make sure that my gauge was spot on. It was! And then I cast on on Friday night 6th November. I worked up the band - around 1000 stitches and then realized I had started the 1 by 1 rib on a knit and it needed to be a purl. Teach me to think know what I’m doing without carefully reading the pattern…. So I ripped it all out again and followed the pattern instructions for 1 by 1 rib. Only 4 rows and 255 sts on day 1. Saturday 7th November was move the boy home form Geelong at the end of the Uni year - lots of scope for car knitting.

And this is about where real life commitments and November NaKniSweMo knitting plans crashed into each other head on and the knitting plans got stream-rolled by marking, exams and admin plus a major assessment piece for my own study into a twisted smoking wreck. Oh, I tried. I finished the front, back, neck edging and part of a sleeve in November. I started counting stitches and got to over 30,000 for the back and front alone. This is definitely a +50,000 stitches garment.

I’d also like to give a special shout out to Hazel, the 30+ kilo 8 month old puppy with a penchant for yarn and stealth sneak stealing of knitting. I love you for the almost half a front I had to frog and re-knit twice after you took my knitting for a few runs around the backyard. It is really difficult (read this as impossible) to pick up a well dropped stitch in Fisherman's rib!!

I finished this in the post Christmas relaxing period. (I often find this is a really productive time for me knit wise. I like to finish the year with a cleanish slate and I have time to laze and watch the Boxing Day test on TV and let the needles fly away).

This is a knitting success story. It fits Doctor daughter perfectly. She loves it (except for a minor quibble about the width of the sleeves - they’re a little wide for her taste) and I love the sleek modern shaping. The yarn has a gorgeous shine and sheen and is crisp enough to show off the rib to perfection. It looked great even before blocking and amazing after.

Is that really rain - on my new jumper?

So what do you want me to knit for you next, Doctor daughter? (And thanks for playing photo shoot too early one Sunday morning in the rainy city after you'd just finished a full on night shift!) Photo credits for the lovely shots of Doctor daughter to the boy (@larkinsmark on instagram).

Hugging the curves

The first of my New Years knitting resolutions for 2015 was to turn the stash into sweaters... I have quite a number of sweater sized lots in my stash. They take up a lot of room and it's time to seriously use them up.

So I matched the stash to some patterns I liked and swatched for a few sweater projects in January 2015 exploring possibilities.

I dithered on this pattern. I really like the twisting cables from waist to shoulder but was a bit unsure on the peplum idea… However, the back flows so beautifully with the peplum, I think I’ll try it anyway. (God knows my hips are generously sized to say the least at the moment).

What’s in name? The Lion brand patterns have such prosaic names. This one is Cabled Peplum Pullover. I rarely use them for actual project names. The combination of twisted almost plaited cables and the gorgeous tweedy gold yarn reminded me of traditional corn dollies. These are plaited from the last grain of the harvest to give the spirit of the corn somewhere to live till the next planting. Hence ’Spirit of the Corn’ for this one.

Pattern: Cable Peplum Pullover - free pattern by Lion Brand Yarn
Needles: 4.5 mm (Knitting a worsted weight pattern using DK yarn meant I had to go up a needle size to make gauge).
Yarn: Cleckheaton Country Naturals 8 Ply - colour 1839 Gold - I used 11 balls
Cost: $22 ($2 a ball on sale)

This was cast on 15th of Feb for COM. I began as I often do with a sleeve. Sleeves are a good place to start and also good large scale swatches to check gauge. Also the sleeves for this pattern are simple 2 by 2 rib. Train knitting powered through the bulk of the first sleeve really quickly. The momentum carried me through the second sleeve pretty promptly too.

This hibernated for the winter… The sheer number of stitches for the peplum section at the bottom was a little overwhelming. And the charts are very large but the individual stitches are shown really small. I almost need magnifying glasses to read some of this so it required patience to tackle the first par.

 

The back hit the needles in late September and flew off the needles in less than a week. I did find a small issue in my instructions for the Cable 4/4 RC - the needle needs to be held at the back of the work instead of the front as listed. But once I got this started, I was pleasantly surprised at how quick this was to knit. There is really only a cable row every 7 to 11 rows or so and the rest is just a few increases and rib.

The front also flew fairly quickly bar some very annoying chart problems with the neck shaping. The charts show the decreases a row too early. The written instructions were OK though so I followed these instead.

Despite the finished jumper looking like a narrow ribbed tube designed to fit a stick figure, it stretched out beautifully and hugs my figure like a gently fitting glove. The cables curve gently around the outside of my breasts and up to my shoulders and everything just sits and flows perfectly. I LOVE this! The children all told me it was few inches too short but after blocking it has relaxed a little and grown about an inch and a half in length and is now perfect.

I hereby declare this stash to sweater project a massive success! (Photo credits once again to the boy!)

2014: A Year in Review

It's 2015! (Or #20swifteen as my cheer-leading future doctor daughter has taken to calling it). New Years Day is about taking stock of the old year and making resolutions for the new year. (Let's leave the resolutions for later, shall we? If you don't make them, you can't break them, right?...)

So here is my stock take of the 2014 knitting. My needles were exceptionally productive this year with 27 separate finished projects in 2014.The year started with cowls and scarves. In the heat of an Australian summer I turned to crochet and made Tweed ruffles. In February, I KALed along with some lovely ladies and I can Cowl if I want to! fairly flew off the needles.

I knitted my life into a cowl - Knitographical. I wrote it's story and exhibited it and the Flat Fox picture in a art exhibition. (And people actually treated it as real art!)

In February in solidarity with knitters all over the world, I plied my needles for the Ravellenics as I watched the Winter Olympics from Sochi in Russia.  Two pairs of mittens had their birth as competitors in both Mitten Moguls and Lace Luge. (That's Steampunk on Toast on the left and Oyster Shell on the right)

I made toys... Lots of toys. I spent my lazy January holiday assembling long neglected toys. (See The Great Sew-up-a-thon). I KALed along throughout the year and bent the rules of COM (Cast On Month) to cast on a new toy piece a day. (Clockwise from top left, Nativity camel, Intrepid Fox, A headless bear - clearly he's not headless anymore, Fit to scare children, Christmas sheep, Jean Greenhowe Teddy, Mike the Monkey, Tropical bird and Rabbitty in the middle).

Unlike 2013, I made only two hats. These were little whimseys diverting me from the main game for a weekend here and there.(Divergent and Mum, I need this!).

I discovered shawls. I planned to make my first lace shawl but along the way made two more. I think this is the start of a new addiction. The last new project on the needles for 2014 was a shawl too.

(From left to right: Curly wurly, Lacewing and Brown as).

And there was freeform. I got enticed to play along with the lovely ladies in the International Free Form Forum on Ravelry. With their enthusiastic encouragement I made my first freeform shawl and then went  on to design my first patterns and have people successfully make mould from them (Mould is Fun). In honour of the future mycologist daughter, I made little knitted mushrooms too (Fungus among us).

2014 was the year of the jumper; One for Mel (Funky Chunky), one for the boy (Not so little boy blue) and one for me (Recycled Rhodium in just 27 days in November).

The long term project of the year was a scarf- afghan (Anyone got cable!). This is a construction idea I'll be exploring further in future.Everyone in the family wants one.

And then there was the inevitable Christmas knitting. (Clockwise from top left: Angel in a box, Sunburnt reindeer and Pallina di Natale).

What will 2015 bring? The needles are primed for anything again.

(Note: All the links in this post go to the blogpost about that project. All photo-collages made using picmonkey).

Diary of a sweater

 

Day 1:
Hey, I'm more than a nebulous idea in a knitter's mind. Today I came into being. The long journey into fully fledged wearable garmenthood has began. They say the journey of a 1000 miles begins with a single step. Mine began with a cast of of 114 stitches for my back. A whole ball and a bit of yarn and 7383 stitches later, the rib and the lace pattern and its following rib as well as two rows of the cast on shaping for the batwing sleeves are done. I look pretty bloody impressive. Let me take a selfie....

But before the needles were picked up, my knitter exercised her mathematical brain and ninja spreadsheet skills and calculated how many stitches I would contain. I admit to a slight flutter of nervousness at this stage. After all if I had come out at less than 50,000 stitches my chance at the needles was shot. But I will contain 68,640 stitches! I'm excited to be eligible to play in the prize division - after all a girl always wants a shot a winning and there are no talent contests / slash best in show here. It's random and I like my odds.

Then my knitter showed a bit of forethought given she was playing with some recycled op-shop yarn, unlabelled, unweighed, unmeasured and with a yarn weight only loosely guessed at. She did the maths based on the swatches. There should be enough yarn in the 16 roughly 50 gram balls of dirty latte coloured wool blend yarn I'm to be made off to knit around 80,000 to 85,000 stitches. All systems were go for launch....

Day 2:
My knitter is fond of rainy Sunday mornings. Tea, breakfast and some comfy couch knitting before the rest of the family crawls out of bed. Knitter Bliss. I know the love will be limited today as the marking is piling up around the place and the deadlines are rushing up like a high speed express train on the tracks. (I know my knitter loves me more than that computer and pen and calculator and horrible marking stuff. I'm secure. The marking should realise she only pays it attention cos she is paid to). Today I got to be the reward system for completing a range of tedious tasks for my knitter as she sneaked in a few rows here and there. I had my sleeve increases and 14 rows of the straight stretch of the back of the sleeves done (4914 sts completed). The only issue today is that my knitter doesn't own a 3.75 mm circular needle despite having apparently several thousand needles. So I'm feeling very cramped on the needles at the moment and have to be careful not to slip off.

Day 3:
A few on again / off again straight rows today wedged in between marking, housework and work. (Only 1755 stitches).

Day 4:
I'm officially about a third finished! I have a back now. Today my knitter powered through 7107 stitches for the day and 21,294 over all. I had my ends sewn in. There were lots as I am being made from recycled yarn from unravelled jumpers from a op shop / charity store / thrift shop. I got hand washed (an enjoyable process with nice warm water and shampoo). Then there was the blocking - a slightly torturous process involving lots of pins. I'm not going anywhere for a while. I need to dry first.

Day 5:
Now I get the start of a front. Rib done in a day. 24 rows of monotony. Rib apparently is not thrilling to do. (2256 sts).

Day 6:
Lace begins. There's more lace on the fronts - 5 repeats as opposed to two on the back. Less cursing coming from knitter as she begins to fathom the logic of the lace (and less muttering of "Where the hell have you people put my pattern?" "Cat, get off the pattern, I need to see what comes next!"). Also today, the sixth ball of yarn was liberated from it's storage bag and now gets to join the knitting party. The knitter is quietly happy about how far the yarn is going and is fairly confident of yarn supply meeting stitch demand (or some such nerdy knitterly thing). (2820 sts). The back was removed from the rack having blocked up beautifully....

Day 7:
Knitter is muttering again. No, wait, it's not about me. It's about work and evil marking eating into her knitting time! OK. I'll raise a few complaints in sympathy with her. But it's Friday. Friday night is sacrosanct - it's couch, TV, occasional alcohol, weekly family debrief and knitting time! The weekly unwind sesh. So today progress was two full lace repeats and eight rows of the 5th and last one. (3384 sts).

Day 8:
A few more knitter expletives. My knitter is glad she's no novice as there is an error in the pattern for the left front. Early morning saw the last of the lace patterns polished off and the rib sections and decrease done. It was time to increase for the sleeve. The knitter correctly finished the last row of rib on the right side of the work as the pattern directed and went to start the sleeve increases as written with the wrong side of the work facing. Trouble is that is the front band edge not the side edge with the lace where the sleeve should be. The knitter reread the pattern about 6 times, read the pattern for the right front for good measure, checked her count and placing of the rib rows, threw her hands up and added a plain row before beginning the sleeve cast ons. She also checked the pattern page for Rhodium on Ravelry and discovered she was the first person to knit this on Ravelry and that there was errata listed on The Knitter webpage. However, the errata is about bust measurements not sleeve shaping for the fronts. So she made a comment about the error on the pattern page and went back to knitting.

I also got to pose for my own photographic session this morning. Having my photo taken always makes me feel like I'm semi-famous or something.

Apparently I was deliberately obstructive today. Who, moi??!? The knitter got to the end of the sleeve shaping and the stitch count was out by two. And it was all my fault. The knitter is a perfectionist. I'm not complaining mind you. I think perfection is an admirable trait when you are on the receiving end of it. But it does involve occasional pain. My sleeve shaping got frogged back to the beginning. 14 rows of stitches disappearing off into the ether - the great stash in the sky. But the shaping was successfully re-knit and well as 11 rows of the straight sleeve section. Powering along and almost at the end of my 9th ball of yarn. But oh, the ends!!!! (4620 sts).

Day 9:
Only 18 rows and 2394 sts today. Despite it being a Sunday my knitter went to work for a while today and gave those nasty assignment things more love than me. About 50 assignments uploaded and another 60 or so marked. The knitter is feeling virtuous and her students will be happy to have all their marked work back before the exam. I can't just blame the assignments though. It was hot though. 30 degrees Celsius plus for the second day in a row. My knitter is possibly not the sharpest tool in the shed taking on this challenge heading into an Aussie summer. Apparently knitting wool gets sweaty when it's hot. State the bleeding obvious or what!

But we officially are over half way in the stitch count - 55% done. Oh, and there was a quiet session of half an hour or so of end sewing in today too. I feel a little less messy - I think it's the sweater equivalent of having your hair brushed.

Day 10:
I just had a good look at my front and I'm coming up a little rough. My straight reverse stockingnette sections have some exceptionally wonky stitches. I'm hoping that blocking tidies me up a lot!! 2929 stitches done today. The last three rows of the straight sleeve section and 22 and a half rows of the sleeve shaping cast offs. The knitter laid down the work having just reached the end of the 8th ball of yarn tonight. The knitter is a happy little Mummy today. Future Doctor daughter is home for SWOTVAC cramming before her last major exams. She hasn't been home for months. And the baby boy got his first year Uni results and he passed everything.... (This was by no means a done deal when he went off to University at the beginning of the year). All is love, peace and happiness in the knitter's household today.

Day 11: 
I got to finish my day yesterday with an overnight soak. I could just feel those wonky stitches evening out. I will look professionally even. I have a completed left front. We powered through the last of the shoulder shaping and the collar section. My knitter manfully sewed in ALL THOSE ENDS. I'd applaud her but it's hard to do with only one arm. 2642 sts yesterday (Including 2 rows of rib for the right front) - Overall total so far 42,169 and 64.2% complete...

Day 12: 
I started my morning rolled in a towel shedding a few excess pounds of fluid (water actually) dictating yesterday's sweater dairy to the knitter. (What you thought I was writing this myself? Sweaters can't type! I may have arms but I'm sadly lacking in the finger department. I suspect gloves could write their own diary but not those silly fingerless ones). Then it was stretching time. On the floor, on the mats and all those pins.... I feel like a pin cushion. Not a flattering look. I refuse to take blocking selfies. It's so undignified. And I suspect that fluoro alphabet mats are not the most flattering background for my colouring.

The cat decided to help the knitter with her blocking. Random flying sneak skid attacks - or maybe they were attempts at tacklehugs...?, willfully sitting in the middle of the damp unpinned section and stopping to wash its nether regions and patting the wheel of pearl headed pins under the TV cabinet. I feel the knitter showed great restraint in not blocking the cat as well.

However, only three rows achieved.... (what a paltry effort knitter!)

Day 13:

I swear I'm going to kick the knitter where it hurts for wasted opportunity today. Four whole hours of train trips to the big city for planning meetings and what did she do with all this potential knitting time? She forgot to take another ball of wool with her so wasted nearly three hours of it! Got the rib nearly done (and ran out of yarn and had to twiddle her needles). At home in the evening finished the rib and the lace set up and the first two rows pf the lace panel done. A quite respectable 2068 stitches for the day but it could have been so much more!

Day 14:
I participated in a zen knitting evening (couch knitting and bad teenage chick flicks on TV with the middle daughter). 3 and a bit repeats of lace and 4136 stitches (75% complete now). I could feel all the tension and stresses of the week flow out of the knitter. Good vibes all round.

Day 15:
I'm going on a road trip. The plan for the day is collecting the baby boy home for the year from his University in Geelong and watching the eldest daughter cheer at the Australian championships in the late afternoon. Cheer comps are great knitting venues. Bit much having to drive for my knitters liking today though (about 6 hours or so) but I will still get some love, fresh air and a change of scenery. However, the knitting was paltry as the cheering was too exciting - only 12 rows done.

Day 16:
Today was an exceptionally creative day for the knitter. But all that creativity wasn't focused on me. I am so jealous! It was all about some knitted and crocheted mould of all things. The knitter has been quietly designing patterns for a series of knitted penicillium moulds for a CKAL and today was the day for the instructions to go live. So there was a lot of Photography, primping of the samples and final frantic crochet followed by pattern writing today. I still got slightly over 2000 stitches done on me though in the evening and I'm up to the sleeve shaping on the right front. All the lace bit is done.

Day 17:
You remember that story about the tortoise and the hare? Slow and steady wins the race and all that. That the approach we are taking here. A quiet evening of knitting in between proof reading job applications for the Head of the Household and attempting to mark essays saw the all the casting on for my sleeves finished and about 5 rows of the straight section completed. The knitter is quietly satisfied and tells me she is still loving knitting me. Smug sweater here. (So go on tell me you other NaKniSweMo sweaters, how many of your knitters still love you when they are doing sleeves??)

Day 18:
Today the knitter's brainspace was taken up with dealing with academic marking apprehension - a peculiar affliction common when marking exams. Had her students in fact learned what she thought she taught them? Her mood ebbed and flowed during the day as she came to realize that her first year students were not as disastrous as first feared. They hadn't preformed brilliantly (except for a small group) but most of them had limped to a pass. (They do say Ps get degrees). So I got a cursory row here and there and only 1330 stitches (Almost 85% complete though).

Day 19: 

I'm more than a bit mad with my knitter today. She publicly humiliated me all over Ravelry today. I feel violated. She posted pictures of MY WRONG SIDE in the NaKniSweMo discussion thread, dangly yarn spaghetti of unsewn in ends and all. It's the sweater equivalent of posting pictures of me in my underwear - and daggy underwear at that. She told people it was the ugly side of knitting - no photoshop here. However, 16 rows of the straight section of the sleeves done (2128 stitches). One more row and we are on to the cast offs for the sleeves

Day 20:
Who can't love the sleeve shaping in this pattern? There are less stitches each row. You can knit and watch the numbers of stitches on your needle get progressively smaller. And it means the piece is almost finished!! When the knitter can home from taekwondo last night after a frustrating and messy class wrangling other people's children, she picked up my needles and you here an audible sigh of relief. The needles flew, the stitch count decreased happily to plan. (The exams waited. The knitter marking in a grumpy mood is a recipe for disaster for someone!) And we're on a deadline. The knitter flies off on a very very very much needed holiday on the 27th and I need to be done by then. (And blocked beautifully and photographed).

Day 21:
It's Friday night again. After a hard day of marking exams, the knitter embraced the whole Friday evening combo again, couch, TV and unwind knitting time! (The exam marking today went more smoothly then expected. A student even managed to work a Big Bang Theory reference into an answer about effective science communication and it made the knitter's inner nerd happy for hours. Chocolate and a random serving of gift plum pudding and custard at 11.30am also helped). Productive knitting ensued. Right front finished. The 25 sets of ends sewed in (Yes, there really were 25 sets of ends - that's 50 individual ends for the mathematically challenged among you). I got my warm bath and squeeze and this it was the blocking board torture again.

The knitter started joining the left front to the back by sewing up the upper sleeve seam in order to pick up stitches to complete the cuffs. The knitter picked up 66 stitches along the cuff. My sleeves are apparently a little short (rubbish, her arms are incredibly long!) so the knitter is adding a lace repeat at the bottom of the sleeves before she does the rib cuff. About 10 rows into this….

But the knitter is really not happy about one thing. My pattern is designed so that you leave a a small section in the middle of the centre back to sew in the short collar section. But then the stitch counts on the sleeve shaping don’t match up when you are stitching it up. The edges have have to be gently eased against each other as a they are stitched together. This is a design fault in the knitter's eyes. She had sewn the sleeve seam nearly up to the shoulder before she discovered this…. and had to un-stitch way back to the beginning. It’s gong to be a pain…..

Day 22:
Today I sat in the corner and mocked the knitter. She could feel her knitting fingers itching to pick me up. But exams and 28 essays which have to be done before 9 am Monday!!! A little knitting sneaked in here and there but not a lot. The end of the lace repeat and some tricky decreases to maintain the pattern into the rib. 15 rows of rib done.

Day 23:
I’m inching closer. I have the sleeve cuff on one sleeve finished and blocking. Now for some assembly and then the second cuff. The knitter is running head first in massive brick wall deadlines. She has three days to finish this (+ mark 75 exam papers) before we go on holidays. It’s hard for her to find the discipline to mark papers before knitting! (I'll try not to tease her too much at the moment. It's kind of like kicking a puppy - unnecessarily cruel)

Day 24:
Useful day today on many levels for the knitter. 16 exam papers marked and an excursion for some pre-poll voting for a state election as she is out of the state on holidays on the actual day. The knitter still has about 60 exam papers to mark but they are quick to do now (and they HAVE TO BE DONE by 5 pm tomorrow). I am now a fully assembled cardigan on one side at least and the collar has been set in and sewn down. My second shoulder seam done and stitches picked up and 10 rows of the lace done. The end is in sight. I am officially 95% complete

However, on a down note, the cat did throw up on the magazine which my knitting pattern is in. It is never going to be the same....

Day 25:
And I am finished (the knitting part at least!). I got a very small cuff baths and an overnight pin out to block as well. The knitter sneaked in a lace completion in the morning and the rib in the evening. I've seen a lot of the kitchen table and the couch in my short lifetime of being knitted.

Day 26:
And it did happen. It was the day from hell. Deadlines galore. Marking of final exams, last day at work, packing for holidays. My final seam got completed at about 10 pm at night after all the rest of the important things. I am a finished sweater (actually cardigan). The knitter tried me on and it was good. I am suitably warm fuzzy and cuddly. I fit in all the right places and skim where I should. The knitters family though were less than complimentary. "It's just weird with that short waist length back and long fronts. What a crazy design". But they do agree I am marvelously well knitted and that my lace is awesome. They can criticize my fashion worthiness all they want. I know my knitter will wear me with pride.

Day 27: 
Who looks their best when someone is taking photos of them scrumpled on the couch at 6 am in the morning? You want to take a photo of me now? Really, you can't wait until I've brushed my hair and put my makeup on? (Actually sweater equivalent is a styled outfit for the knitwear model, semi professional photographer, the good camera, etc...) However, I can't complain as it was necessary for the knitter to post a finished sweater shot before she nicks off on holidays in the sunshine for a week (and uncertain internet access). I do want to be eligible to win a prize for all my gorgeousness. And we are officially done. And here endeth my diary.

Not so little boy blue

Little boy blue come blow your horn
The sheep's in the meadow, the cow's in the corn.
Where is the little boy who looks after the sheep?
He's under the haystack fast asleep.

What does the phrase 'Little Boy Blue' conjure up for you? Is it the classic nursery rhyme (above) or maybe you are thinking of the well-known painting by Thomas Gainsborough - The Blue Boy? For me now the phrase will always bring to mind a highly successful hand-knitted jumper - something neat, masculine, retro, delightfully textured and vaguely hipster.

Half the fun of a new project is naming it. This jumper is the first one I have made my son since he was a little baby in nappies. In hindsight, waiting to knit the boy a jumper until he was a full grown adult sized male was probably a little bit of a silly idea in terms of the amount of work involved.

This jumper began its knitting journey at Easter this year. Whilst the boy was home from Uni for the Easter break we stash dived and liberated some woolblend yarn gifted to my stash at least 10 years or so ago though I think it was originally purchased sometime in the dim dark 1980s. This rich navy blue always reminded me of the school jumpers of my youth and was never something I would consider using myself. But it was what the boy chose and looking at the finished garment, it was an inspired choice on his behalf.

Then we had to choose a pattern. We hunted patiently through my embarrassingly huge collection of knitting magazines and trawled the Ravelry database the boy having previously exhausted the archives of Knitty. In the pile of classic knitting pattern books, we found this absolute gem from the 1970s.

Despite the lurid bad taste of the cover, the other designs are simple, classic and elegant. We swatched for bit and eventually chose the imaginatively named Jumper No. 3. I measured the dimensions of the boy and packed him back off the University.

Pattern: Jumper number 3 from Man Talk
Needles: 3 1/4 mm needles (for bands) and 4 mm needles (for pattern)
Yarn: Target Nomad Woolblend (80% Acrylic, 20% Wool) DK weight

I started this jumper with the sleeves. Sleeves make great public transport knitting. These sleeves did train journeys, long distance car trips and helped me cheer on the eldest daughter at her cheerleading competition. It was great fun to knit, a deceptively simply pattern that flowed off the needles. (But I kept being unfaithful and knitted on other projects instead).

But a few weeks ago, the realities of a cold wet, Victorian winter began hitting home and boy bet me that I couldn't finish his jumper in a week. He was coming home for the weekend and pleaded for it to be finished by the time he was ready to go back. So I took stock. I had done both the sleeves and half the back. I put on my speed knitting skates and off we went. It did help that the Commonwealth Games were on and that there is just such a wonderful knitting synergy between excessive sport on TV and productive knitting time.

Maybe not under a haystack! But definitely fast asleep. Saturday afternoon couch napping.

I admit it wasn't looking promising. It was Friday night and I had the back finished but the only the band of the front. But I knuckled down. The needles fairly flew and by Sunday morning I had the neck band and the finishing / sewing up to go. The buttons are from my grandmother's button collection.

This has to be my most successful knitting project for ages. It fits the boy like a glove, he loves it and it looks like it could be a bought one. I used up almost all of the 9.5 balls of wool I had in my stash.

I leave you today with a gorgeous shot of the boy full dressed in knitwear by his mother. I love the beanie too.