Pink Baby Cardigan!

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine commissioned me to make her BFF a baby cardigan who is expecting her little bundle of joy in October.  The only pre-requisite is that it had to be some shade of pink!

I've never been given such artistic freedom for a commissioned project and so I emailed my friend like a fiend of cardigan pics and yarn types.  We soon decided on the 'Baby Sophisticate' pattern that I found on Ravelry for free, and to use Rowan's All Seasons Cotton in Cosmos.

The actual knitting went along quite nicely, because the yarn is aran weight, I managed to do the body in one weekend!  I've been using 4 ply a lot recently so I forgot how big a piece gets so quickly with aran!  Plus it was nice to hold some chunky needles and yarn.

The one bit I had trouble with was picking up on the right side, I kept getting this weird flat bit and frogged it about 2 times but with no improvement, other than that I'm pretty pleased with the result - so was the yummy mummy that I made this for :)

I'm still here!

Hey readers!

Sorry I haven't really posted in a while, just had loads of stuff happening which has cut into my knitting time :(  I'm still working on a sweater that I started over a month ago, good news is that I'm on the last sleeve, yay!

I've also got a few other projects lined up - hopefully I'll be able to get more knitting time in soon so I can start posting about my projects!

Bye for now!
=^.^=

I just blue Tobias Fünke

Tobias Fünke.  Everyone's favourite blue never nude.  

This was a pretty esoteric project and only those of you who watch Arrested Development will understand why this man is blue and wearing cutoffs!

It was my boy's birthday a few weeks ago and I was struggling to find him a present.  The man has everything he wants and doesn't need anything.  So I thought of everything that he liked and Arrested Development - specifically a blue Tobias Fünke - sprang to mind.  *Internal monologue* "How awesome would it be to make him a little Tobias?!"  And so my next project was decided.

I didn't have to look too far for some blue yarn.  I had some left over from a vest that I'd made for my Mum a couple of months ago, it's handy being a yarn hoarder!

I wanted to make a moveable Tobias, so he could do awesome poses for the camera (as the one above).  So as I was making the doll I had to keep in mind that I'd be putting in a wire skeleton inside.  I decided to start with the legs, join them together, continue and continue into body and up to the shoulders.  Along the way I inserted the wire and put stuffing in.  I went onto the neck, made the head and arms separately then sewed them all together.  Next came the fun bit...making the cut offs!!

I needed an old pair of jeans for the cut offs so visited a few charity shops for a cheap pair.  I wasn't too successful, but then I saw a Cancer Research shop and OMG THEY WERE HAVING A FIRE....sale.  Well, kinda, they had a section where everything was £1 which was pretty cool as they had a pair of jeans in the exact shade I wanted and the hem was already frayed!

I fashioned a pattern for the cutoffs using ordinary paper and sewed it all together, it was such a perfect fit that they stayed up by themselves!  Then I made him some glasses out of wire and embroidered hair, eyebrows and a moustache.  I tried doing some eyes and a mouth but it just made him look a demented so I decided to omit those in the end.  

Seeing as I had a less than a week to make Tobias, I think I did a pretty good job.  It could have been better if I had more time to think it through, but I'm still pleased with him :)

Father's Day Tie!

My Dad is impossible to buy for.  He's they typical Dad that says "Oh, I don't need anything, I have everything that I want."  Sweet but so frustrating!  He also likes to dress pretty dapper with jumpers matching his socks.  Naturally then he has a jumper in every single colour possible and endless ties and cufflinks.  This is why my Dad is impossible to buy for.

But wait, hang on, a knitted tie...my Dad doesn't have a knitted tie!!  Hurrah!  Present problem solved!

I decided that I wanted a 100% silk yarn, ideally 4 ply, to make it from.  Unfortunately, internet searching and a visit to John Lewis revealed that 4 plys were all silk mixes.  The only 100% silk I found was Debbie Bliss Luxury Silk DK.  Yup, double knit.  This would have to do and I just used smaller needles to cast on with.  The recommended size was 4mm so I used 3.25mm so the stitches came up smaller.  There wasn't really a pattern either, 12 stitches wide in a seed/moss stitch.  A stockinette would have just curled up at the edges and not looked very nice.  Using the whole 50g skein, the tie measured up as 53" long.  I had wanted it to be 58" as most of his ties were this length :(

I decided to let my Dad be the judge of the length and thankfully he said it was fine!

So here's the tie that I made for my awesome Dad!

Frogging Advice

You may know that I currently working on a jumper...annoyingly the pattern was unclear for the front shoulders and I messed up a little and ended up a few rows short.  Having realised my error, I didn't have the heart to rip (or frog) my work as there were about 10 rows to undo and so I've left it as it is :(

A few days later I came across THE most helpful article ever!  How to undo multiple rows without laboriously doing it stitch by stitch, I wish I'd known about this article earlier!

Anyway, I'm sharing it with you all as it's pretty darned useful stuff...enjoy!

http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEwinter03/FEATwin03TT.html 

A Rosy Intarsia Foray

I took a break from my current wip (a baby pink jumper) to practice some colour work for the first time.

I recently posted about a jumper that I'm currently obsessed with making called "Santorini" by Rowan.  It's so amazing, but does require some pretty detailed intarsia work, which frankly, was way out of my knitting capabilities.  But I really want to make it so I've decided to do some practicing.

I found a really cute (free) pattern on Ravelry for a 5 colour intarsia chart which I thought would be perfect.  Luckily, being the yarn hoarder that I am, I already had 3 different pinks and 2 different greens.

I did a little bit of research and everywhere said that I had to use little bobbins which had a little bit of yarn from each colour of the pattern.  I didn't have any so I went all A-Team like and made my own from a bit of stiff card.

At the time, I had posted a pic of the bobbins and chart to instagram.  I was already 10 rows into it and finding the tangled mess of yarns a bit tedious.  A lovely lady (who is also going to be my knitting partner when I knit Santorini) told me she'd watch a tutorial once and they recommended just using short bits of yarn rather than bobbins.  I tried this and wow, it was sooo much easier!  I definitely would have struggled later on if I'd stuck with the bobbins!

After a few hours, I'd completed the little 30x40 chart.  Lots of lessons learnt and techniques discovered about intarsia knitting.  I got told once that you can carry the main yarn every couple of stitches so you don't have a huge bit at the back once you get to the other side.  Of course in the beginning I either 1. forgot or 2. didn't leave it slack enough.  By the end I'd got the hang of it pretty well.  It didn't stop the back looking like a hot mess though.

I was pretty pleased with how it all turned out, it's looks so pretty!  By no means perfect, but I think it's a pretty good first try at intarsia knitting :)

Cabled Scarf

I made this scarf for a good friend of mine who had requested it for her birthday.  Unfortunately I was a little bit late as her birthday was in the first week of April and I only finished it yesterday :/

All she said she wanted was a knitted scarf in a neutral colour - she's got a few winter coats in different colours and so we thought that cream would be best.  Other than that I had complete artistic freedom (which is a lot harder than having a straight pattern to follow!).  I suggested a few designs and settled on a cabled scarf broken up with bits of stockinette and a seed stitch border.  Pretty simple.

I used Debbie Bliss's Casmerino Aran, I absolutely adore this yarn, it's a dream to work with and is so soft against the skin.  

I haven't seen her to give it to her yet, but hopefully she'll love it :)