A Stripey Affair!

Well, it's been a while.  As we approach the last few weeks of 2015, I figured that if I didn't dip my toe back into the world of blog, I never would!!  So, here I am, and what better post to bring you than a neat little knitted number.  

Many months back, a fabulous customer of mine asked me to knit her a cardigan.  To my joy, it wasn't just any cardigan, it was one of the most pretty patterns I've seen in a long while, a pattern that had been on my rather long "to knit" list.

The pattern came from a Needlework Illustrated magazine from the 1930's. 

Pretty neat, don't you think?!  It was love at first sight.  The colours, the style, those sweet little buttons, I knew I had to knit it.  

The customer wanted it to be as close in colour to the original as I could make it. Luckily, Adriafil Azzura had nigh on the exact same shades, and a little colour test later, and we were sold on the design.  

When you look at the cover photo, it clearly shows that there are four base colours in wide stripes, with thin black rows and slightly thicker white, in between.  However, when I came to work from the pattern, it wasn't turning out the same.  In the pattern, the four strong colours were worked in equal thickness to the white, and the result just didn't have the same wow factor.

 

As the customer had seen the cover image with the thinner white stripe, I had to rework the pattern slightly, tweaking the thickness of the black and white rows and making it just a little bit longer in the body, for comfort.

The pattern isn't difficult, as the entire cardi is worked in rib, but the constant colour changing slowed the work down a lot.  That, and the fact that a made a mistake halfway up the back and had to re-knit it meant this one took nearly 4 months of on and off work. 

 

Thankfully the customer was unbelievably patient, which I always appreciate. 

 

Making up the jumper was a bit quicker, but oh so many ends to sew in.....

 

And the construction was different to anything I've sewn up before.  The top of the sleeve becomes the yoke, and there are two pleats in the sleeve, which take out some of the fullness and give it a neat finish.   

 

 

Crochet isn't one of my strong points, but the buttons were pretty simple to work.  Double and treble crochet worked round little button forms, they finish it off perfectly, I think.

 

 

 

 

If you fancy giving it a go, the pattern is available for sale in my Etsy shop, which she can find here. It's not a complicated pattern, it could certainly be tackled by a beginner knitter, but it does take a lot of patience running in all the ends, but it's worth it!

xx

Pretty as a Picture - 1930s Bow Jumper

Sorry it’s been so long since I last checked in.  My laptop threw a fit and refused to recognise blogger; what fun!!  I tried out the blogger app for the iPad, but I couldn’t get to grips with that, technology not being a strong point of mine, so Mr Y came to the rescue and ordered me a shiny new machine, so hopefully I can finally add some listings to my Etsy shop.

I hope you’re enjoying the bank holiday weekend.  I’m having a spot of peace and quiet this morning as Mr Y has taken the girls into town for a couple of hours while I pop a roast in the oven and do some knitting.  I’m working on a commission piece at the moment which is proving a little bit taxing on my brain!  I’ve mastered the actual pattern, all 36 rows of it, but I think there’s an error in the sleeve shaping because I’ve had to rip it back twice and no matter what way a look at it, the maths just isn’t working out right.  The phrase "a bad workman blames his tools" springs to mind, but I'm certain it's not me so am persevering, even if I have to re-write the sleeve shaping myself!  It’s being worked in a pretty dull gold shade, part of the Patons Diploma  Gold 4 ply range in a shade called golden; I love it.

Talking of woolly wonders, I said farewell to a rather splendid piece of knitting that headed overseas to Norway.  Another commission piece for a fabulous repeat customer, it was a slow knit, but a special one.

The pattern came from this Stitchcraft magazine from November 1936. 
 

When deciding on a pattern, the customer said they wanted long sleeved with a large front bow, something like Miss Lemon might wear in Poirot.  It’s never a chore to flick through the well-thumbed pages of my pattern collection, so, with the help of my mum, we set about choosing just the right design, and this one came out on top.

Knitted in Adriafil Azzurra 4 ply Bordeaux, it took a long time to knit.  Although it isn’t an overly complicated pattern, just an 8 row pattern repeat, it required my complete concentration so could only be knitted in the evenings.  The fact that I could only manage 1-2 hours a day on it, coupled with the fact that I had a 2 week holiday where I didn’t work on it at all, meant that it took three months to complete.  It needed just 3 buttons, but typically I didn't have enough matching ones in my stash so found these ones on eBay instead; a snip at £4.00
 

I’m really happy with how it turned out and the colour, although it doesn’t show that well in my photographs, is a really deep rich red.
 

I didn’t have to re-size the pattern, although it wouldn’t have been difficult to do so, and the only 2 changes I had to make to the jumper were to make the sleeves 19” under the arm rather than 18”, and to knit the bow in the same wool as the body of the jumper rather than the angora wool that was suggested.

Wool - Adriafil Azzurra 4 ply

Weight used - 7 balls

Time taken - 3 months

Size - 35" bust

Like some of the other patterns I’ve recently knitted up, I had some requests to make this pattern available as a PDF so, although it took me longer than expected, it is now finally available in my Etsy shop, which you can find here.

I’m on a bit of a mission to complete some of the work in progress jumpers that are languishing in various cupboards, bin bags and knitting bags!  When I last counted, I think there were 8 at various stages of completion, and I intend to remedy that, if I don’t get distracted by another pretty pattern, that is! ;-)

xx

Bestway 2024 - 1940's Green Cardigan

There's certainly no denying that 2014 was a busy year on the jumper front.  Thank you for your lovely comments on my last post; I'm glad you enjoyed looking at all the pictures as much as I did :o)

Over a year ago, I decided I wouldn't take commission orders anymore.  Problems with non-paying customers, issues with customers changing their mind once I'd started, or even worse, customers not liking the design of the piece, despite it having been their choice, put me off the process.  I kept knitting, but I knitted the patterns that I wanted, in the wool I wanted and in the colours I wanted! 

After a much needed break of doing as I pleased, and after countless emails asking whether I would knit to order, I decided to change the way I took commissions.  I now take payment for the wool upfront, am more particular about the type of wool I will use, and most important of all, I've learnt to say no when someone asks me to knit something that I really don't want to knit.

I had the pleasure of knitting for some truly fantastic people last year.  My final commission piece for 2014 was no exception, and was probably one of my favourite to work on.  It was knitted in a glorious shade of green and was, in the most part, all stocking stitch, so a nice quick knit.  

It was knitted in Adriafil Azzurra and the pattern was a Bestway pattern from the late 1940's.

I've knitted a few cardigans in the past, but I've never done one that required so many buttons.  Nine matching vintage buttons proved quite tricky, most of my sets had either four or eight, but I raided my own personal stash and found the perfect vintage set, heavy carved ones from the 1930's. Pretty, don't you think??

The pattern was nice and easy to follow, no little quirks or tricky bits.  It knitted up quite quickly (I was running it alongside another woolly), and everything fitted together nicely when it came to making it up.  The thing that took me the longest was the placket, it seemed to go on forever!!!

The cardigan has a new home with the very talented Kitty Lou who is an incredible seamstress who has an Etsy shop, Kitty Lou Vintage, which you can find here.

Mr Y is back to work on the 5th, so normal routine will resume.  I can't wait to start my next commission!

xx