Hello. It’s a sunny Tuesday morning by the sea, here on the East Coast of England. The night before last and yesterday we could barely see in front of our noses with the mist rolling in where the waves should be. Today, the last of it is burning off and the November sun is making itself felt, just enough to warm the skin a little.
Yesterday I published my poncho pattern. Hot on the heels of my long ‘coatigan’ (the pattern for which I am still working on!) and my Riot of Colour cardigan (both pictured above), I wanted something chunky and quick, and Biased Beauty was born.
It began as a large, fuzzy, soft poncho, in Sirdar Jewelspun Chunky with wool, held together for lightness and fluff with kidsilk.
In the beginning, I was unsure what I wanted to do with the neckline and I knitted a contrasting pink rib mitred V on it. Somehow, that just wasn’t working for me:
I mean, I like it, even now. But it just wasn’t quite right.
So back to the drawing board I went. I had knitted the neckline in my beloved Istex Plotulopi, which is insanely difficult to frog back, so I bit the bullet and chopped it out:
Obviously, my heart was in my mouth, but since none of the stitches before the neck are live, as long as I didn’t chop those I knew I’d be ok.
And I picked up the stitches for a garter mitred V in the same yarn as the rest of the poncho. To my mind, it looks so very much better. I absolutely love the colour changes in Jewelspun. They’re sublime.
Now, of course, I could have stopped there. But I was hankering for a slightly smaller one, and with a roll neck. I raided my stash (which is embarrassingly extensive) and found 400g of Wendy pure wool aran in Mountain Hare. Alongside that, from my days of knitting endless Beauteous Boot Socks, I had a lot of partial balls of Drops Nepal and the (tragically!) discontinued Big Delight. I truly loved that stuff. These socks were alternate Nepal and Big Delight stripes and to this day are my favourite pair.
I digress. For the shorter poncho, I held the Wendy together with the other random stash Aran weight yarns AND the kidsilk. This is a much thicker, heavier, warmer poncho and the roll neck (for me at least) finishes it off perfectly. It has already kept me toasty on several school runs.
I also wanted to ‘finish’ this one differently. I had a ball of Viking Garn Naturgarn in my stash and it was, as it turned out, perfect for the icord border.
This pattern has comprehensive and detailed instructions and photos on:
– how to knit a mitred square
– how to join mitred squares in order to construct a shape
– how to pick up and knit an icord border
– how to knit a ‘mitred triangle’ to shape a neckline.
As well as creating the poncho shape, finished sizes, tips for adapting size, graphs and charts for playing with your own colour ideas, thoughts about using different weights of yarn, and more.
And, at the end of it all, the littl’un wanted one too. Finished with a mitred V of faux fur yarn 🙂
Note: the links in this post are not affiliate links – I get nothing for sharing them. I am simply pointing my readers to where I bought the yarns I used here in the UK. 🙂