Tag: seamless yoke

Jumper Season – WHOOP!

Posted on by Alice Neal

I know, I know, knitting isn’t just for autumn and winter, but I really do struggle to knit big bulky things all year round. I love to wear big bulky things though, and this Autumn has got me really excited because it was only in Spring that I taught myself to knit jumpers. And by then it was kind of too warm to wear them.

I bought myself some wool 🙂

2Andes1It’s the same lovely stuff as my last jumpers, but breaking out of the earthy colour mold – just as a little refresher, you understand 🙂

However, I also had some left over from this little chap:

Owl3which I figured would make a rather nice jumper for my littlest. I’ve come to the end of the ball and have had to order a bit more (I know – shucks – buying wool… what a nightmare! 😉 ) I’ve chosen a top-down, seamless yoke method which, given the small size, started out on DPNs and progressed to circular needles when there were enough stitches.

So, here it is in progress (excuse the dodgy phone pics):

Ted1Starting out on double pointed needles.

Ted2Bringing in some stripes and separating the arms stitches out and onto waste yarn.

Ted3Another little flash of pattern.

Ted4Trying not to stamp my feet that I didn’t have quite enough wool 😉

I’ll be back, though <3

The Google Tunic

Posted on by Alice Neal

Or maybe the Pinterest Dress.

Call it what you will, it is essentially a sampler. A top-down, in-the-round, seamless yoke fair isle sampler. A project for me to learn about colourwork and fair isle.

As is so often the case in my life knitting, I didn’t really have a set idea about what I was making before I began. Much of what I do is intuitive, experimental and heart-in-mouth-will-it-fit? It is also a smaller gauge and therefore longer knit than I am used to. I like to use Aran or chunky because I get impatient and want to move onto the next thing, as evidenced by the fact that many of my previous posts showcase items I began after this tunic and finished well before it was complete.

This dress began with the optimistic working title “Spring Tunic”. We’re now well on the way through summer. See? 🙂

It began as it usually does: with a clearance section on a wool website. I trawl them too often, looking for the bargains. I have one stipulation: natural fibres. And I usually stick to it 😉

I found Sublime baby cotton kapok dk. I don’t usually knit with cotton. But I was working on the premise that knitting (and crochet) being something I love, I don’t want to only do it in the autumn and winter, and there must be pretty knitwear for the rest of the year.

Rather than babbling on about it any more, here is the sampler tunic, finished with crochet around the hem and sleeves: a progression in pictures:

pinterest-tunic7
An example of one of the charts I googled

pinterest-tunic3pinterest-tunic5pinterest-tunic9pinterest-tunic10pinterest-tunic-11pinterest-tunic12pinterest-tunic-2-squarepinterest-tunic4Pinterest-Tunic

Now… Back to the million-and-one other UFOs on my list..!

 

Intrepid Adventures… or … a Leap of Faith

Posted on by Alice Neal

I have long coveted the Sara Lund jumper. Do you know the one? From the hit Danish TV series “The Killing”. It’s gorgeous (though she also has a very trim figure, which showcases the sweater perfectly) and has had knitters and non-knitters alike hankering for it or how to make it. The sweater is made by a company called Gudrun & Gudrun for an inordinate amount of money, and they are closely guarding the pattern, too, but over on Ravelry you can find many different and highly successful versions of it.

Sara Lund in her sweater.
Sara Lund in her sweater.

First, though, you need to be able to knit a sweater. And with confidence. Oh, and with that Nordic fair isle pattern.

Hmmmm.

Well, as you know from a recent post, I have not long finished my first jumper. It was knitted from the bottom up, joined at the yoke. The Three Movies Sweater. And it was just a fraction too small. I may (horror of horrors) end up frogging it. Too much good yarn to waste and a little too feminine for my boys, sadly.

I have had two projects (oh, of so many) on the go which may help me reach my ultimate Sara Lund goal. The first, as yet unfinished, is a bottom-up sweater in gorgeous Ardalanish wool (a most exciting Christmas present), which is proving to be a bit of a fair isle sampler. I hadn’t tried fair isle before, and I’m LOVING it. I adore the way the pattern emerges, after blood, sweat and tears through stitch counting… 😉

This is as far as it has got:

Ardalanish fair isle sampler jumper *beams*
Ardalanish fair isle sampler jumper
*beams*

In the meantime, and with the Sarah Lund sweater still firmly in mind, I bought a book. This one, to be precise:

bookThe name of this style of knitting always makes me snigger. I guess my inner twelve-year old is not so inner…

I embarked, using the yarn I had bought with the intention of a larger Three Movies Sweater, on a top-down seamless yoke, hoping against hope that this one would fit.

Two tricks I picked up along the way, one from a friend on my new Instagram account: Transfer the live stitches onto scrap yarn periodically, to reassure yourself it fits (and, if you’re anything like me, to get ridiculously over-excited when it does).

The second I picked up from Pinterest many moons ago and had never tried out. I’ll endeavour to explain. When you come to the end of a yarn ball, and need to introduce the next, loop the two ends around each other and, using a yarn needle, sew each yarn end back into itself. I may try to produce pictures of this at some stage. It’s brilliant. Of course, I may be preaching to the converted, but just in case you hadn’t heard of it – try it!

OK, so without further ado, here, in pictures, is the end result. Given the fact that I often finish things at night and am at work during the day, they are a little on the grainy side. But I’m thrilled. It’s warm, snuggly and I have worn it every day since I made it. Can I get a whoop whoop? 😉

From ribbed polo into the first part of the pattern on the seamless yoke
From ribbed polo into the first part of the pattern on the seamless yoke
Pattern complete, the sleeve stitches have just been separated from the body and are on stitch holders / scrap yarn
Pattern complete, the sleeve stitches have just been separated from the body and are on stitch holders / scrap yarn
Working the sleeves and the body
Working the sleeves and the body
Sleeves complete, body near as dammit
Sleeves complete, body near as dammit
My second jumper. HUZZAH!
My second jumper.
HUZZAH!

I am, obviously, plotting the next. Oh, and of course I have an Ardalanish fair isle to complete… Eek!