{"id":393,"date":"2014-02-06T17:58:04","date_gmt":"2014-02-06T17:58:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aliceinknittingland.wordpress.com\/?p=393"},"modified":"2014-02-06T17:58:04","modified_gmt":"2014-02-06T17:58:04","slug":"intrepid-adventures-or-a-leap-of-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aliceinknittingland.co.uk\/?p=393","title":{"rendered":"Intrepid Adventures… or … a Leap of Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

\"Sara<\/a>
Sara Lund in her sweater.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

First, though, you need to be able to knit a sweater. And with confidence. Oh, and with that Nordic fair isle pattern.<\/p>\n

Hmmmm.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n

I have had two projects (oh, of so many<\/em>) 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… \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

This is as far as it has got:<\/p>\n

\"Ardalanish<\/a>
Ardalanish fair isle sampler jumper
*beams*<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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

\"book\"<\/a>The name of this style of knitting always makes me snigger. I guess my inner twelve-year old is not so inner…<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Two tricks I picked up along the way, one from a friend on my new Instagram <\/a>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).<\/p>\n

The second I picked up from Pinterest <\/a>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!<\/p>\n

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? \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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

I am, obviously, plotting the next. Oh, and of course I have an Ardalanish fair isle to complete… Eek!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[48,59,136,176,220,229,234,255,269,282,329,376,378,384,442,450,474,480],"class_list":["post-393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-alice-in-knittingland","tag-ardalanish","tag-crafts","tag-fair-isle","tag-handmade","tag-hearts","tag-homemade","tag-knit","tag-knitting","tag-knittingland","tag-nordic","tag-samplers","tag-sara-lund","tag-seamless-yoke","tag-the-killing","tag-top-down-knitting","tag-wool","tag-yarn"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aliceinknittingland.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aliceinknittingland.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aliceinknittingland.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aliceinknittingland.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aliceinknittingland.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aliceinknittingland.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aliceinknittingland.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aliceinknittingland.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aliceinknittingland.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}