Sometimes I see a pattern and I just cannot help myself… I have to cast on as soon as I can. I fell in love with Birkin designed by Caitlyn Hunter the moment I saw it in Laine Issue 2. I don’t know what it was that appealed to me most, but the floral yoke was divine and the photography in Laine magazine was, as ever, utterly breathtaking.
Sweaters & Cardigans
Branches & Buds Pullover & Hat
Technically, my Branches & Buds pullover is a branches only version as I haven’t actually embroidered the buds onto the branches on the yoke.
Initially, I thought I’d wear the sweater without them and see what I thought. The jury is still out about adding the French Knot buds. I like the subtlety of no buds. Although, I think the buds add a lovely additional detail to the finished pullover.[Read More]
Shetland Colour Story – Branches & Buds Pullover
When we travel somewhere, I love to take lots of photographs. They are a wonderful reminder of our visit, the colours, the scenery, the awesome beauty of the place we are exploring. Every time, I look at the imagery it brings me back, I can almost feel the warmth of the sun on my face and the breeze catching my hair!
Later when I’m home I like to use my photos to help choose colour schemes for a project I’m working on. I create a collage of imagery and then I often prefer to use one of the closeup photos to choose a selection of colours.
For the Branches and Buds Pullover I used the photo of the peeling gate that had been taken beside Sumburgh Lighthouse on one of the days we visited it and walked around the building looking at the views over the perimeter wall.
Carbeth Sweater
In January I cast on the Sunset Highway sweater. I was using 3 colours of sock yarn and I had problems getting the right tension in my swatch. Several swatches and several different needle sizes and I still didn’t have gauge… so in the end, I just cast on, which was a big mistake. I finished knitting the yoke, knit 10cm/4″ of the body and tried it on. Much much much too big. It would have easily fitted over 2 of me. So I carefully unravelled the yarn and started again. I cast on, a smaller size, I finished knitting the yoke, started down the body again, tried it on and it was still too big. So I frogged to the start of the colour work yoke, put the whole project into a box (now languishing on top of the bookshelf), and decided to check my emails. I still can’t work out where I went wrong with my Sunset Highway. It is such a beautiful sweater.
Early in January our very old oil boiler stopped working… in mid-winter. This winter has been surprisingly cold for Northern Ireland. Normally, it is milder and wetter. But not this year while we were dependent on a couple of heaters to stay warm… and my knitting mojo? After knitting 2 sunset highway yokes and not having anything to show for it, I was ready to shove it out into the snow!!
Into this, came a ray of bright sunshine from Kate Davies Designs – the Carbeth sweater. I read her email in my inbox. I looked at the beautiful inspirational photographs. I thought about how warm and cosy a chunky weight sweater would be. More to the point, I imagined myself warm and cosy wearing this chunky weight sweater! Of course, I also loved the shaping of the raglan on the yoke. But, what can I say, most of all I loved that this was going to be a warm sweater knit out of chunky yarn.[Read More]
Joyride Sweater
When I’m looking for a pattern to knit, my first port of call is often to pick up a big pile of knitting magazines and go through them, pulling out patterns that appeal to me. I do this periodically, and file any patterns that I may wish to knit and recycling the rest! As I was going through them, I came across Joyride sweater in an old copy of Knit Now magazine.
My New Year Resolution for 2017 was to knit a sweater for myself. But I wanted to choose the right pattern, as this was my first sweater for myself, so I didn’t want it to be too complicated a project.
An Unexpected Sweater Journey
What are my WIPs at the moment? Mainly sweaters. Which seems utterly extraordinary to me. I cannot really fathom it. I started 2017 with the aim of knitting one sweater this year. I haven’t knit a sweater for myself before although I have knit many Sasha doll sized sweaters. I’d never really been interested in knitting sweaters. They are a large project that take a lot of yarn and time to complete and not a project that I ever considered to be particularly portable. So I surprised myself when knitting a sweater became my New Year’s Resolution for 2017.
Joyride Jumper by Drops Design
At the start of the year, in January, I was going through a pile of knitting magazines, tearing out any patterns that appealed to me when I came across the Joyride sweater designed by Drops Design. I ordered the Drops Karisma yarn online from Purple Sheep Yarns. And by the end of January I had almost finished the body. When it was set aside.[Read More]
