(no subject)
Some friends have mine have just had their first baby, and as one does in such a situation, I made them an item of baby clothing.
The cardigan is Daisy from knitty.com made in the largest size (6-12 months). It's a very easy pattern and knits up extremely rapidly. There are three minor errors in mine, which I am irritated about because I wasn't paying enough attention to do something about them at the time, but I defy you to spot them in these pictures :)
I made it with almost exactly two skeins (give or take a gauage swatch or several which pushed me into a third ball) of King Tut mercerized cotton, from my local A C Moore, as suggested by madeyou_look in this post. The pattern's gauge is 20 sts = 4 " on US7 (4.5mm) needles, the yarn suggests that it knits at 4.5 stitchs an inch on US7 needles. Many swatches on many different size and material needles later I finally managed to get the right gauge using US5 (3.75mm) bamboo needles. I have no idea why this was such an extended excercise!
I must admit that I didn't much enjoy working with this yarn, though I do like the results. It had an irriating tendancy to twirl itself up into the sort of loops I've only previously seen in telephone cables and then split like crazy. I hand washed it to block it then ran it through the washing machine and it behaved extremely well and came out looking more blocked than when it had gone in! It did take ages to air dry, though it's been quite humid here which may be why.
The flowers are just embroidery thread in a shade of somewhere-between-red-and-pink. I wibbled about actually putting the flowers on because embroidery has never been my strong point but did in the end mainly becuase it covered one of the small errors. Only one flower was needed for this, of course, but it didn't look right without the extra ten or so! One thing I have learnt from this experience is that if you plan to put embroidery or the like on sleeves, it's probably be a good idea to plan it in advance, as sewing the flowers onto the outside of a narrow tube is really not easy!
I've been eyeing up Trellis from Knitty as a present for another set of friends and new baby and seeing a number of people's posts with pictures of theirs over the last little while, I've decided that this is indeed going to straight to the top of my list of things to do. I think I might work it as one piece having read people's comments, but on the other hand, it might turn into an aeroplane project, in which case, individual pieces might be more convenient. *Ponders*
The cardigan is Daisy from knitty.com made in the largest size (6-12 months). It's a very easy pattern and knits up extremely rapidly. There are three minor errors in mine, which I am irritated about because I wasn't paying enough attention to do something about them at the time, but I defy you to spot them in these pictures :)
I made it with almost exactly two skeins (give or take a gauage swatch or several which pushed me into a third ball) of King Tut mercerized cotton, from my local A C Moore, as suggested by madeyou_look in this post. The pattern's gauge is 20 sts = 4 " on US7 (4.5mm) needles, the yarn suggests that it knits at 4.5 stitchs an inch on US7 needles. Many swatches on many different size and material needles later I finally managed to get the right gauge using US5 (3.75mm) bamboo needles. I have no idea why this was such an extended excercise!
I must admit that I didn't much enjoy working with this yarn, though I do like the results. It had an irriating tendancy to twirl itself up into the sort of loops I've only previously seen in telephone cables and then split like crazy. I hand washed it to block it then ran it through the washing machine and it behaved extremely well and came out looking more blocked than when it had gone in! It did take ages to air dry, though it's been quite humid here which may be why.
The flowers are just embroidery thread in a shade of somewhere-between-red-and-pink. I wibbled about actually putting the flowers on because embroidery has never been my strong point but did in the end mainly becuase it covered one of the small errors. Only one flower was needed for this, of course, but it didn't look right without the extra ten or so! One thing I have learnt from this experience is that if you plan to put embroidery or the like on sleeves, it's probably be a good idea to plan it in advance, as sewing the flowers onto the outside of a narrow tube is really not easy!
I've been eyeing up Trellis from Knitty as a present for another set of friends and new baby and seeing a number of people's posts with pictures of theirs over the last little while, I've decided that this is indeed going to straight to the top of my list of things to do. I think I might work it as one piece having read people's comments, but on the other hand, it might turn into an aeroplane project, in which case, individual pieces might be more convenient. *Ponders*