Sunday, January 18, 2009

Warm woolies


Beautiful blue for beautiful blue-eyed boy. This sweater is another Holli Yeoh pattern, called Avery. I have made it in Opal yarn, a kit I purchased from Holli. The self striping yarn with the browns, greens and blues are a great compliment to the blue of the main colour. Mostly done on the machine, the corrugated ribbing and the blocks of colour on the front were done by hand, because my machine doesn't do (a) ribbing, and (b) two colour intarsia. I quite like that I have to do some by hand, though, it means I don't entirely abandon my hand work to the machine. After all, am I knitting because I want to knit or because I want to produce? Both, but I do enjoy the knitting part.




Another Avery, this time done in Trekking yarn. The self-patterning yarn on this one, like the Christmas sweater in reds and greens, is more tweedy than stripy. I couldn't actually find a spot where the pattern repeated itself. Because different colours are plied together, and the length of the colour repeat on them must differ, they don't fall together at the same point of another ply's colour, necessarily. I really like the colour of this one, but sweet baby James' mum said it was too girly, so it will have to go to a girl somewhere. Since Christmas, I have made three children's sweaters on the machine. The sewing up is a bit behind, but it is amazing how quickly they come together on the machine.





These are the sleeves of the black and grey cabled sweater by Wilma Peers, from Vogue Knitting Fall 2006. They rather look like scarves at the moment - yes they are both on one needle, and that does emphasize the narrow look, but I am a bit concerned that they are actually going to be big enough around the arm. I love the cables on this sweater, but I have been somewhat frustrated with the knitting. The instructions are less than clear in some parts and I have interpreted, and sometimes adapted, them to my liking. My main concern is the length of the sleeve. Because it is a raglan, and I am not sure how high up the shoulder the top of the sleeve will sit, it is difficult to judge exactly how long to make the sleeve. I know it needs to be shorter than the instructions call for; even with a long, beyond the wrist sleeve, 25 1/2 inches is far too long for my short arms. I am hoping that my estimation is going to be a go...