Category Archives: knitting

Moon child

Here’s a knitting project that enjoyably occupied a large chunk of March lockdown: my slightly modified take on Laura Dalgaard’s Moon Child Vest pattern which I couldn’t resist once I’d clocked it on Instagram.

As you can see, compared to the original pattern I modified the chart a bit as I decided I wanted the larger planet to have the rings instead of the little one, because it’s cooler, no?. I basically redrew the chart with my modifications in a graphics program and followed that instead once I was done with the mountain part. I also removed the ‘craters’ from the ground area and shortened this area by several rows, although I still find the vest a bit too long overall, hence my attempt to French tuck it here. I also find the shoulders a little bit over-extended for my taste, I’d prefer them a little bit slimmer and not at all dropped over the shoulder point. I couldn’t adjust this as there’d have been no space for the intarsia details!

I was originally considering some extra intarsia design elements on the back but was almost out of the secondary yarns and quite intarsia-burnt-out after finishing the front so kept it plain. I used a hodgepodge of yarns: the body is Debbie Bliss Donegal Luxury Tweed Aran in Midnight held together with a spool of fluffy British spun mohair I bought on eBay. The pink planet is Wool and the Gang Feeling Good in Mineral Pink (I wish I’d held this double for a bulkier finish) and the purple and cream are Rowan Kid Classic in Periwinkle and Feather held double. I only used one ball of everything except the tweed which used 3 or 4. It was my first time trying to make more complex yarn substitutions and I found it quite a minefield both to calculate required yardage and to know which yarn weights to blend to get the right hand-feel and gauge. But I really like how the main body choice here turned out, I’ll certainly experiment with more yarn pairings in the future.

The knitting process was certainly interesting and absorbing. The pattern didn’t provide any guidance on how to do the intarsia design (just a big chart) so I had to refresh my rusty colourwork skills. I used mostly true intarsia, which for many areas required 6-8 different strands to swap between which got a little hairy – literally. I had to gear myself up for each knitting session and lay out all the bobbins around me to avoid them getting tangled – definitely not a project I could multi-task and watch TV with.

For some of the areas where a detail didn’t cover many background stitches (like the edges of the moon and some of the mountain tips) I floated the navy yarns in the back with twists to avoid more switch-outs. I tried my best to keep good tension and sharp joins between the colours and in general I think it certainly looks a bit more neat and polished than some previous projects.

The back is surprisingly tidy! I used the tutorial here to ‘bury’ in the loose ends with a fast and bulk-free technique which I really liked.

The awkward length and shoulder width – as well as the design being quite statement-y – makes me find this a little bit hard to style, unlike my Holiday Slipover (of which I’ve just made a second) which I throw on top of anything. I picked colours that tone with my wardrobe so at least I have a lot of matching tops in pink, navy and cream to layer under. Nonetheless I’m proud of it and enjoyed making it a lot, and hope it gets some outings before warmer weather properly kicks off.

Checkered slipover

I saw a few versions of this knitting pattern floating around Instagram, but it was Gyasti’s reel that convinced me it had some wardrobe versatility and really nudged me over the edge to try it. The pattern is the Petite Knit Holiday Slipover, modified to add a large checkerboard intarisa pattern. Big blocks have been a running theme in some of my recent makes, definitely influenced by Paloma Wool although unfortunately recently stylistically christened as avant basic. Eh, I’ll take it, it’s a bit of fun to brighten lockdown yet still very wearable.

The pattern is easy to follow and includes those clever construction touches like picked-up shoulder stitches and joining in the round after the armholes are shaped, but I did it flat in two pieces to make the intarsia easier. I divided the number of chest stitches (after all the armhole increases are complete) by three (+1 for the edge ones for seaming) to know how many stitches wide to make each block. The final block is half as high, which looks a bit unbalanced on the back but looks pretty ok on the front given the lower neckline.

Now, one thing I say I’ll do every new knit project is have a bit more discipline around swatching and gauging… but I always just jump right on in using a ‘best guess’ mentality and make tweaks rather arbitrarily as I go (much like a lot of my sewing, but at least I have some good sewers’ instinct by now). The fit of this is basically acceptable but I’d like the tension to be overall tighter to create a denser fabric with a bit less ‘sag’. That’s because I used a less bulky yarn (Debbie Bliss Merion, same as my Craze Crop sweater) on too-large needles, which swatching would probably have told me. NEXT TIME, promise.

I’m quite pleased that the ribbed edges turned out quite neat at least, I went down a whole 4mm in needle sizes and twisted the knit stitches, binding off with my favourite stretchy sewn method a la Elizabeth Zimmermann. (I learned to sew from Elizabeth Zimmermann books and have always been fond of her.)

On this balmy fool’s spring day I found myself quite cosy in the flat with it layered over a T-shirt and with my Nenuphar coat over the top on a little bike ride. I’m tempted to make another one in a solid or tweed as it was so fast to make – a week of leisurely evening knit sessions – and the checks won’t go with every underlayer.

Craze Crop

I launched straight from my last knitting project into a new one – it’s the perfect lockdown balm and chunky wool-rich knits are a very useful wardrobe addition as temperatures drop and WFH in my draughty flat continues. This is the Pickles Craze Crop pattern, a modern Norwegian pattern company (the pattern is in English) and I was completely smitten with the tiger-stripe colourwork.

I was a bit trepidatious when I first read the pattern and realised the colourwork is formed by short-row shaping instead of the intarsia chart I assumed. But after reading it through a few times and googling how to wrap and turn I got stuck in and realised it was actually really straightforward and fun. You essentially oscillate between making staggered short rows from each side to build up a triangular ‘wedge’ of colour, then switch colour/sides and build up the ‘gap’ to make it straight again. Sounds complicated but you get in a rhythm quickly and the counting becomes quite intuitive. I actually re-wrote out the pattern with the relevant stitches for my size only and ticked off the rows with a pencil as I went which helped me stay on track.

The body is worked bottom-up, then you cast off and on to form the neckline hole and work down the back in one piece – no shoulder seams. There’s no real shaping anywhere, the sleeves are rectangles with a scaled-down version of the same colourwork as the body and the neckline and hem are simply ribbed picked-up stitches with a smaller needle (I picked up every other stitch for the hem to cinch it in, which in retrospect was a little too extreme but does give the silhouette I was after.) It sped along on 7mm straight needles – I finished the body over a weekend and each sleeve took a couple of evening sessions. I just had a delay when I ran out of yarn and needed to stock back up!

I used 3 balls each of Debbie Bliss Merion in rose and gold – it was hard to pick colours as this yarn comes in such pretttyyy tones, I’m very tempted to make another one in lilac and moss green. It was a bit splitty to work with as it’s unplied and was completely unsuitable for mattress-stitch seaming as it pulled apart like candyfloss (I switched to a stronger yarn to seam up in the end) but it’s so squishy, hazy and soft and I love the firm texture it turned out in the garter stitch.

As I get back into knitting I’m learning a bit about my project preferences – I definitely prefer the process of knitting in the flat as there’s less weight of a whole garment on the needles, but I don’t enjoy the feel of bulky seaming, so circular certainly gives a neater overall result. I think if I continue going (to which the signs are pointing to yes, just bought some lovely royal blue yarn) I need to slow down a bit and pay more attention to my technique and fit. I’ll happily wear my slightly wonky cosy jumpers for now anyway.

Patchwork Pullover

My annual craft switcheroo, as I call it, has occurred as usual and my latest lockdown 2.0 project has been this slightly off-piste yet rather joyful knitted sweater.

This guy is based on on the Patchwork Pullover pattern by ShanaKay Salmon, which I fell in love with as soon as Jasika posted it on her IG stories. I think it was a mix of the pastel hues of the sample, the cosy silhouette and the mild Paloma Wool energy it was giving me that made me purchase the pattern plus some yarn pretty immediately and dig my needles out.

But being me–as I do so often with sewing too–once I started knitting I took my own route and did a lot of things differently to the pattern as written. The pattern is assembled of individual squares which are all seamed together at the end, with an under-sleeve ‘gusset’, hem band and neckline pieces also sewn separately and seamed on. While I loved the simplicity and ongoing gratification of knitting little squares, once I had a few of them made up I realised that all the seaming would be both tedious and cause bulk, so it’d actually be a lot more straightforward to knit the main panels as whole pieces with intarsia colourwork instead. So this is what I did, deducting one stitch from the width of each block to account for no longer needing to seam up.

Once I had the front and back made up, I realised I could also do away with the under-sleeve/side gusset as I already liked the width of the body. I introduced some shaping to the sleeves (which as designed are made up of squares all the way down), adding an increase row every four rows as I worked up from the cuff, to give more of a tapered fit. I also added some shaping to the neckline, casting-off stitches in the centre when I got six rows from the shoulder line and working the two sides separately with additional stitches gradually cast-off from the centre to scoop out the neckline a bit.

Finally, to finish the neckline and hem I picked-up and knit in 2×2 rib directly with an elastic bind-off rather than construct them separately and sew-on. I should add that none of these adjustments are strictly necessary or even true improvements to the original pattern, I think it would have turned out just fine as written too and would be particularly well suited as a warm-up for a beginner knitter.

Nonetheless, for something with that much on-the-fly hacking and essentially made of rectangles, I really like the resulting fit! The length and body ease are exactly what I was hoping for and actually do feel similar in proportion to my RTW Paloma Wool jumper.

I’m not quite 100% enamoured with my colour choices. I spent ages on the LoveCrafts site putting various colourways of Rico Mega Merino into my cart before deciding on this blend of darks, neutrals and brights, but actually I think I’d like it better in a more tonally harmonious blend, i.e. all-pastels or all-dark. It’s certainly warm and cheerful though so I’m pretty sure I’ll wear it a lot anyway.

I enjoyed making it so much that I already have my next knitting project on the go: the Pickles Craze Crop sweater in beaaauitfully snuggly pink and gold Debbie Bliss Merion yarn which I’m hopeful I will love even more. Hurrah for cosy and colourful knitwear projects to see us through lockdown…

Note: LoveCrafts links throughout are affiliate links, I get a small commission if you click the links and make a purchase. I am not paid to promote them – just a happy customer!

Isolation-fit: Strathcona & Philippa

I’ve made this entire outfit over the last week: I guess self-isolation was the kick needed to get back into sewing and even my extremely-long-neglected knitting habit. Desperate times…!

The trousers are a second pair of Anna Allen Philippa Pants – first pair here, which I wear an awful lot, so decided to recreate in a different colour of similar fabric – in this case, beautiful Coffee Bean Jumbo Cord from Merchant & Mills.

This fabric has a lot less stretch than my first pair, but I have lost some weight over the last few months, so I cut the same size as before with all my prior adjustments. I had to take in the side seams a little more once constructed to get the close fit I was after. I’m getting similar wrinkles all over the back leg to last time which may mean that a low butt or full back thigh adjustment is needed next time.

Like last time I added a stay into the front and swapped the button fly for a simple zip. I followed Charlie’s recent tutorial for getting a sharp corner on the waistband: I’ve done this so many times now but it’s always good to sense-check your approach with how someone else gets good results, and I like the simple steps she recommends a lot.

The sweater is the famous and much-loved Strathcona by Good Night Day. Fun fact, I used to be an extremely prolific knitter in my early 20s but it really fell by the wayside once I got into sewing – I just don’t have the patience to see a long project through and I’ve eagerly started many sweaters in the interim years only to abandon them partway. However the Strathcona is both super-chunky and very small (thanks to the shrunken fit and 3/4 sleeves) and literally worked up so fast that I didn’t have time to run out of steam once. I had it finished over a week of very casual knitting sessions and it really just worked up in front of my eyes.

I feel like while I still have the basic muscle memory for knitting and can follow instructions with ease, I have lost a lot of finesse with getting good tension and techniques, so the sweater isn’t that amazingly well made. In particular I’m annoyed that the M1 technique I used (the pattern doesn’t give a specific technique) has left uneven lacy holes down the raglan armsyces which I’d prefer would look solid – I’m wearing a black tee underneath here as it looks pretty weird otherwise. I did a pick-up-and-knit-tbl but I think kfb would have been better.

I made the smaller size of the pattern and I like the fit being a bit snugger than how it looks in the pattern photos and on other people. I tried it on regularly (the joys of top-down knitting) to check the body and sleeve length and ended both with a deeper layer of ribbing than in the pattern (12 rows instead of 4). The yarn is Debbie Bliss Roma, a chunky wool/alpaca blend which I bought from LoveCrafts – I only used 4 balls!

The pants are the first project I’ve completely sewn on my new machine by the way – I was lucky enough to get a Pfaff Ambition 630 for my birthday back in January. It coped more than admirably and I will be writing up some more detailed thoughts on the machine soon if you’re interested. Here’s to more isolation-sewing, and maybe even knitting…