Jennie's Class Headband

Whilst I am an inveterate out of season knitter, and have just finished something enormous, of 12 ply alpaca, with cables (it has to be mysterious, as it may end up as a pattern in a magazine, how exciting!), other people are much more sensible about warm weather knitting.
Here is Jennie's headband, her own pattern, made from the light, viscose-cotton blend of Aslan Trends Class.



Had I considered such a clever project, I would have thought that Class would be a little too slippery for a headband, but Jennie finds that the elasticity of stocking stitch is sufficient to hold the band in place, and the slight slipperiness means that the band does not grab at her hair.

Sirdar wrap cardigan in cotton

Although I love Sirdar Baby Bamboo, I wanted to make the wrap cardigan from Baby Bamboo too in cotton for my niece. Several people have asked me how the patterns knit up in 8ply cotton, and I just couldn't tell them until now.



Here is the wrap cardigan in Aslan Trends Glaciar Del Cielo (2655 Orchid), with the stripes and tie ends in remnants of Class. I did modify the pattern, knitting the body in one piece, as I wrote about last time I made up this pattern, and adding a row of single crochet as a neck edging rather than sewing on a knitted trim. You can see that I have used i-cord rather than ribbon for the ties. I thought a nice solid cotton i cord would be less likely to be pulled out or eaten by my 15 month old niece than a slippery ribbon.
I am planning yet another version of this cardigan for my 5 year old niece. It is lucky this is such a quick knit.

Class Top

This top required some maths. The pattern is Top D from Sirdar Just Bamboo Book 334.

The pattern as written uses 5.5mm needles, and Just Bamboo yarn, giving a loose open texture at about a 10ply stitch count. As you can see, the very smart camisole top here has a quite close and firm texture, minimizing see through in such a cool-to-wear top. It is knit from Class yarn (8ply, viscose/cotton) shade Bahama Blue on 4mm needles, and fits very nicely.

Jennie knit a tension swatch on 4ply needles and we worked out that as her row height was a little less than standard for her stitch count, she could simply increase the dress size chosen (up by 3 sizes in this case) rather than recalculate the entire pattern. When doing this it is important to check that not just girth changes, but the height changes of the garment, particularly when increasing or decreasing by row number rather than garment height in cm. Fortunately for our calculation tolerance, there is very little shaping in this garment, and the armholes are measured in cm, not in rows, so Jenni could essentially follow the pattern and end up with a well fitting garment.

Monday Knit Night Scarf

This is possibly the most popular scarf pattern at StitchBliss. The original idea arose from a collaborative pattern design session one Monday night at sit and stitch, when Margaret wanted a "next level up" scarf to make after her gorgeous garter stitch stole. Margaret has shipped off her first scarf as a gift, and unfortunately I did not manage to take a photo in daylight of either her first or second version of this pattern, so I am showing you a later version, made by Hannah.

This scarf alternates a few rows of garter stitch with a row of spider stitch (a.k.a twisted drop stitch), and is a very quick knit. So far we have seen at least 10 versions in Aslan Trends Class, as well as a few other 8ply yarns. The scarf looks very different with varying tension in the spider stitch row, which makes it a terrific group project.

Hannah's version here was made as a birthday gift for a friend. She used around 3/4 of a 100g skein of Class in colour "tomato".

Jennie's Classy short jacket

Jennie used Aslan Trends Class (8ply viscose/cotton) to make this gorgeous summer weight bolero jacket. She modified the pattern of the jacket body from a ball band pattern originally from some older cotton yarn in her stash.


The crochet collar is a trim she likes, from another old ball band pattern - there are some gems out there! I like it too.
I am planning to swap lessons with Jennie, she will teach me crochet, and I will teach her smocking. Watch this space.....