Weasley Jumper Pair

You may have noticed that I have more than one daughter. This frequently means that I need to make more than one jumper, and the Weasley jumper was no exception. This doubling of the knitting project however, was nearly entirely my idea, as I found the idea of having daughters with the correct intials for Harry and Ron jumpers quite amusing. They are kind daughters, and are humouring me, just not in public. Naturally, I had to make the H version in green. Once again I used free pattern by Alison Hansel, this time in the textured Ivy, with a little Willow, from the lovely colours of Jo Sharp Silk Road Aran Tweed

 

 This version, although the same size in circumference, had to be lengthened slightly in the arms and body, and I used an extra ball of the main colour (10). With the contrast yarn (1 ball) I again put a few lines at the neck, and also at the sleeve cuff. I also made a slightly higher and doubled over neck for extra warmth. I had to wait a long time to get a paired shot, as one of my daughters now lives in Brisbane for university, and I am pretty sure they have a pact to not both wear the jumpers on the same day, but here are my Weasley jumper pair.

The occasion is a family trip to the newly opened pick-your-own-strawberry fields at Cooloola Berries. The strawberries are delicious.

 By all reports, these are excellently comfortable and luxurious feeling knits. I wonder why my son doesn't want one? I suspect it is too cute to all have matching jumpers!

Peggy Sue Addiction

I made another one. I might be addicted. This is such a quick little cardigan. Peggy Sue by Linda Wilgus again, in Baby Bamboo again.
I still didn't get to wear it, but this time, I had actually made it for someone else. My older daughter has 2 versions, and this one is for my younger daughter.

 

I love the twisted cable detail on the sleeves

I love the fitted waist using the same cable

and like how the cardigan looks good both buttoned and worn open.

Its lucky for me that Baby Bamboo comes in so many colours. .

Weasley Jumper

It is not often that I get a detailed knitting request from my family, usually its something like "Do you think you could make me some gloves/a scarf/ a beanie from this yarn" and I get to pick the pattern myself, but recently, I had a very precise request from my younger daughter. She wanted a maroon Weasley jumper with her initial on it - this being the same initial as Ron Weasley's from the Harry Potter series.

 

Fortunately for me, I was able to show her the free pattern by Alison Hansel, which met her requirements perfectly - even to having the beautifully soft and luxurious yarn used in the pattern, Jo Sharp Silk Road Aran Tweed, in a gorgeous shade of a deep, dark maroon with flecky bits that looks great with jeans (colour now discontinued, sorry).

I made the size Child L/Adult Small, using 9 balls of the main colour, and 1 for contrast, and found it a very easy and quick knit.
The pattern does not include an R initial, but it was not difficult to adapt the included H.
I used a knitting graph paper from this site to make the R
 I knit this in, using intarsia, rather than doing duplicate stitch afterwards, and I also adapted the pattern to knit the bottom in the round up to the armscyes, and the sleeves in the round on double pointed needles. This meant that I had to break off the yarn after each line of the initial intil the front/back division, but as this is only a 1/3 or so of the initial the weaving in was not too painful afterwards.
There is an extra few lines of the contrast yarn in my version at the neck, as this idea took my fancy as I was finishing off the jumper.
The only other thing I can say about this jumper is that it is in terrible danger of wearing out in a single season due to overuse!

Peggy Sue Two

Last year, I made my daughter a little navy blue cardigan from the free pattern by Linda Wilgus, Peggy Sue. She has been wearing it frequently, and I coveted it myself, so I started to knit one, in the next size up, in Flirt. This yarn by Sirdar has the same composition as the very popular Baby Bamboo, 80% Bamboo, 20% Wool (I used the Baby Bamboo last time), but the Flirt yarn is marketed as being in a  more adult colour palette (personally, I think the Baby Bamboo colours are mostly excellent for grown-ups), and has its own pattern book for women.
I chose a quite beautiful purple, called "Hypnotic" (255). Like the Baby Bamboo, this yarn has a very slight sheen when knitted up. I was thinking I would like the cardigan for casual social events during summer  - a BBQ at a friend's house, or something like that.

The teenage fashion panel approved greatly of the colour, and for Christmas, my daughter was given a lovely print blouse with exactly the same shade of purple in it.
It was not very surprising that the cardigan ended up in her wardrobe.



Here she is wearing it to go out to a "Colour" themed party




Here she is wearing it with her work clothes.
It really is a most versatile cardigan, and I still want one for myself!

Once again, I modified the pattern. This time I lengthened the waist twisted rib slightly again used short rows to raise the back neckline.
I started knitting another one almost immediately, and will show you what happened to that one shortly.

Maheno Beanie

Whenever I make something knitted for my husband, who is suitably grateful for handknits, and so, deserves them, I am reminded of how wonderful my daughters are at modelling.



This very plain, but rather useful beanie was made in response to a washing accident, when the previous use of this same pattern, in Jo Sharp Silkroad Ultra  (unblogged due to model reluctance) went through a hot cycle after a camping trip and turned into a much smaller, felted beanie, and is now worn only under a hood.

 This new version was knitted in Aslan Trends Guanaco (alpaca and merino), which would probably cope no better with washing accidents, but has a lower cost/yardage ratio, is beautifully soft and warm, and available in plain navy blue. Plain navy blue beanies could be boring, but are completely inoffensive to the conservative Australian male, so are worn frequently.

Modelling is apparently a high price to pay for a beanie, and one beanie gets approximately 30 seconds of modelling according to the recipient's modelling tolerance meter.

Fortunately, the beanie is knit in a nice plain single rib, and I don't need any detail shots, although I have lightened photos slightly so that the beanie is visible.



These photographs were taken on a sunset walk to the Maheno shipwreck on Fraser Island.The sunset was better before I lightened the photos, but I am pretty sure only knitters read this blog, so I knew where to leave the focus ;)
Before I read the National Park information sign here, I had a romantic idea that seamen on the Maheno might have worn classic navy blue beanies, but the Maheno was a scrap ship, being towed, when it came loose in a storm and beached here, so probably there were no seamen on it at all.

If there were, though, a beanie like this one would have kept them nicely warm.
 I am making one more test beanie from  this pattern - in Crofter Chunky, then I will add it to the free pattens on the website.

Peggy Sue in Bamboo

I love this pattern, Peggy Sue by Linda Wilgus (free download on ravelry).



I've made it in Sirdar Baby Bamboo (80% bamboo, 20% wool DK) for my daughter, in the size XS with a few judicious additions and operator errors alternate design decisions. It took only 5 balls, with mere centimetres of yarn left over, so I am feeling very thrifty about it all.



Most of my changes were at the back. This cardigan is knitted from the top down, and as written has a very straight neckline. In order for the neckline to sit higher at the back than at the front, I added 10 short rows, tapering at the sleeve increases at the back.



I also found the cardigan to be a little tight for my daughter across the back (the advantage of knitting from the top down is trying-on opportunities), so added a few stitches here also.

In the pattern, the waist cabling starts at the bottom of the ribs. I was knitting away merrily in stocking stitch on automatic pilot and failed to refer adequately to my pattern at a crucial moment. This means that I had knit nearly 9 inches of stocking stitch instead of about 9 cm, so my waist cabling is a little shallow, due to a dislike of frogging perfectly good knitting.

This does not bother me particularly, as I still think the cardigan looks great - with jeans, shorts or even with office clothes.

 

The Slightly Slouchy Beanie

I made this hat as a thank you gift for a friend who loves the outdoors. She hikes, and cycles all the time , does a lot of travelling, and does not wear anything fluffy or frilly – or, as far as I can tell, patterned .I wanted a hat that fit her practical needs, including being light and small to pack, but did not look like something only a bloke would wear.

 Fortunately for me, she not only said all the right things when I gave it to her, but a few weeks later told me how much she had been wearing it, so either I have been successful with my pattern, or she is very kind and has extremely good manners – or both. Even better, it was relatively quick to knit, and was a good use for some of my large stash of sock yarn. 
I used Heirloom Jigsaw sock yarn and Patonyle sock yarn for the contrast brim. The self patterning Jigsaw yarn  makes a nice non repeating variegated yarn as a beanie.

I am planning on putting this pattern up for free on Ravelry  - once I have some test knitting done. 

Small knit series - birthday cowl

Despite my blog neglect over summer I was knitting non-lap size things.
Here are the two versions of Diana Hanna's Birthday Cowl (free pattern on Ravelry) that I made for 2 young women who took a trip to England in December.
Version1
Aslan Trends Invernal in Raspberry

I used garter stitch as a border to decrease the rolled edge effect.
This cowl was lovely and soft, but unfortunately I found it rather large
Version 2

I knit the second one with one less repeat of the lace panel, in Aslan Trends Invernal colour Rouge, and much preferred the sizing.

I thought it was a good travelling present, being small enough to keep in a pocket, and useable to cover ears or the neck, first time overseas travellers from Australia being prone to underestimate just how chilly it can be in Europe in winter.

I received good reports of the cushy warmth of the angora rabbit/wool yarn.

Show off stranded socks

I had marvellous intentions of knitting socks for everyone in time for Christmas, but alas, I have recently finished only my fourth pair for the year. I must have been knitting too many cardigans and jumpers.

I like these socks very much, they are made from the lovely yarn, colourway 1335 Vintage, and the pattern, show-off stranded socks is a free download from Anne Campbell's website. They have a really interesting heel and gusset construction, and a very cool overall pattern of slipped and passed over stitches.
The only trouble I had was that the stitch pattern is not quite so stretchy as stocking stitch, and I foolishly failed to allow for this in my choice of sizes. It is just terrible ;) that the only person in the house these actually fit is moi. They are rather stretched over the foot of my daughter, in her role as sock model, and she was complaining bitterly about this for the entire 35 seconds of the photo shoot. They look good though!

I have started some plain socks with self striping yarn. I might make them a bit small for other peopel too.

Knitted flower brooch. Free Pattern.

Having just completed a cardigan that needs a pin for closure, I decided to try some embellishment knitting, having seen some of this in RTW. Hand made is better in my opinion. The pattern for the different shaped petals is at the end of the post.



First I knit 8 teardrop shaped petals, with the base petals more rounded than the upper, in Jo Sharp rare comfort kid mohair, using 5.0mm needles.



Next I used the long cast off tails of the petals to assist the petals to curve. I wove in the tail towards the top centre of the petal, then ran the thread in and out of the central column of stitches, using a wool needle.



Once I had made 4 base petals, I stitched them together at the centre.



The upper petals were made in the same manner, then joined individually over the base petals.



All the tails were threaded through to the back, and knotted in pairs around the fixed leg of a kilt pin. After this knotting, the tails were gathered together, formed into two bunches, and tied in a reef knot around the same leg of the pin.



After construction, small beads were stitched through the centre of the flower, using standard sewing thread and a beading needle.







Base Petals - teardrop shape: Make 4

1.Make a slip knot, leaving a tail of at least 15cm, Cast on 2 stitches,
2.Knit in to front and back of each stitch (4 stitches)
3.Purl row
4.Knit in to front and back of first stitch, knit to second last stitch, knit into front and back of second last stitch, Knit 1
5. Purl row
6.Knit in to front and back of first stitch, knit to second last stitch, knit into front and back of second last stitch, Knit 1
7. Purl row
8.Knit in to front and back of first stitch, knit to second last stitch, knit into front and back of second last stitch, Knit 1
9. Purl row
10. Knit row
11. Purl row
12. Knit row.
13. Purl row,
14. Knit 1, Knit2 together, Knit to last 3 stitches, slip 1, Knit 1, pass slipped stitch over, knit1
15. Purl row
16.Knit 1, Knit2 together, Knit to last 3 stitches, slip 1, Knit 1, pass slipped stitch over, knit1
17. Cast off 8 stitches in Purl. Leave a long tail (15cm)

Upper petals - make 4, these are more elongated than the base petals.


1.Make a slip knot, leaving a tail of at least 15cm, Cast on 2 stitches,
2. Knit row
3. Purl row
4.Knit in to front and back of each stitch (4 stitches)
5.Purl row
6.Knit in to front and back of first stitch, knit to second last stitch, knit into front and back of second last stitch, Knit 1
7. Purl row
8.Knit in to front and back of first stitch, knit to second last stitch, knit into front and back of second last stitch, Knit 1
9. Purl row
10.Knit in to front and back of first stitch, knit to second last stitch, knit into front and back of second last stitch, Knit 1
11. Purl row
12. Knit row
13. Purl row
14. Knit 1, Knit2 together, Knit to last 3 stitches, slip 1, Knit 1, pass slipped stitch over, knit1
15. Purl row
16.Knit 1, Knit2 together, Knit to last 3 stitches, slip 1, Knit 1, pass slipped stitch over, knit1
17. Cast off 8 stitches in Purl. Leave a long tail (15cm)

Jen's Willow Cowl

Look what Jen made from Sante Fe, more often encountered as a beautifully soft sock. The colourway is 1335, also known as "vintage" , and I just love it. I have to admit that I am a weak woman. When Jen showed me her almost completed and gorgeous cowl, she had hardly walked out of the shop with the yarn she needed before I had cast on a sock in the same yarn. I will probably need a cowl too ;).


We will not talk about the 3 pairs of work in progress socks that I currently have lurking about somewhere. I am blaming them on the sock knitting class we held in...ulp, March!. How did it turn into May already?

You can see more about Jen's cowl here if you are a Ravelry member.

The pattern is Willow Cowl by Amelia Lyon, which is a free pattern downloadable on Ravelry.

Wisp, a stole in Jo Sharp Rare Comfort Kid Mohair

Here is a stole I finished quite a while ago. I gave it to my mother for her birthday, and she had not got around to bringing it into the shop for photographs until last week.
The free pattern is Wisp by Cheryl Niamath, from Knitty 2007.
I have used 2 balls of Jo Sharp Rare Comfort Kid Mohair in colour Cranberry.