Hayward

I have a new sweater to show you  - Hayward, a simple raglan with elongated raglan lines, a lot of positive ease, boat neck and 7/8 sleeves, knitted in stockinette stitch in the round - the perfect tv knitting!

I was gifted the yarn by a Facebook friend, who had bought it, did not like it and noticed that I had knitted with it previously. In all honesty, it is my least favourite Italian bobbin tweed yarn I've tried so far, but it is of very beautiful color and definitely did not deserve to finish in the trash bin unloved.

I fought with it hard until I found the right pattern. Initially I bought the popular Harley and cast it on with this yarn, but midway the cowl I realized that this tweed was too stiff, too dry and too busy for the cabled Harley. And then I remembered that I had been planning to have a go at the Hayward for quite a long time and this was the perfect yarn - if I did not like the elongated raglan, at least I would not have wasted precious yarn on it.

To knit the sweater I followed the general recipe for elongated raglan by Olga Kondratyeva and my own measurements and calculations. And it all went very smoothly until I reached the sleeves. Then my perfectionist nature in evil combination with my ever hesitant self knitted and frogged endlessly one sleeve or another - long or short, how long, how short, how narrow, how wide - I couldn't decide and I had to try them all until I was finally satisfied with the result you see on these pictures. I do not regret a single frogged stitch, as at least now I know this is exactly how I wanted the sleeves! :)

The positive ease - I knitted the sweater with a total of 20 cm positive ease at the bust and I believe this is really needed to make the Hayward silhouette work. For the hem - I tried without ribbing, but it curled uncompromisingly and no amount of blocking or even 3-st I-cord could prevent it. Plus the wideness of the sweater around the bum, combined with the curling, was very unflattering. So in the end I unravelled the last 10 or so rows and finished the hem with 2x2 ribbing and I love it - it stays straight and pulls in the volume just enough to feel comfortable.

Pattern: Hayward by Julie Hoover

Yarn: Natural Fantasy Condor 3, 200 g

Yarn Content: 62% wool, 6% angora, 10% silk, 4% modal, 18% polyamide, 450 m / 100 g

Needle: 3.25 mm, 3 mm

Time to knit: about a month

 

All in all, I'm actually truly happy with the final result, the sweater is easy to wear and very light - only 200g, but quite warm. After washing the yarn softened and as you can see I am able to wear it right next to the skin without any itching or irritation. Now I have to decide what to make out of the two other bobbins of the same yarn in two other colors that came with it - more Hayward sweaters perhaps :)

Gibson Cardigan

 

I am finally able to show you a finished knitted garment - The Gibson Cardigan by Angela Hahn. Gibson is a free pattern, published by Knitty magazine, First Fall edition of 2018. The pattern calls for heavy weight cotton yarn, but lately I find that I prefer knitting with wool, even for summer. So I opted to knit it in an Italian bobbin tweed yarn I had around - Filpucci Tweedeco, 70% merino, 30% poly-amide, 450 m per 100 g.

Gibson is a top-down raglan cardigan with lace sleeves and a wide collar, which is knitted sideways. My first modification - as my yarn was thinner and my gauge smaller, I cast on the second size (S), aiming at achieving an XS and I had to recalculate the rows to add additional depth, as my rows gauge was also smaller.

 When I divided for the body and reached the high hip, I decided that I wanted the cardigan longer, so I continued knitting until the body under the arms measured 40 cm. However the long cardigan was rather narrow to cover my hips, even with the added collar. So I decided to add two lace triangles to the fronts. I chose a place above the bust to start the lace triangle and grafted it to the stockinette body as I went knitting it top-down.

 

I did not want ribbing which would pull in the end of the cardigan, so I finished the hems with broken rib and for consistency I decided to make the collar of the cardigan in the same style.

 

And finally - I decided to leave the cardigan open,  without buttons or other closure, as it is intended as a light cover during the summer nights or warmer spring and autumn days.

Although I had my doubts and hesitations, I am pretty happy with the end result - the cardigan is light, only 230 g, airy, yet very warm and comfy. The yarn is supersoft and pleasant to the skin.

 

 

Pattern: Gibson by Angela Hahn

Yarn: Filpucci Tweedeco, 230 g

Needle: 4 mm body, 3.5 mm hems and collar

Time to knit: 2 months

FO: Copper Cables

I have two finished objects today!
First and most important I finished my Spanish course and this morning I passed the exam with 99.5% Yey for me!!! A month of rest and festivities and in January I intend to enroll into the next level.

And then I have a new sweater to show you. It took me two attempts at it, but I'm fairly satisfied with the final result. I started the sweater about a month ago in November and had almost finished it (body and a sleeve), when I finally accepted the truth - it didn't fit me well, the yoke was too narrow and the sweater kept pulling up my neck and felt uncomfortable. Besides, the cable on the sleeves, which I had chosen from my Japanese stitching bible, was not a good choice for a single cable and lastly, the texture I was getting on my 4 mm needles was a bit too dense and lacked the plasticity I was looking for. So, on the last day of November I took a deep breath and unravelled it.

The new version of the sweater features a simpler, but quite elegant cable - a version of the stag-horn cable, much wider neckpiece and yoke and the sweater was knitted on 4.5 mm needles. As always, after a heavy decision to rip an almost ready sweater, I find myself quite happy with it in the end, as the resulting finished piece is a sweater I'm going to wear and love.

Pattern: Copper Cables (personal pattern)
Yarn: Zegna Baruffa Kent, 100% merino, 200 g
Needle: 3.75 mm (ribbing), 4.5 mm (body)
Time to knit: 12 days (second and final version)

The sweater is knitted top down, with saddle shoulders, straight silhouette, about 8 cm positive ease, split hems and a faux seam at the sides (a single purl stitch).

The yarn, Italian bobbin merino, is very soft and extremely warm. Though the sweater is only 200 g and feels quite light, it is pretty toasty and on a sunny December day like today I felt quite warm without my coat.

The faux seam - I should do this trick more often, as this purl stitch helps with preserving the form of the sweater and against twisting (the body is knitted in the round).

Drops Poncho

My latest sweater - poncho, a pattern by Drops Design. The original is a striped poncho, knitted on bigger needles, but I soon found, that it ran too large for me, so I followed most of the numbers for the smallest size, though my needles and my gauge were smaller and it came out perfect for me - not too baggy, but still roomy enough to be a poncho and allow for another top to be worn under it.

The yarn is again Italian bobbin yarn, new to me. It is 60% merino, 20% silk buret and 20% polyamide. It is quite different from other merinos I've knitted so far - much coarser, sturdier and with almost none elasticity, which actually makes it quite suitable for an outer garment like a poncho. I had 300 g of it and knitted it literally to the last centimeter. To do this, I knitted the poncho from the neck to the splitting of the sleeves, then I did the sleeves, added a ribbed neck piece as the original open neck was a bit too open for me, and then proceeded to knit the body until I ran out of yarn.

I knitted the ribbing of the hem twice - initially I made it like the pattern instructed - adding 48 stitches to the rib to make it flare. But I did not like the wide and floppy look it gave the poncho, especially on the back, so I ripped off the wide rib and reknitted it with the same number of stitches I had for the body and on smaller needles (from 4 mm for the body to 3.5 mm for the rib). Now the rib pulls the poncho close to the body and I love the form it keeps.

The original design features two colored stripes, but I wanted to have my poncho monochromatic, so I replaced the color stripes with textured stripes. I played with several ideas until I decided on these groups of rows of slip stitch horizontal bars. I am pretty pleased with how it came out, though perhaps other arrangements of the structural rows could have been also quite effective.

Pattern: 207-18 Seashell Search by DROPS design
Yarn: Filatura Papi Fabio Tecla, 300 g
Needle: 4 mm (body), 3.5 mm (ribs)
Time to knit: three weeks

Saudade Dress

My latest FO and first dress for Gaby. It is seamless, top-down, saddle-shoulder raglan, slightly A shaped simple stockinette stitch dress, knitted in the round, perfect for our crisp spring days, as today.
And what is most important - she likes it and finds it warm and comfy.

The yarn is another Italian bobbin yarn - Natural Fantasy Condor 4, a wooly tweed with very complex composition - 62% wool, 6 % angora, 10% silk, 4% modal, 18% polyamide. It was rather coarse and uneven before washing, but as with most bobbin yarns, after washing and wet blocking the resulting texture is soft and pleasant to the skin.

Pattern: Saudade dress (personal pattern)
Yarn: natural Fantasy tweed, 200g
Needle: 3.25 mm, 3 mm
Time to knit: 17 days

Starry Night

My latest sweater - for me! No pattern, improvised top down raglan with round yoke and Asian back correction. The body is tailored with decreases at six points, like in tailored shirts - on the sides and at two points on the front (symmetrical under the bust) and on the back (symmetrical under the shoulder blades).

Inspired by Gaby's Lavandula, I added beads to my very simple blue sweater and I'm so happy with the result. Initially I had started adding the beads randomly, as in the Lavandula, but then it occurred to me that they could be a feature, forming a pattern, so I alternated placing them in the center and in the end of each of the 16 sections, within which I was adding the stitches to form the round yoke.

Pattern: Starry Night (personal pattern)
Yarn: Filpucci Ascot - Italian bobbin yarn, 70% merino, 15% cashmere goat, 15% angora, 170g
Needle: 3.5 mm body, 3 mm broken rib
Time to knit: 17 days