Stella Alpina Tunic

My latest sweater, probably the last for this winter season. It is an interpretation of a Drops dress design, which I made into a tunic sweater for my daughter. The original dress specifies the use of two different yarns - Drops Fabel (the color mix) and Drops Alpaca (the solid colors). However I decided to use my bobbin of red-orange Cashwool and to dye half of it in a color mix of red, yellow, orange and brown.

Pattern: Dress with star pattern border (loose interpretation)
Yarn: Cashwool 100% merino, 300 g
Needle: 4 mm
Time to knit: two months

As usual, I don't think I even read the whole of the pattern instructions, as I had an idea in my head and I made my own calculations to get it. The knitting took me long, as I had my doubts and hesitations and put the sweater aside for long periods of time.

The bottom part of the sweater is knit across with short rows, provisional cast on and then grafting of the first and the last rows to close the tube, or rather the truncated cone. The same technique is applied for the low part of the sleeves.

For the solid color parts of the sweater I used my description of the Bonus sweater - it was quite easy to adapt it for this tunic, as the yarn and gauge are basically the same.

After last week's high spring temperatures I thought I was late with this snowflake-y sweater, but the temperatures this week dropped so low and we've had so much snow and cold these days, that it is hard to believe that April is behind the corner. Spring is definitely late this year.

It was so cold when we took these pictures today that I had to hurry not to let Gaby freeze without her coat and hat. Definitely sweater weather!

Three Penguin Hats - Revisited

Two years ago I knitted three hats with penguin charts and ear flaps. I even bought yellow and navy blue polar fleece for hat linings and then abandoned the whole affair. The hats had problems - the placement of the ear flaps on the first hat was wrong and gave too narrow an opening for the face. The tubular cast on was pulling the hat edge and did not look good with the fleece lining. The hats needed pompoms and embellishments. But the biggest stopper was the sewing of the linings. I had never sewed linings with ear flaps and was not sure how to design them and then the mere trouble of taking out the sewing machine and clearing some flat space for cutting out the fleece was sufficient to put me off for quite some time, like two years :)

So this last Saturday I took the hats out and repaired them. I undid the cast on edge of Gaby's hat and finished the raw stitches with I-cord. Added a big pom pom and plaits. Sewed yellow fleece lining and attached it to the hat, allowing for the yellow edge to form a contrasting contour to the hat.

My nephew's hat was the first one I knitted back then and I hadn't figured its ear flaps correctly. So I took out the entire lower part with the ear flaps and knitted it anew with the correct placement of the flaps and a wider opening for the face and again cast off the stitches with I-cord. For this hat I sewed a navy blue fleece lining and added a blue pompom.

This third hat happened by accident - it was meant for Gaby, but came out a bit small. Nevertheless I decided to finish it too, adding a yellow I-cord edge, yellow lining and a blue pompom. In the first picture above this hat is without the lining, as I initially planned to spare myself the trouble, but later today I decided to finish it properly like the other two and sewed and attached its fleece lining too.
I feel so satisfied having finished these hats and making them wearable. The blue hat will be posted to my nephew tomorrow, Gaby put on hers today for school and I only have to find a head to match the third hat :))))

WIP: Penguins

Let's face it - I've been a bit obsessed with penguin hats :)))
It all started with an idea to make an ear-flap hat, using short rows.And I also wanted it to have some stranded knitting for fun. So I made this hat for my nephew - it still needs a pompom, some embellishments and maybe a fleece lining.

Then Gaby said she wanted a penguin hat too, but with this penguin chart. However, the chart is quite big - 20 rows for a penguin, so I remolded it to two versions - a 8 sts repeat of 10 row penguin (which Gaby chose) and a 12 sts repeat of 12 row penguin. I've posted the charts for anyone who might want to knit penguins.

And the third hat? Actually the second hat came out a bit small, but instead of frogging it, I decided to knit another one for Gaby and to find a smaller head for the second hat. Thus in the course of a week I made three penguin hats. Now - on for the pompoms and the fleece linings.

Sophia Loren Riverside Pullover

Pattern: Sophia Loren Riverside Pullover by Kathleen Lawton-Trask
Published: Knitty, Deep Fall 2013
Yarn: Alize Cashmira 36 Brick (120 g), 1 Cream (70 g), 14 dark Yellow (70 g)
Needle: 3.5 mm rib, 4 mm body
Notes on my interpretation of the pattern

WIP - Knitty Sweater

I know I haven't been blogging about knitting for almost a month, but it's not like I haven't been knitting - just I've been doing it very very slowly. I'm very bad at stranded knitting - one reason - I knit with the yarn in front of the knitting, and when there are two or more colors passing through my pin, it usually quickly becomes a mess and keeping the right tension is quite a challenge. But this Knitty Deep Fall 2013 sweater has only a few sections of stranded knitting, so I thought I could manage it.

I made a few modifications to the original pattern, some good, some bad judgement.
1) I elongated the body a bit, making the rib longer and adding a row to the single color sections.
2) The sleeves are 3/4 long, repeating exactly the body.
3) I changed the waist fitting, distributing more evenly the increases and the decreases, still keeping the stitches multiples of 6, where it was necessary (the stranded sections).

4) When I reached the underarms, I decided to continue with the upper part, adding the sleeve stitches with provisional cast on. I do that often with raglan sweaters, as it provides a more neat connection between the sleeves and the body. I knew the V of the stitches on the sleeves would be ^ upside down, as the sleeves are knit in the opposite direction, but I thought I wouldn't mind that too much. However, when I began the sleeves, I found that I minded the difference a lot, so I unraveled the stranded diamonds, cut the yarn and started the sleeve from the wrist and then added it to the body with grafting. I think it worked alright and doesn't show. Now I'm working on the second sleeve (and fighting the second sleeve syndrome :). However, if I had to knit this or any other stranded sweater again, I would knit the sleeves first and then continue with the upper body.

5) I omitted the last C1 color section and instead added some length to the back in the C2 color section, using short rows. My first try actually included the C1 section and short rows in that section, but it didn't look alright with only two rows of orange in the front and 10 rows of orange in the back, the bigger yellow section worked better with the elongation of the back neck portion.
I'm almost done with the second sleeve, so I hope there will be a FO photosession later this week :)

Drops Hat

I don't remember exactly how I came upon this cardigan by DROPS design, I might have been browsing through legwarmers, but the striking combination of black and white stranded knitting arrested my eyes and made me look through the projects on Ravelry. And when I saw Saviera's hat interpretation I knew I had to knit this, more so as I had just the yarn remains from Gaby's cardigan. Like Saviera, I cast on 96 sts for k1p1 ribbing, but then increased to 120 sts for the stranded design.

Pattern: Jacket 116 by Drops Design
Yarn: Alize Cashmira 100% wool in black and white
Needle: 3.5 mm rib, 4 mm body
Time to knit: 2 days

I bought a piece of black fleece to make a lining for the hat, but we still haven't got any winter here, the temperatures are well above 0 C, actually it was 11 C earlier today and the fleece would be redundant in such warm weather. The snowdrops in front of our building have blossomed! I don't remember them ever coming to bloom so early.

Snowflake Hat

Unlike the rest of the Northern hemisphere, here in Bulgaria we are having an unusually warm and snowless  winter - the daily temperatures average around 2 to 4 C. Only on the colder mornings we wake to find frost on the leaves and trees.
Thinking about the snow that was bound to come this year, I made a baby snowflake hat for a friends' two year old boy. The chart is the classic Norwegian snowflake from the Basic Lined Hat on Ravelry, the calculations are mine, based on googled measurements of two-year old boys' heads - 48 cm in circumference and 19 cm in length (the hat is a surprise present and I couldn't ask the mother for more accurate measurements.)

Pattern: Snowflake Hat, snowflake chart from Basic Lined Hat
Yarn: Alize Cashmira in white and dark pine green (a ball that remained from my Dusseldorf sweater)
Needle: 3.5 mm rib, 4 mm body
Time to knit: 2 days

For the lining I sewed a simple fleece hat from my remaining fleece piece. I need to find a store in Sofia that sells fleece and to stash some fleece fabric in different colors, I want to make some more hats lined with fleece.

The hat looks and feels so cozy, makes me want to try it on my head (but it's so small :)
I really hope it will fit David and keep him warm this winter.