2009 Big Knits: The conclusion

Well it’s official, the hats are on the shelves!  Check JosieKitten’s picture Here.  I didn’t see any of my hats on THAT shelf, so I wonder where in the world they might be?

 

Mum wants to knit some long hand/arm warmer thingies with the leftover yarn from her jacket (of which there is plenty) and wanted a plain pattern to work from, so I spotted Toasty, on the A Friend To Knit With blog.  I’m just hoping she doesn’t struggle with holding the DPNs when it comes to doing the fiddly thumb part, else I’ll end up having to do it for her!

The Almost Finished Jacket

Well here it is, my mum’s Jacket all knitted and sewn up!  It’s just missing the zip which my mum has offered to do on the sewing machine, since I’m “sew” bad at it!  She’s using the tutorial on the Pickin' and Throwin' Blog, which includes both hand and machine sewing techniques.

This is the front, Sorry for the blurry image!  It’s not meant to be yellow, thats just the way it looks because of the lighting in here.  If it helps, the background is meant to be white!  The front is pinned together at the moment from lack of zip.


This is the back, note the hood! First time I've knitted a hood and boy was this a strange method!  I had to cast off either side, and then knit a middle bit, and then sew it all together afterward!  That answered my questions about why I had to pick stitches up for the border – the stitches were picked up from an assortment of side and cast off stitches.  I guess you could say how much I now appreciate the value of a short-row hood!

• The Pattern: Stylecraft Life Aran 8259
• Yarn: Hayfield Bonus Aran from Kemps Wool Shop
• Needles needed: 1 pair 4mm straights, 1 pair 5mm straights (although i used circulars for comfort’s sake)
• Other stuff needed: cable needle, row markers, row counters, measuring tape, pins, sewing needle, chocolate
• Knitting Time: Roughly about a month, on and off
• Amount of sewing up to do: quite a lot, it took me about a day, all told

Inherited talent

Even though I never knew my Maternal Grandmother, she still passed down her talent for fibre arts to me.  Every year my mum and her brothers would get a new cardigan or jumper knitted for them, but what survived is not her knitwear but her crocheted doilies.
The pictures that follow are just a small sample of the variety of colours, patterns and sizes we have.  They are all made in silk and I’ve pinned them out as best i can without putting stress on the yarn. 













According to my mum, my nan and her neighbours, friends and female relatives would all come for tea and cake and crochet or knit – just goes to show that despite the internet and all our mod-cons, time hasn’t really moved on!
In sharing these I was hoping that some clever and observant soul could possibly point me to the pattern so I would at least have a name for it!

Progress Report

This is just a quick one to let you all know that I’ve not dropped off the face of the planet, and that I’ve now finished the back of my mum’s cardy/jacket thingy and I’ve picked up for the hood and knitted about an inch!  Hoping it’ll speed along as it’s just stockinette stitch.  Strangely I have to cast it off and then pick up these same stitches for the border, I can’t quite work out why.  If someone could enlighten me on that point I’d be delighted!  Can’t upload pictures again and this time it doesn’t seem to be a size problem, otherwise I’d impress you all with my very neat and almost invisible seaming!