Maile

July 2011

Without wanting to sound like a bit of a one trick pony, a blog called What to Knit when you're Expecting is an incredibly handy thing to have discovered right about now. Especially when it contains free patterns as lovely as this one.

I first bought this yarn with Liam in mind, but it was such a dark grey that the black bits of the colourwork didn't stand out enough, so I ended up using something else.

So apart from having a suitable yarn and this being a freebie, the real appeal of this pattern was that I couldn't reverse engineer the lacy bits at the raglan seam just by looking at them, and I wanted to find out how it was done. I love tackling a project like that.

A lot of people seem to struggle with the section of this pattern where the arms are attached to the body. As I didn't have any 3.25mm DPNs, and I'm not keen on magic loop, I worked my sleeves flat (telling myself that the body had been worked back and forth, so strictly speaking I'd get a more consistent tension that way anyway). I think that must have helped a lot, because I didn't find it too much of a struggle at all.

The buttons (which are ceramic and will no doubt prove horribly impractical) came from Hobbycraft in Leeds.

Pattern: Maile by Nikki Van Der Car

Yarn: Cygnet Truly Wool Rich 4-ply

Amount: 1 skein

Colourway: 0044 Gray

Needles: 3.25mm

Size: Smallest

On ravelry: here