Rainbow Dress

April 2017

I had loads of Sparkleduck rainbow miniskeins left over from making George’s fabulous vest, and so I thought I’d improvise a little tunic dress for Lucy.

The end result is very bright and cheerful, but with hindsight I wish I had made the shaping much more a-line so it didn’t cling so much around her tummy.

Visiting the Sparkleduck stand was very much the highlight for me of an otherwise rather overwhelming Yarndale 2016. I had my little boy with me, and the nice man running the stall gave him a little toy duck. Its funny how the random acts of kindness like that can stay with you.

This is such a beautiful yarn that I’ll most likely frog this dress once Lucy grows out of it and recycle it into another project. It’s worn very well so it would be a shame not to.

Pattern: improvised
Yarn: Sparkleduck Galaxy rainbow mini skeins.
Size: 12 months
On ravelry: here

South Pole Jumper

December 2015

I recently discovered the work of Jorid Linvik, and in partiular loved these little penguins from the South Pole hat. I was really keen to use them somewhere, and when I took George’s chest measurement, it turned out to be close enough to the circumference of the hat that I could just follow the chart as written, without having to add any stitches. I just used slightly larger needles.

Having had a go at the fish in the South Pole hat pattern, I decided they were perhaps a bit grown up and subtle for a child’s pattern, and so I swapped them over with the Swedish Fish Socks chart. It’s a lot cuter that way.

This was basically worked bottom up, but having dithered about the fish I worked in both directions at different stages. I started it just under the penguins using a provisional cast on so I could play around with the length later on.

The neckline looks slightly sloppy to me, and might need to be ripped back and redone, but in fairness he has been wearing it unblocked today so it might settle down. He also has a habit of trying to chew at the collars of his jumpers at the moment, which doesn’t help!

All of the yarns I used are very soft and not at all itchy, as George is approaching that fussy age. I particularly like the Berroco Vintage dk, even if I did encounter a slight different-dyelots-not-matching problem with it. Entirely my fault of course.

Pattern: 9-9 Sweater with Raglan Sleeves by Garnstudio DROPS design incorporating South Pole Hat by Jorid Linvik and Swedish Fish Socks by SpillyJane
Size: 4 years
Yarn: Berroco Vintage dk in blue-green 449, John Lewis Heritage dk in demin and cream, Sirdar Snuggly dk in light blue, Garnstudio DROPS Karisma Superwash dk in dark grey.
Needle: 3.5mm
On ravelry: here

Copycat Gnomes

August 2014

Very much not my idea. Very much inspired by this and by these.

Here’s as much detail of my reverse engineering as I scribbled down.

Knitting with dk weight yarn on 3.5mm and a gauge of 21.3 sts to 4”.

First attempt (with red flowers at the top) gave a yoke which was much too deep, so ripped back and started again with gnomes placed higher in yoke.

Worked top-down. Started with 65 (plus 6 and 6 for button band). Increased over yoke up to gnome pattern to 128 (plus button band).

Placed markers for 16 gnomes. Worked gnome chart with two sets of increases to 160 (+BB). After last row of chart, divided for sleeves | 20(+6) | 37 | 46 | 37 | 20(+6). Cast on 4 at each armhole when separating.

Worked down from armhole for about 5.5” with increases (m1 x 4) each side of side seam marker every 10 rows to make a-line shape, inspired by Bláithín.

Sleeves worked in the round on DPNs, decreasing on first and every following 10th row 3 times in all. About 6” long from armhole.
Used schematic from Welcome to the Flock as a rough guide.

Neck, waist, cuffs and button band worked in garter stitch.

Messed up buttonhole placing. Fixed it with afterthought buttonholes (method in Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Knitting without Tears).

Was also tempted to try this to tidy up edging of garter stitch button bands.

I used the free gnome hat pattern here.

Main colour: Hobbycraft Valuecrafts Women's Institute Premium Acrylic in 24253 Navy
Hats: Stylecraft Special dk in 1246 Lipstick (red)
Faces: King Cole Big Value Baby dk 221 beige
Beards: King Cole Pricewise Double Knitting 46 Cream
Coats: Patons Fab dk 2358 Iris (blue)
Boots: Hayfield Bonus dk 927 in Walnut (Brown)
Needles: 3.50mm
Size: 3 months
On ravelry: here