Tag Archives: Jumper

an Icelandic jumper for Sam

07/08/2014 11:20 am \ 39 Comments \

This is my first project from Knitting with Icelandic Wool, a knitting book I bought as a souvenir from Iceland on our recent trip away.  The jumper is my birthday present to Sam  and it’s um, only two months late… yikes! but here’s the thing… while we were travelling in Iceland and I was admiring all the gorgeous Icelandic jumpers on everyone there, I hit upon the bright idea of knitting one for each of my boys for their birthdays.  And so it seemed only fair to let them choose the style and the colours that they wanted.  And I thought at first that I would use Australian merino.  I’m very loyal to Australian wool, you see  ðŸ™‚ so I took quite a bit of time searching for something of a suitable gauge here but sadly I actually couldn’t find anything.  So decided I would go completely authentically Icelandic and use Alafoss Lopi.  And so of course I had to order the wool from Iceland, and then wait for it to arrive and then knit the thing… so two months late is not too bad all these things considered!  I’ve been knitting like an absolute maniac since the wool arrived! I started it last Wednesday, and finished it exactly a week later, which is not too bad if I say so myself!  and fortunately Sam doesn’t mind that it’s a bit late.  We still have a few months of cold weather ahead so he can wear it for a bit longer this year.  And there’s next year too.  I’m hoping it will be lifelong classic for him 🙂
 Sam chose the Alafoss jumper on p38 of the book, incidentally also featured at top left on the cover of the book, above.  According to the blurb the colour pattern on the yoke is the first ever pattern published by the Alafoss wool factory in the 1960’s.  

The colours I used are, from left:  ash heather (0054), ecru heather (9972), grey heather (0057), dark grey heather (0058) and black heather (0005).  I changed the design just a little bit on the strip second from the top but otherwise stuck exactly to the pattern.  The design is knitted in the fair isle style, and completely in the round with no joining seams, aside from two short grafting rows under the arms.  Grafted seams really do look so much nicer than sewn seams imo, so I think that’s a nice feature.  

I do have one, well I have to say it’s a fairly major gripe wrt the pattern; for Sam’s size S the pattern stipulated 5 balls of the main colour.  Well, it’s extremely fortunate that I had bought another, 6th ball of this colour for Tim’s jumper, since you actually need well into that ball to make this size. And it’s not even a close call, I used about half of that sixth ball.  Now I’m sweating a bit, planning the re-jig of the colours in Tim’s design so I can actually finish his jumper with the remaining wool that I have.  I’ll have to incorporate some of the leftovers from Sam’s jumper otherwise I simply will not have enough!   Not happy, Jan… 
As a last resort, yes, I could order more wool, but the postage from Iceland was so astronomical I’m really hoping I can successfully work something out with what I’ve got.
Anyhow, that’s the fault of the pattern; I am glad I did use the Alafoss Lopi!  Icelandic wool is renowned for being thick and lofty and at the same time very lightweight.  This jumper looks as thick as and it is amazingly warm, but surprisingly it is as light as a cloud! 

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Hayward, in Noro Ayatori

25/01/2014 2:49 pm \ 24 Comments \
Hello!  In further knitting news I have also just finished a comfy new jumper recently.   The pattern is the Hayward, by Julie Hoover, and the yarn is Noro Ayatori; a wool/silk mix, in colour 19; a beautiful variegated collection of raspberry pink, grass green, warm pinky/ivory, mint green and hot chilli pink.  The yarn was a birthday gift to me from the lovely Yoshimi; thank you so much Yoshimi!  

When I was trying to decide what pattern would be worthy of this eye-catching yarn, I remembered an elegant Hayward Yoshimi had knitted for herself and I have to admit I seriously wanted to copy  ðŸ™‚  I enjoyed wearing my new jumper for the first time on our recent day out in Tokyo together.
And actually Yoshimi also wore her own Hayward that day too!

 

I think this is a very chic style; I like the loose and wide boxiness, the wide unstructured boatneck and the curling up lower edge and neckline.  It’s soooo supremely comfortable!
I knitted mine pretty much to the pattern, the only change I made was to the neckline: I kept all the top stitches live without casting off, and once I had sewn the front back and sleeve pieces together; knitted in the round around the neckline using all live stitches, for 4 rows before casting off loosely.  I did this mostly because I’m lazy and loathe picking up stitches, but really it makes more sense to do it this way since, well c’mon it is so much easier and as well makes for a much smoother seamless look at the neckline.  My jumper is size 48″ (34-36″ bust) and I found it necessary to have eight balls of the Ayatori to complete the jumper with stripe matching at the sides and to have the sleeves identical to each other.
I had already started knitting this last year so unfortunately I cannot include it in my SWAP wardrobe; but it’s going to go very well with all my planned olives and ivories  ðŸ™‚

Details:
Jumper; the Hayward in Noro Ayatori yarn,col 19, the pattern is available here
Beige high-necked Tshirt (under); Metalicus
Jeans; Burda 7863,white cotton denim, details here and my review of this pattern here
Ski gloves; had for years, can’t remember where they’re from
Snow boots; I bought these from Big KMart in the US, 13 yrs ago!  while we were living there  ðŸ˜€  We come across snow so rarely I expect these will last me forever!
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Capricorn

17/12/2013 7:40 am \ 38 Comments \
Capricorn; the sign of the goat.
Baaa.  No, not me.  So the “goat” is in the form of my new knitted mohair jumper, or I reckon it’s more like a Tshirt really.  And this is the very last thing in my zodiac series…  Yay!  Finished!  ðŸ˜€  
This is the Mohair Sweater, available for digital download here, knitted in Jo Sharp Rare Comfort Kid Mohair Infusion col 617 (Rosehip)  I bought the yarn a few years ago, when Jo Sharp closed down their shop here… (sad face) oh I still miss that shop, waah!  Pink is a colour I’m not supposed to wear, but I do think I might be able to get away with this warm deep shade.   I LOVE pink… LOVE IT I TELL YOU! and one of the saddest things about getting my colours done was being told that pinks were Not For Me.  But hopefully this almost orange-y pink will be alright   🙂
The design is a really fantastic basic, the sort that seems boring at first but you could easily have one in every colour.  It’s beautifully shaped so it curves nicely into the waist.  Ribbing at the neckline, but not the sleeves nor lower edge so they curl up attractively.  One I will use again; a nice and easy project.  Except… well, for the mohair.  I find mohair a very temperamental beast.   The reason why it has taken me yonks to finish this simple little thing…  it’s hard to see the stitches for fluff, and it sticks to itself, so if you make a booboo then unravelling is pretty much impossible.  Please remind me to never ever buy mohair yarn, ever again?  Next time I’m going to seek out some alternative.
To be honest, it is way too hot to wear things like this right now.  It’s sheer madness that I’m even wearing it here.  But I had to show it, yes?… and at least I know now how very very cosy and warm it will be for next winter  ðŸ™‚
Details:
Top; knitted by me, Jo Sharp’s mohair sweater in mohair, col 617 (rosehip)
Shorts; Burda 7723, white linen,  my review of this pattern here
Socks; knitted by me to a 60’s pattern, Morris and Sons 4ply wool, details here
Boots; hiking boots, hand-me-downs from Mum
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Another trip down memory lane…

31/07/2011 8:59 am \ 6 Comments \
…  Remember when I said I had only once before made Cassie and myself matching clothes? Well this is Cassie’s dress, that was made from the leftover scraps of a dress I had made myself.  Her little dress, made using a TopKids pattern, has a white Peter Pan collar, and a miniature faux man’s tie in turquoise fabric, itself the leftovers from these shorts (so you can see how long I hang onto scraps…!)  I’m sorry it’s not a very good picture, and what’s more I have no pics of my own dress in this fabric; but imagine this maroon, deep turquoise and red large-scale plaid in one of those 90’s style shirt-dresses with a high small collar, long sleeves and a big full gathered skirt.  Something like the red version of this pattern at right… yes, very very very 90’s.  I hope I haven’t shattered any delusions of myself as a style maven now!  At least I never liked shoulder pads so never used them.
So I’ve got that going for me…    (Can anyone recognise that quote?)

Tim is wearing here a little jumper here that I knitted for him using scraps of wool from other projects… rather cleverly eked out if I say so myself, so that the front, back and both sleeves had the same colours and in the same proportions!  Knitters will know this is not necessarily a simple thing to achieve when you are working with scraps…  It went from the dark shades of purple, blue and green at the bottom through grey, then pale blue then the palest yellow and back to navy blue at the top, and the colours were not in defined stripes but faded together in an ombre effect.  I did this by knitting two colours together per row in the fair-isle knitting method.

In this picture, Tim is wearing another jumper I knitted, and I can’t recall now if it was from a pattern or if I took the embroidered teddy bear design from a cross stitch and just transposed it to a knitwear graph… yup, memory not what it used to be!  Again using scraps for the teddies.  Cassie is wearing a little dress I made for her using a TopKids pattern.  It was in two different white and navy blue prints, one a polka dot and the other a floral.  The fabric was slightly fluffy, brushed cotton, and I sewed in white piping around the collar, sleeve cuffs, the single curved breast pocket and around the dropped waistline where the buttoned-up blouse joined the skirt part of the dress.  It was quite cute, no? and a nice and warm little number for winter!

And the quote?  From that great 90’s cinema classic, Caddyshack.

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Fisherman’s Rib 2-piece

09/12/2010 2:11 am \ 7 Comments \

Another blast from the past for today.  Actually this photograph is marked “Father’s Day” so should have come before the previous oldie I put up here, as this date puts Tim at only 2-3 months old.  He is held by my husband (wearing a jumper I had knitted for him, too!) and flanked by Craig’s Dad and Grandad, so this is a four generation photo.  Quite cool, no?
Tim is wearing a pale green outfit I had knitted for our new baby whilst I was still pregnant.  It is in fisherman’s rib; thus turning me off this stitch for many years, man, you know how I’m into quick knitting projects…!  Come to think of it, I’ve not knitted another fisherman’s rib project since…
  The outfit was from a Patons baby booklet and comprised pants and a cute little fisherman’s jumper, with a half tab button front and a little collar.  Oh, but it was cute!  The buttons I used on the front were little wooden toggle buttons, hand-carved by my father, and were adorable.  I still have some of the leftover buttons in a little paper bag, marked “Timothy’s buttons”.  I’ve never done another project worthy of them….
I don’t know where this little outfit is now.  I thought I had passed it on to one of my sisters-in-law but it seems to have disappeared.  This makes me a little sad.  But I know I shouldn’t attach too much sentimentality to “things”.  After all, I’ve got the most important, er “things” here with me still, meaning the men in my family.  Right?  Right.

(if you want to see what this cute little bubbsie looks like now, go here)
(On another note; you can just see a glimpse of the collar of the shirt my husband is wearing underneath, which has since been refashioned here)

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Blue/green stripe man’s jumper with round neck

12/11/2010 10:55 am \ 7 Comments \

Thankyou all for your comments yesterday!  It does make me feel so much better that other people feel the same way I do and I’m not the only one!
A trip down memory lane for today; this picture is of my husband holding our then brand new baby son; our eldest.  If you would like to see what this tiny baby looks like nowadays, go here.  Lol!
I knitted the jumper my husband is wearing here quite early in our marriage.  It is out of the Patons Handknits pamphlet number 893.  This is a pattern booklet for Patons Alpaca Classique 8 ply (don’t you love how in the 80’s/90’s using spellings such as “classique” automatically conferred classiness where none before existed? a certain je ne sais quoi, no? a leetle bit Francaise eez good for ze chic factor, oui?
I might have used this yarn, or if not probably the Patons 8 ply, the ordinary Merino sort.  The wool certainly feels soft enough to be Merino and not Alpaca, so I think it probably is…
I can remember that rather than my usual habit of buying the yarn through a wool store, I ordered it through a mail order service, in a joint order with my friend V from work; we did it because of a special offer she had received.  I was so thrilled when my wool actually arrived as I had never ordered anything in this way before and had only ever purchased things from a shop, over the counter, that I could carry away immediately… the latter still my preferred way of buying goods, (shrug) I guess I’m old-fashioned.
The jumper has held up quite well, imo, below is how it looks now, and at bottom, the inside view.  The rib on the sleeves has stretched out a bit, and is the worst area of wear.  He has worn it such a lot, well at least it’s been appreciated, no?  The design is fair isle, three colours overall, front and back of the jumper pretty much identical with the same design, and with two colours in every row, and I didn’t weave the colours in and out at the back but just carried them over the back of the knitting as instructed in the pattern.  This is quite acceptable in fair isle as the yarn is being carried no further than five stitches at any point, but looking at it now I kind of wish I had gone to the effort of weaving the unused yarn in with each stitch, as my conscience was screaming at me to do.
Meh.

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It’s a jungle…

06/09/2010 4:30 am \ 4 Comments \

Self Stitched September: Day 6;
Trying to zip my way through my winter options now as the weather heats up, and truthfully I’m a little roasting in this jumper here today…!
I was very inspired by the Marc Jacobs A/W 2010 looks of glamourous skirts made of luxe glittery fabrics, paired with slightly grungy oversized knits on the top… I do like unexpected contrasts in fashion as I think surprises (even in something as mundane as the clothes we choose to wear) add an element of playfulness and fun into one’s day.  And couldn’t we all do with a bit more fun and joie de vivre in our day, well, yes thankyou!  And although this skirt is not particularly super-luxe, I still enjoy the little hint of the glossy python print satin with it’s decadent 70’s nightclub air about it, a huge contrast to the staid almost un-fashionable farmyard practicality of a thick chunky knit.

Details:
Knit jumper; my own design, made from Jo Sharp Silk Road DK
Skirt; my own design variations on Vogue 7303, python print and black satin
Tights; Kolotex
Booties; Django and Juliette, from Zomp shoes

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Oversized knitwear

16/07/2010 5:16 am \ 3 Comments \

The latest Vogue magazine has been singing the virtues of oversized knitwear for this winter.  This isn’t a look I go for very often, but I thought for once in a while, why not?  Granted the fashionable colours for this year are more of your putty greys, beiges, caramels, charcoal and black.  Sometimes it is nice though to splash out with a taste of cheery warm scarlet to brighten up the day.
For today I dug out this jumper that I had made for my husband, very early in our marriage.  Definitely pre kiddies, anyhow…  I don’t think he’s worn it for at least ten years.  I mentioned in a previous post how I occasionally borrowed my husband’s clothes, and Caroline commented how her husband’s clothes would be HUGE on her, well, lookie here, people, at what my husband’s clothes actually look like on me, too!  I think “oversize” and “loose” are being achieved here satisfactorily, no?  I think an oversize jumper can look very cute and sexy, when it is styled right.  It’s best worn with close-fitting, if not tight, pants or a skirt; so the big loose top part of your ensemble is balanced out by a sleeker, streamlined lower part.  We have no desire to go out looking at all “dress-up box”, now, do we?
This jumper is made using Patons 8 ply, an Australian pure merino wool that sadly seems to have disappeared from the knitting aisles… it came in a fabulous range of pure self colours which lent itself beautifully to fair isle designs as well as one colour affairs such as this one.
I followed a pattern which has long gone so I can’t share with you here, sorry.  It was my first go at cables, and once these were de-mystified for me in the making of this jumper I’ve not looked back.  Now I’m just like, cables? meh… no biggie.

Details:
Jumper; made by me, using Patons 8 ply to a Patons pattern
Jeans; made by me, Burda 7863, khaki stretch gabardine
Top (underneath); Metalicus

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