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| Martha on her 3rd birthday |
Although I spent a lot of my creative time during the lovely summer months we had in England this year sewing gorgeous summer frocks for my granddaughter Martha I did look ahead to the cooler autumn days and knitted some cute jackets and cardigans to have ready for this three year old fashionista.
1. Sailor Jacket
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| Sailor Jacket |
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| From all angles |
When we were on a family holiday in France earlier this year my daughter Lynsey and I took every opportunity to vist some amazing wool and haberdashery shops and while browsing we spotted this sparkly yarn in the end of line basket. Unsure what it would eventually turn into we purchased it and, using an old pattern from 30 years ago, I managed to just complete this sailor jacket with only a couple of metres of yarn left! The good news is she rather likes it.
2.Gilet in Random Yarn
My lovely and very generous sister paid a visit to a wool shop in Richmond, North Yorkshire earlier this summer and, although she no longer knits herself, decided to treat me to this pattern for a hooded gilet and the wool to knit it. I then had a terrible dilema as she had forgotten that I don't do RANDOM! My brain can't handle the lack of control over where the colour changes are going to appear. Now I know this tells you a lot about my hangups but I spent a whole evening attempting to "de-randomize" it.
I unwound all 4 balls until I could see a colour repeat emerging. I then started each ball at the same point in the sequence and started knitting the back from 2 balls, alternating every second row as this piece had twice as many stitches as the front sections. It worked really well until I got to the arm shaping on the second front when things started to return to random as that 4th ball had a slighyly different sequence to the others. Not to be defeated I decided to replicate the other 3 by selecting short lengths of the correct colours! This just goes to show the trouble I'll go to to avoid random. (I will spare you the details of how I solved the hood dilemas!)
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| Checking for colour repeat matching |
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| Yeah! It worked and both fronts are the same. |
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| ...and the back |
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Martha modelling the finished
product |
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| ....and she loved it. |
3. Gilet Two in Flecky Yarn
This next gilet was multi-coloured, but flecky not random, and so much easier for me to get my head round. However I was a bit reckless in that I embarked on a pattern for totally different yarn and it soon became obvious that I wasn't going to have sufficient to complete it. After trying to treck some with the same dye lot down all over the North East of England the manufactures came up trumps and sent me two balls free of charge.
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| Perfect with jeans and Kickers |
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| Close up of cable stitch and button detail |
I haven't learned from the experience and am curently knitting a short sleeved cardigan knowing I probably can't get more yarn if I do run short. I'll tell you in a later post how I get on.
