08 January 2007

Makings ...


The finished Poppet Project, but without the Poppets in 'em:



Using two strands of some reclaimed wool (various lengths and colours, knotted together) and one strand of some fine mohair, I cast on the waist of a sweater, figuring I'd find a pattern by the time I got to the underarms ... nice mindless tube-knitting.
Then I figured I'd just chuck half the stitches onto a spare needle to hold them, cast on for sleeves and do the top part in garter stitch. Lalalala, more mostly mindless knitting with a few short rows to fatten up the upper sleeves and give the shoulders some depth, cast-off and back on again for the neck, like a big button hole, and the short row stuff again in reverse for the other sides of the sleeves ... graft it onto the held stitches, seam up the sleeves, pick up the neck stitches and knit a little collar. Easy! And I was clever about it and sewed in all those ends (from the colour changes) as I went. The sleeves were a little long, but they can be rolled up.

Final step, brag to Mom about knitting a whole sweater without a pattern.



Uh huh. Oops ... I didn't notice the sleeves were different lengths 'til I was two rows from finished the collar.

Now that I look at it, it could have used a bit more depth in the shoulders anyway, and I don't much like the seed stitch bottom with the garter stitch top. Well, Rip, rip, rip, stop and pick out ends, rip, rip, stop and pick out ends, rip, more ends, rip, still more ends, rip, rip, rip, rip, yup, more ends ... it was kinda fun, though, so I did the whole thing and started over from the beginning.

This time, I cast on the sleeves first, did more short rows and made the neck a bit narrower (but still plenty wide for a kid head), seamed the sleeves, knit the body in the round (k4, p1 for the bottom edge), picked up the neck stitches and knit the collar ... then wove in all the ends.



Taa-daa! The two hats on the right and the top left one are from the same yarn. With the ones done before Christmas:



there are ten (recount ... okie, must knit one more) for Old Strathcona area homeless folk (some of which Mom and I dropped off at B's Diner when we went in for their Christmas party ... these folx are great, offering free lunch once a week, as well as collecting and distributing much needed items for the area's homeless) and ten to be sent off for The Dulaan Project, along with the sweater and another that Barbara gave me ... a very nice little Shetland wool sweater she got as a hand-me-down. It's a bit felted, so it'll be nice and warm.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

How brave of you....a sweater without a pattern....I am totally pattern dependent.