4 year old Poppy skipping into the kitchen "Mum, Mum, we need to go to Burger King"
Mum "Burger King? but we are having a Rissotto for dinner, with grandads carrots"
Poppy "Can we go to Burger King tomorrow?"
Mum "It costs lot of money, sweetie, and you don't really eat the food there"
Poppy " another day ? can we go another day?"
Mum "Why do we need to go to Burger King?"
Poppy "on tv, they have girl toys, and boy toys for Toby, we need to go, I can use my money"
Mum thinking of the busy week ahead " well maybe on friday"
skip to the next week, following a tummy bug and the first tooth falling out, and a really busy monday and there we all are sitting at Burger King.
Mum "no you can't open the toy until you have eaten half the burger"
5 minutes latter Mum again, "not until the burger is half gone"
30 minutes latter, Mum trying not to nag " you can have the toy at home if you eat half the burger in the car"
at home, following tears, "well if you eat this banana, you can have the toy"
30 seconds latter, Poppy " I love burger king, this is the best toy"
Mum, knocking head on wooden table, makes a mental note for the 100th time, Poppy does not eat take aways.... of any kind, except bowls of plain noodles so Why Bother?
OK, so parenting mistakes aside, Powder Blue cabled zippie cardie (PBCZC?) is remade, newer, more flattering and shorter than before. So below are the progress shots. First, the transition between the old original section of the cardigan body knitted bottom up, and the newely knitted on ribbing. Pretty amazing, you cant tell, I wish the stitches had lined up so I could have continued the cables ... but it does look good.
I dithered over what to do on the edge of the ribbing, originally i had used a channel island cast on. this gives a row of twisted double yarn knots at the cast on edge, and is really hard wearing, and quite decorative and 'chunky'. See included image. I have a soft spot for channel island cast on, basically a doubled thumb cast on, with a yarn over between You knit the overs, and purl the stitches.
It is almost the same cast on my mum taught me, and as she died when I was 14, the things she passed on that I use as an adult seem few and are precious. I didn't know it was called channel island, it was just what she used, and only latter I realised it was very different to what my friends did. She wasn't a sophisticated knitter, knitted flat and followed patterns, but when I use this method it connects me to her.
I really didn't want a standard chain cast off, even if I zig-zagged it by k1p1 the cast off row.
So ... I decided to try a tubular cast off, as detailed in the Readers Digest knitting book by montse stanley. As is the Channel island cast on. Tubular cast off inolves the last few rows being double knit, and then the edges kitchenered together thus ...
Worked quite well, took most of the night and I had to put the front and back stitches on separate needles, but a very nice finish. Ms Stanley suggested a clever knitter would soon work out how to do this with all the stitches on one needle - I tried but not me.
Next I had to remake the zip facing, the original had a knitted on zip facing, on both the inside and outside to hide the ugly tape. I modified a technique described in Katharina Buss's Big book of knitting, using a crochet hook I picked up stitches along the front edge, 3 for every 4 rows. The loops formed on both the inside and outside collected on a circular needle, and then I knit the facing in the round. Essentially a short tubular pocket. I knit this long enough to cover the zip tape, and then cast of regular style.
I pinned the zip in to check length, then stitched using a double thread of standard colour matched sewing thread. I would have prefered to use a colour matched zip, but went to 3 shops and this was the best. I plan to order one thru work, and see if commercially I can get a better match. This is a lightweight, open ended invisable zipper, I think some of the buckling last time was due to the weight of a heavier zip.
Over all I am reasonably happy.
And this is what the cardie looks like on a 'fake' person, with photos of me wearing it in comming soon. I think a 100% improvement, and well worth a weeks work. I do wonder why I waited so long, I should have done this last winter.
Mum "Burger King? but we are having a Rissotto for dinner, with grandads carrots"
Poppy "Can we go to Burger King tomorrow?"
Mum "It costs lot of money, sweetie, and you don't really eat the food there"
Poppy " another day ? can we go another day?"
Mum "Why do we need to go to Burger King?"
Poppy "on tv, they have girl toys, and boy toys for Toby, we need to go, I can use my money"
Mum thinking of the busy week ahead " well maybe on friday"
skip to the next week, following a tummy bug and the first tooth falling out, and a really busy monday and there we all are sitting at Burger King.
Mum "no you can't open the toy until you have eaten half the burger"
5 minutes latter Mum again, "not until the burger is half gone"
30 minutes latter, Mum trying not to nag " you can have the toy at home if you eat half the burger in the car"
at home, following tears, "well if you eat this banana, you can have the toy"
30 seconds latter, Poppy " I love burger king, this is the best toy"
Mum, knocking head on wooden table, makes a mental note for the 100th time, Poppy does not eat take aways.... of any kind, except bowls of plain noodles so Why Bother?
OK, so parenting mistakes aside, Powder Blue cabled zippie cardie (PBCZC?) is remade, newer, more flattering and shorter than before. So below are the progress shots. First, the transition between the old original section of the cardigan body knitted bottom up, and the newely knitted on ribbing. Pretty amazing, you cant tell, I wish the stitches had lined up so I could have continued the cables ... but it does look good.
I dithered over what to do on the edge of the ribbing, originally i had used a channel island cast on. this gives a row of twisted double yarn knots at the cast on edge, and is really hard wearing, and quite decorative and 'chunky'. See included image. I have a soft spot for channel island cast on, basically a doubled thumb cast on, with a yarn over between You knit the overs, and purl the stitches.
It is almost the same cast on my mum taught me, and as she died when I was 14, the things she passed on that I use as an adult seem few and are precious. I didn't know it was called channel island, it was just what she used, and only latter I realised it was very different to what my friends did. She wasn't a sophisticated knitter, knitted flat and followed patterns, but when I use this method it connects me to her.
I really didn't want a standard chain cast off, even if I zig-zagged it by k1p1 the cast off row.
So ... I decided to try a tubular cast off, as detailed in the Readers Digest knitting book by montse stanley. As is the Channel island cast on. Tubular cast off inolves the last few rows being double knit, and then the edges kitchenered together thus ...
Worked quite well, took most of the night and I had to put the front and back stitches on separate needles, but a very nice finish. Ms Stanley suggested a clever knitter would soon work out how to do this with all the stitches on one needle - I tried but not me.
Next I had to remake the zip facing, the original had a knitted on zip facing, on both the inside and outside to hide the ugly tape. I modified a technique described in Katharina Buss's Big book of knitting, using a crochet hook I picked up stitches along the front edge, 3 for every 4 rows. The loops formed on both the inside and outside collected on a circular needle, and then I knit the facing in the round. Essentially a short tubular pocket. I knit this long enough to cover the zip tape, and then cast of regular style.
I pinned the zip in to check length, then stitched using a double thread of standard colour matched sewing thread. I would have prefered to use a colour matched zip, but went to 3 shops and this was the best. I plan to order one thru work, and see if commercially I can get a better match. This is a lightweight, open ended invisable zipper, I think some of the buckling last time was due to the weight of a heavier zip.
Over all I am reasonably happy.
And this is what the cardie looks like on a 'fake' person, with photos of me wearing it in comming soon. I think a 100% improvement, and well worth a weeks work. I do wonder why I waited so long, I should have done this last winter.
11 comments:
Beautiful sweater!
That cardi is gorgeous - I just adore the colour, it makes a homesick kiwi very happy to see a NZ-sky-blue colour - really lovely, and the pattern is beautiful. I had to laugh when I read the Burgery King experience - we have three kids and three McHappy/Crappy meals or three Burger Fling meals had to be bought or plastic tat - oooooooooooohhhh it used to pee me off seriously, but then you realise that their little friends have handfuls of the same cheapo plastic tat - arghhhhhhhhh! Good luck with fighting the march of the burger nasties
Oooh, your cardi has turned out nicely! I really like the waist shaping. The zip looks good, too. I have always avoided zips in knitted garments as it is so hard to get them to lie flat, but you have doen a lovely job of it.
Stell, you are amazing! The reworked cardi is stunning. If I really loved the cardigan, I would have reknit the whole thing rather than fiddle with shortening, re-ribbing, tubular cast off and putting in a new zipper. Good on ya, girl! A job well done.
great sweater and great blue sky colour :)!
great sweater and great blue sky colour :)!
Wow that's just stunning! You did a great job - if nothing else, I'm so jealous of how well your seaming went. Congrats on an absolutely gorgeous project :)
My goodness, that is a gorgeous, gorgeous cardigan! Lovely colour and all the photos, too. (came here from your KR post on photo size, btw, and all the photos loaded instantly for me, I have broadband).
Also, I have nearly identical grey-black striped yarn like your Regia, but from Trekking! I'm using them right now to make Jaywalkers.
desiknitter.typepad.com
So beautiful! What a fantastic color.
(We had a similar bk incident involving spongebob and applesauce. Good times.)
I have found that, for a price ($1.79??!!), McDonalds will SELL just the toy (through the drive through window no less). Then we went home happy and ate real food. I only did this once, and the circumstances were extreme, but as strange as it was, I prefered it both to buying a meal my daughter would not eat, or (and possibly worse)to watching her eat food that I would not eat. Sarah
Oh, and BTW, your sweater is amazingly wonderful! Sarah
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