Ebens Cardigan

It has been a while again since I have been writing here, but knitting takes time!

I knitted a cardigan for my boyfriend's sister's baby.

I used 3 ply baby wool (15 % wool, 75% acrylic) nice touch, soft and machine washable.

I found a very basic Debbie Bliss baby cardigan pattern to follow for shape and size , but to spice it up I used a fair isle pattern from a different pattern that was in Debbie Bliss magazine (Fall/Winter 2010). I can't find the other magazine where the baby cardigan was from, but I think the magazine is probably Debbie Bliss Spring/Summer 2010. I used to have my Designer Knitting Magazine subscribed through Magma bookshop that is on Oldham Street, Manchester (if you come to Manchester it is definitely a nice shop to visit) and for some reason the Debbie Bliss magazine came with it every time. I had to quit that habit as it proved a little bit expensive for a student, but now in my professional life I have let myself to subscribe Designer Knitting again. This time it comes through my door. I still love Magma bookshop as well.

http://www.creativetourist.com/venues/magma-books/


Here is a picture of the Debbie Bliss reindeer pattern that I used:

The duffel bag that the fair isle pattern was designed for looks like this: ( I didn't make this it's just a picture from the magazine)

So to get the Fair isle Pattern to fit in with the pattern of the cardigan, I had to do some maths and foresee where the decreases where going to be and where the middle point of the cardigan was so that the reindeer have enough space in between them. So definitely recommend spending some time in working this out if you are going to apply a fair isle pattern from one item to another. It looks the best when the reindeer are positioned in the middle.

Here is Ebens cardigan from the back before I have started seeming the sleeves properly:

And here it is from the front and finished, photographed on my wonderful (but dusty) wooden floor:

I was so pleased to give this to Eben before Christmas, I heard that he got a lot of compliments about it. I hope he will get a couple of more wears from it coming this Christmas before he grows out of it.

Ahh it was nice to be writing in here again! I will carry on dreaming about all the projects that I want to do, especially in my house. Would love to be able to blog about some DIY, but I understand I would have to get done some first. For now I am just going to go downstairs and do some more knitting, see for that I don't need any encouragement at all! 

Valpuri

Cat Face Wallpaper

A wonderful thing called SpoonFlower on the internet (USA) is a website where you can submit your own design and they print it for you on fabric or wall paper. I am in a process of decorating a room in our house to become my office, but with this thought I am having so many specific ideas how I want it to be, that it so far it has just been a room with some boxes (full of knitting magazines) as I have gone so far that I want to decorate the walls as well.

I am in the lookout for a British version of the Spoonflower, as even though I think it is a very reasonable priced, the import tax stamp in the UK end threw me a little. On top of paying about $20.00 for postage (which is pretty standard for US orders to overseas), there was another £20.00 that I had to pay to be able to get these out of the post office. The rolls were very light, so I assume the tax is determined by the value of the postal order.

However it is here now in my house and I am hoping there will be a free weekend sometime soon ahead that I can actually get messy with the wallpaper paste. You will be sure to be updated on that.

http://www.spoonflower.com/welcome

Left over yarns cushion

This is a project that I completed in January. When I started it, I was itching to do some hand knitting for the house and I had seen a lovely square intarsia style pattern for a dress from a Vogue knitting magazine, so I thought it would be a great way to practise the intarsia pattern to make it in to a cushion case. There it is, sitting in my living room. It's very bright. And my cat likes it.

On the other side of the cushion I think I got bored of doing the same pattern so I just started doing some random fair isle patterns. They are from different books, which ever I liked the look of. Just was carrying on with pretty much the same colours and on the other side.

Underneath the cushion there is a blanket that I have started to crochet ages ago. It is an ongoing project that might deserve it's own blog post somewhere along the line. Now all this blogging about knitting is making me want to do the actual knitting! So that's what I am going to do!

V