Dillinja's sophisticated pullover

Wow! A second post within a month of the last one. I must keep up with this. -Which I probably wont, but it's okay as it is meant to be my hobby blog now and therefore its for leisure not pressure (see what I did there?!).

Today I got the joy of dressing my friend's dog Dillinja up! I knitted him a pullover. Dillinja is my favourite kind of dog: Whippet. Such beautiful creature.

Here is pictures of him wearing it ever so proudly: (whippets always look kind of apologetic I want to believe. I hope he wasn't embarrassed)

Such good model, look at him changing poses

You look really stylish Dilly! Can't wait to see you trotting with that on Beech Road! You going to make all the other hipster dogs jealous ;)

Just look at this posing! He just needs a pipe, paper and slippers!

So I took the pattern from this book, which I got as a present from my boyfriends mother:

It's a nice book (slightly silly, but fun), easy patterns. Dogs jumpers are certainly easier to knit that people's, less work and can't really go wrong with the sleeve heads and sleeves as they are just holes you leave on the seams and pick up on double pointer needles after. All the shaping I needed to do was just to decrease at the top of the bottom panel.

I thought that I will kindly share the pattern with you in case you get inspired by this post. I have made a few obvious changes as you can see.

Dillinja is size L, take time to measure your dog to avoid disappointments. The book didn't really specify the yarns, but as the needle size in the pattern is 4mm and 3.75, I assumed normal DK acrylic or whatever DK you have in hand will be just fine. I used 3.25mm needles myself as my knit is quite lose and relaxed. Whatever you end up using,  knit yourself a swatch first to check gauge. 

I followed this pattern to to make the shape to correct size, but I made slight changes myself. Instead of stripes I followed a fair isle pattern (made the colours up myself from the yarns I had in my pirate crafty chest that I have in the living room, many of then just leftovers from other projects). If you choose to do the same, and will use ends of yarns, keep an eye on how much you use on the top section so you will have enough to follow the pattern through for the second piece too.

I have attached the fair isle chart on this post too, so you can see, but you can use what ever fair isle you want, just do the calculations to fit it with the rest of the pattern.

The other change I made from the pattern on the book was that instead of hood, I made Dillinja a polo neck. This was Chloe's wish (Dillinja's owner), because he has a very long neck. This was an easy change as all I did was left the stitches of the each finished piece on holder and when it came the time to start the collar, I just picked the stitches on circular needle (3mm) making sure the pieces were the right way around and started knitting (with one colour) knit 2 purl 2 rib. I didn't do any decreases since starting to knit the collar, perhaps it ended up a little bit too loose from the neck. It does look nice when it is folded over.

Here is the picture of the fair isle pattern I followed for Dilly's jumper, quite nice and simple, but with lots of colour changes looks very impressive.

Thanks for reading! And hopefully the pattern will be useful for somebody too.

Valpuri

Manchester Architecture Festival

Hi All!

I haven't used this blog address for a while!
I have been busy with my knitting business and new job, but I have also had little time to do an art project for the Manchester Architecture Festival. Me and an Architect called Jane Leach have been collaborating with a project called Jumper City. Here is more about Jane:

http://www.i-architect.co.uk/

http://twitter.com/#!/architectjane

If you read some blog posts from this blog from 2009 there was a project where I was collecting old unwanted jumpers and sewing them together. Here is a link to the posts:

http://www.purlpuri.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/jump-in-to-jumper-i-mean-in-4-all-4-of.html

http://www.purlpuri.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/development-with-jumper-project.html

http://www.purlpuri.blogspot.co.uk/2009/12/jumpers-in-cavendish-gallery.html

 In February Jane contacted me and asked if I was interested collaborating with her and after having a meeting and discussing ideas, Jumper City concept was created. Jane wanted to do a project for the Manchester Architecture Festival combining knitting and architecture. The plan became to collect Jumpers and then sewing them together into a big piece that will cover a bus stop.

We have been collecting jumpers from family members and friends, gone through charity shops and clothes swaps. Clothes swaps were organised by a group called Stitched Up, and they are doing all sorts of exciting workshops and fairs. Go and check: https://www.facebook.com/stitched.up.12

We have been working together with the Greater Manchester Transport (http://www.tfgm.com/) and got a permission in using a bus stop at the Piccadilly Gardens.

We have been sessions at Jane's house sewing the jumpers together into panels and planning the visual outcome and practicality of the piece. Jumpers have been taking over Jane's house and a big part of our lives.

Yesterday (Saturday the 16th June), we delivered the workshop at the Cube Gallery (http://www.cube.org.uk/), to finish of the piece and here is some pictures of the event:

Tomorrow we will face our final challenge (with the extra excitement of 6 a.m. start) that is to actually set up the installation in the Public Space. Monday will be a busy commuters day and we are hoping that we will gain a good amount attention. The installation will be on the Bus stop at Piccadilly Gardens, next to Krobar. We will be there until 8 p.m. and are looking forward to meeting all you pass-byers, commuters, lunch-breakers and everyone who is interested in seeing and interacting with our Jumper City piece!

Until Then !

Valpuri and Jane

links in this post:

http://www.i-architect.co.uk/

http://twitter.com/#!/architectjane

http://www.purlpuri.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/jump-in-to-jumper-i-mean-in-4-all-4-of.html

http://www.purlpuri.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/development-with-jumper-project.html

http://www.purlpuri.blogspot.co.uk/2009/12/jumpers-in-cavendish-gallery.html

https://www.facebook.com/stitched.up.12

http://www.tfgm.com/

http://www.cube.org.uk/

Photos by Irina Adam

Jump in to a jumper. I mean in 4. All 4 of you, all at once!

Hello Again!

I have been wanting to update this blog all week, but I have been having some technical problems to upload a video, which is a slideshow of my last and this year's work. It caused me a lot of stress, and I will overcome it in some point when I have the time to go back to it, but meaning while, I decided that I don't want that to stop me to put some more exciting stuff on.

At the moment I am collecting woolly jumpers, or anything that is knitted with yarn material, even machine knits. It is going to be a part of a bigger piece and collection of work what is still in progress. I have been sewing the jumpers together, meaning to only construct a surface, but when I had sewn four jumpers together, I thought of, what would it look like if there was people wearing it at the same time. 

It was very fun afternoon, please look at the photographs.

Big thank you goes to my lovely models

Jennifer Lowler

Elizabeth Ralph

Ellie Greenwood

Lawrence Crompton

PS. Has to be said, that a Manchester band called Doris and the Jumpers, is looking to wear one big jumper, with three head holes in it. We might work together on that.