I have a surprise for you! A brand new pattern available for free in Knitty – the Darrin cardigan!
Perfect knitting for the summer since it is knit in a couple easy pieces (that aren’t huge to carry around with you), Darrin is a relaxed, cozy tunic length cardigan with a ribbed belt.
Add Darrin to your faves and queue on Ravelry! Lots more photos there, too.
Special thanks to Jasmine Cirjanic for her awesome work as a model, and Kelbourne Woolens for their gorgeous Road to China Light!
Hey all. It’s been awhile! I guess I needed a bit of recovery after my trip – the post-vacation vacation. I spent it dealing with family stuff and staying in a lot! The house I live in (I rent one of the apartments) is up for sale now, so there was a bit of disruption with cleaning it up and stuff as well. Hopefully I won’t have to move any time soon.
So what did I bring back from my travels? Not very much! I was carrying a 40L backpack, so I couldn’t carry much extra – it never went over 14 kg (airline max is 23 kg). I did mail back a few packages of random things that I picked up, mostly maps, magazines and a bit of yarn too.
From Loop in London, just a few skeins of Wollemeise! I’m hoping to make a little lacy cardigan with the green, and maybe a shawl with the purple.
From Alice at Socktopus, some of her fabulous hand dyed fingering weight yarn! Can’t wait to play with these.
And from Purl City Yarns in Manchester, a fabulous assortment of local Manchester yarns and some other British stuff including Natural Dye Studio and Fyberspates. Yum.
As you can see, I picked up a lot of single skeins – it really wasn’t the time to be buying sweater quantities of anything. I do enjoy the challenge of dealing with single skeins so I’m hoping to come up with some fun accessories in the coming months. I’m starting work on my fall collection, which I’m hoping to release in August or early September. It’s a bit tricky to think about in the summer, but after a couple days of hot weather (and broken air conditioning, d’oh) today is lovely and cool. I’m hoping to draw some inspiration from things I saw on this trip, and put together a set of patterns with a little something for everyone.
I can’t believe it’s June already though! Better get crackin’.
It’s been a long, long time coming, but I finally finished my Diva sweater a few months ago! Took me ages to get some decent photos…
Pattern: Diva by Hanne Falkenberg, in Dark Olive and Cyclamen – I think I bought the kit from CucumberpatchUK on ebay.
Needles: 3mm
Yarn: kit yarn; it was a pretty delicate two ply lightweight wool, slightly scratchy, something like Jamieson’s.
Thoughts:
This sweater took ages, but it was kind of nice to knit a sweater from someone else’s pattern for once. The shaping is unique and very interesting to knit! It took me ages to figure out what the heck was actually going on with some of the shaping. The collar was a LOT of knitting but it’s shaped with short rows in a really interesting way.
Cons: It’s a little big. I knit the smallest size, which was supposed to 37″ – it’s a pretty good jacket size, but a little looser than I usually like my sweaters.
The sleeves are WAY long, about 4″ too long, and the collar kind of hits at a funny place. It’s difficult to find a good place to pin it closed that isn’t directly on my boob (which I have much more of than the pattern model), but it doesn’t really work worn open. From a design standpoint, the armholes are a little weird fitting – they’re not quite set in and not quite raglan.
I shouldn’t have seamed with the main yarn – it’s just a little too delicate for the task. I found this hole in the sleeve seam after washing. I should really fix that up.
Overall? Fun to knit, interesting construction. It doesn’t fit perfectly but I’m still happy I made it.
