Oh how cute is that baby with the fair-isle poncho! (Even if I do say so myself… :))
Category: Children’s Poncho
Fair-isle Children Poncho
Remember this poncho? I’ve finally got around to blocking and fringing it, and now it’s done!! Tadaaa…
Project details:
Pattern: My own, inspired by the Children’s Poncho (fair-isle hearts pattern from Knitty‘s Cheesylove).
Yarn: Under 3 balls of Elle DK Pure New Wool, in Regal Purple and Hot Pink.
Started July 2005, finished October 2005.
Here’s a close-up of the fair isle pattern (taken from Knitty’s Cheesylove) and the fringes.
The fringing wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Perhaps because I spaced out the fringes quite a bit, for two reasons. One, I didn’t want the fringes to be too heavy, and two, I didn’t want to kill myself doing the fringes 🙂 Anyway it worked quite well in the end. Now lets see if we can get a model shot some time. The weather here in Sydney is warming up a bit, now that it’s spring, but there’s still the occasional cold and windy days. So hopefully I can get Annette to pose for me.
I have knitting to report
First of all, startitis is still raging. Not only did I start River, I’ve also started on Liesel now. Here’s how she looks like at 2 repeats.
And this is the yarn that I’m using. It’s the Lang Moana yarn that I bought at Lincraft a few weeks ago.
I quite like the yarn, especially the colours. But I’m a bit worried that the colours are a bit too noisy for the lace pattern. It is kind of difficult to see the leaves pattern among all those colours! I think I’ll try a few more repeats and see how it goes. I’m leaning towards just continuing with this yarn, since people probably can’t see the pattern anyway when I’m wearing the scarf.
The yarn has quite a nice drape, and quite nice to wear against the skin, even at the back of the neck. It’s 50% cotton and 50% nylon. The problem with this yarn is that it splits easily if I’m not careful, because of its mesh-like texture.
The pattern is not as easy as I thought it would be. I’m used to lace patterns where every other row is just straight purls, which gives me some sort of ‘break’ from reading the chart/pattern every other row. This is not one of those patterns. So far it has been quite tiring, having to continuously look at the chart, and having to look at the knitting to watch out for snags. Well, the pattern’s designer said that the lace pattern would be easy to memorise. So maybe I just have to keep going and hopefully I’ll be able to memorise the pattern, or work out the pattern based on the rows below (like I do with Kiri).
In other news, the fair isle poncho is almost done. Here it is at the moment, modelled by Annette:
It needs blocking, and then some fringes. I’m so not looking forward to fringing it! But I think it wouldn’t look quite right without the fringes.
And here is River, after one whole ball of the Jo Sharp Rare Comfort Kid Mohair.
Not much at all, is it? I am quite disappointed. One ball only got me two repeats! And I only have 3 balls. So it doesn’t look like I can make this into a shawl after all. But still, I might still keep going and then use it as lap blanket or something. Just because something is a mistake, doesn’t mean it’s useless! Ha!
Startitis
Whoa, what’s this?? Why it’s a new project!
It’s the River stole from Rowan 38. I’m knitting this using some Jo Sharp Rare Comfort Kid Mohair in Millet from the stash. The JS mohair is heavier than the prescribed Kidsilk Haze, and has smaller yardage compared to KSH. So I’m a bit worried I might run out of yarn. I only have 3 balls, 87m (95yd) each. Well we’ll see…
I’m using 6.5mm plastic circular needles, I think the brand name was ‘Birch’ or something like that. I like how the needles are fused together to the cords, which means the cords can’t snap off the needles. (I had a bad, bad, bad experience with a pair of cheap circular needles in the past — the cords snapped off the needles after using it for only 1 row!) The only bad thing about this circs is that the cords are still rather stiff, since it’s only the first time I’m using them.
I started this yesterday, after seeing how great the finished products look on the knitalong. And I’ve just been in a very big mood to start new projects this past few days! Not that I’ve finished Kiri shawl and the children’s poncho or anything! I’ve also been itching to start on the lace scarf. Oh dear.
But I haven’t completely neglected my other projects. See, I’ve finished the body of the poncho! Just need the hood now.
On my needles
I was going to start this knit blog by cataloging the items that I have knitted in the past. But then there would be a lot of them, and many are probably not that interesting anymore now. So I thought I’d better just post pictures of the items on my Flickr account instead, and I’d just write about what’s on my needles now. That would be more exciting! So here goes…
First, we have the Kiri shawl. I’ve seen various Kiris on the knit blogs around, and I just love the way it looks. I started this a few weeks ago, although I’ve only managed to work on it here and there. I’m knitting this with Jo Sharp Classic DK in Lilac, which I got through eBay. Here’s what it looks like after about 4-5 repeats:
I’m using my 60cm 5mm circs, and it is now clear that I will need longer needles. Hmm.. 150cm long maybe?
And here’s a close up of the lace. I love the way the fern leaf pattern looks!
I’m not quite sure about the colour… it’s kind of halfway between purple-pink and brown. I was hoping it would be more like purple/pink, since that’s what I thought lilac is. Some days it looks like purple, some days it looks just like brown. Sigh. But it’s growing on me.
The other thing that I’m working on now is a poncho for Annette. This poncho is inspired by the Children’s Poncho from Knitting Pure and Simple, except that I’m working out the pattern myself, and I’m adding a fair isle hearts pattern around the bottom edge, which is taken from the Cheesylove pattern from Knitty. I like to mix and match! 🙂
Here’s what it looks like at the moment. I’m just halfway through the fair isle.
I’m also hoping to add a hood to this poncho, but I haven’t quite worked out the pattern yet. Hope it’ll work out.