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Christina’s Craft Knitting Catchup – The reboot!

christinahopgood

I’ve finally done another vlog!  I talk about my knitting, some things I like, some new stuff, and a new design of my own!

Shownotes
Fallow Sweater
My Fallow Sweater
Ginny’s Cardigan
My Ginny’s Cardigan
Vanilla Sock pattern
Black Trillium Fibres Lilt Sock gradient yarn
Wind Song Wares on etsy (currently on holiday, coming back soon)
Rose Garden Shawl (my new design)
Addi Click Lace Interchangeable Needles

I recorded this episode at the coast, where my husband’s family has a lovely little house.  I love going there to recharge and relax!  My new shawl design will be released really soon, I hope you enjoy it!

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Completed – Cardigan for my mum

christinahopgood

Finally, another non-selfish knitting project!
This is kind of an old knit now, but I made my mum a cardigan for Mother’s Day.
I love the cables up the fronts and the back!
It fits mum but probably could be a little bigger.  But it was because I ran out of yarn!  I don’t know why I didn’t buy enough.  I ran out before I got to the button bands.  So I had to do some creative shortening of the sleeves (which turned out ok because they were too long anyway), and undid my swatches, and ALSO had to cut off all my long tails and use them too!  The button bands are not quite as wide as I’d like but they do the job.
That was a very stressful evening.  But done phew!  I ended up having to seam it with some different yarn, which was not quite the same colour.  Oh well you can’t tell!
I do love Amy Herzog’s pattern!  It was a fun interesting knit 🙂
One reason why this took so long to write is that Blogger was being weird!
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Completed – Canopy shawl

christinahopgood
I made another lovely shawl!  This one is for keeping my neck and shoulders snuggly and warm.
Pattern: Canopy
Yarn: The Fibre Company, Road to China Light
My Ravelry Notes Here
This shawl has three repeating sections: A and B, which look the same except are mirror image, and a stocking stitch section.  These three sections are repeated three times, with four stitches increased on each right-side row.  This makes the triangular shape!
By the end, your rows are over 200 stitches long!  
This yarn, Road To China Light, is made of 65% baby alpaca, 15% silk, 10% camel and 10% cashmere.  It is so snuggly and warm and incredibly soft!  Unfortunately, as it is hand dyed, there is quite a bit of variation in each skein and you can clearly see in the photo below where I changed skeins. It’s not a huge deal, but the middle skein I used had much more orangey tones.
I know you’re supposed to knit a few rows of each skein to avoid this stuff, but I don’t like doing that as I worry it will come undone.
Ugg boots for the win.
The border was the trickiest bit, being knit at right-angles to the shawl.  I imagine it’s a bit like entrelac? Anyway this was a lovely shawl to work on and to wear.  Do recommend!
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ANOTHER Miette cardigan!

christinahopgood
Pattern: Miette, by Andi Satterlund
Yarn: Bendigo Woollen Mills Allegro (discontinued)
My Ravelry Notes Here
Yes I made another one.  Suddenly I decided I needed a dark red cardigan in my wardrobe with which to go to Japan in February.  So, I used some stash yarn and whipped this up in less than 2 weeks!
A fairly unflattering photo but I was on the couch!  
I loved working with this yarn.  Bendigo Woollen Mills, please re-release it!  It’s a very soft 100% wool yarn, DK weight, with a couple of slightly different colours plied together.  This deep red is a mixture of a magenta-red and an orange-red.
My buttons are vintage stash buttons.  
Because the yarn is thinner, I did an extra repeat of the lace pattern down the front, and since I had so much yarn left I did long sleeves.  I still could have done with a little more length in the body.
These are photos of me in a Japanese fabric shop – it was amazing!
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First Granville blouse!

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I jumped on the bandwagon and made myself a wonderful Granville blouse!
For those who don’t know, this is one of two new blouse patterns from Sewaholic.  (The other, the Oakridge blouse, will be coming soon to my life I’m sure).
The backstory on this is that we were about to go to Japan and I decided that I needed a blouse.  TWO days before we left.  So I kind of sewed myself crazy in those two days and wound up with a pretty good shirt.

Here’s me after sewing for two days straight.  I sewed that skirt too.
I made the non-pocketed version out of some vintage cotton a friend gave me.
I am between sizes but went a size down, because I looked at the finished measurements and decided that there was too much wearer’s ease for my liking.  It turned out pretty snug but comfortable for me.  I had been warned that Sewaholic patterns are quite hippy (i.e. big at the hips, not wears tie-dye at music festivals and believes in crystals), but sizing down worked fine for my normal sized hips.
I made a couple of super spacktarded errors, completely due to me being in such a rush.  I didn’t mark the wrong side of my fabric, thinking I could tell the difference (I couldn’t), and so have two plackets that go the same way instead of mirror image.  I know, super dumb.  Also it took me like two hours to figure out how to do that yoke, and I had to unpick it twice.  Also I sewed one dart on the right side and had to undo it, except then unpicked the wrong one, etc.  I had to re-do a bunch of stuff because I was rushing.
It turns out that when you rush and cut corners, you take twice as long because you’re always unpicking.
However, the only actual thing wrong with my completed shirt is the one placket being the wrong way round.  Apart from that it’s great!  It made a really good layer in Japan when it was cold.  Also while in Japan I bought a bunch more fabric to make more Granville shirts!  Stay tuned!