Category: Uncategorized

Uncategorized

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!
Uncategorized

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!
Uncategorized

First Granville blouse!

christinahopgood

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!

Uncategorized

Completed – Kouyou Shawl

christinahopgood
I finally made my first shawl!
Pattern: Kouyou, by Angela Tong
Yarn: Katia Brisa in Gold
My Ravelry Notes Here
I found the construction really interesting and easy to do.  The lovely triangular shape is made by increasing at the middle and ends of each row.  It was a really well written pattern, very clear and easy to follow.
The lace section took easily three times as long as the stocking stitch section, but I found it pretty interesting!  It’s always fun seeing the pattern emerge.

These photos are of the shawl blocking on a towel.  It was incredible how much better it looked after blocking! 

I made this shawl to go with a particular dress.  We are going to Japan at the end of this month for our friend’s wedding on the first day of spring.  I had read some articles on what to wear to a Japanese wedding and they all said WEAR A SHAWL!
I think I might have been bitten by the shawl bug!  I enjoyed knitting it SO much, I want to make more now.

Uncategorized

Completed – owl eyes cardigan

christinahopgood
So while I’ve been recuperating from my surgery, I knit a cardigan!
This is “Ginny’s Cardigan”, from the Interweave Harry Potter special magazine. While I was in America I picked up a copy of the pattern.
I used Berocco Ultra Alpaca in a brand new colourway which I can’t find on ravelry.
My Ravelry Notes Here
My buttons are shell buttons from my stash. I think I got them from a garage sale!
I made a few changes to the pattern. I shortened the amount of ribbing on the sleeves (got sick of it) and also shortened the sleeves considerably. My arms are short. I also opted for ribbing around the neckline instead of garter stitch, and I put a buttonhole in the neck band too.
I love the lace panel. It looks like owl eyes!
This cardigan is great because it’s long enough to wear with jeans but it doesn’t look weird with skirts either. It’s The Perfect Length! One criticism is that the sleeves are incredibly tight, especially near the wrist. I figured they’d loosen up with wear but they’re still pretty tight.
I also made the blouse I’m wearing – it’s New Look 6107 (or thereabouts) and the fabric is a silk from Liberty that my old boss gave me. She must have bought it twenty years ago! Isn’t it a great 90s print!
These photos were taken on one of the first walks I took after my surgery so no makeup. That’s why I look a bit bedraggled. But you don’t read this for my face do you! Do you?
I am writing this post using Blogsy, which is an iPad app for writing blog posts. We’re going overseas in a month and I want to blog without my laptop! So far it’s ok, but I think anything on iPad will be a bit cumbersome. Does anyone have a suggestion?