Sunny!

Hello, it’s me again! Once more with two garments for the price of one, which makes a total of five garments in a week, gasp!

It’s been so long since I completed this skirt and top that I don’t even remember which came first… The only thing I remember is finishing them a few days apart and realising how perfect they went together.

The skirt is my second iteration of Tilly’s Picnic Blanket Skirt. I can’t get enough gathered skirts; with or without buttons, I need them all. You wouldn’t believe how many pieces of fabric I have bought with a simple gathered skirt in mind (I think Mimolette is going to club me to death if she ever hears me answering ever again “Oh I don’t know, I was thinking a simple gathered skirt maybe?” to her asking me what I want to make with a fabric I like!).

So when looking for something to sew with the remnants of the skirt I sewed for my friend’s birthday (am I the best friend ever or what, sewing her a skirt only two years after her birthday?!), I didn’t dither and went for, well, a gathered skirt. With buttons, because I had spotted these cute ones at Tissus Passion and I was so happy to have found an excuse to buy them.

While we’re on the subject of buttons, I got the impression that, after a couple of months of wearing and subsequent washing, they had started to fade a little bit. I compared them with a spare one to be sure I wasn’t seeing things, and indeed, as you can see in the picture above, they are a shade clearer. Fortunately, the fabric (which I bought in Paris about four years ago) seems to stand up better to repeated washing.

I like the skirt a lot, but it’s the knitted top I’m most proud of, because it is my own pattern (details on Ravelry)! I had a clear idea of what I wanted it to look like and I made the pattern up as I went. The only radical difference between the finished top and what I had in mind is that I initially intended for the Swiss dot stitch to run on the whole sweater. But when I reached the part where I knit in the round, I realised this stitch couldn’t really be knit in the round. So I had to make a choice between seaming up the top afterwards, or knitting in the round with another stitch. I thought these garter stitch stripes looked cute with the dots, so I chose to go on knitting in the round with this stitch.

The yarn is Catania and I loved knitting with it. I did freak out when steam blocking the sweater though: with the heat, the yarn changed in texture and got very stiff and started feeling sort of brittle. Luckily, the change was only temporary and everything got back to normal as soon as the yarn cooled down.

I have worn this skirt and top a lot since I finished them four months ago, together and separately. The skirt is especially versatile: with its colourful flowers on a black background, it lends itself to being worn with or without tights, both in summer and winter appropriate outfits!

Mulberry Turban

Wow, looks like I’ve acquired quite a taste for really intricate knitting projects! Will I be able to knit with needles smaller than 10 mm ever again? Will I even remember how to purl when the dreaded time comes to move past garter stitch?

So, I made a turban (more like, a headband that looks like a turban). And the worse part is, it wasn’t even on purpose. I still had a bit of yarn left after completing my Mulberry set, so I decided to use it to knit a big bow for the hat. I cast on ten stitches and I knit until I had almost no yarn left, thinking I’d fold the result in two and gather the center with a small band I’d knit with the very last remain of the yarn. I tried that, and even though the bow was cute, it clearly did not belong on the hat. It was way too bulky and did not look flattering at all from most angles. So I took it off the hat and threw it aside on the couch, much to the delight of my cat who immediately adopted it as a new favourite pillow.

It was only a few days (and thus a multitude of cat hair) later that I saw it lying on the couch and had the idea to take off the small piece in the center and see whether the remaining band fit my head so that I could use it as a headband. And, as you can see, it did! I gathered the seam (and made heavy use of the lint roller) and voilà! Instant turban!

And look, I can wear it on the matching hat to get extra coverage against the cold! I also really like the retro touch it gives to the otherwise plain hat. Now that looks like a turban!

So, this is clearly not the most impressive project, but I have already been wearing it a lot, which makes it a complete success. OK, the only downside may be that I had to rip her favourite pillow away from my cat. Sorry, Olivine!

Mulberry Set

Last Friday, for the monthly meeting of my knitting group, I was reluctant to take my current knitting project with me: it’s a very simple project, except for five rows of lace that I had to frog six or seven times (I actually lost count after a moment) because of small mistakes I could not fix without ripping the whole lace part (it’s the kind of lace you have to work even on the back rows, you don’t just purl those)! I was once again at the beginning of that tricky part, so I didn’t want to risk ruining it again by not paying enough attention while chatting away with fellow knitters.

So I decided to break my self-imposed no UFO rule and bring a simple project I could knit without even looking instead: enter the garter stitch scarf, knit with 10 mm needles! I hadn’t knit a scarf in years: I used to knit one scarf every winter when I didn’t know how to knit “real” garments yet, but since I learnt how to knit shawls, cardigans and sweaters, I hadn’t even thought about knitting a simple scarf, as if it was too easy or something.

It was sooo easy, and such a relief from the lace that had begun to challenge my sanity! I started knitting it on Friday evening and finished it on Sunday, and it’s not like I spent my whole weekend knitting either. Oh, and I made a matching hat on Monday with the leftover yarn!

The yarn is Avelita by Schachenmayr, in a beautiful deep purple colour. I don’t know whether you can tell from the pictures, but it’s sparkly thanks to a pink/purple metallic thread. The garter stitch showcases the glitter effect beautifully.

I cast on 15 stitches and I knit until the end of the seventh ball, which makes for a really long and squishy scarf that you can wrap around your neck up to four times (I only wrapped it up to three times in the pictures). For the hat, I cast on 46 stitches in the round. I knit ribs for a few centimetres then garter stitch.

I’m really happy with my scarf anf hat set and they’ve already been keeping me warm all week (nothing beats four wraps of scarf when you’re biking to work early in the morning!). I should stop thinking that very simple projects are not worth knitting, especially when I see how rewarding it was to get a finished project I’ll get a lot of use out of in four days instead of a (few) month(s). And finally, I own a scarf that is not green! No more (unintended) clashing outfits!