Wednesday, April 17, 2013

A scarf for Nanna

So I made a scarf for my Mum for Mother's Day last year. My grandmother saw it and began hinting to people that she would like her own scarf. So I got to work designing a scarf for her. After quite a bit of deliberation, I settled on a blue tartan and used some online tartan designer websites to help choose the proportions and colours. The websites are rather fun too!


In the end I chose a dark blue wool for the majority of the weft with accents of cream and light blue wool. The warp is a mixture of light blue and cream cotton. So in total the tartan uses 5 colours. I wove in a simple twill pattern as it gives a nice drape which is important if you are going to wrap it around. The wool and cotton means the scarf is not too hot and suitable for spring and autumn wear and can be washed easily without worrying about felting.


I tried to be as accurate with the proportions of the squares as possible, but I'm not sure if this constitutes a 'real' tartan or not! 

Anyway, my Grandmother was really pleased with it, so that's the main thing.

Knitterly Pursuits - when acrylic is not all bad and is in fact quite good

I finished this Batwing Jacket from Debbie Bliss Magazine a while ago (though it took about 6 months to finish!) but I'm not completely satisfied with it. Even though I swatched carefully and recalculated the gauge and number of stitches to suit the pattern and the drape of the yarn, the cardigan is a bit too big. It works as an oversize cardigan that you can disappear into but its not quite like the pattern. Still, I wear it when I feel the need for disappearing in acres of handknit (sometimes this seems necessary!). 


Part of the confusion was the pattern schematic did not indicate where you start from and end up, so I had no idea where I was going with the knitting until about halfway up the back of the cardigan. So I couldn't gauge from what I was knitting that it might be too large.


Still, the cardigan is a nice object and the gauge I got achieved a lovely bouncy cushiony cardigan.


I'm particularly pleased by the cuffs. They fit well and look neat.

The yarn is from my stash and is simply an acrylic mohair as I have used real mohair in this weather and its stiflingly hot and uncomfortable, even in airconditioning. The acrylic is the perfect warmth level for 21 degree airconditioning.