You might remember my cotton top, made for my baby granddaughter, that caused me so many problems. It looked absolutely lovely on Isobel, the pale yellow was a good colour and the fit was excellent, although not much room for growth. Overall, I was quite pleased with it, BUT, my son in law apparently remarked to my daughter that overall the knitting 'wasn't quite up to the usual standard' and that I 'had made quite a few mistakes'. These 'mistakes' were the bars where those wretched increases were made. I wasn't worried by his comments as it wasn't as though I didn't know about them, I was devastated! Not really. However I was determined to make this top again and this time it had to look fabulous.
So, bearing in mind that cotton hadn't worked well for me, I chose a skein of Merino/nylon sock yarn that I had hanging around. I love buying indie dyers sock yarn, but as I never, ever knit socks, it is kind of pointless. Particularly as I'm far too mean to buy several skeins that could work as a project. I only buy one. This could be just the thing for it. This one was dyed by Qing and is the colourway Cove. It's really nice.
This time, I made the 1 year size as Isobel is growing fast. I took the advice of the very talented and expert knitter, Janine, and was more careful with my purling. As she said, cotton is quite unforgiving, and I must say the wool worked better. I used circular needles to do the back/forth rows on both garments and it perhaps that was the problem.. It's hard to tell and I might in time knit another one in cotton to see if I could do better. Anyway, this looked much better but I was concerned about those increases. The pattern instructs you to increase by 'making one' by lifting the bar between the two stitches, twisting and knitting it, but it does leave a little straight bar that is noticeable. After testing this method with the wool, I decided it is noticeable when you do a lot of increases in the row as this pattern demands. So, I read the whole of my Increase/Decrease book and learned masses about the process. However, there wasn't one which suited my immediate needs. Eventually, I hit upon pulling part of the stitch below up to the needle and knitting it - rather like a slip stitch. This worked better for this garment, particularly with the variable colours of the yarn. Here's how it looked:
You can see the slipped stitch but it doesn't show as much as the make one. This might be because of the random colours of the yarn, or it might be because this is wool rather than cotton. Anyway, it was more successful for the multiple increases in the row.
I'm really pleased with this and the photo below shows the finished garment. My son in law viewed it yesterday and pronounced it as 'fabulous'. He may have been primed by my daughter to say that. No matter,, I'll take the praise either way.
I'm still working on my mosaic sweater and it's coming along well,. However, my next project is a little cardigan for Isobel which will show off the skirts of her collection of fabulous dresses.
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