Yellow Marble Baby’s Coat

If you have read my previous post then you might be expecting to see the beginnings of another shawl, but I while I was knitting the Purple Fade shawl – I was also knitting this little baby coat.

Like a lot of knitters – I am raiding my stash both of yarn and patterns.  I have had the yarn for several years.  It is James C Brett’s Baby Marble Double Knitting which is 100% acrylic.  It is good for knitting baby coats as it is interesting as well as practical.  I had bought it to knit a plain coat for a baby of unknown gender.  I think I did use one ball, but I had one left and I found this pattern in my stash.

It has no date on it and says it comes from Yours magazine.  I think I got it from my mother.  I ripped out the pattern before the magazine got thrown away.  I have always loved the feather and fan or old shale pattern.  I know that there is a difference but I can’t remember what it is.  I like the combination of holes and decreases.

While I have been knitting other things over the last few weeks – I have been thinking more about my Everything I Ever Knitted project.  I am going to get back to it.  It is still going on in the background.  

One of the first things I ever knitted was a long-line waistcoat in feather and fan stitch but I have also knitted several multi-yarn throws that involved this stitch.  It is the movement within the rows which makes the stitch idea to use when you are trying to mix yarns or colours (or both).

Everything I have Ever Knitted - for My Parents

For the last couple of weeks I have been working on the modular knitted jacket that I started last November.   It is not that far off being finished but I still need to do the button band and the cuffs.  I hope it will fit me – but I have got to the point that I just want to finish it.

In-between times – I have been knitting little samples for my Everything I have Ever Knitted project.  This is a V-neck.  In the 1980s I knitted my father 2 pullovers to wear under a suit for work.  He was very fussy and wanted them to look right (so did I) – and I was particularly pleased that he wore them every winter thereafter.  One was grey and the other was dark green like this sample. 

Over the years I have knitted lots of things for my mother and finished items that she started and got stuck with.  The following sample is from a cardigan that I knitted for her.  I think she may have knitted some of it.  It was knitted in this yarn which is a copper coloured Sirdar Country Style.  I remember finding the basket work pattern difficult especially when decreasing.  Although this cardigan was knitted many years ago – I saw my mother wearing it in the last few months.

I was thinking that the first things that I knitted have stayed in my memory long after the garments have gone.  Each one was precious – I had to save up for the yarn – and each one was a learning experience.  The following is a sample of reversed stocking stitch knitted in Wendy’s Chignon. 

I loved this yarn and knitted the very plain jumper to show it off.  A few years later I knitted the pattern again when I discovered a similar yarn.  I would knit it again – if I could find the yarn.  It is chunky but is very light-weight and the colours are very subtle.

Everything I have Ever Knitted – Continued

This week I have been trying to finish the cardigan I have been knitting for Oxford Yarn Store and trying to finish the Creative Cables throw – at the time of writing I still haven’t finished either of them.

I decided to makes some progress on something by writing a bit more about some of the things I have knitted over the years.  This first piece is a sample of probably the first multi-coloured yarn that I ever used.  I knitted a short-sleeved jumper in about 1984.  It was the time when summer yarns were being promoted for the first time.

I did wear the jumper – I remember wearing it under a black suit.  I had totally forgotten about it until I found a ball of the yarn. It was called Robin Diamante and was supposedly double knitting yarn – but it is very thin.  It was 87% acrylic and 13% nylon.  It is described as “lustre crepe”.

This second piece is similar  to yarn I used for a plain fluffy scarf.  It was mohair but tempered by nylon so it didn’t shed hairs everywhere.  I knitted it on the train travelling backwards and forwards to Oxford – so that was in 1984 as well.

This third piece is also fluffy.  I can’t remember the exact name of the yarn but it was “Funky Fur” or something like that.  I bought it to make a jumper for a little girl.  

She would have been about 4 at the time and she is 21 now – so it would have been in the summer of 2002.  I do like novelty yarns but prefer it if they don’t make a lot of mess.  They are fun and knitting should be fun.

Everything I have Ever Knitted – First Pieces

When I was staying with my mother recently – I took some more photos of the patchwork quilt that I helped to knit for my sister in the late 1970s. 

I tried to take photos of all the blocks that I knitted but some of them have not come out very well.  It is typical of me to learn to knit with colour-work rather than something plain.  It was partly out of necessity – I didn’t have any money so when I knitted I had to use odd bits of yarn left over from other people’s projects.  

The following photo shows a small striped piece which is a reknitting of the block I remembered (which is shown above).  For some reason I associate it with toothpaste!  

The other piece is black stocking stitch with garter stitch ridges which is to remember a black tank top which I knitted in about 1979. I think this was my first proper knitting project.  I know I didn’t want to knit a scarf as they were boring!  The garter stitch ridges made it interesting.  The pattern came from an easy knitting book which I will find again one day.  It was odd because the design had a V-neck and a garter stitch edge to the neck rather than the usual shaped rib.  

Thinking back to my first pattern book – I don’t think the designs were that easy.  Several of them were mainly garter stitch but there were also cables and other textured stitches and lots of shaping.  I think designers probably intend to produce an easy pattern book but they forget what is easy and what beginners struggle with.  Saying that I don’t remember struggling (although it was a long time ago) – I think I found it a challenge which I enjoyed.

This week I have discovered some of the original yarn which I used for some memorable garments – so I hope to get a few more pieces knitted in the coming week as well as finishing the last stripe of the Creative Cables throw which I have been knitting.

Everything I have Ever Knitted

Last year when I finished knitting my WW1 Memorial Quilt – I was asked – what are you going to do next?  I thought about this for several weeks.  I am attracted to knitting simple garments which let the yarn to the talking and this started from when I first developed my knitting skills.  In the summer of 2019 it will be 40 years since I  knitted my first garment and then knitted lots of samples to try out various stitch patterns.

I learned to knit as a child but only knitted small squares and oblongs.  And then some time in the mid to late 1970s I worked on this patchwork quilt.  I knitted stripes for the first time and used very small needles.  This was my first colour-work project.  Unlike the majority of the other projects that I have knitted since – I still have access to it – it is on my mother’s bed.

This year I want to produce a piece of knitting which commemorates my experience of knitting.  This won’t mean much to anyone else but I hope the end result will be interesting and attractive.

When I mentioned my idea at a Knitting & Crochet Guild meeting – I was asked – can you remember everything you have ever knitted or do you keep a record of it?  This blog is a record of most of what I have knitted during the last 5 years.  Before that I have files of patterns that I  have designed, copies of patterns I have knitted and little bits of yarn that I kept to use for something else one day.  That day may have come because I will be able to use the yarn that I used originally.

Last Christmas I read a book called “A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived.”  This provided the idea for my knitting project – because one person is symbolic of lots of others – that is the same with this project – I will remember the garments I liked, that I hated, that were significant in some way – and they will represent all the others.

I am surprised about what I do remember but it is because of how I think and how I design – I tend to go over what I have done or what I have learned and then produce a variation.  Some patterns have had about 20 variations, if not more.  I am thinking particularly of a jacket that I have knitted for an expected baby.  I have done it plain – in pink or blue or yellow – I have done it with a Fair Isle pattern – I have done it in tartan and I have done it striped.  The basic pattern is the same but the end results look very different.  

At the moment – I intend to be very casual about this project – I will knit whatever occurs to me in whatever order it occurs.  I will collect together lots of little bits of knitting and arrange them at the end.  I may then find that I need to knit some more pieces to persuade those I have already knitted to look like one piece of knitting that hangs together.

So far this year I have knitted nothing – not one stitch – not on this project nor on any other.  I have been suffering from a nasty virus which has left me feeling exhausted most of the time and too tired to knit (I must have been very ill indeed!).  Anyway – today I am feeling a bit more optimistic and have a bit more energy – so I might actually finish the Christmas present that I mentioned in the previous post.