Quick and easy

Since Ravelry, I am not being strictly chronological with my posts of FOs, or even complete, sometimes. I just blog about whichever project takes my fancy, when I have the time and the inclination. This one happens to be my latest finished thing and I really am proud of it, so here it is.

I caught this on the patterns page at Ravelry (I look through the latest projects added every now and then) and saw it was a free pattern, and was in fact currently running as a KAL, with the designer posting installments on her blog. In browsing through my stash I’d turned up this yarn which I didn’t know what it was when I got it from Celtic Coyote in a Knitty swap many months ago. She didn’t remember either, but then Sara was working on a BSJ with similar yarn some time ago and I discovered it is actually Plymouth Encore Colorspun Worsted, plus I was able to find some colourway names on Yarndex as well. I had 6 half skeins or so, and for this project I used up about 3.5.

(Looking through the photos, I just realised I didn’t take a picture of the back, but seriously, I don’t think it matters. It matches the front up to the armholes, and then it’s mostly similar.)

Here are the particulars (here’s my Ravelry page):

Yarn: Plymouth Encore Colorspun Worsted in several colours and half skeins. It feels a bit dry and rough and I don’t know how it will feel in a colder climate or next to the skin. Perhaps it softens with washing? I liked watching the striping, mostly because the pattern is stockinette-dominated. Besides, each colour runs for a fairly long length. I usually love variegated yarn in the skein and despise it worked up. But this worked for a small diameter project. Having so many different colours also meant I could use different colourways without too much weirdness. (The sleeves don’t fully match, but I can live with that).

Needles: I used about 3-4 US #10 (6.00mm) circulars, and one US #8 (5.00mm). That was because I was too lazy to hunt up a stitch holder for the body. For the sleeves, I did both at the same time from different ends of the same ball, because I wanted them to largely match, which they wouldn’t if I had used two different balls. So that required two circulars at the same time, but not with both on one, if you see what I mean. I used one circular for one sleeve. I could possibly have simplified matters with only one circular to work both, but somehow that didn’t occur to me :-p Luckily I seem to have a surfeit of the 6.00 mm and nearby sizes.

Pattern: Waffles for Brunch by Jean Gifford. Here’s the Ravelry page. I probably might make this again.

Time: Over a week, but that was only because I took a break to (a) edit 15 files and (b) test 6 patterns (5 of which were small thread motifs). I got in on the KAL about halfway, but I was able to finish more or less quite quickly after the last instructions were posted. As I indicated, it’s a quick and easy knit.

Uh-oh. Thunder in the background. Hopefully the electricity won’t go.

Size: 19″at the chest, unstretched, 12″ long. As the designer says, it’ll fit some kid somewhere.

Extra #1 I loved doing this! Even loved the extra effort needed to match the stripes (or at least ensure they weren’t too odd/off). As usual, it a bit of on-the-edge knitting whether I’d have enough yarn (the other two half-skeins are pale pink and yellow, while these ones can still be useful for a boy, right?), but that was okay in the end.

#2 I’m very kicked with myself…I did a tubular cast on for this and even though that is usually recommended for 1×1 ribbing, it was okay for this one. It would be a problem with a more monochromatic yarn, though. I found this tutorial via Ravelry and it made the process very clear. I did try to match it with a tubular cast-off at the end of the sleeves, but couldn’t quite grasp it, besides which it involves grafting, which I’m not very good at. Also, the instructions were again for ribbing, not this 4×2 pattern.

#3 Very happy :-D. I don’t exactly know who is going to be favoured with this, as most of my friends have young boys, but I don’t think this is too girly. Do you?

#4 I really am very happy with how the collar worked out, too. The designer (and/or the pattern) made it easy when it came to picking up stitches (none of the “pick up eleventy stitches evenly around the neck” business). It’s the first time I’ve worked a collar like this and I really am pleased with the outcome.

It’s raining now. I’ll leave you with a picture of the cast-on to admire. (There isn’t a particular reason i’m not replying individually to comments, just plain laziness. I might just go to my inbox and catch up now, so don’t be puzzled by any replies you get to comments you made when you were a good deal younger ;-))