Updates

Mother decided she really liked the bloody cardigan, so took it away with her and the left over red wool. She's now crocheted a neck and hemline to hide the unevenness. You know, I might yet wear it into work... ;)



The dress is coming along too, but slowly...



I must stop getting distracted by silly little real-life things...!

'Bloody' Sunday

Great way to spend a Sunday morning in bed - sewing the latest project together:


















So to the analysis: the pattern was based on the 'Fitted Deep-Ribbed Cardigan' from Glam Knits. However, I deliberately chose to use the wrong type of wool just to see if I could use the Wendy Ikon to knit anything. It turns out the wool is not suitable for cardigans. Experience tells me it isn't in fact suitable for any wearables - possibly excepting a scarf, but I think it's more suitable for flannels or towels, or at a push a blanket (although the fluffy red bits might choke a baby...). The cardigan is therefore not really fitted. It does feel nice against the skin though. And I like the shoulders and general shape. Unfortunately, it only looks any good if I'm wearing it whilst taking a picture of myself in the mirror, due to the stretched-uneven sides and dodgy button seams. As I'm not planning to always hold my arm across my face in life, I think this may be a drawback...

The thing is, my issue all along had been with the colour scheme of the wool. But actually I now don't mind the colour of it - the red cuffs, button panels and shoulders does balance it out just enough! Despite the Ikon stuiff being completely the wrong wool (I'd have probably been closer to the original pattern idea if I'd just used the red), the uneven and fraying at the neck and hem lines and the totally awkward button panels (caused by the miss-matched yarn thicknesses), I like it! I wouldn't wear it outside the house yet, obviously, but I'm thinking of attempting to fix the problems so I can...

Still, lesson learned: if the wool feels like it should only be used to make towels, you should probably only use it to make towels.


Wool: Wendy Ikon, shade 892, and King Cole Big Value Double knitting, shade 78.

The Pieces...

...Are all knitted up and ready to sew together, but as I finished it in front of the Last night of the Proms and am now tired out, I'll have to wait until tomorrow to see the full disaster come properly to life...

Blood and Smoke

The side pieces of the 'bloody cardigan' are finished. I now have to make a decision about the sleeves - do I attempt to make them out of the 1.75 50g balls of wool that remain and risk running out before it comes to the button band? Or do I use the 100g ball of dark red wall I bought at the cheapy shop this weekend and mix the pattern up into something potentially even more ghastly...? Decisions, decisions...

I've also bought a "500g cone of silver grey (ecru/porcelain) 4NM 93% acrylic 7% wool yarn" from Yarns To Yearn For on Ebay - a pretty good deal for £6.29 including p&p, I thought.



My intention is to use it to make a dress. I'm using the "Saturday-In-The-Park Perfect Dress" pattern from Fitted Knits, but leaving out the mock cable patterning. My plan/intention is to emulate (with wool) a dress that I liked the look (but not the price) of from White Stuff:



I was originally going to knit the leaves and flowers pattern in as I went along, but as this dress is knitted top down, I felt it was going to be an ambitious enough project as it is without making things even more complicated. So my revised plan is to embroider a similar pattern - probably a bit simpler - when the dress is complete. I think this one may take a while...