Zimmermania

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Stranded version of February baby sweater

As much as I adore the February baby sweater as-is, I find it a bit girly for boys. Combine that with the fact that I never miss an opportunity to practice my stranded technique, I came up with this version for a friend's newborn son.
It is knitted rather tight- standard worsted on size 5 needles. The finished fabric had a wonderful density, but it didn't loose drape, and the hand was fabulous. I will certainly knit at this density again.
What I wouldn't do again- I split the lower design, rather than mirroring it along the placket. Eh, live and learn. Or rather, knit and learn.
And speaking of the lower design, I appropriated it from an 18th century French (? or Belgian) tiled rooftop, found on Google images. Oh, how I love the Google.

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posted by ilex at 1:07 PM

16 Comments:

  • That is such a beautiful sweater! I love what you did with it-- and the way you turned a tile pattern into the bottom of the sweater. Gorge!

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 2:02 PM  

  • I love your "unventedness"! Not only the color pattern, but the way you borrowed it from an old pattern. That's probably the way people have been designing knitwear for centuries. It's gorgeous.

    By Blogger Kelley, at 5:41 PM  

  • I love the colors and the pattern.

    By Blogger yarnmaniac, at 6:43 PM  

  • That's fabulous. What a great idea.

    By Blogger Jessica, at 7:38 PM  

  • This comment has been removed by the author.

    By Blogger meyer, at 2:33 AM  

  • What a good idea to use a tiled rooftop to turn it into a pattern. That´s an inspiration, to make it up yourself. The colours go together very well, too. A very special little version of this sweater!

    By Blogger meyer, at 2:39 AM  

  • I love this adaptation of the February sweater! What a great idea.

    By Blogger Unknown, at 8:09 AM  

  • Absolutely gorgeous!

    By Blogger Helen, at 8:27 AM  

  • this is really lovely. i think it is very inspirational.

    By Blogger knititch, at 12:58 PM  

  • Really lovely February sweater, one of the best I've seen!

    By Blogger Daniela, at 2:24 PM  

  • Thank you very much, everyone! I'm honored to be in such good knitting company.

    By Blogger ilex, at 4:55 AM  

  • Oh how great! Did you steek up the center of that itty bitty thing, or work your color back and forth?

    By Blogger knittingjuju, at 6:14 PM  

  • Knittingjuju- nope, no steeks. I worked the neck on circs, then down the sleeves on flat needles, and sewed them up before I got to the body, but didn't sew all the way to the underarms. Then I put the body on a big circ, and at the underarms I cast on 10 additional stitches and knit up into a little triangle. It gave the underarms a half-gusset, and prevented that sharp corner under the arms that can occur in top-down knitting.

    Next time, I'll probably do the sleeves on circs/dpns and knit in the half-gusset. But it was a great project and I learned a lot by doing it he way I did it.

    By Blogger ilex, at 6:06 AM  

  • That is gorgeous!!

    By Blogger woolcat, at 12:24 PM  

  • I'll write exactly what came to my mind when I saw the photograph of your stranded sweater, "That's fantastic." Oh and there was a tiny little sigh in there somewhere. Yeah for you!

    By Blogger Gabby Girl, at 3:11 PM  

  • I'll write exactly what came to my mind when I saw the photograph of your stranded sweater, "Wow, that's fantastic." Oh and there was a tiny little sigh in there somewhere. Yeah for you!

    By Blogger Gabby Girl, at 3:12 PM  

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