Stolen Stitches » cardigan

Raspberry Layers in the Park

carol — Sat, 23 May 2009 17:51:29 +0000

Anyone who has been in Cork (or lives here) will probably have come across Fitzgerald’s Park. Last Sunday we went down there with the boys and while they played in the playground Joe took some photos of my new cardigan Raspberry Layers.

Just outside the railings there is an entire wall with the most brillant graffiti. This photo was my favourite from the lot:

There were several more interesting ones also:

and here is a close-up taken in front of a dead tree that is covered in a mirrored mosaic:

We had so much fun it nearly made up for how silly you feel trying to model with people around! When you are in your own garden it somehow does feel quite as daft.

I have added the full details about the new pattern on my For Sale pattern page, or just click below.

Lime With a Twist

carol — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 15:02:40 +0000

Now that I have finished the pattern for ‘Eleanor’ I can start the finishing process for ‘Lime with a Twist’.

Lime with a Twist

I finished this pattern earlier this summer and am finding it a very wearable cardigan. It is in a chunky weight cotton so it doesn’t take too long to knit.
I got one hank of Araucania Patagonia Nature cotton at the start of the summer and even though I loved the soft plush feel of the cotton and how it knitted I didn’t like it knitted in plain stocking stitch. I felt that the mottled color variations would work much better with a diagonal stitch pattern running though it. I played around with different patterns for a few days and ended up creating a variation from a Barbara Walker book that I felt showed up the mottled color variation of the yarn well.
The end result is an amazingly easy knit that I think looks much more complex then it was to knit.
I’m working with some test knitters at the moment and I’ll have this up for sale in the middle of November.

The hoodie is complete

carol — Mon, 05 May 2008 08:24:48 +0000

I finished my son’s hoodie yesterday. He was just delighted with himself! He likes the Shine yarn so much that he just keeps telling me how soft it is…now hopefully it’ll stay that way.

This was mostly done on the knitting machine but all the edging and the hoodie edging was done by hand. I have to tell you with this many colour changes I had about 3 hours worth of solid work just to weave the ends of the yarn in. If he wasn’t standing over me waiting to wear it I probably would have chickened out and left it for weeks.

I am currently working on a piece made from Araucania Patagonia Nature Cotton. I got a skein from This is Knit several months ago and have been wondering what it will become. I swatched it a few weeks ago and came up with some lovely results so now you will have to wait for the surprise outcome…I must figure out what to do with the resulting pattern.

Selfish knitting

carol — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 22:42:36 +0000

After the last several weeks spent knitting for Christmas presents I’ve had a chance to get started on a project for myself this week. I got some Rowan Chunky print yarn in a lovely dark chocolate and have started on the Blackberry shrug from Knitty.

I am knitting it from the top though with a few more changes. Having recently gotten a copy of Barbara Walkers ‘Knitting From the Top’ I am finding as many excuses in my knitting to work from the top down. Especially when it is for yourself it means that you get a great fit. (Not so important if you don’t have the person around who will be wearing it …or if that person doesn’t want to try it on daily for fitting!)

I have put in a slightly different cable on the arm and left out the bobbles. Also I am tapering the arms a little more and increasing the length of the arms and body. I think I’ll probably do some short rows at the back of the next, I like cosy necks. Will post some photos as I start making a bit more progress.