Veera's Hello Kitty Sweater

My niece, Veera, turns five next Christmas Eve. She loves Hello Kitty - last year her top wish from Santa was a packet of Hello Kitty band-aids! And like all nearly-five-year-old girls, she loves the colour pink. When she saw me knitting a few months ago (I was working on a chocolate brown Lucky Clover Wrap from Stitch'n Bitch Nation, a project I am now considering frogging despite having worked on it for a year), she was intrigued. (Yes, I do plan on initiating her into the art of knitting at some point.) Last time I saw her a few weeks back, she asked if I had finished the project yet and if I would knit her a pink sweater.

Now, you have to cross me pretty bad for me to say no to a knitting request, especially such a small one, so I started pondering and planning what her pink sweater could look like. I had a few prerequisites:

1. It should be a top-down project. I'm not spending half the time sewing fronts and backs and sides and sleeves together.
2. It should be machine washable. This one is a no-brainer considering she's going on five and five-year-olds do messy things.
3. It should be soft and comfortable, not itchy.
   
4. It should not be 100% acrylic or any other synthetic fibre that is likely to melt on her should it catch on fire.

I rummaged through the excellent pattern search engine on Ravelry and found a suitable top-down pattern for a little girl's top (minus the stripes and the bell sleeves). Turns out that Novita Samos (50% cotton / 50% acrylic) knits exactly to the gauge and ticks all the boxes that I set for the yarn. For a fluffy Hello Kitty face, I decided to use Novita Jive (100% polyamide), with the red bow-tie made from the Novita Luxus Cloud from my cardigan and the black outline done with Novita Jasmin (60% cotton / 40% acrylic; not on the website as I believe it's a seasonal yarn).

I cast my stitches on and the project was going ahead swimmingly... until I came to the part where I wanted to start the intarsia. Now, usually intarsia is worked on flat pieces, in which you work from right to left, then left to right, then right to left, etc. etc. This makes carrying yarn relatively simple. However, when you're working in the round (right to left over and over again), intarsia becomes problematic, as you leave the yarn on one side and then arrive on the opposite shore with no way of reaching said yarn. I found an excellent tutorial on intarsia in the round and, although I've never worked intarsia even on a flat piece before, decided to bite the bullet and try it out. After all, how hard can it be?

Pretty hard I tell ya, especially if you're working with four colours at once (with two of those colours split into two smaller balls each), your main intarsia yarn is a very very elastic one and the rest not at all. I completed approximately seven rows of the Hello Kitty pattern, decided that there was no way those stretched-all-over-the-place stitches were going to do, and frogged the lot. I have no pictorial evidence of this offending piece, but trust you me, it was pretty offensive.

So I frogged it, re-knit those seven rows, lost two stitches in there somewhere (no idea where as there are no dropped stitches - maybe missed two raglan increases?) and prepared for the tedious prospect that is the knitting of a sweater body in plain stocking stitch. At least it's a small body, and the yarn is pretty chunky, so it's quick going.


Here's where I am at the moment. It should take me another 2-3 evenings to finish the sweater, and then I get to the interesting part: duplicate stitching the Hello Kitty face on! The pink yarn underneath should give it the sturdiness to stop it from stretching all over the place like it did before. I'm also considering stitching Veera's name onto the sleeve, but maybe that's a bit too much? I just remember how I loved everything with my name on it when I was her age.

I might just knit everyone's Christmas presents this year. I'll be sitting on the train a lot this autumn thanks to my other university being in a different town, so I'll have a lot of time to kill. What, studying? What's that?

Finished: Favorite Cardigan by Wendy Bernard

As I mentioned in my last post, I have mostly knitted socks and small things in the past. In fact, I have yet to finish anything that is worn on the actual body. Until today.

Two weeks ago, I was grocery shopping at a supermarket when I noticed they had yarn on special (cue mad dash). Despite having a strict yarn shopping list, I picked up seven skeins of Novita Luxus Cloud (65% wool / 35% bamboo) in a delicious scarlet shade, without a clue about what I was going to knit out of it. When I found out at the checkout that they were only 2€ a skein (normally 5€), I went back the next day and got seven skeins more, all that they had in stock.

When I got home, I went through my knitting books and found the perfect use for the Cloud (or so I thought at the time) - the Favorite Cardigan by Wendy Bernard, from her book Custom Knits. See the model photo at left. The gauge matched, it offered a gentle introduction to top-down knitting, which I was keen to try, and last but not least: I really wanted a scarlet cardigan. So off I went.

I am not usually what they call a project knitter, but I really liked working on this one. I cannot explain why - it must have been the top-down construction - but it was an incredibly quick knit. Consider that I have another cardigan in the works that I started a year ago... Whatever the reason, I took a strong liking to top-down projects, trying it on as I worked was great!

I made several mods to the pattern, as encouraged by the book: My gauge was off by two stitches per 10cm so I changed the needles from 4.5mm to 5.5mm. Since I fell between sizes, I CO'd size S and added an extra row of raglan increases for a larger bust, then decreased back to size S for the waist (two extra decreasing rounds). I moved the front cables two stitches further out for a nice knitted edge, I also moved the sleeve cables by a stitch to match them with the collar ribbing. Sleeves were size M minus two stitches, so I skipped the first round of decreases and then worked as per size M, making them longer until I felt they were right. Lengthened the body from 12½" to 14½" before the bottom ribbing. Tossed the buttonhole instructions out of the window as they produced the most god-awful "buttonholes" I've ever seen. Did regular "BO 2 sts, next round CO 2 sts" buttonholes, used seven buttons instead of eight. Phew, I think that's all!

The final result can be seen at right (click for a bigger photo). I wish I could say that I positively adore the first torso-wearable thing that has come off my needles, but I don't quite. It's certainly OK or even fine, but the fit is slightly odd - too short to start with, despite the extra two inches. The big annoyance is the yarn; although it's incredibly soft and a dream to work with, it has already started pilling... bad. The cardigan certainly doesn't look as though it was finished today. On the other hand, it does look like a favourite cardigan, slightly worn out. It could be worse, I guess!

If nothing else, I am proud of actually finishing this thing, and in two weeks to boot! It has given me confidence about starting "big" projects that I have so far always discarded halfway through, bored and/or disillusioned. I've got several more cardigans/sweaters/jumpers on my to-do list now. Gotta dream big! For my next project however, I'll think small - my niece requested a pink sweater, so a pink sweater she will get. She loves Hello Kitty, so I'm scheming intarsia (another first for me) in fluffy white yarn. We'll see how it turns out. Luckily her birthday is not until December!

Charmed, I'm sure

My mother always told me it is polite to introduce oneself when meeting new people, and mothers are always right, so here goes.

I'm Salla, a 26-year-old Taurus (rising Leo, moon in Pisces). I live in Espoo, Finland, where I was born and bred. In fact, I live about 20 minutes away from the very hospital where I was born. Incidentally, I have since lived most of my life elsewhere, including three countries other than Finland. But life works in cycles, and here I am again.

I am engaged to be married to an Australian fella next summer. Our little family also includes our furry baby Kerri, an 18-month-old ocicat. Sometimes I wonder if she is not a dog in a cat suit since she occasionally barks, and likes to fetch the ball. Kerri always watches my knitting very intently. Mostly she's a good girl (we've had "The Talk" about yarn and her rights to paw at it - or the lack thereof), but sometimes she will try and put a paw down on a skein very very slowly. I'm sure you'll be seeing a lot of Kerri, she loves getting photographed. And lying on my projects.

I was originally taught to knit by my mother I believe, this was when I was perhaps 4 or 5. No projects from this period remain, and it is probably just as well! (My mother is not a very good knitter - or a very good knitting teacher - sorry mum!) I was taught properly at school at the age of 11-ish, when I completed a pair of socks and a pair of mittens. I also attempted to knit a sweater and failed miserably. I still have the Easter chick yellow acrylic yarn stashed away somewhere...

For years, I didn't knit a thing. I lie, I knitted a pair of mittens for a boyfriend in senior secondary school. But mostly, not a thing. I saw the light again while attending a university exchange program in Canada in 2005. The local yarn shop was too divine to resist! When I was living in London, England from 2006 up until 2008, I had to endure a one-and-a-quarter-of-an-hour-each-way commute every day. So I started knitting socks, much to the amazement of my fellow commuters. I branched out into scarves, hats and other little things. I had to import all my yarn from Finland, however, as there was not one (not ONE) decent yarn shop in London.

My knitting has really kicked up a notch since moving back to Finland last year - I blame this on the best yarn shop in Finland which just happens to be a five-minute walk from the home we bought a few months ago. (Yes, this was a factor in us buying it, although I didn't disclose this to my fiancé.) I am venturing into bigger, better things now, which is not to say there's anything wrong with socks. Perhaps I'll finish a sweater one day. No, not the yellow acrylic one...

When I'm not knitting, I am usually translating. I have a one-woman band of a translation business that keeps me occupied most days (and especially nights, them being my creative time). Working from a home office is brilliant, particularly as the work tends to come in randomly; sometimes I'm working 20-hour days, sometimes I just sit there and knit with one eye on my inbox. I also study part time at the university (or should I say universities since I attend two) towards two Master's degrees, the first of which I am hoping to finish next year.

I can be found on Ravelry under the name Iseult, please do add me if you're a regular reader or think you may become one!