A sweater finished

I've quite a bit to show, it's been a productive few weeks :). Mainly because I enjoyed a lovely sewing week together with my sewing friends. This was the 8th time we did this and it's been so lovely again. It has evolved in a week that's almost as much about cooking and enjoying meals together as sewing. And of course chatting, sharing ideas, fitting help etc. Perfect "me" time for all of us.
Over the next week I'll try to show the sewing results, for now I'm sharing the sweater I made. It's a combination of a ziggurat pattern by Asa Tricosa, inspiration I found in another design and cables.

The cable is from the book "Knitted Cable Sourcebook" by Norah Gaughan. Very inspiring! I took one of the cable charts, flipped and rotated and came to this design.


  

I'm very pleased it worked, as this is more "free-style" knitting than I"ve ever done before. Something warm to wear during cold winter days.

Sweater with cables

Hello dear readers, nice to see you here again.

I've restyled my blog a little, not completely there yet but for the moment it's working. In my absence I've been sewing and knitting and will try to catch up a little. Quite a bit of what I did in sewing was basics like t-shirts, summer trousers etc. I'll skip those and in the upcoming posts I'll highlight a few more interesting garments.

This post is about a sweater (jumper in UK English) I knitted. Like the sweater I showed last year it's knitted with the ziggurat technique, developed by Asa Tricosa.
I simply love this way of knitting a sweater. It gives good opportunity to fit while knitting but most important: look at the way the armholes/sleeves are done. The definition of a seamline, but they are knitted (top down)  at the same time as the front and back of the sweater.

 


I incorporated the pattern Piper by Carol Sunday in a ziggurat (with a few minor adaptions). I loved combining this. Doing that is certainly keeping your mind of other worries!

A knitted sweater

At the beginning of August I showed you a knitted sweater in progress. I finished it a couple of weeks ago and I’m ever so pleased with it. The base was a pattern by Asa Tricosa, but my version doesn’t resemble the original much. It’s mainly used for the general shape, number of stitches, increases/decreases etc. Center front I added a cable from the book Japanese Knitting Stitch Bible: 260 Exquisite Patterns by Hitomi Shida. At the sides I repeated the small cable at the edge.

I love the technique that Asa Tricosa has developed, which she calls the “Ziggurat” method. It’s knitting top-down and with very clever techniques you knit the top of the sleeve in one pass with the body too. A way in which you can try it on in an early stage too and adapt for fit more easily. My fear in knitting sweaters was always that I would spend hours and hours (far more time than most sewing projects take) and after assembly would find out that it was not fitting. If you’ve been reading my blog for a little while you know I can be obsessive about fit . I’ve found a technique that suits me very well and have two more garments on the needles from her book. 

The book has many projects with lovely details that have a huge appeal to me, like this double knitted hem. Isn’t it a lovely detail? It’s a bit like nice underwear: you know it’s there, even if no one sees it.

The annual sewing retreat in the UK with a group of friends is next week, I’m preparing a coat and a jacket to sew. Sewing projects will be shown here again soon .