I've a finished garment!
This means:
* I've finished the current knitting on the yahoo knitalong group.
* It's knitted from stash, Debbie Bliss Maya leftovers, thereby qualifying as a stashbuster.
* It's a Christmas gift, and should be included in the Who wouldn't love a handknitted gift? blog.
Three birds with one stone, not bad!
It's the Hot Lava Cardigan, a free pattern here.
I had just under four skeins of Maya in stash, and knitted the smallest size. This was started a few weeks ago, but I didn't have any fun with bamboo circulars or dpns, and had relegated the wip to the bottom of the wip pile. Picking up some 7mm Addis from Stash did the trick, and most of this was knitted over the weekend, a very quick knit!
It's a very weird looking piece of knitting when it's not being worn. You knit a sleeve in the round, then work back and forth for the width of the back, join into a round again for the second sleeve. The back/fronts/collar are knitted by picking up the stitches on the back edges, joining into a round and knitting a big tube, increasing at the fronts for the bolero and collar. It looks as if one's forgotten to leave an opening for the head!
If anyone's knitting this, you really have to do a super-loose cast off, as that tube has to s-t-r-e-t-c-h all around from your back, around your fronts and behind your neck. I ended up doing a crochet cast off with an extra stitch. There's an instruction video at
this site (just scroll down to the double crochet bind off and click on the video icon).
I tried it on last night (smallest size) and it didn't even cover the boobs. So I've asked a couple of work colleagues to try it on. Remember, this is for a very petite, thin, flat chested person, and is a tad too small for these models. And we hadn't anything that would close the fronts, though model D tried a paperclip!
Model K's back view
Model K's front view
Model D's back view
D's front view
(closed with a paperclip!)
These photographs aren't the world's best, but you know what? Dana came into my office a little while later and told me that they thought it was wonderful, and would I consider knitting them one? (I presume one each, not to share!). Even in its unwashed and unblocked state, with stray ends hanging down and no closures. And a size too small. Ah, what a complement!