cowl collar – WakefulKnits

In The Sky With Diamonds Pullover pattern now available

March 17, 2013 by WakefulKnits, posted in Uncategorized

The pattern for my new In The Sky With Diamonds Pullover is now available.
It’s a fitted, textured pullover with cabled and bobble sleeves and a Cowl collar, in alpaca and merino.
The length is to around the hip bone. The pullover is shaped from the waist to the bust.
The yarn used is Misti Alpaca Tonos Worsted. The colour I’ve used here is Impossiblue – TW12. It’s a gorgeous soft warm yarn. I’m so looking forward to wearing this pullover. My aim of designing a pullover with a cowl collar has been acheived. I love collars.

In The Sky With Diamonds Pullover

Knitting Pattern

Yarn Suggested: Misti Alpaca Tonos Worsted or any other 10ply/Worsted yarn. 100gm balls, 199m (218 yds)

Gauge:22.5 stitches and 30.5 rows = 4 inches in Raspberry Stitch

Needle Size: 4.5mm

Meterage: 1367 – 3565 yards (1250 – 3260 m)

Sizes Available: 74 (84, 94, 104, 114)cm 29¼ (33, 37, 41, 45) in

This pattern is available to buy from Ravelry for $US 6.25

It worked!!!

February 23, 2013 by WakefulKnits, posted in Uncategorized

My first effort at designing a cowl collar for a pullover has worked. On the circular needle, I couldn’t tell if it would sit wide like I wanted it to. It was all cramped up on the needle. But it worked!!! It’s looking just the way I want it to, spreading out beautifully over the shoulders. 🙂 Sadly, you’ll have to wait a little while to see a modelled photo of it, as the weather (indicated by the photo below) cools down a little. It’s just too hot and humid to bear the thought of wearing such a warm pullover for more than a minute.

I’m using the time to type up the pattern ready for publishing. The name suggested in this house has been In The Sky With Diamonds, due to the colour and the body pattern, which does look quite diamond shaped. It was first suggested as Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, but I’ve discovered that there’s a hat pattern by that name, so I’ll try to avoid clashing with that. Technically, summer is over in less than a week, but as is fairly normal in Melbourne, we’re getting hot and humid weather in late February, although more of it than usual. As published in the Australian Meterology website

Melbourne is set to break a February heat record for the most 30-degree days in the month. The city has already had 12 days of 30-degrees or hotter this month, only two short of the record. On average there are seven days this hot in February. The record is likely to be equalled on Sunday and broken on Monday or Tuesday with low-to-mid 30s forecast for the next few days. There has been a lack of strong cold fronts and a blocking high pressure system over the Tasman Sea has directed north or northeasterly winds over state for much of the time. As a result of the high number of very warm days the city is having one of its hottest Februarys on record. The average maximum so far is 29.2 degrees, about 3.5 degrees above the long-term norm and one degree short of the hottest February on record. The hottest February in the 157 years of records was in 1898 when the average maximum was 30.2 degrees.- Weatherzone© Weatherzone 2013

: Not great weather for modelling woollens. 🙂

Pullover sleeves chugging along

January 31, 2013 by WakefulKnits, posted in Uncategorized

The sleeves for my cowl collared pullover are coming along nicely. The first one is finished and here is a photo of the second one, underway. It’s hard to get a true picture of the colour. This distance seemed to work better. When I tried to fill the photo with the work, it looked more grey than blue. It’s a mystery to me. I’m keen to finish the sleeves and get it all sewn up so I can get onto the collar. That’s the whole purpose of this exercise. It’s a good exercise in patience and a good motivation for keeping on going.

10 ply Alpaca/Merino in the middle of summer?

January 24, 2013 by WakefulKnits, posted in Uncategorized

My cowl collared pullover is continuing nicely. I’ve been keen to see the diffence of the appearance of the tone on tone yarn colours in the stocking stitch/cable sleeves in comparison to the very textured front/back. That’s partly apparent from my tension squares (swatches), but it’s good to see some finished pieces to see what it really looks like.

Here’s the completed back and the almost finished front. You can see what I meant about the colour change at the top of the back. I’d rather see this at the top or bottom, as it is, than as a band in the middle of a piece, so it’s working out OK. Both pieces were photographed on the same spot with the same lighting. Who know’s what the camera was doing? Not me!

I was OK with doing p3 togs all through every fourth row, but I’m happy to be onto the sleeves, which are stocking stitch, with a cable up the middle. There’s a bit less concentration required. 🙂

As for knitting in the middle of summer, we seem to be having a high 30’s day once a week, rather than an ongoing heatwave in other parts of the country, so the house hasn’t been heating up day after day. So the knitting continues. And I’ll have a lovely warm pullover to wear when summer is over. Yay!

A new project

January 1, 2013January 1, 2013 by WakefulKnits, posted in Uncategorized

I have a new project underway. The next step in trying different collars is the cowl collar. The vehicle for this collar will be a pullover in Misti Alpaca Tonos Worsted using a relief stitch for the body and a cable for the sleeves. My intention for the collar is to use a k2, p2 rib. I’ll worry about that when I get to it. Here are the swatches for this project. The first swatch uses Raspberry stitch.

I’ve finished the back of the pullover now. All the skeins are in the same dye lot, but a strange thing happened with the second skein. It was the light and dark blue as shown above, then I came to a join in the yarn and it’s been predominantly dark blue since then. This happened at the top of the back. I’m continuing in this darker blue for the beginning of the front. Hopefully it will all look like it belongs together by the end.