Sunday, April 13, 2014

Two whole finished items

I don't seem to have blogged about knitting for ages, but I have had several projects on the go, I just kept forgetting to take photographs in suitable light. But now that Spring is well and truly here it's a lot easier!

I've finished working on the wrap cardigan in Twilley's Freedom Spirit that I resurrected for the Ravellenic Games. I just had one sleeve to finish, plus the border to finish and sew on. I remembered whilst I was finishing the sleeve how much I'd loved the colours when I was first knitting it several years ago.


And this is it all finished and blocked. I think my tension changed slightly over the years and I'm a couple of sizes bigger now than I was when I started knitting it, so it has to be worn as an open cardigan rather than a wrap one, but it's still wearable, and I think will be a useful garment. I (briefly) considered frogging it and starting again, but Freedom Spirit is a nightmare to frog and I couldn't face the thought. It's a little bit pulled at the front, where the border was sewn on.


And I've finished another one of the cabled hoodies for my nephew's eighth birthday. This is size 9 - 10 years, so should hopefully last him a while, and took 4 balls of Sirdar Supersoft Aran. Despite being acrylic, it's nice to knit with and I know washes well, as the last hoodies I made for him and his brother three years ago have lasted well.
This is it pre-blocking:



And post-blocking, where it looks a totally different colour! It's actually more of a burgundy red, like the picture above! Monkey couldn't resist getting in on the blocking action too.

I enjoyed reading the Yarn Harlot's post about blocking the other week and realised that I, too, had been guilty of thinking there was no need to block acrylic. I can certainly see the difference in the pre and post blocking pictures anyway!


I'm now busy working on a couple more Beyond Puerperiums for a friend who is expecting twins, so there should be another knitting update before too much longer.



3 comments:

Una said...

I love that style of cardigan. I'm knitting a baby version at the moment. I think they are easier to knit than normal cardigans but they look really special.

SueH said...

I know what you mean about neglecting to get photographic evidence - I have quite a lot of projects on the go but I never think to to get pics and put together a blog post! ;-p

Love those hooded jumpers!

ShinyNewThing said...

They look great. I wet block everything because I think it always makes a difference to the finished item regardless of the fibre. And especially for me with my erratic and loose tension, it greatly improves the finished look. Generally things soften, the fibre plumps up, the item drapes a bit better and relaxes a bit, texture like cables or popcorns stand out better. It always makes me sad to see someone wearing a handknit where they've done a great job on the knitting but a poor job on blocking/finishing.