Saturday 6 September 2008

Back To University


Those of you who read this blog on a regular basis will know that Joe, our son, is passionately opposed to wearing handknitted, woollen garments. You will be shocked to see that the above photo is of Joe wearing his new, handknitted, woollen vest thing made by mum. I must admit to the casual observer, he may not look over excited, but believe me, for Joe this is about as good as it gets. I made this from a pattern in Best of Interweave Knits using King Cole Merino Aran yarn from the shop.

The decreasing around the v neck was a little uneven, but as it is extremely unlikely this garment will ever be shown to anyone who knows anything about knitting, I don't suppose it matters. Anyway, I was pleased that he agreed to wear it - he even said he liked it. This was Joe's back to uni outfit. After almost four months of being at home he has now returned for another arduous year of studying.

On the whole, it was easy enough to make. The stitch was described as 'brioche' in the book, but I couldn't find the same stitch in any of my reference books under that name (or any other name). The stitch was as follows:

Row 1: Knit
Row 2: Purl 2, from stitch on left needle, pick up loop and place on left needle, knit the loop and stitch together.

The unusual thing was that you had to knit using a size 5 mm needle and a 3.25 needle, so that you had normal aran sized stitches for the knit row and then smaller for the rib row. It made a very thick piece of fabric type knitting. Almost woven, in fact. I am sure it will keep him nice and warm this winter.

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