How’s that knitting going?

So, we’ve come to the end of the CIK (Contemporary Irish Knits) KAL.  I’ve been watching everyone’s progress over the last few weeks and there are some really gorgeous knits being finished!  Now the time has come to photograph you knits and get it up on my Stolen Stitches group tomorrow to be seen.  Sue is going to put up three different threads; one for adult garments, one for kids garments and one for accessories.  You just need to post your photo, tag it with ‘CIK2011’ and tell everyone about it.  Get your friends voting as the project with the most ‘loves’ will win the prize!

We’ll have a lovely mixture of prizes, which will include yarn, button/stitch marker goodies, patterns and a little surprise.  Remember that you can enter each category for multiple chances to win!

For anyone in the Cork area our wonderful local hand dyer ‘Hedgehog Fibres‘ is having an opening party for her new studio.  I’m really looking forward to this and if anyone local is coming, see you there!  Beata has very kindly donated some hanks of her lovely yarn for one of the KAL prizes so I’ll be picking that up on Saturday as well to send on to the lucky winner!

We took some photos of my original Bakerville hoodie (from Scrumptious Knits) at the same time as the second version.  You might notice some similarities :)  I’m rather fond of this colour grey in cardigans.  In fact if you went through my wardrobe you’d find probably 75% grey for knitwear!  I love grey paired with brighter colours, a bright orange t-shirt with a grey cardigan over it is just a lovely combination.  My first test version of this hoodie was done using some Knit Picks simply cotton sport that I had in my stash.  When I knit a first version I experiment a little with the construction until I get a finished piece that looks good and is as easy to knit as it can be.  After that I got some sportsweight/4-ply Scrumptious Yarn in slate and Dixie knit the sample for the second version of the hoodie.

This hoodie uses one of my favorite construction methods, top down with set in sleeves.  For this you begin with a provisional cast on across the shoulders, work short rows to slope the shoulders and work the back to the armpits (shaping them as you go).  Then the provisional cast-on is undone and the front section is worked just like the back but with the central neck stitches held for later.  At this point the front and back can be joined and worked together in the round.  You can see here how the ribbing is worked down the side of the body with shaping worked at each side of it and a pocket added for good measure.  Note as well that this is the Fyberspates version below, you can see the beautiful shimmer of the silk in the sun.

When the body is finished we begin work on the generously size hood.  This is shaped into a hood by working short row decreases across the top which form lovely seam lines as they are worked.

At the very end you work the front diagonal ribbed panels.  These are worked all the way around until the hood is finished, then the two front panels are worked for a little longer to create a crossover front placket.