Sunday 21 April 2013

Knitting blue swans

I started knitting the Wetwang jumper a couple of weeks ago, from Ann Kingstone's book, Born & Bred.   Wetwang is a Yorkshire village with black swans on the pond and a pub called the Black Swan. (And is well-known to archaeologists as the site of an Iron Age chariot burial.)  Ann's design is based on the black swans;  it has a yoke in stranded knitting with pairs of swans around it, and her sample jumper has the swans in black.   But I am knitting mine in navy blue (actually a darker blue than in the photo).    




 It's very clever design, but easy to follow.  It's knitted top down, and is completely seamless (hurray!).  So far I have knitted the yoke and the sleeve caps, and I am knitting the main part of the body, which is plain stocking stitch.  You can see that the ends of yarn around the yoke still need tidying up.  The bits of turquoise yarn under the sleeves are from the provisional cast on of the underarm stitches. 


I love the swans around the yoke; they are so elegant. The yoke is bordered, top and bottom, by applied i-cord.  I have not done that before but I'm really impressed by it.  It gives a very neat edge.  Then there's a section of short rows, so that the back of the yoke sits higher than the front, and at the same time you increase for the sleeve caps.     

I've been watching a lot of Broadchurch over the last couple of days - I have recorded every episode but never got around to watching any, until I realised that the last episode is tomorrow.  I am trying to catch up by then so that I can watch it live.   So now that I am on the plain stocking stitch part of Wetwang, I can knit it and watch Broadchurch at the same time, without missing anything.  And then try it on - one advantage of knitting top-down in one piece is that you can keep trying on as you go.  It fits very well - it's going to be really good.  Of course, now that Spring has finally arrived, I shan't be able to wear it until the end of the year, but never mind.     
   

10 comments:

  1. Wow, it looks fabulous so far! Well done! Marie x

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  2. As a lover of all good things swan, I might just have to make this one for myself. In orange, of course.

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    1. I can recommend it - I'm down to the waist and it is looking good. Conceivably you could do the yoke in orange and white and the rest in another colour - could look very striking. Go for it.

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  3. hi, i'm looking how to make a tunic. i found one tutorial on http://www.craftstv1.com/2013/04/crochet-pattern-for-knitted-tunic.html , but it's a bit complicated for me. could you help me please?!!!!

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    1. If you are looking at crochet patterns, you'll need to look for crochet tutorials. I'm sure if you look around you'll find dozens on YouTube and elsewhere. Good luck.

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  4. Hi Barbara. Just started the Wetwang jumper. What does is mean on the pattern chart when boxes shaded out and say no stitch?. Little confused! Also if I am mlf am I not adding stitches? Any help would be great.

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    1. The yoke gets wider (i.e. more stitches in each round) as you knit downwards. So yes, m1f means increase. The shaded squares are I think so that the shaped yoke can be shown on a flat chart. There are fewer shaded squares as you knit downwards from the start (i.e up the chart) - whenever you have an increase (m1f) there are fewer shaded squares than in the previous round (though not always in the same place). Just ignore the shaded squares. If the chart shows 1 white square, 1 shaded square, 3 white squares, 1 shaded square, 1 white square (as in round 12), you just read that as 5 white squares. If that doesn't help, and you are on Ravelry, you could ask in Ann's group.

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    2. Thanks Barbara. Will do a practice piece.

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    3. Hi Barbara. Now understand that, thanks. Next problem seems to be the number of repeats on the yoke pattern. Since 46 does not go into the 136 stitches that I have on the needle, how does that work? Tried knitting through a round on first row not counting the shaded square and increasing were told and I go over the 136 stitches I have. Also on the increase stitch do I count that as a stitch. As in the first row where 5 is a mlf, would that be the increase stitch would be counted as 5? Thanks for the help. In Australia and not able to pop into Baaramewe to ask advise.
      Nicola

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    4. Could you email me (barbaraknitsagain at gmail.com) so that I can reply to you.

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