Halcyon blouse.

This project took me almost a year to be finished. 

Well, sometimes we knit just for the process of knitting itself...

14/07 This project is planned to be a travel one. And I’ll start it only after completing the Little Chris. For now I’ve knitted one piece for testing the pattern and prepared the yarn balls. 3 ply should be enough. 

05/08 Finaly it is on the needles. The first thing to change is the size of the needles. I’ll knit the rib part with 2,75, and the rest with 3,25. 

08/08 Last night (or this morning, it was almost 4 o’clock) I made the first 24 rows of the pattern. Now I should understand the increasing part. It was easy, but i realised that 2,5 and 3 needles are better. So, back to the rib part. 10/08 This morning I’ve finished the bottom part, 366 stitches. This time without any mistakes. It took me less time that I’ve expected, and the lace pattern was easy to remember. It looks great, I was planning to make it in yellow, but wasn’t sure of the amount of yarn. But this color looks even better. My Mom likes it, and this matters a lot. After 366 stitches 172 stitches of the main part seems nothing. I made the provisional cast on for the rib part, so I picked up the stitches for knitting the main part. 

12/08 Today we are leaving for Moscow. Ultimate photos at dacha, the first photos of my Halcyon. 

26/08 172 stitches seem to be not enough for the original loose shape.  But I  like it the same (I can’t not like it, I’ve knitted too much to  restart  it).  A added 34 stitches to  knit the front part. Maybe, I’ll make the sleeve shape to make it less bulky in  the shoulders. At  least  the  original (almost) pattern remains. 

28/08 The front bottom part is done. 439 stitches. It looks great but needs so much time. With all those beautiful paterns I have in my queue... Will I wear therm when I'm 70 years old?

03/09 The front part is almost finished, I've got back to the back  front (i found a mistake  in the 4th pattern repeat, so I had to undo it). I have to finish it by the middle of this month. Sardegna should see it. 

20/06 Almost a year has passed... Yes, this sweater has travelled even to Sardegna, knitting is a great idea to spend hours on the ferryboat... And now we're in Civitanova Marche to make some photos. 

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Umaro blanket.

The summer has arrived, but I love working with wool and alpaca yarn! I was so happy to hear that DROPS makes a 35% sale on all their wool yarns, and I decided to make the biggest order of my life. 

Several colors of my favorite Alpaca and Baby Alpaca Silk for sweaters:

Lima for Market Jacket http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/market-jacket-2, 

Nepal for some hat and cowl, 

and a lot of Merino Extra Fine and Baby Merino for these baby blankets: 

http://www.ravelry.com/projects/Natie379/sunny-spread  

http://www.ravelry.com/projects/Natie379/bear-claw-blanket

And for these Umaro baby blanket (by Jared Flood), which was completed just 2 days ago

 http://www.ravelry.com/projects/Natie379/umaro

Here are some notes on this project:

Having read the comments on this yarn, I decided to experiment with the sample pattern, I had try with 4 mm and 4,5 mm needlesa and washed the samples several times to see how the yarn grows. 

At the end I cast on 119+13+13 st with 5 mm needles, which gave the blanket the effect of the lace shawl. I was going to repeat the pattern 9 times, but stopped after the 8th. I used a little bit less then 7 skeins, and the result is the soft, light and warm blanket. Hope it will resist washing. If not, I'll knit another one! 

Love story... and Accessory For Your Spring Suit.

It has started in December... I asked Babbo Natale for some DROPS Alpaca yarns, and my love story with this yarn has started Chritmas time... First present has arrived...
They are perfect for knitting vintage sweaters and I started with "Accessory For Your Spring Suit" from my favourite "A Stitch in time" http://www.ravelry.com/projects/Natie379/accessory-for-your-spring-suit
It was a beautiful color - pale green with apple shades:

It was such a pleasure to knit it on the New Year's Eve!

It was my first experience working with this yarn, I'm used to knit with yarns for machine knitting, which tend to shrink after washing, so I made a mistake using 4mm needles. The result was:

01/03 Washed the back and front - came out enormous. 
11/03 It’s a wonderfull pattern, my mistake was to use 4 mm needles, now I’ll restart this project with another color of Alpaca Mix with 3,5 mm needles. 

I put this project apart for a while and knitted this one Bette Accessory for Your Spring Suit (mix). Another gorgeous color

Then I restarted "Accessory For Your Spring Suit" with another blue-violet Alpaca Mix  8120 http://www.ravelry.com/projects/Natie379/accessory-for-your-spring-suit-2

I made minimum of the modifications, cast on the same number of stitches, but as always I changed the shape of the armholes and sleeves. I knitted the lace rib in the end, in the round on the body, straight on the sleeves (I hate sock needles).

And I made the sleeves shorter and straight from the rib, without the increasings, it took more yarn, but I like them more in this way.

I used 7,7 skeins, this yarn is rather economic - less then 400 gr for a warm sweater.

This time it is perfect!  The size is exactly what I wanted. 

Now it would be nice to sew a new pencil skirt, using this fabric:

before the summer starts!

Now or never!

Yesterday I started this new vintage project. First it was intended to be "Ena's sweater" made with Drops Alpaca Mix and Drops Alpaca (I saw some nice projects on Ravelry with contrast stripes). Then I transformed it in "Summery - And A New Pattern with Drops Baby Alpaca Silk". Modified (I used twisted stitches).

But I didn't like some stitches and today I reknitted the front using the stitch which is similar to Ena's sweater, but the "paw" is a bit shorter. I don't have the Ena's sweater original pattern, so at the end my sweater is another "New Pattern".

Vintage exhibition in GUM. Part IV: 70's-90's.

 Memories from the 70's:

 

Fashion of the 80's:

The most horrible (to me) fashion of the 90's:

I like only these dresses for girls.