La Marea cowl + Treehousehat

In the previous post you can find a free pattern for La Marea cowl.
A simple, versatile and easy to wear garment.
You can wear it solo, with a hat that repeats the color of one of the sections.
Or you can choose a contrast color, like this Treehouse hat I knitted for my daughter.
I knitted it like a test knit. My friend from Moscow asked me to knit this hat so I wanted to see how this pattern works with the yarn we chose.

I knitted it with Garnstudio DROPS Lima yarn. It is a bit thinner then required in pattern and I always prefer the hats with more positive ease. So I knitted 4 instead of 3 repeats of main pattern.
I made the 2×2 rib.
The crown is knitted also in different way (I used Il Giardiniere pattern, free pattern you can find in the following post).
You can find this project here on my ravelry page.
https://www.ravelry.com/projects/NatieKnits/treehouse-hat

La Marea cowl. Free pattern.

Tomorrow is my birthday and I want to celebrate it publishing 2 free patterns. 

The first one is called La Marea cowl.

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/la-marea

These year I decided to make knitted Christmas presents for my relatives. For a long time I had this idea to knit colorful cowls in textured stitches. And after several attempts this pattern was born. Easy, versatile,  you can wear it  "solo" or with any hat you have (see also my following posts). 

Marea means "high tide" in Italian. For the cowl that I knitted for me I chose these colors. Deep sea, verde acqua... It couldn't be called in another way... 

You can find it here https://www.ravelry.com/projects/NatieKnits/la-marea-5

It is knitted with Garnstudio DROPS Lima yarn. I usually wear it with a hat from Cool Wool set designed by Ekaterina Blanchard. Knitted with Garnstudio DROPS Andes. 

It has 2 versions:

5-color knitted with 7 mm needles. The size is 130cm × 29cm. You will need approx. 0.8 skein of each color. The gauge is 18sts × 26rows to 10cm square.

4-color knitted with 6.5 mm needles. The size is 128 cm × 27cm. You will need 1 skein of every first color and approx. 1.2 skeins of the 4th color. The gauge is 19sts × 27rows to 10cm square.

You can easily change the size, the gauge, the number if colors, using this basic pattern.

With a waist yarn using provisional cast on method cast in 55 sts.

Knit the main pattern on central 49 sts starting and ending every row with i-cord edge (3 sts on each side):

Row 1: slip the first 2 sts in the right needle, yarn forward, P1, knit the main pattern untill the last 3 sts, P1, K3.

Row 2: slip the first 2 sts in the right needle, yarn forward, K1, knit the main pattern untill the last 3 sts, K4.

Main pattern: (4+1 sts × 4 rows):

Row 1: knit.

Row 2: (P1, K3) until the 4th st from the end, P1.

Row 3: knit.

Row 4: K2, (P1, K3) until the 5th st from the end, K2.

Knit the necessary number of main patterns until the ultimate WS row, undo the provisional cast on and sew the 1st RS row and ultimate RS row, following the pattern (grafting). Weave in the ends.

If you prefer the contrast edging, knit the cowl on 51 sts (main part +2 edge sts) and knit the attached i-cord with contrast yarn. In this case you will need 1 skein of contrast yarn. 

You can also knit the contrast  i-cord edging contemporaly with the main part. I will probably knit the next cowl (for my friend) in this way.

All the cowls above are knitted with 5 colors.
You can find these projects here:
https://www.ravelry.com/projects/NatieKnits/la-marea-2
https://www.ravelry.com/projects/NatieKnits/la-marea-3
https://www.ravelry.com/projects/NatieKnits/la-marea-4
https://www.ravelry.com/projects/NatieKnits/la-marea-5

This ultimate is 4-color version knitted for my daughter to wear with a Treehouse hat. More photos in the following post.
You can find this project here:
https://www.ravelry.com/projects/NatieKnits/la-marea

Strolling around hats II and III.

Yes, I knitted 2 more hats! All of them with different yarn and with small modifications.
They are all very different, the first Strolling around, which you can find here
https://vintagecasahandmade.blogspot.it/2017/07/strolling-around.html
is warmer, more elastic and smooth.
For the second version I wanted something bright, contrast to grey...
And I found this Multifilo egyptian cotton by Adrianwool.

 I don't like so much mercerized cotton as it seems rather stiff to me.
So I tried even some other yarns and different stitches. I wasn't sure about the result so I decided to knit and see what happens with the top, with the drape. As you can see, at the beginning I made a progress with grey Sesia hat, which lately I undid, and now I knit another hat with this yarn.

 After different cast on, unripping, cast on etc...

I made another border (simple garter stitch with crab stitch finishing instead of double picot edge) and this hat is shorter as this yarn is not the best for draping. 

Now I like it, the color is great and it looks cute.  

One more thing, always for better draping, I sewed the upper part from the wrong size, so the pleats look much better.  

Then I continued my Strolling around series with Piuma (machine knitting yarn). 

I knitted the double picot border with 5 threads and the main part with 6 threads.

This yarn is smooth and lighter, I wanted this hat to be a bit more slouchy, so I added one more pattern repeat. Sewed on the wrong size. Even this hat is a bit shorter than the first one, and the pleats look better being sewed on the wrong size. 

Now you see the difference?

Strolling around

I've never knitted summer hats for adults... Only for children, to protect from the sun and mostly because they can be so cute... children... and hats.
And when I was given the idea to knit  some summer accessories, I felt a bit lost.
I had a vague idea of the hat, which should be light, but keep the form, lace but rather sportive.
I found a nice online shop https://dilanaedaltrestorie.it/ which had the yarn I was longing to try - Askham 4ply and Milburn 4ply from https://www.edencottageyarns.co.uk/, and I was curious to try new CONCEPT by Katia COTTON-YAK. 

On that occasion I decided to try even CONCEPT by Katia COTTON-CASHMERE (cotton 90%, cashmere 10%).

Later I saw another nice yarn, which looked softer than many other cotton yarns - Sesia Baby. 

So I continued to think over this new summer design considering these two new yarns. I tried several stitches with both yarns and decided, almost at random, to start with Katia. 

No wonder that it took me more than 2 months to complete the project... Surely, it wasn't my only WIP and I even sewed a bit, but it's too much for a simple hat. 
I hope to be much faster with the second hat.... just give me time to chose the best stitch for it!

You can find Strolling around on Ravelry:
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/strolling-around
 

  

Starting more WIPs.

Well, the spring has come, the time of aggravation for any knitaholic.

So, I'm starting, let's see... 4 new projects:

- Riyito sweater http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/riyito as I'm fond of wool boxy sweaters. 

- Striped hat for my son as we lost the one I've knitted a year ago http://www.ravelry.com/projects/Natie379/striped-hat

 - Sage cardigan  http://www.ravelry.com/projects/Natie379/sage as I bought a beautiful yellow cotton yarn and it would look nice with some summer dresses. 

- Waffle pillow http://www.ravelry.com/projects/Natie379/waffle-pillow as I promised a couple of pillow covers for my friend who has moved recently in a new apartment. 

Sure the hat and the pillows are more urgent, but I can't help starting even the Riyito which I'll be wearing only next autumn. And the Sage?

Relax sweater

Recently I'm in love with boxy sweaters, especially those that have such particularities which gave them feminine silhouette like bat narrow sleeves. My Mom used to think that such garments are made only for XXL- sized women. To create a kind of "mistery".
There are so many models like Boxy di Jojy Locatelli, True friend by Veera Välimäki or my ultimate favorite Riyito by Carol Feller.
I have a lot of machine knitting yarn which shrinks a lot and it's easier to guess the right size with such less "risky" patterns.
To start I chose "Relax" by Ririco.
http://www.ravelry.com/projects/Natie379/relax

I was afraid that alpaca yarn I have is not enough for this project, so I mixed 2 threads of lila and 1 thread of beige Zegna Baruffa cashwool 2/30 yarn. 5 mm needles to obtain the needed gauge, size S.

I only added 1 stitch to the back and front parts to make symmetrical the ribbon pattern.
Taking into the account that the yarn is not elastic I didn't make short rows on the shoulders and cast off the stitches gradually.
The neck was too wide for me, I don't feel comfortable with the garment that makes visible the underwear so I reduced the number of neckline stitches (4 stitches from both sides). I also knitted the ribbon.

After starting the sleeves a began to have doubts about the size, the sweater seemed to be extralarge, better for my Mom then for me,  but after washing it became smaller and I think the size is perfect.

Nice pattern, I'd like to make the same for my cousin and for my Mom... One day(:

Now or never! II

19/02/2016 This sweater was started on March 24 2014. You can see my first steps in this post Now or never!

I always knit several projects at the same time so it took me two months (only!) to complete this project. It came out lovely, beautiful color 4314 (gray violet), I found a beautiful fabric to sew a skirt... 

But there were some obstacles to wear it: I couldn't find the matching pin and couldn't complete the skirt as I was "very" pregnant.  

For now my skirt looks this way. My attempt to repeat the style of 20's.  

Now I'm slim again, I can do without a pin... but I don't have enough time to sew, so I revised my wardrobe and found this nice skirt and shoes and think that together they can go well. 

I was convinced that the short and adherent vintage line wasn't made for me and used to add some positive ease and length to my vintage sweaters, but trying some of them I changed my opinion, so I'll undo the rib of this sweater, cut off the first two pattern repetitions and reknit the rib. 

I think it could be a beautiful outfit for my birthday party. 

There was an error made in the description of the jabot (at least in my copy of the book).
“Inc 1 st at each end of next and 13 following RS rows (54 sts)” should be: “Inc 1 st at each end and decrease 1 st at each beginning of next 13 following RS rows (54 rows)”.

27/04/2016 Finally I my daughter made some photos of me wearing this sweater. Still never presented in public, first time in this post.