Thursday 17 July 2008

Travel knitting

I had big plans to knit lots of things while we were travelling, but the weather in Italy was so hot that a lot of the time I didn't really feel like knitting on a humid train. I did however manage to finish a kimono cardigan for my brother's baby, due in late October. They are having a girl and I will become an aunt for the first time. She will also be the first grandchild, so I can see she will be very spoilt. I used the 8 ply version of the seamless baby kimono pattern found here. The yarn is NZ Naturally Merino et Soie in a dusky pink. This is now my go-to yarn for 8 ply baby stuff. It's really soft and knits up well, and is cheaper that the other merino/silk blends I've found. The pattern itself is very clever - all knitted in one piece so there are no bulky seams and it knits up quickly. The sleeve in the 8 ply version is a standard sleeve shape, but I preferred the flared kimono-ish shape of the sleeve in the bulky (12 ply) version, so I created my own version of the flared sleeve for 8 ply weight wool. The details are below.

8 ply flared Kimono sleeve
Knit kimono cardigan as in pattern here. For sleeves, do the following:

Evenly space the 36 sleeve stitches on 3 DPNs

With the right side facing, locate the centre bottom of the sleeve opening. Leaving a tail of 8 inches or so, pick up two additional stitches from the left of the opening and continue knitting the round, picking up two additional stitches at the end of needle 3 (40 stitches total).

Decrease round: k2tog, k2tog, knit to last 4 st, ssk, ssk (36 stitches).

Knit 26 rounds.

Increase round: k1, m1, knit to last stitch, m1, k1

Increase every 4th round 3 more times (44 stitches total)

Alternate purl one round, knit the next round for next 4 rounds.

BO loosely.

Note: you can choose not to pick up the stitches at the start and just knit 28 rounds of 36 stitches, but I tried it that way and I was getting holes under the sleeve. I think picking up the stitches and then decreasing them helps eliminate this. You can also fix up any holes when you weave the ends in - that is why I suggest leaving a long tail of 8 inches.

4 comments:

sweetp said...

Lovely :) Must make one of those one day

Jane said...

Looks gorgeous, and you have plenty of time to make another!

Kate said...

Gorgeous kimono! Must add to my list of things to make.

Soja said...

Just to say thank-you for the link and sleeve adaptions, a gorgeous pattern. (I found your blog through flickr). I'll knit this up one day. Thanks!