We stopped over at York on the way home from Edinburgh and spent a whole day exploring. We wandered through the city in the morning, visited the Jorvik Viking Centre, had tea and cake at Betty’s and pottered around the Shambles before making our way over to the National Railway museum.
I’m not really a trainspotter. The huge hall was full of huge, shiny, impressive trains but do you know what I loved? The benches. What a spectacular selection of railway benches. From wrought iron to wood and leather, they were cool. There was even a lovely old bench with painted iron legs shaped like knobbly tree branches.
Once we’d had our fill of engines and taken a peek at the Hogwarts Express, Zoë and I turned our attention to photographing her new cardigan in front of the Japanese bullet train.
I’d managed to knit quite a lot of this cardy during the journey to Edinburgh and once there, finished the body and blocked it. Zoë chose this pattern for herself. I’d had my eye on Sweet Peasy but she vetoed it, on the grounds that the neck was too high, aka too babyish. I couldn’t see it myself, but there you go, this girl knows what she likes.
I’d managed to knit quite a lot of this cardy during the journey to Edinburgh and once there, finished the body and blocked it. Zoë chose this pattern for herself. I’d had my eye on Sweet Peasy but she vetoed it, on the grounds that the neck was too high, aka too babyish. I couldn’t see it myself, but there you go, this girl knows what she likes.
Actually, she’s made a really good choice for herself. The Suzanne cardigan (another by Georgie Hallam) is very Zoë. It has a fun construction and a lovely swing, knit from sleeve end to sleeve end, across the back. Stitches are picked up along the bottom edge to form the back and it’s simply a case of knitting to the bottom. Lastly, the border is picked up along one side, across the back of the neck and down the other side. Georgie has included the pretty daisy stitch again, like on Annie. You’ll see that I actually managed to follow her instructions this time and have knitted it correctly! Given that the cardigan has little to no sides, this is a quick knit and very economical on the yarn.
I ended up free-styling with the sizing. Zoë is long and slim and so although she measured the 8 year old size around the top of her arms and around her chest, she was easily the 12 year old length across the shoulders and in the length of her arms and torso. Fortunately, it is easy to modify this pattern as you go and I just kept trying it on her as I went to get a good fit.
I ended up free-styling with the sizing. Zoë is long and slim and so although she measured the 8 year old size around the top of her arms and around her chest, she was easily the 12 year old length across the shoulders and in the length of her arms and torso. Fortunately, it is easy to modify this pattern as you go and I just kept trying it on her as I went to get a good fit.
Zoë also chose the yarn from my stash. It’s from Skeinz and I bought it about 3 years ago when we visited my brother in Napier, New Zealand. I had two very large skeins with no labels, I guess about 800 metres or so. There’s a fair amount still left. Probably enough for a toddler’s cardigan!
The yarn is an undyed merino/possum mix. You can see the dark possum fibres in the yarn and after checking the list of yarns that Skeins carries I’m guessing it’s their 85% merino 15% possum mix in a DK weight – but each of my skeins weighed much more than the 100g they suggest, so don’t hold me to it! There’s a lovely silvery sheen to the yarn when knitted and apparently it’s super warm (Zoë has only taken it off to wash and sleep). It will be interesting so see what happens to the colour as it wears because the possum will bloom more with each wash so it might start to look a little darker?
All in all, this knit was a resounding success. You can find all the details on my Ravelry page here.
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