Knit It - 'Your Victory' Jumper

Well, it must have been a miracle with all the things I had going on in January, but I did actually finish my Victory Jumper before the deadline, OK it was right up to the wire at 9pm on 31st, but none the less it was finished and I am rather proud of it, and the fact I persevered despite a pair of sleeves that would not behave themselves makes it even more miraculous!

~ Your Victory Jumper ~

Home Notes 1945 Via the V&A Knitting Archive

Pattern: Your Victory Jumper

Size: 32-34″ bust

Ingredients: UK Size 10 & 12 needles

Yarn: 3 ply yarn I swapped for some Stylecraft 4 ply in Midnight, Red & White

Knit stitches: Knit, Purl, S1 K1 PSSO, K2Tog, YO (wool forward) & pick up stitches

The pattern is for a 33-34" bust so I added and extra 18 stitches to the cast on to make it up to about a 38-40" bust, there is quite a bit of negative ease in this pattern (stretch across the row) so I could have probably added a little less, but it's nice to have a bit of extra room  to breathe!

I cast this on on Christmas day and was pleasantly surprised at how quick the wavy pattern knits up, it is really very simple! It is worked over 9 stitches K2tog, K2, YO, K1, YO, K2, Slip 1 K1 Passo.  As well as being very easy to remember once you get into it, its also very easy to correct if you make a mistake, generally in my case it was missing a YO, but with a bit of rejigging it was simple to correct, ripping back was not so easy as those yarn overs are a pest to get back on the needle.

I flew through knitting the body. To both the front and back I added an extra 2 inches to the length which obviously meant it took a little longer on the needles but it was no hardship. The sleeves I started with great optimism, I usually knit both sleeves at the same time, it probably isn't but it feels quicker that way, with this pattern however there was too much tangling of various yarns going on, I am a bit of a tangle queen when it comes to colour work, so I gave that up after the ribbing.



As I worked through the pattern I became more and more baffled as to how long these sleeves were supposed to be. The instructions stated:

 "Change to No. 10 needles and ptn., inc. 1 st. at both ends of  every 6th row until there are   88 sts. Cont, in ptn. until sleeve measures 5.5 ins. from the beg."

Which would mean 8 rows of increase rows, but if I did that with my tension I would have 7" of the sleeve before the shaping, Ugh! So I ripped it back and worked my increases a little more often than once every 6 rows, then commenced the shaping. This with the way the pattern is seemed to be more tricky than it should have been I am sure on some rows I ended up with more stitches than I should have. Ugh!!!!

In the end I decided to wing it and try to line the stripes up, on the shaping with the stripes on the armholes on the body, this mean that my sleeves have ended up much puffier than the original pattern and they were supremely fiddly to fit, but at least they are in and all the stripes line up!



Though it took me three weeks worth of evenings and weekends to fight with them now they are done I am actually really happy with them, but it will be a while before I tackle anything with sleeves with stripes again!

So that's it my Knit for Victory finally out there in the world, only two months late!

If you liked this then do check out Retro Reporter's version she used the Clara sweater Pattern which is a redesign by Rohn Strong, it's totally gorgeous! Plus there are lots of amazing projects to inspire everyone on the Flick Group.

Right now on to Sew For Victory!!

Wendy x

Reasons to be Cheerful...

Well hello, how are we all! 

It's been a while ain't it, and my word there are some serious cobwebs that need dusting away from this poor little blog, definitely time for a spring clean!

the Goofball // spring like sunrise// slightly lighter evenings // my favourite t-shirt

The reason for my bloggy neglect has been, part workload and part an inability to shake off the wintry hibernation laziness I've been feeling. The workload part was due to constructing my day job's new website which took two solid months of work and pretty much took over my work and home life for a while.

blue skies // finished website // beautiful blooms // homemade bread

Thankfully it's now all finished and looking rather fancy if I do say so myself, but the enthusiasm for getting back into my crafting (which I had been so eager to get back to while I was preoccupied) had totally left me, I felt like a puppet whose strings had been cut, I just could not seem to find the energy to get on with anything, except eating...I've done a ton of that!

cuddles!

So the last few weeks have involved me battling with myself to find where that blasted enthusiasm is hiding, and thankfully after much pestering, it's starting to creep back! Something that has helped has been Instagram, the fact that all you need is a little brain power and nice photo, is supremely appealing and using it has forced me to look for something to be cheerful about every day which is helping me in a small way to get back on track, and the longer evenings and occasional blue skies are certainly helping too!

Spring blooms // Bread and butter pud // Hair setting // Kitty cuddles

Despite my lazy fog, I did actually finish my Knit for Victory Project though I didn't manage to photograph it properly by the deadline, I did at least get it done and I am rather in love with it, so I shall endeavour to get some good photos of it the moment a willing photographer and the nice weather align. I will be back very soon this time I promise!

Wendy x

Knit It - Victory Beret

I headed down to the Isle of Wight a weekend or so ago to celebrate my mums birthday and also to watch my little brother take part in the Great South Run. I had a lovely time, though it was a bit more stressful due to the wild and windy weather we had, not being the most sea fairing of folk I did struggle with the four ferry trips on increasingly choppy water needed to get there and back and there and back again over the weekend!

My brother did very well in the run and beat his time from last year even with the strong winds, which made me feel very proud of him and all the other amazing people who take part in such events, raising money for charity. So much so that in my swell of emotion I think I agreed to do a 10K with my brother next year! Considering I struggle to even run a bath, this could well kill me, but we will see, I do like a challenge!

Whilst on the Island I had been hoping for some lovely weather so that I could coerce my brother to take some snaps of my newest knitted, as it was there was only a 5 minute window of sunshine and typically on the one day I hadn't done my hair, but my locks are not the attraction here it's the knitting your supposed to be looking at and this is a very special bit of knitting indeed!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

...- .. -.-. - --- .-. -.-- Victory ...- .. -.-. - --- .-. -.--

Pattern: Victory $5.00 on Ravelry
Designer: Tasha Moss
Ingredients: 

• Style Craft Special 4 ply:  50g Midnight (1011)  Deramores
• King Cole Big Value 4 ply : 50g Red (667), 50g Green (675), 50g Mustard (671)
• I've forgotten the brand but also 50g of White

I was contacted by the lovely Tasha from by gum by golly in September asking if I would like to take part in a bit of test knitting for a new style 1940s Beret/Tam pattern she was planning to release. I as you can imagine was over the moon with the opportunity, firstly the chance to help on such an amazing project was too good to refuse, and secondly, and much more selfishly, it meant I could finally have a bit of fabulous 40s Fair Isle (say that three times, fast) for Meee!!

My, this pattern is so gorgeous! This is not just any 1940s style fair isle beret oh no, this is a very well designed 1940s beret. Just look a little closer at the pattern, and you'll see a sweet little row of V's for Victory around the brim and above that a row of Morse Code which spells out the letter 'V' for... you guessed it Victory! What a wonderful touch! Plus there's lots more wonderful fair isle goodness to keep your eyes and your hands interested!

Something just as wonderful, is the fact that the fair isle pattern has plenty of 'breather' rows, by this I mean there are here and there a row or two of plain one colour knitting, which after following the fair isle pattern for a while (which is never more than two colours at one time,so never too taxing) comes as a welcome little holiday for your hands and more importantly your brain, and then it's back to the pattern work which your now looking forward to again.

For my version I used the odds and sod of leftover yarn from both my brother and my dad's pullovers, all acrylic and all 4 ply, making this a stash buster which is great, though there is a downside which is the acrylic doesn't hold the shape quite as well as the lovely Exelena wool used on the original (no lovely crease) but I'm OK with that. It also is a little bigger due to my forgetting that my gauge increases when knitting in the round, I did my test swatch on DPN's, but due to having short needles I realised I was going to have to move on to a circular or quickly lose my marbles as well as my stitches.

Victory is a very quick and fun little beret to knit up, I genuinely believe that it could be done in a weekend if you put your mind to it and have done some colour work before. Mine, in fact, would have been finished much sooner if I hadn't decided to be all grown up and have a nice glass of wine one evening whilst starting the crown decreases, all would have been fine if I had still been working on the main section, but I had reached the crown and well it gets a bit more attention grabbing and so it turned into a bit of an odd-numbered-dropped-stitch-sweary-mess which had to be undone the next morning so I could start over again! Don't drink and decrease people it can't be done!

I am very happy with my new beret & here you get a sneak peak of my latest serger dress!

I think you can tell that I love it, I did worry it might be a bit too bright as I was working on it but now it's done I think it's wonderful and there is no way I am going to get lost in a crowd. It's certainly perfect for long country walks in the crisp autumn air!  I must say I am already keen to knit another for the Knit for Victory challenge...something to go with my Lightfield's Blouse..pinks and blues, I think I'd better get cracking...now knitting on a treadmill...hum...that's certainly a challenge!

Wendy x