Wartime Farm Goes to...Petra

My little brother has once again been on his travels around the globe, this time, he has visited Jordan. As always he has been keeping me and my parents updated with photos of his trip - We have finally got them to use Whatsapp, this is a serious achievement for my folks who are both in their 70s and anti-technology, but now they both have smart phones they are getting braver at using them, incidentally we seem to have created two emoji loving monsters they use them for everything!

Photo Credit  JPTB

As usual, he looks to have been having a wonderful time, he's been trekking into the desert, ridden a camel, seen lots of Roman ruins and even camped out with the nomadic Bedouin.

Photo Credit  JPTB

But the bit that has made me really, really jealous is his trip to Petra and a visit to the beautiful treasury, it's been somewhere I've longed to visit ever since I watched Indian Jones as a kid! Only the penitent man shall pass, only the penitent man shall pass!!

Photo Credit  JPTB

He knew how jealous I was of this trip (because I kept on telling him) and so he was thoughtful enough to send me now what is becoming something of  a tradition, and I love him even more for it, a photo of his Wartime Farm Pullover in front of the Treasury building! 

Arghh, it's so cool!! I am currently working on conquering my fear of flying (well all my many phobias actually) so hopefully in the not too distant future I'll be able to make the trip myself, but seeing this makes up for the fact I'll have to wait a while longer!

Wendy x

Wartime Farm Goes to India

Today is my little brothers birthday, he's currently on an epic three week long backpacking trip around India. As with his holiday last year to China he has been sending me daily Whatsapp updates and pictures of his journey so that I can assure myself and my internet free parents that he is safe and sound and clearly having a wonderful time!

Today his travels took him to Uttar Pradesh where he sent me pictures of his birthday trip to the Taj Mahal and imagine my surprise when I saw the below!

It's only the flipping Wartime Farm Pullover outside the Taj Mahal!! This is getting to be one well travelled knitted!

Wendy x

Wartime Farm Goes to the Wall

My little brother is currently in China with one of his friends for a lovely few weeks seeing the sights as they travel from Shanghai to Beijing then to Xi'an and finally onto Hong Kong.

As you can see, he has been sending me lots of beautiful pictures via WhatsApp as he travels around, which has been really lovely and has even given me some great ideas for my Sew For Victory project! It's also made me just a little jealous, though until I get over my flying phobia I will stay a lovely 'one-day' dream. My favourite photos so far have to be the ones from his trip to the Great Wall.

I mean how flipping amazing does this look, puts my wet week walking Hadrian's wall to shame, that's for sure! But the most surprising thing was the next picture he sent, to be honest, it made me a little teary.

 It's not the greatest photo I grant you (it was taken on his old school Polaroid) but it made my year when I saw it! The Wartime Farm Pullover has made it to the Great Wall of China and that makes me so very proud, partly because I know it must mean that he actually really likes it!

Wendy x

Knit It - Wartime Farm Pullover

It made its debut at the Haven Street 1940s event, but getting my brother's pullover finished on time became a little bit of an event in itself!

My Dad and Brother rocking their hand knitted Fair Isle!
I agree they could both look a lot happier about it :)

Wartime Farm Sleeveless Pullover

Designer: Susan Crawford

Pattern: Wartime Farm Sleeveless Pullover £5

Ingredients:

Style Craft Special 4 ply: 100g Camel (1420), 50g Midnight (1011) Deramores

King Cole Big Value 4 ply : 50g Red (667), 50g Green (675), 50g Mustard (671)

Robin 4 ply: 50g Brown (51)

YouTube-ualr Know How: 

Cast On, Knit & Cast/Bind Off

Fair Isle Knitting

Pick up Stitches on Neck & Armholes

Circular Cast On

I don't think I need to tell you how much I wanted to knit this pullover, you can read all my January gushing here. I cast on not long my after in February for the 36-38 size, and made my way through the rounds and rounds of knit one purl one rib to reach the required 3 inches, then I flew straight into the pattern and was clicking along nicely until I had got up to the second star pattern repeat, it was then dawned on me that this might be a little big for my athletic little brother, who it's worth noting, prefers his clothes not to be too baggy. At all! - I guess if you've worked as hard as he does to keep fit you want to show it off!

Now, I know this pattern is designed to be a looser fitting style, just like the one in the show, but knowing my brother if I carried on regardless I knew he just wouldn't wear it. So, I ripped it all back (I hate doing this) and started again, this time, a size smaller 34" chest, which I knew would still be a little baggy, but better too large than too small.

It has to be said this set back killed my enthusiasm, I got through the rib welt quickly enough and then, I lost interest and got distracted. So it stayed just a stretchy waistband up until May.

During the last May bank holiday, I finally cracked on with the pattern, ever aware that my 6th of July deadline was, looming not so far off now. Once I got back into it I remembered how much fun it was to knit, and so my enthusiasm and the pullover grew with every stitch, meaning I was making steady progress and was now convinced I would be finished before my holidays.

Oh, I very nearly was. Before packing my knitting in my rucksack on the 4th of July I had just one pattern repeat to do on the front neck section and the arm and neck bands to do (and sew in all those pesky ends, of which there seemed to be thousands!) and 2 days left to do it.

Why don't my Instagram videos have sound, it's very annoying!
Please just imagine seagulls squawking and the waves lapping on the beach...
...Oh, and knitting needles frantically clicking!

This lead to me on the 5th of July, sitting at Colwell beach in the Isle Of Wight, desperately trying to finish the neck bands, whilst trying to enjoy the seaside and the company, with this playing over and over in my mind!

OK, so as dedicated as this all sounds, I should confess there were more than a few moments when this happened...

My knitting guru!

So after finishing all the bands, pin curling, both mine and my mum's hair, I managed to get to bed about 3am in the knowledge I still had the ends to sew in before we left in the morning. Thankfully, with my mum's stirling efforts, she did one side while I worked on the other, we finished it!

Tada!!!

Front & Back

I would have loved to have been able to have given this a quick wash and block before it was worn but sadly there was no time, so it's a little bit on the puckered side, I'd rather that though than it have been unfinished. In the end the fit was not as bad as I had feared, it's still quite baggy (not helped by my brother being ill the week before and losing about a stone) I could have probably gone down another size, but it's not as ridiculously big as it would have been if I had not frogged it in the beginning, so overall I think it's a win!

I chose to use Stylecraft 4 ply for the main body, I've not used it before but it was recommended to me by lovely Lucy from 1940's Style For You - it was what she used to make the beautiful turban she made for me at Christmas; I am so glad I did as it's the first acrylic yarn I've ever used that feels as soft as wool, and doesn't become all fuzzy as your knitting, plus it is a great price and the range of shades it's available in is pretty vast. The other colours were what I had leftover from my dad's pullover, I'd actually bought the pale green for my dad's version but decided against it at the last minute, so this makes this pullover it a bit of a (much needed) stash buster too!

The pattern was very simple to follow, and actually despite my best efforts did knit up quite quickly once I got going. The only problem I had was just after I had divided for the front and back, I could not for the life of me seem to make sense of how many more rows I had to do, I had a look at the photo in the pattern and winged it from there, which luckily worked out perfectly. I am convinced that if I reread that part now, it would all make perfect sense, I think the pressure of finishing it on time was getting to me!

By my staggered stars!

Well, there was one other goof. The star pattern which runs up the pullover should all be in line, on my version they alternate, this was caused by me thinking I knew what I was doing rather than actually reading the pattern! I actually rather like how it has turned out (perhaps it was my subconscious making choices for me) so I am claiming it was a decision rather than an overconfident accident!

My brother's opinion? Well, as he is a man of few words, I think this last photo says it all...

Double thumbs up! Must be good!

And if he's happy I'm flipping ecstatic!

Wendy x