poncho pals purl pretty ponchos

    

cross between Jen's Poncho from Sally Melville's The Knit Stitch and Villa from Knitty
knit in Manos del Uruguay,
KnitNY shrug in Schulana Super Cotton,
and paris loop capelet poncho knit in Gedifra Cicco

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Hey, it's the paris loop poncho! We had a little cool spell last week and as my hands were getting tired of cotton on tiny needles anyway, I started looking around in the unfinished projects basket for something woolly in a slightly larger gauge. And there was paris loop, almost done, just waiting for the cool weather for its grand finale.

This project was so quick to make. It really only took four days to knit (two in June and two in August). The yarn is way weird, but neat (those loops happen all on their own) and very easy to work with. The pattern could not be simpler, or cleverer. And although the thing looks like some sort of furry monster muppet while on the needles, once you slip it on, it's so cool. And look, if it weren't so loopy and open (read, naked!), it'd even make a funky skirt!

Me likey.

Two balls in and I couldn't wait any longer - I had to try on the paris loop poncho.

I've been unsure about how I'd like it. But now that I see it on, I love it. It's so cool looking! It is, however, no longer cool here in Boston, so this poncho is going to be put on the back burner until the heat wave passes.

So first Jane gave the Paris Loop capelet a try, decided it wasn't for her and offered the yarn up for sale on her blog. Now I have it and am giving it a go.

This Gedifra Cicco yarn is soooooo freaky. It's just little tufts of wool every couple of inches and a nylon thread inbetween. When you knit it up, the little wool tufts make loops. Way weird. I'm trying to withhold judgment though until it's all finished. I don't dislike it. But I'm not sure I can get away with wearing it.

Wanna see what my boys are getting away with wearing around the house? Hip boy board shorts and mommy's mary janes. Look, S's even got his on the wrong feet!

Hey ma, happy mother's day - your shrug is all done! Now you have to come visit us to get it.

And here's a picture of the back. Neat pattern, huh? Just a long rectangle sewn cleverly together to make this cool shape. I really like it. If I didn't already have a poncho of my own....

While I resign myself to having no nyc shrug of my own, I can enjoy my new big, slouchy, beachy Burda top.

I love it! The big sleeves are so fun to wear. I just want to hug myself the whole time I've got it on. The fabric was a gift from my mom and the pattern book a gift from my mother-in-law, so thanks moms!

Six of nine balls knit. I'm getting there! 35" long and getting too big to photograph. While I was trying to snap its pic on the dining room table, this guy came zooming by:

My NYC shrug at Knitsmiths yesterday. I'm working hard on making my mother's day deadline. Three of nine balls knit = a third of the way there. That means six more balls worth of black stockinette stitch. Sigh.

In slightly more exciting news, I solved the Burda maze and was able to trace and cut out my pattern pieces for my simple, slouchy top.

Just wait till you see the fabric! The boys will love it: biiiiiiiig, yebie flowsies.

Made a start on mom's KnitNY shrug. Despite having made a real swatch for once (BunBun's mini shrug), I realized after knitting one whole ball that mom's shrug was coming out too wide. I think I had trouble recreating the exact gauge of the swatch due to the stretch in the yarn. Must have been knitting a smidge looser this time. Oops. So now, I'm restarting.

false start!

Yup, I'm reknitting directly from the failed first attempt (below). Learned that little trick from Shannon. Sometimes you just don't have the energy to rip, you know? I know I only have to knit a long rectangle of stockinette stitch, but this project's beginning to feel more like a marathon than a sprint. Think I can get it done by Mother's Day??

(By the way, I just noticed that the super snazzy, super stretchy, Schulana Super Cotton that I'm using for the shrug and some of you asked about is now available through Knitpicks.)

Well, I gave the bottoms up a try and I am utterly frustrated. This bucket pattern does not "fly off my needles" at all. It took me over two hours to do about eight rows on the brim. And I've got calluses on my fingers from working a double strand of the yarn that tight on such small needles. Then when I finally made it to the main section, it's way (and I mean way) too big. Why does this pattern hate me so much? Am I the only one who is miserable making this thing? (Okay, I was miserable before I started knitting, with a brief relapse of my stomach bug and our furnace breaking, but I found no relief in my knitting. Ugh.)

To cheer myself up, I swatched for a project for my mom. KnitNY had a great store pattern for a simple, chic shrug. It seemed like the perfect thing for mom, who's always chilly at work. So we picked out a really cool cotton yarn - in black, so New York - which also has some elastic content. The yarn is more like all seasons cotton than Fixation though. It's like the spin is so tight the yarn almost bounces. It's really a pleasure to knit with. What a switch from the bucket bust! Since the shrug pattern is one of those one-piece-folded-over-on-itself designs, I decided to make my swatch a mini-version to try out how it fits together. Looks pretty cool on Bun-Bun, don't you think?

Now I'm smiling again. Calm tummy, warm house, happy knitting.

Time for a poncho party!

Okay, I'll admit it: knitting up the second piece of this poncho in a week clearly did not help my wrist situation. But once I'd finished the knitting over the weekend, it was a snap to sew up. Just two little seams. Zip. zip. And it's a poncho. That Sally Melville is so clever!

I did have a little problem with the neck, though. Since I wasn't using the same gauge and was doing stockinette instead of garter stitch and also added the stripe, I was readjusting the numbers in the pattern quite a bit. I ended up making each piece a bit wider than the pattern called for. I didn't think much of it while knitting, but when it came time to sew it up I realized the problem with adding width and not length. The 8" inch difference between width and length creates the neck opening. My wider poncho ended up having only about a 3 inch neck opening. Whoops! I finally decided to fold down a bit of the extra into the neck, so that the opening is sort of angled. I'm really pleased with how it looks - much more stylish than a regular neckline would have been. It seems Stella and Pioneer Melissa had a simliar issues which they also solved very fashionably. Hey, these things aren't problems, they're design opportunities! Well done, my poncho pals. Okay everyone, slip on your ponchos, pick up your maracas, and dance!

The first half of the poncho is done! I like how this pattern works with two identical pieces sewn together at an angle. Here's how it should look from the front - blue stripe down the right side to the point, green forming the majority of the body.

Can you tell that I was inspired by the Villa pattern from Knitty?! Unfortunately when I saw the pattern, I'd already decided to use the Manos yarn that I found in my stash and I know that Manos doesn't have anywhere near the same sort of drape that the GGH Esprit yarn does. I couldn't count on a one-piece poncho really working in this yarn. So I swiped the cool stripe idea (I love stripes!) and will stick with the two-piece poncho.

And I thought my days of wearing a two-piece were over!

The ponch-o-along is going strong! Two finished ponchos already: Sharlyn's and Stephanie's! If you're looking for inspiration to join or get started, be sure to check them out. Gorgeous!

I had planned to start mine later, but I got so excited watching everyone else start that I went searching through the stash to see if there was anything there that I could start with. And I found three skeins of Manos with nothing to do.

Two were in the turquoise color I used for the button bands of the ribby cardie and the third was in a pretty green. I picked up a few more skeins in the same colors at my LYS and set about making the poncho from Sally Melville's The Knit Stitch. But, as some of you warned, I did not like the garter stitch. I'm not a huge fan of the look of garter stitch, but the pictures in the book made me think I could handle it. Nope. Not in the thick/thin Manos yarn. So I decided to structure the poncho the same way, but use stockinette stitch instead. And since I have two colors, I thought I could try adding the stripe detail from the poncho design in the new Knitty. Here's my progress from the weekend.

Although I did do quite a bit, there was one moment there where the fledgling project was in peril. After I'd knit a few inches, I started to be less sure about the color combo. I like the two colors and I like them together, but then I had the rather paranoid thought that maybe I'm the only one. Perhaps no one else would ever put these colors together and everyone will think I look like some color blind freak in my huge green-turquoise poncho. And then "While You Were Out" came on and Theresa was wearing this. I felt MUCH better. There's a sign for you!

So as predicted last week, I'll be sticking with the chunky gauge for a while. Yeah, with five feet of poncho to knit, this is going to take a while.

Okay, poncho gals, how's your poncho coming along? Please share.

You know it's fall when the Oktoberfests begin. The real Oktoberfest won't start for a few weeks yet, but New England's largest Oktoberfest was held just outside of Boston last weekend. And as a good german-american family, we were there. They boys in their knitted lederhosen, of course.

And here are all my german guys, very focused on their ice cream.

We'll be off to Germany ourselves come October. I'm working hard to finish the current projects, so I'm clear to bring something new for a little easy vacation knitting. I'm thinking about this poncho from Sally Melville's The Knit Stitch.

Anyone up for a poncho-along? Any poncho pattern counts! Let me know.