Wednesday 17 June 2015

Brooklyn Tweed Atlas for Little Knitty 1

I absolutely adore Brooklyn Tweed's designs, and when I saw the Atlas pattern in last year's kids' collection, I knew it was one for me. Beautiful colours, fair isle-style yoke, sweater and cardigan options. All boxes ticked.


Next choice: yarn. I'd recently bought some Debbie Bliss Rialto DK in a sale somewhere, thinking that it would definitely end up as something for one of the girls. I thought it would be suitable in terms of weight, but it would lose some of the aran feel of the Brooklyn Tween yarns that are recommended. I still can't wait to knit with some of those. I matched this bright blue up with a couple of balls from my stash. The pattern suggests that the child could pick out the yarn colours, but to be honest we would have been stuck with some very random choices, so I did kind of wave them at her and then carried on regardless.

The pattern is very easy to follow and I learned some very neat little techniques for a provisional cast on, and even the method for picking up stitches without leaving gaps is something I'll use from now on. Others on Ravelry have mentioned that the short rows aren't particularly essential. I'm not too sure, but I still struggle with keeping my stitch markers at the right position, so hopefully mine aren't too wonky.

The colour chart is very clear, and I like that on each row, it's set out which yarn should be dominant. I probably shouldn't say this, but I actually thought that it didn't matter which yarn went where. I know, I should be stripped of my needles. It was a real eye opener for me to see the texture that came through when I actually followed the instructions properly. I know. Lesson learnt.

And then, of course, there's the steek. I've done one previously for my Little Birds cardigan, and I remember that I wasn't nervous at all, just excited. This one would have been simple, however for some reason my steek seemed to shift around (looks as though those short rows weren't that accurate), so I decided to machine stitch two rows to make sure that the steek was properly secure before cutting. Everything has stayed where it needed too, but the yarn is quite smooth, so it's not going to felt in as much as more aran-type yarns would do. So, I'm not too keen on the messy interior, but I made sure the button bands were nice and wide to make sure it's all hidden away.


I am really pleased with how this one turned out, but as always when knitting for small ones, it's always a worry that the garment you've just spent weeks and months slaving over is stuffed into a drawer and forgotten about. But judging by the pics, I don't think that will be the case for this one.

I think she likes it