Pre-dirtied Cardigan

Some time ago I wanted a light weight wool cardigan. I made a lovely one and carelessly left it behind on an aeroplane. I made another, which I love but it’s “too good” to wear around the house. I made a pretty red one which I haven’t written up yet, but I’d also like to keep nice for at least a while. So I have made yet another deliberately for wearing while doing rather than with particular sartorial aims. I decided to make one dyed similarly to this skivvi .

Take an inexpensive length of soft teal wool knit fabric. Cut a baggy cardigan based on a tshirt pattern. Sew it up enough to put all the pieces together but without hems or other finishing. Torture it with pony beads and elastic bands.

Soak it for a short while in warm vinegared water. Using food dye set up in hot water so the dye takes fast, dye one side red and the other yellow/green. Fail to take pictures of this stage. Decide this result is nice but not yet interesting enough. Bundle the whole thing up kind of roughly pleated so only bits are exposed and dye that whole bundle black. Start taking the elastic bands off and finally remember to take a picture.

Finish taking the elastics off and impatiently wait for it to dry.

Decide there isn’t enough black and add extra donuts with a fabric ink felt tip. Sew the hems and the front bands. Find some leftover handspun that will make nice button loops.

Find some nice buttons, make the loops with the handspun plaited up. Sew all those on.

Here she is in all her messy glory

On me. I am pleased with it and I think this one I really will be willing to wear around the house while working on stuff, even somewhat mucky stuff. By happy accident it goes really well with this skirt.

From the back. Seeing as I was drawing things on it, there was no reason not to have a trefoil

Goth Tweed Cape

Back in May, in between lockdowns, a friend and I were delighted to be able to go to the Coburg Yarn and Craft Market. We had a lovely time looking at things and both came away with 200g of what we called “Bog Witch Fluff”. This was roving of black alpaca blended with many colours of silk by Wool 2 Yarn.

Once this was spun up, I dubbed mine “Goth Tweed”. Lovely stuff but very hard to photograph well.

After much deliberation I decided to knit it up using Suzie Sparkles’ “Aurora Lace Capelet” pattern. My yarn was only laceweight in parts so I went up a needle size to 4.5mm. This was a fun knit and a very nicely written pattern.

I added in one extra repeat of chart two for more length. I wanted the finished thing to go past my elbows. This meant I didn’t quite have enough yarn, so I added in a little black baby llama handspun to finish the border. To save yarn and give a little sparkle I added beads rather than knitting nupps. I bought the wrong size beads sadly. Too small! I persuaded them to work but it was a struggle and you can barely see them. This is the best photo I could manage. It shows the colours well too.

Here it is all pinned out for blocking in the sun

I found a delightful old button for the closure. Not sure if it’s glass or maybe jet? I gave it a scrub after this photo showed it was rather grubby. You get the grubby pic because I wasn’t able to get the camera to take one as nice later.

The finished thing folded to better capture the colours

Here it is on though the light is all wrong to see it properly. Happily it did turn out the length I was hoping after firm blocking.

Here are a couple of clearer shots of the garment taken selfie style with the phone.

I’m really pleased with it. For some reason, the fact that I’ve taken this from fluff to finished fancy thing in a few months has hit home and I’m feeling a bit clever.