Good Enough

This is a sweater I made for a friend's little boy. I'd never knitted with cotton before, and I made it before even knowing about Lucy Neatby's DVD on intarsia so I'm sure it would be neater if I bought the DVD and made it, but for whatever reason it turned out OK. Lots of mistakes and faults if you look closely, but overall, perhaps because of Louisa Harding's great pattern or Rowan's lovely cotton yarn, it turned out good enough.

And so, finally, have the collar/lapel/button bands on my tangerine practice Alef. At last I can move on. I've been struggling with them and re-knitting them for so long I was surprised to have reached this point!

Last night I started the lace trim for the bottom edge of the garment. It's going to be another challenge. In the finished original, I didn't like the fact that the left side looks different from the right at the front - the edges are quite different and my matchy-matchy streak just hates that. I emailed Rowan for help, and wonderful Rowan, they replied. I'm not exactly doing what they said, but they gave me the idea: knit one bit of the lace trim in purl and one bit in lace, then graft the two edges together. That way the lace band will have two similar edges at the opening.

Lucy Neatby shows a great way to graft: knit extra rows in slippy contrast fabric, then you can join the graft with your sewing needle by following the path of the waste yarn. I can't wait to try it!