Modified Cruden Vest
Ever waited ages for a bus and three arrive at once? Well that is sort of what happened with my knitting projects! For the last couple of years I have been trying to complete some of my UFOs, only allowing myself a new cast on if I need something for travelling that can be worked on in between other things.
The vest is a very modified version of Ysolda Teague’s Cruden design, the numbers for the cast on and the motifs used are pretty much the same, however I changed the original scoop neck into a v neck, which works better on me and I made the ribbing a bit deeper to give me a neater, more late 1960’s/early 1970’s fit, similar to the one in the photo of Steve Marriott of the Small Faces, photographed by Andrew Maclear (not Gered Mankowitz, as I originally thought) that was the inspiration for the vest. The vest isn’t a recreation of Steve’s vest, the photo is a bit too dark and indistinct to do that, but I loved the cropped proportions and the dark background with brighter motifs and wanted something with a similar feel.
I cast the vest on in the summer of 2018, but it sat in a bag knitted up to the second set of wider motifs for a couple of years,then I knitted it up to the underarms in April this year, then finally I dug it out about a month ago and just finished it off! I knitted the upper body flat and in sections and used a 3 needle bind off on the shoulders, as the fit is quite close and I wasn’t 100% sure it would fit, so I wanted to be able unravel it and reknit it, if it was a bit tight around the bust, which I wouldn’t have been able to do if it was steeked. Now I know how many stitches I need for a similar garment in Fair Isle, I can maybe try steeking another time, but I also like that the edges are fully finished by knitting it this way.
For anyone interested in the colours used in this project, I used Harrisville Shetland in Midnight as the main colour for the background and ribbing and the rest of the colours were all Jamieson & Smith’s 2 ply Jumper Weight yarn in the following colours:
FC41, FC37, FC34, 123 mix, 20 and 14.
Lightweight Hipster Shawl
The first scarf is Joji Locatelli’s Lightweight Hipster shawl, knitted in a lovely merino fingering weight yarn that was hand dyed by Sarah at Another Crafty Girl – this was deep stash from about 2013, I had thought a while ago about making socks with it, but I think this was a far better way to use it. The shawl was written for a similar base and I was able to use every last scrap, the original has fringe, but I’m not sure I have enough to add it and I quite like the edge without it. I’m not sure if Sarah still dyes yarn, or not, but this was lovely to use, the colour is called Blueberry, but it is more of a soft cobalt blue.
https://www.jojiknits.com/product-page/lightweight-hipster
The second scarf is Gudrun Johnston’s Tarra, from the 3rd book in her Shetland Trader series. I also used Jamieson & Smith’s 2 ply Jumper Weight in this project. I used colours 203, FC37, 21 and FC56.
The cowl is the Torshavn cowl by Susan Crawford, I used Sunday Knits Nirvana 3 ply in Ocean and Brown Sheep Naturespun Sport in shade 730S/Natural. The Brown Sheep yarn is slightly thicker than the Nirvana, but both yarns are super soft against the skin and lovely to use. I only had a 20g mini skein of the Nirvana, so I left off the narrow contrast edging on the cowl, but in the end I think I could have done it, maybe next time! If you want to try a colour work project for the first time, this would be a lovely one, it is only two colours and the floats are small – it would be perfect with handspun yarn, either fingering/sport weight too! 🙂 I have linked to the Blodini cowl, which uses the same basic stitch pattern, I think I originally purchased the pattern on Ravelry, however as I can only spend a short amount of time on ravelry, due to migraines, I prefer to share a link to Susan’s blog.
Tarra
Torshavn
Link to inspiration photo of Steve Marriott:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/479914904058947763/