Thursday 28 August 2014

Knitted Jacket by Drops Design in Patons Moonglow Mulberry

It's been too long since I did a knitting post. This was the last project I completed and for a number of reasons it took me for ever! By the time I had finished it, we were well into the summer and warm fluffy cardigans didn't really seem right!
I'd had this wool, Patons Moonglow in Mulberry, for quite some time and I really didn't fancy any of the patterns that I'd got in my stash so it sat in a box waiting (along with a quite a lot of other wool, I have to say!)
Mulberry is a soft, muted mix of purples with peach and white. It was sent as a substitute for something I had ordered but I liked it well enough to hold onto it. Moonglow is a chunky acrylic/wool/polyester mix, knitted on 6mm needles. It is lovely and soft, nice to knit with but it doesn't seem to go far, only 50m in a 50 gram ball.
Anyway, it had been put away back in the days before I discovered Ravelry, and now I wonder why I ever bother to buy patterns. You can get some lovely patterns for free :)
So having decided I'd like to use my Moonglow, I went to Ravelry, and set the search filters for the correct needle size, and critically, the actual length of wool I had, so that I wouldn't end up running out! I ended up using 13.5 balls.
Drops Design patterns frequently come up when I am searching, and I liked the look of this one (Drops 129-9). In theory it was a simple design, the body (and button band) all being knitted as one piece, and then you add the sleeves in and keep going. Cast off, sew up the sleeves and you are done...
The pattern is for a fitted jacket, with buttons down the front but I wanted an open jacket with just one button at the neck, so I ignored the instructions to decrease and then increase for a waistline. Apart from the  ribbed borders, the whole thing was knitted in stocking stitch which was perfect since my wool is multi-coloured but my problems came when trying to handle 200 stitches.
I've never mastered the circular needle and in the end resorted to using 2 needles for each row, and switching halfway along which was messy, and risky in case the stitches fell off! As a result this was not a pick up a do a bit when you fancy type of a project and being busy with work, I just didn't really get a good run at it.
Well, I finished it just at the start of summer, and now - August - it's cold so I have pressed the borders as they were curling a bit and it is ready to wear!
I am really pleased with how it has turned out, the colours are lovely and it's really soft and warm.
The pattern was for 3/4 sleeves but I made them full length, confident that I had sufficient wool. So, I changed the cut, and the sleeve length. In principle it's the same pattern, but if you go googling the pattern it won't look quite the same. It is an easy pattern to follow if you are more competent with the circular needle, or have very long straight needles.
 
  
 


2 comments:

  1. if you have any Mulberry left, would love to buy it from you - I am about 4 balls short of my sweater and desperately want to finish it!

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    1. Hi Jen, I have 6.5 50g balls left if you are interested xx

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