Buttercup and serendipity

Wow! I didn't mean to be away so long. Five days? How did that happen? Well, that's what happens when you get bitten by the buttercup bug. Sounds addictive - and it is! But you will be pleased to know that Buttercup is now officially finished, bar photos of me wearing it in good daylight - if you are very lucky. I may use the dummy instead if they look too awful to post:-) Today the weather is rainy, dull and misty - did I say dull? No light whatsoever to take decent photos of the lovely buttercup. So, we'll have to make do with the slightly bleached photos I took after blocking. But it's the details we want to see!

Okay. First up we have the gorgeous feather and fan neckline which you saw modelled before on my dummy (in a slightly brighter yellow). On the flat, you can see how the eyelet pattern aligns with the edge of the feather and fan stitch. I blocked the crap out of all the lace edgings so I could get nice stitch definition but maybe I went a bit too pointy on the neckline?! Hoping once this is on it will settle into more gentle curves:-) This pattern is noted for being a bit 'low' on the chest so I will probably wear a long sleeved tee underneath anyway.

Nicely blocked feather and fan lace edging at the bottom - if I say so myself:-))) Love, love, love it! I really hope this does keep its shape as I like the ripple edging. Not bad matching with the vertical eyelets either. I didn't manage to complete the whole of the increases that the pattern stated though as I knew once I got to the sixth out of the seven increases I was running out of yarn big time and the full length just wasn't going to be. So I sat down and thought of lots of alternatives:

1 - reducing the rows between the increases - but I thought it could go out too much too quickly and look a bit bell-like:-)

2 - knit as long as I could and then knit a simple edging that would match the pattern of the sleeves. Not a great option but maybe the only realistic one.

3 - Alter the feather and fan repeat. It uses 18 stitches repeat (6x3).

The main problem was that 18 could only be divided evenly after the full seven increases. So I was stuffed, I thought. Then while knitting closer to decision time, it dawned on me to change the 6 to a 5. 5x3=15 stitch repeat. And guess what? I was on 240 stitches which divided by 15, sixteen times. Evenly. What are the chances of that? Serendipity!!

So that's what I did. And I decided to go with the flow and add a few more rows of feather and fan for the bottom edging. I was aiming for 4 repeats but as I was rapidly running out of yarn, I thought three was pretty good and looked nicely balanced. Just as well as this was all the yarn that was left.....

A very, very close thing indeed! I couldn't have planned it better if I tried. Knitted as long as I could have with the yarn I had and just enough to cast off - with all my modifications. I'm thinking that watching far too much miss marple has stirred my brain into gear on this one:-)

Buttercup, Buttercup

A little peek at what I've been furiously working on over the last week. I found this tunic pattern called buttercup, knitted in a soft pale yellow with feather and fan lace detailing. I thought the style was one I would wear a lot, although I don't normally go for yellow, and I impulsively cast on! It was literally a matter of have pattern, have buttercup yarn, will knit!

My main reason for not wearing strong colours of yellow is the jaundiced look it tends to give me - positively ill looking! Like how buttercups under the chin reflect their colour. But I've found the softer tones are much better and mean I can get that colour of the spectrum back into my wardrobe:-)

It's knitted top down, which is good because if I run out of yarn I can just lop a bit of the length off the bottom:-)) It's the first time I've knitted a garment this way and although it makes for heavier knitting being all in one piece, I feel now I'm past the sleeves that the bulk of the work is done and I'm just knitting round and around till I get to the desired length. The pattern itself is a simple A-line tunic with slightly puffed cap sleeves, raglan shaping and feather and fan lace detail over the front neckline.

The vertical eyelet detail I added myself as I tend to suffer from stocking stitch boredom after about an inch of plain knitting:-)))) Round and round... the eyelets just help break up the monotony and make a pretty feature on the front while I'm at it! If I have enough yarn - eyes the ball nervously - I would like to add the feather and fan lace detailing to the sleeves as a lace edging as well as a longer lace detail on the bottom. But we'll have to wait and see. Fingers crossed the yarn doesn't run out.....