I am taking a little break from my current knitting to make this sweet wee baby cardigan for a lady at Church, whose daughter had their first grandbaby, a little girl, 9 weeks ago. She showed us some photographs of her on Sunday and she is just adorable! I decided straightaway to knit her a pretty cardigan for her granddaughter, and what better pattern to use than the one I bought from a thrift store on Saturday when we were out on the "bear trail"! It was only 25p, and I'm using leftover yarn from another project (I have enough for the cardigan, but not the bonnet also). It is quite a tricky design to knit, but oh, so pretty!
Here is a picture of how far along I have got (not very far, this being after having to unravel about as much as you can see here, and start over, when I went wrong and couldn't fix it back - yes, with all the years of knitting experience I have got, I still make mistakes!). I haven't had much time for knitting this week - but whenever I have had a spare moment I fetch my knitting basket and get to work! That's perhaps why I'm making mistakes - trying to knit whilse also waiting on the telephone to have a call put through about a probelm with our TV (now fixed, to Papa Bear's great relief - he does like his TV!) is perhaps not the best time to be concentrating on a complicated diamond lace pattern!
You can see there at the bottom of the picture where I have done the picot row, which will be turned over to make a pretty frill when the cardigan is pieced together and sewn up. I really like picot trim, and always choose a pattern with this as the edging when I can, as I pefer it to the more traditional ribbing.
There are 2 ways of creating a picot trim. The simpler way is as shown above, where you begin with 3 rows of stocking stitch (one row knit, one row purl), then a row of knit 1, yarn forward, knit 2 together, repeating the yarn forward and knit 2 together all along the row. This gives you a row of eyelet holes (which in themselves look quite sweet). Then another 3 rows of stocking stitch are knitted before the main pattern is begun.
In the more challenging method, the first 6 rows are worked the same (you can work more than 3 rows of stocking stitch before the eyelet row, to create a deeper picot trim, though the norm is 3 or 4 rows). But on the 7th row, instead of just purling, on each stitch, the needle is put first through the corresponding cast-on stitch, and then through the stitch on the needle and the yarn drawn through both stitches at the same time, thus creating a natural hem for the picot edge as you work along the row. This is quite difficult to do neatly. I prefer the simple method, though it means a little more work when the garment is pieced together after it has been knitted. For smaller items it is definitely harder than the simple method, and for larger items, it is hard work! I find it tends to twist slightly as I knit through both stitches, so that the edging doesn't "sit" quite right. But if done correctly, it does result in a nice neat finish, and the extra row of stitches results in a firm ridge that makes the edging stand out more than when the sewn method is used.
I've got several different knitting projects going at the same time now - but I expect to get this one finished (though maybe not pieced together) by the end of this week. I'm going to buy some buttons for it on Saturday - do you think I should get hearts, or flowers?
Happy knitting!
