Gable

I recently test sewed the Gable Top for Jennifer Lauren Handmade.  Unsurprisingly, Jen gives a better decription of the pattern than I can:

With a classic 50s-inspired slash neckline, long or short sleeves and a long-line body for extra comfort, The Gable Top will become your new favourite go-to knit top pattern. Gable is perfect for wearing all year round — layer with dresses and cardigans or wear it on its own with 3/4 skinny jeans or a high-waisted skirt à la Audrey. Gable is not only a stylish weekend basic but can be easily dressed up and added to your office outfit rotation. Made with comfy stretch knit, Gable is a quick and easy sew that doesn’t use much fabric

and turns out perfectly every time.

I used some heavy tee shirt weight fabric for my first go at this pattern, purchased at the very affordable Rolls & Rems on Seven Sisters Road in Islington in 2 shades of pink, for a casual version of the tee.  The fabric seems to have pretty good recovery and stretch – and Jen has laid out a good deal of information about how to choose the right kind of knit fabric in the pattern, and in her blog posts about another pattern she has published that also uses knit fabric.

The pattern only takes 3 pieces – front, back and sleeve.  My favourite aspect is that there is no neckline binding, which is probably my least favourite part of sewing with knits because I never know how long to make it, or how much to stretch it to get it to fit the neckline.  Do let me know if you have any suggestions on this!

I carefully cut the pattern to match the stripes – I did so by ensuring that the underarm corner on the pattern ended at the same stripe on the front and back.  The weight of the fabric meant that it was relatively easy to sew and maintain the stripe matching.  I did not make any effort to match the stripes on the sleeve, and quite frankly I’m not sure how I would achieve that!

Sewing the neckline was a bit tricky – though it’s difficult to know how low to place it (though there is only a range of about 1.5cm) without trying it on with the side seams finished.  In the future I will sew down the neckline before I attach the sleeves. 

I find the top much more flattering than I expected, though I hemmed it quite a bit shorter than the pattern suggests, as I think that creates a nicer line on my body. 

Changes for a future version

1. Less close fitting through the waist, though not by much.  I think I will take away most of the hourglass shaping as the top currently has negative ease on my waist, and I would prefer closer to zero ease.  
2. Slightly less wide across the shoulders - probably about 1cm on either side 
3. Try to bring the neck down lower - apparently other testers managed this, but I didn't even try!

Oh, the food in Krakow

Geoff and I spent 4 lovely nights in Krakow at the end of July, relaxing in the beautiful city, eating delicious food and soaking up the sunshine.  We rented a studio apartment, close to the centre of the old city and about 10 minutes walk from Kazmierz (the old Jewish quarter) and we explored our surrounds from there. 

The most important part of any holiday is the food, and we were not disappointed by any of our choices.  We were bemoaning that we were running out of meals, and wanted to try more places, and return to those that we had already enjoyed.

Surprisingly we had some delicious sushi.  I say surprisingly, as Krakow is as far inland as possible in Poland and I didn’t see any Japanese people anywhere, so I’d be interested to understand the connection there.  We had onigiri from a stand in a park, and tempura maki in Schwer Judah (a popular food truck area).  

We also had potatoes in almost every way imaginable, and enjoyed them all.  Chimera, a salad bar restaurant just off the main square, was a great lunch option with 4 ‘salads’ for about £3.  The salad choices included quiches, cooked vegetables, some seafood and some dishes I’d normally consider a salad. 

On the traditional front, we ate pierogi at a little restaurant where the ladies behind the counter fulfilled all the stereotypes – short, round, in traditional dress, wearing kerchiefs over their hair and very smiley – and served us mushroom and cabbage pierogi that was amazing, and cheese pierogi that could have helpfully have been marked as ‘dessert’, but we enjoyed them regardless.  And from another Krakow tradition, we ate hummus, and drank Israeli wine – too sweet, won’t try that again. 

And we ate bagels.  And the Krakow version of a bagel, called an Obwarzanek Krakowski 

Chimney cakes were a revelation, like long hollow donuts, with fillings on the inside of the tubes. The caramel and almond filling just edged out the peanut butter filling to my mind.  (Originally from the Hungarian speaking region of Romania, these cakes are a great example of free movement across Europe). 

 We shopped at the local food market as well, and Geoff enjoyed the variety of smoked pork products on offer, and I gorged on the bountiful raspberries. 

More on the coffee in another post (trust me, it’s worthy of its own missive).

The Carpino

Or the sweater that took a long time to knit.  

I cast this jumper on in late April, to have a green sweater for Spring.  Then I got distracted (which is rare as  I usually cast on and focus on a couple of projects at any one time).   Instead, I knitted my linen shawl, a red cardigan and a shawl for someone else.  Then I picked up the green sweater. 

I had already performed the trickiest of knitting gymnastics when I started again. I decided to lower the front neckline so had to knit the lace pattern to include increases, and flat (rather than in the round immediately). I managed it, and ended up knitting the chart from left to right, rather than the usual right to left.  Thank goodness I scribbled a note on the pattern to that effect.

I only did a couple of sets of decreases after the bust, as I prefer some positive ease around the waist of a jumper.  I did the ‘normal’ amount of increases for my hips (6 sets, 4 on each set) and then the usual decrease of about 10% of the total number of stitches in the round immediately before I did the ribbing around the bottom. I dropped down 2 needle sizes, rather than just 1, to do the ribbing and am very pleased with how it looks.  I did just 5 rounds of ribbing around the neck, rather than the I cord called for in the pattern.

Three-quarter sleeves, also as per usual for me, though the body is even longer than normal.  I thought the lace pattern may grow a little width wise when worn, so there is some allowance there.Interestingly, the garment very clearly biases when it is laid flat.  I presume mine is going in the opposite direction to most others as I knit the chart opposite to most.

A Cos knock off

I saw a cute, summery dress in Cos that combined knit and woven fabrics – a tee shirt style, with a bright pop of fabric by way of a large hem band.  Then my friend Juju saw the same dress and created a great tutorial describing how to make your own!

The tutorial is very easy to follow, and worked well – though I was using a crew neck/set in sleeve pattern, rather than a raglan. 

It was also very fast to sew, as it’s basically an oversized tee shirt – the key element being that the hem band matched across the side seams, and the neck band was tight enough (my least favourite part). I added a small breast pocket in the hem fabric, to carry the colour up to my face.

Ultimately, the style is not terribly flattering on me so it will likely be relegated to a wear around the house, or to the shops type dress – or to the beach when I go and visit Mum, but it is super comfortable and fun.

Where I can be found

Making the most of the sunshine

Lying in the grass

Knitting

Easy reads

For as long as the sun shines...

Knitting with linen

There’s a common complaint amongst knitters, that knitting with linen can hurt your hands, or be uncomfortable, because the fibre is inelastic.  Knitters look for wool (or other animal fibre) blends to  balance the lightness of the linen with the bounciness of the wool, and make for a pleasant knitting experience.

I’ve done very little knitting with plant fibres in my time, but I was positively drawn to the colours and sheen of the beautiful Kalinka linen at Wild and Wooly in Clapton – the shimmering petrol blue demanded to be purchased, and ultimately knitted in a drapey and cool wrap. 

I chose the Bernstein pattern, originally a garter stitch pattern, with two separate stitch patterns worked in, and true to form, I modified it.  In my version, it has become a stockinette stitch shawl with just the 1 stitch pattern (a mesh pattern) in panels.  The designer does not speak English as a first language, and some of the shorthand and abbreviations used in the pattern are German, which was a little confusing in the beginning, so I re-wrote the instructions into more common knitting English.

The linen was lovely to work with.  It’s a substantial feeling fingering/sport weight yarn.  I enjoyed hand winding the skeins into round balls to work from – in fact, there are lots of recommendations on the internet (therefore taken with a grain of salt) that the more you work the yarn, even from the skein winding stage, the softer the linen becomes. The internet also recommends some pretty rough treatment of the finished shawl to get the linen to soften further, but I have not been that brave.  I have washed it roughly and ironed it through a pressing cloth.  There’s still a long way to go to truly soften the shawl, but it feels lovely and cool on the skin, and still gleams.

I used almost 2 full skeins of the yarn, or about 565m, and have ended up with a shawl longer than I am tall, which is my preference.  I also like that the shawl is not too deep, and it only comes down to my mid-back if I wear it with the point all the way to the back.  

Kalinka has released a wool/linen blend, which I am keen to get a hold of and try

The Ceremony of the Keys

Each night 40-50 people are let in to the Tower of London (for the grand total of £1 per booking) to watch as the Yeoman and beefeaters secure the Tower for the night, a series of steps call the Ceremony of the Keys and Geoff and I booked 10 months in advance to attend (yes, really, and that was for a Thursday night).

After a security and a bag check, Yeoman Watts (who later told me that he had only joined the ranks of Yeoman in the last few months) told us some stories about people have met their fate within the walls of the tower (generally in a gruesome manner) and then explained the ceremony.   After checking for the umpteenth time that our phones were switched off (imagine the embarrassment if your phone rang during the silence), the ceremony that has endured for the last 700 years began. 

There are 2 sets of wooden doors that are locked before the Chief Yeoman was visible to us, in a knee length red coat, tudor bonnet and carrying a lamp.  He approached a handful of armed guards, and answered the necessary questions before being allowed to pass.  He proceeded through a gate and was met by more armed guards, and after he waved his bonnet and announced that the Queen was safe, the last post was played by a sole bugle player before the Yeoman took the keys through to safety. 

It was a fantastic experience (that you are not allowed to photograph), and I would recommend booking in if you have enough notice of a trip to London!