Saturday, July 30, 2011

Knit skirt

This skirt was supposed to be the one that I found in the book Knitting it old school, full of great, tongue-in-cheek re-interpretations of old fashions. (Actually, the best thing in it was the crochet mini dress made out of multi-coloured granny squares, but I'm about 20 years too old and missing about 20 cm in leg length for that one!)

The original pattern was in pumpkin orange, with a big border of diamond shapes along the hem.
But it wasn't to be, because I ended up completely redesigning the thing to get it to fit me properly. Also, I had a hell of a time knitting those shapes without getting any puckering.
Here's a shot of my third and final attempt before giving up -
It was when I was reading Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitting without tears (so apt!), that I realised what the problem was. The pattern had three different colours on the same row, with strands being carried across up to 11 stitches. My last attempt was using a stranded knitting/intarsia combination but it didn't work.
So instead, I picked a number of more traditional Fair Isle patterns to do instead - 
And here's a shot of the whole garment (pardon the weird colour effect - my iPhoto did it and I don't know how to undo it. So the above photo is a more accurate depiction of the colours.
It's a very respectable knee-length, which is another departure from the original. I might even wear it to work on Monday if it's cold enough.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow!! That is amazing! You did good, girl! Your adaptations are fantastic!

Anonymous said...

Violet you know you're proabably at least 30 years too young to be knitting yourself clothing other than scarves and jumpers;-). Although i have to say that skirt does look quite fabulous and not to mention snuggly.

My granny pretty much knits everything she wears and manages to look like a giant tea cosy. Just perhaps bear that in mind if you decide to get carried away...

Violet said...

kiwiyarns - hey thanks! It definitely was much easier when I limited myself to shorter colour changes and only two colours per row. But I would still like to do the other kind as I've seen a few spectacular (but non-80's style) intarsia knits I want to try.

donnasoowho: I probably resemble a walking tea cosy already, when I wear my super-volumey coat! and besides, if I am to be like your gran in 30 years' time I have to get a move on to get all those woollies completed...

Anonymous said...

If you're lucky I'll donate a hat!