All sewn up: The Jane Deep V sweater

My latest finished project is a sweater that I designed to replace a worn-out but favourite item of clothing

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I recently put the final stitches in my Jane Deep V sweater. This is a sweater design based on Jane Norman piece I bought secondhand. The original was starting to fall apart and really needed replacing, so I took some measurements, bought some gorgeous alpaca yarn and started knitting.

I’ve changed a couple of things. The Jane Norman sweater has this thing at the front that I can only describe as an insert. I don’t really know what it’s there for – I guess it’s so that you can wear the sweater without something underneath, but why design a top with a deep V neck and then chicken out and put in that insert? It’s surely much better to keep the V and then use a different range of tops underneath to vary the look?

The Jane Deep V Sweater. It's very pink, and I'm not sure about the shoulder shaping, but overall, I'm
pleased with how it's turned out.

I also wanted more contrast between the collar, cuffs and hem and the main body of the piece, so I went for a pale pink for the latter and much brighter shade for the former.

It’s taken ages to finish this piece. It really has. Knitting the sweater was simple enough; it’s just a 2x2 rib for the edges and stocking stitch for the main body. But working out the maths to get that V right was complicated. Then I made a few mistakes as I went along and had to undo it several times. I forgot how to shape the sleeves at the shoulder, too, and had to redo those three times. I’m still not entirely happy with how they’ve come out. They look a bit puffy to me, but they’re close enough.

Can anything really be too pink?

I’m not sure about the colour either. I never thought I’d say this, but maybe it’s too pink? Can anything really be too pink? I’m not sure. The size and shaping are pretty spot on, though. It fits really well and I love the way I can change the look just by changing what I layer underneath. A plain black polo neck with jeans and I’ve got a work outfit; a lower-cut lace-fringed strappy top and I’m set for going out.

I’d quite like to make this again in different colours. I think white with black trimming would work well and allow for some really bright colours to be worn underneath.

Overall I’m happy with the result. I think it looks better than the Jane Norman sweater it’s based on. What do you think?

My take (left) on the Jane Norman sweater (right). I think I prefer my version, although I might be biased.

Review: Survivor by K R Griffiths

This novel take on the serial killer plot didn’t quite hit the spot

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THIS is an interesting take on the serial killer story – told from the point of view of the killer. This gives us the opportunity to see how a person comes to be a serial killer.

We first meet Clive Barrett at work. Barrett is the perfect employee for his City bosses: quiet, successful, unassuming, he keeps to himself and doesn’t cause trouble. If anything the only problem is that he doesn’t join in enough, and in fact in these opening passages he is making his excuses and leaving his colleagues to their Friday night drinks. Barrett has other plans for his evening.

Barrett wants to be the most notorious serial killer the UK has ever seen. But there’s set to be a spanner in the works; one of his previous kills didn’t stay dead, and she wants revenge. Thus begins a deadly game of cat and mouse.

Barrett is a fledgling killer; he makes mistakes – the biggest of these leaving his new adversary alive. He tries to learn from these slip-ups. He has big plans. This is a completely different approach to the serial killer plot as I know it. The Dexter series of books is the only other story I know of that takes the serial killer as the main character. I haven’t read these but as far as I’m aware Dexter is already established as a very competent and deadly killer.

There is an awful lot of violence against women in the book. But it’s well handled. It can be easy for such stories to descend into misogynistic torture porn but Griffiths manages to avoid this.

So why only two stars? I don’t think we get enough into Barrett’s head – we don’t really understand why he’s a serial killer (unlike with, say, Dexter). Also the man is clearly a psychopath and it’s hard to have any kind of emotional connection to a character who himself is lacking emotions, even if it's just to dislike him. This is also my issue with Dexter and why I haven’t read it.

My main problem, though, is the ending. I found it deeply unsatisfying and unconvincing. I feel that Griffiths has sacrificed a realistic ending for the sake of a twist. And unfortunately I didn’t think the twist was that good. I won’t say what it is – you’ll just have to decide if you want to read the book!

For sake of clarity, I’m not comparing this book to the Dexter series, just using the latter as a reference.

I received this book as part of the GoodReads FirstReads scheme.

Update: the Jane Deep V sweater

Holiday knitting meant some serious time devoted to finishing off this long-standing project – as well as plenty of eating, drinking and reading

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Well, the Christmas break is well and truly over. Nine days of not having to get up and go to work, of time to just knit or read, of presents, food and family – bliss. I used a lot of it to really get on with some knitting. I’ve been working hard on the Jane Deep V sweater, and I’m almost at the sewing up stage (my least favourite part, but never mind).

Front, back and one sleeve are all knitted up and I’ve already blocked the front and back. Sleeve one is currently on the blocking board. Sleeve two is almost finished, too. I cast on for it just before Christmas and had hoped to finish it before heading back to work. I didn’t quite manage that, but I was close.

The Jane Deep V sweater on the blocking board.

As you can see from the photo above, this sweater has a really deep V neck (hence the name). I’m going to finish the V off with about 5cm of rib in the bright pink. Usually when I do the neckline on a sweater I sew one shoulder together and then pick up stitches around the whole thing, knitting the collar in one go. But I’m not sure if that will work on this sweater.

The depth of the neckline means I’m going to have to pick up a huge number of stitches along the two downstrokes of the V, and I simply don’t know if even my 100cm circular needle is going to be able to cope with that many stitches. If I don’t do it in this way, though, how am I going to make the bottom of the collar work properly?

Design is all about experimentation!

Normally with a V neck, you knit the collar in a single piece, using decreases at the bottom of the V to pull it in and preserve the V shape. If I have to knit the two sides separately I’m not sure how I’ll be able to replicate this.

The only thing I can think of is to pick up stitches down one side and along the bottom of the V, knit the 5cm collar and cast off, then pick up the stitches along the other side, knit the 5cm and cast off again. This will give me two separate pieces of collar, with the first side having an ‘extra’ bit from the stitches along the bottom of the V. This would then be sewn into the edge of the light pink section, covering the edge of the second layer of collar. But I don’t know if this will look as good a ‘normal’ single-piece collar. This really isn’t easy to visualise, so I’ve sketched it out. Badly. The first sketch below illustrates my usual way of knitting the collar; the second my alternative.

The top image demonstrates a 'normal' V neck,
while the above image shows my alternative.

I can see this neckline turning out to be something of a challenge. Even if I do manage to fit all the stitches on the needle, it’s going to involve an awful lot of picking up of stitches and then of knitting all those stitches to complete the collar. And then I may well end up picking up several hundred stitches only to find that I can’t fit them all on the needle and have to undo all I’ve done and start again. Oh well – design is all about experimentation after all!

Rainbow blanket

Despite having several projects ongoing, I decided to start a new crochet blanket. It is winter after all, and you can never have too many blankets

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Given that I’ve already got three projects on the go, it probably wasn’t the best idea to start another one. But I bought some Ice acrylic yarn via a Facebook Group, wool for sale, and felt inspired to crochet a blanket. There are eight balls of wool, each a different colour and varigated, so the idea was to make a rainbow blanket.

Magic Light from Ice Yarns in rainbow colours.

I knew I wanted to create the blanket using crochet squares, using two or three different styles. The main square would be very plain to make the most of the varigated colours; the other squares would be lacy and there would be two per row. So I headed over to Ravelry and started searching. I quickly found three free patterns that exactly fitted what I wanted.

A couple of weekends ago The Chap and I went to Edinburgh for a long weekend, so I packed the patterns, a ball of yarn and my trusty crochet hook. First things first, I needed a sample of each square to see if they were the same size, or at least could be made to be the same size. And that’s when things started to go wrong.

Locutus.

I started on the first square, Veolias Mormorsruta. It soon became clear that the pattern was impossible to follow. It’s translated into English from Swedish, but I don’t think the translation is the problem. The pattern reads much like a technical challenge from Great British Bake-off: I’ve got the materials needed and some basic instructions, but half of it seems to be missing. I couldn’t work out what to do by studying the photo, and even checking Ravelry didn’t turn up any errata.

The pattern reads much like a technical challenge from Great British Bake-off: I’ve got the materials needed and some basic instructions, but half of it seems to be missing

So I had to move on to the next square, Locutus. This was much easier – I couldn't follow a couple of the instructions, but happilty I could work out what I was supposed to do by looking at the photo. The final square was a simple, solid granny square. So having made a couple of samples of Locutus, all I had to do was work out how many rounds were required to make the solid square the same size. Turns out it was eight rounds of treble crochet with a final round of double. Simple.

Solid granny square.

One ball of the Ice yarn will produce two Locutus squares and five solid ones. This should give me a blanket that’s about 130cm wide. With eight balls of wool, each in a different colour, it should be about 150cm long. So a nice size and when it’s done it’ll be perfect for wrapping around me when it’s cold.

All sewn up: Sirdar hooded baby jacket

I’ve got several projects on the needles at the moment, so it’s been nice to finish this one off

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I have finished the Sirdar baby jacket I’ve been knitting for the past few months, and I think it’s looking good.

The finished article. I really like the way this has turned out.

I really like the way the yarn has knitted up. The speckle effect works really well and the yarn is super soft (read my full yarn review), so ideal for baby clothes. This is the first time I’ve used this yarn and I’m pretty impressed, although it did get rather splitty when reknitting after having undone a few rows.

I really enjoy learning new techniques, and this pattern involved two novel things for me: making a hood and raglan sleeves. The former was great. Hoods are so easy! This is good because I want to make a Little Red Riding Hood cabled cape with a hood. So now I should be able to work out how to make one in the right size.

Overall I really like the finished piece, but I’m concerned about the size – I just hope the recipient gets some wear out of it

It’s really just a case of casting on sufficient stitches for it to go all the way round your head, knitting until it’s the right height, casting off a third of the stitches, working a third and then casting off the remaining third. You re-attach the yarn to the remaining stitches, and continue working on them until the piece is deep enough to cover your head. This forms the top of the hood.

Hood detail. Photos by Idoru Knits.

The raglan sleeves, on the other hand, were a bit more tricky. This was down to different tensions, and is explained in more detail here. But after a few attempts I got it right and they look OK. I’m also pretty impressed with my seaming. It’s so neat.

Overall I really like the finished piece. But I’m concerned about the size. I made the 6-12 months version and it matches the measurements given. In fact if anything it’s a few milimetres over. But it seems really small. I know babies are small, but they do grow quite a bit in their first year and I just don’t know if this will fit. But there’s not much I can do about that now. I just hope the recipient gets some wear out of it. And that both mother and baby like it.

Update: where's my knits at?

A look at the projects I’m currently working on

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I’m working on four projects at the moment, two of which have been on the back burner for a while. Here’s where I’m up to.

Baby jacket

It might look a bit like a spider, but it's actually a baby jacket.

This is what I’ve been working on most recently. It’s not going so well. As it’s a jacket there are five separate pieces: the back, two fronts and two sleeves. So far all five pieces are different lengths, and I’m not convinced any of them are the right length. It also seems a bit small. I’m making the 6-12 months size and it fits the measurements given, but it’s very little. But then I guess babies are still little at that age. I’ve checked out some sizing charts and compared it to baby clothes in BHS, and it seems to be the right size.

The different length pieces are more problematic. I’m not really happy with any of them, and while it’s possible I could fix them with blocking, I don’t really want to do that. Which means I’m going to have to undo them all and reknit them to make them the right length.

This is a lesson on why gauge is so important, and how difficult it can be to achieve. I did, of course, do a swatch before starting the jacket and the problem I had was that my tension was spot on widthways (number of stitches), but different lengthways (number of rows). So I had the exact number of stitches in my 10cm square, but too many rows (32 instead of 28). I don’t actually know how to fix this. If I upped the needle size then my stitches would no longer have worked, but if I don’t then my rows don’t work.

Usually the number of stitches is far more important than the rows – if your rows are too tight, like mine, then you simply knit more, if they’re too loose, then you knit fewer, you lucky thing. But this particular piece has raglan sleeves, so needs a nice even decrease along all the separate sections. This means the number of rows knitted becomes rather significant. All I could think of doing was to add in a few rows at regular intervals where I don’t decrease in order to make the raglans longer but still even. The problem with this is that I pretty much had to guess how many extra rows would be needed. My first guess was clearly wrong and the pieces were too short. So now I need to undo them all right to the beginning of the raglan shaping and add in a couple of extra extra rows.

Jane Deep V sweater

The back of my Jane Deep V sweater.
I'm pretty much up to the neck shaping.

This is one of my own designs that’s been languishing. I’ve completed the front but I’ve kind of got stuck on the back. I gave up on it for a while after having to undo about 30cm having found a mistake. I could have left it, I guess, but that’s just not the way I do things. I was right up to the neck shaping and had to undo it almost to the start. It was pretty demoralising.

The back is a simple stocking stitch, though, so reknitting won’t take too long and I have already completed a significant chunk of it. This does raise an interesting question though. I could easily have left this mistake. I had k2tog where I should simply have knitted. I was one stitch out. One. If I was using a chunky yarn that one stitch might have made a difference, but I’m knitting with 4-ply. All I had to do was decrease by one fewer stitch than I’d expected to at the neckline and it all would have been fine. So is it best just leave such mistakes or should you go back and correct them?

I shall take the finished blanket on many sunny, champagne-fuelled picnics

I always do the latter. I hate knowing there’s something wrong in my knitting. But this is time consuming and can be really quite demoralising if I’ve knitted a lot after having made the mistake. It would surely be better for my sanity if I were to leave such mistakes, but I just don’t think I’ll ever be that person.

Dress

The back of my dress. It hasn't got a name yet.

I started this ages ago and shelved it in favour of other projects. It’s another of designs and I’ve actually done quite a lot. The front is finished and the back is nearly there. So then it’s just the sleeves. The plan is to do full-length bell sleeves (ones that flare out towards the bottom), or ‘wizard sleeves’, as one of my friends calls them, because wizards’ robes always have flared sleeves. I do love this style of sleeve, although it’s not totally practical when eating soup. I guess wizards don’t eat much soup.











Picnic blanket

Picnic blanket. This will be 2 metres long when finished.
It's going to take some time.

This is the only crochet project I’ve currently got on the go. I started it around the beginning of summer, knowing that it would take ages to complete. As there are so many different colours, it’s not the most portable of projects, but I did take it to Sardinia in June and managed to do quite a bit of work on it then. It’s something that I can easily pick up and put down and I’m planning on having it ready for next summer, when I shall, of course, take it on many sunny, champagne-fuelled picnics.

Postscript
Since writing this, I’ve taken out the Jane sweater and managed to knit right back up to the the neck shaping while on a nice weekend trip to Cambridge. Yay for quiet weekends with the parents!

I’ve also undone and reknitted all the separate pieces for the baby jacket and am now adding the ribbed borders to the two fronts.

Review: Sirdar Snuggly Baby Speckle

It's being used for a boy’s baby jacket, but how will this super-soft baby yarn measure up?

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First impressions
This is an incredibly light-feeling, soft yarn, with an almost velvety handle. I really like the colour – I don’t usually go for green but this works well. I bought the yarn online which always makes colour choice difficult, and as this is for a boy's baby jacket, I wanted to avoid the old ‘blue for a boy’ cliche. The speckle effect is also nice. The twist appears tight. This yarn should knit up well.

In use
This is a really nice yarn to knit with. The addition of acrylic gives a tiny bit of stretch and it’s tight enough that there’s no splitting. I’ve had to undo a few rows and found this easy – the yarn doesn’t ‘stick’ the way some do.

The speckle effect on a child’s jacket is fun and a nice way of introducing a bit of colour

Knitted up, the speckle effect is lovely. It’s really quite random, creating a result that resembles sploshes of paint flicked over a cream fabric. I can imagine that this might be too much on an adult garment, but on a child’s jacket it’s fun and a nice way of introducing a bit of colour.

Conclusion
Beautifully soft and fun to knit with, it’s a great baby yarn and machine washable, too. It would probably work well for blankets, but I’m not sure it would be suitable for grown up clothes.

Yarn spec
Double knit • 50g • 135m • 60% cotton/40% acrylic • 28 rows x 22 sts in 10cm square  • 4mm needle, 4mm crochet hook • Colourway: Moss • RRP: £4