Blogging about this project:
Blog 1: http://www.brilliantmommy.co.za/so-in-short-i-decided-to-...
Blog 2: http://www.brilliantmommy.co.za/what-i-have-learned-and-a...
Blog 3:
http://www.brilliantmommy.co.za/just-in-time-for-autumn-3...

Oh my goodness, I have to confess…

I am in love and will you believe… .

I am in love with knitting!

Of course, I learned how to knit as a child, but never did I enjoy the old fashioned look and the stitches always falling off the needles. But then I met ChiaoGoo and the amazing Juanita Muir. Plus I discovered the world of Marling through Adele Marais.

So… in short I decided to knit something, but boy oh boy I was not prepared for this world of knitting.

I found this amazing picture and pattern and I just have to make it. On top of it all the pattern is fairly simple and I am sure I will manage.

You can find the pattern here: https://www.berroco.com/patterns/jujuba

Using this colourful palette as my inspiration, I bought a variety of Merino Lace. I bought 3 x 100g Umbala skeins I just loved, to go with this, I matched it with 5x 50 g Cowgirlblues and I also added 2 x 100g Baah Yarn skeins. I will use 2 threads and this will allow me to do marling, but I can also use 2 threads of the same yarn for more solid lines

This is what I have learned and achieved in the last weeks

Knitting in the round vs flat
The day I wanted to cast on, I realized that the pattern asks for the sleeves to be knitted in the round…oh no, I don’t have the right length of needle and was also not able to find the correct length at my LYS (local yarn shop @yarnatzelle). After lots of deliberation, I decided to knit the jumper flat and to not be discouraged by the needle and knitting in the round. I am making the jumper in the largest size and I did a cast on of 56 stitches.

Don’t overthink the colour marling
I decided up front to not overthink or plan the colours. I am enjoying the journey, I do marling (using 2 strands of complementing colours) for some of the rows and for others I use 2 strands of the same colour. Most of the time, I only plan the next colour change, but not much further than that. I am very pleased with the colours. The colour stripes are also uneven – it varies from 8 rows, 5 rows and in some cases only 3 rows.
Colour changes, threads, and my perfectionism
Due to the uneven stripes and marling, I am trying to achieve, I must do multiple colour changes and the loose threads on the sides started to drive me crazy. My ever-present mentor Juanita Muir (@Juaknits) assured me that my knitting looks perfect and that we will hide it when we start to join the edges…. phew, so I will just continue and look past them then

Increasing
The shape of the sleeve and the increase for the front and back sides are really simple and are not determined by the number of rows, but by inches. In my case, I must increase every ½ inch. The reason for this is to work with your own gauge. To keep me motivated and to ensure the sleeve fits my arm, I started to pin the sleeves and fit it on my arm.

My progress so far
I am done with the left sleeve and shoulder part – I now need to start splitting the stitches for the front and back and the decrease for the neck. I am beyond proud! The pattern is simple, and the increases are easy to follow. If it was maybe in a single colour, I would get bored by now, but the anticipation of the colour changes and overall interest each colour combination bring are keeping me motivated. I will now start with the right side to ensure I have enough yarn to continue the colour effect and then I will complete my front and back neck decreases together as I want to mirror the front and back colour stripes

My jumper is finished! Jip-a -dee-doo-dah Jip-a-dee-ya!!

I loved knitting the jumper, however, all my fears of finishing it off with all the loose ends and the joining of the centre front came true. Suddenly the euphoria of knitting such a beautiful piece came tumbling down into disappointment…. Maybe it is just because I am an inexperienced knitter and it was my first garment…. but it took me a good 2 weeks to finish the final product.

Deciding on the finishings was difficult and I had to watch a number of YouTube videos and try a few options before I was satisfied. I am still not 100% satisfied with a few finishings and I will point it out, but I stubborn and I always finish my projects!

If you embark on knitting a similar jumper or are as inexperienced like me, these where the options I had for the different finishings with links to the YouTube and you can test it out yourself for the different joins.

Kitchener Stitch - This stitch was suggested to join my centre front and centre back joins, but boy oh boy, did I suffer. I think it didn’t work for me because of the softness of the merino yarn and I decided not to use it at all.
Invisible Horizontal Seam - In the end, I decided to use the Invisible Horizontal seam stitch for my centre front and centre back joins and it came out beautifully. One tip is to ensure you have the exact same stitch count for centre front and centre back.
Mattress Stitch - For the side joins I used Mattress Stitch. This also helped to hide the raw ends and gave me enough seam allowance to work away all the loose ends.
I tried to pick up stitches around the neck and at the bottom to knit 4 reverse sock rows, but I didn’t like the finish and in the end, decided to not do it at all. For the bottom seam, I still had to work away loose ends and even though it was not my first choice, I decided to do a reverse “seam”. I was unable to find a YouTube, so maybe it is an “anel flop”. Hopefully, in the future, I will find methods to finish off the bottom of my garments if I do a horizontal knit again. Here is a picture of the “anel flop” finish.

Steam blocking - After I completed knitting the sides, I did steam blocking and afterwards again to finish off the jumper

I have quite a lot of yarn left over - most of my 100g balls. Originally I started with a total of 750g and I used 400g with a total of 350g of yarn left. Most of the Cowgirlblues 50g balls only have about 10g each left. If you plan to do the same pattern I will suggest that you buy the 5 x 50g Cowgirlblues balls, but only 2 x 100g other variegated yarn.

Here I am in my finished product. Hope you enjoyed my journey….. for now I am not sure what my next knitting or crochet project will be. I have some yarn, but I still need to plug up the courage to embark on something new at this stage….