Tag Archives: universal Bamboo Pop

FOs and WIPs

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4/30/2023

Today is the antithesis of yesterday. It’s damp and dreary and there was no coffee on the porch this morning. Maybe I’ll take the time to get caught up with house cleaning or agendas for the meetings I am running this week or maybe I’ll bake something. And maybe I’ll stay up in my studio and knit. Yesterday I wore my Emsworth Vest over a blouse and summer shoes. Today I’m back to socks and slippers and a turtleneck under a fleece sweatshirt. Ah, spring in Maine.

I have finished a couple of projects and I’m really pleased with them. Let me tell you about them …

This is the Little Coffee Bean Cardigan by Elizabeth Smith, a Maine designer. The sweater was designed to be two (or more) colors in stripes. I used the pattern to knit a plain cotton sweater and then I added “daisies” in embroidery. The embroidered design was inspired by a sweater that I saw online.

My inspiration – from Instagram

All of the yarn I used were stashed yarns. I only bought the buttons. The photos that I took are a perfect example of why you should take photos during the day in natural light. Ha! Ha! The last photo of the completed sweater are much more real colors.

This little Coffee Bean cardigan knits up super quickly and is very simple. I used some stashed 100% cotton yarn that was a gift to me when I was a school “nurse” (clinic assistant was my title) from a wonderful family. I love the color and it’ll be adorable later this summer or early this fall on my granddaughter.

Second, this is the Jasmine Romper by Maria Atencia. As I’ve written here before, the inspiration for this knit was from one of my customer/friends who has knitted three (THREE) to my one. But this was a really fun project to knit. The simple lace on the front of the romper held my attention and interest and the simple (let’s call it plain) stockinette on the back gave me the TV knitting finish that I needed after all the lace. I chose to knit this one in white Bamboo Pop yarn by Universal Yarns. Bamboo Pop is a really nice yarn to work with. It didn’t split like a lot of natural plant fibers tend to do and it didn’t hurt my hands. It’s also soft and will feel good against a babies skin.

Spoiler Alert! If you don’t want to see what clue #1 looks like, don’t read further.

I have cast on a new project, laying aside my Three Season Cardigan for a wee bit. I have always wanted to knit a shawl by Romi and I jumped at the opportunity this week when I saw that Romi is doing a mystery shawl KAL named, Falderal. The name attracted me, too. Do you remember “Falderal and fiddle-dee-dee” in the song, Impossible, from the Rogers and Hammerstein movie Cinderella? I’m talking the 1967 version with Lesley Ann Warren and Celeste Holme (click on the link for the way I remember the song). I’m dating myself but I loved that movie!

Falderal by Romi

Anyway, the first clue was with color 1 and consisted of simple lace knitting. I thoroughly enjoyed knitting the lace and only had to frog back a couple of times and only a few stitches each time. I use lots of stitch markers to help me with lace repeats so that I know if I’ve missed a yarn over. Yarn overs are the most often missed thing in lace knitting. I finished the first clue before the delivery of the second clue today. I’ll get working on it today, too. (But I have an agenda for a meeting tomorrow that I have to write before I am allowed to knit!)

Both of the yarns I am using are Emma’s Yarn Practically Perfect Sock in (purple) February ’23 and After Dark colorways. The After Dark (gray) was in my stash. I think I had planned to make a shawl with a dappled gold yarn from String Theory Yarns, a Maine yarn dyer. I have quite a few shawls with gold in them and I’ll let that hank hang in the stash while I use this gray in my Romi shawl.

I still have a line-up of WIPs on my shelf in my atelier: a pair of mittens, my genser, and the Jane “pants” for my granddaughter. These don’t include the projects that are in the cupboard and out of my sight. So … there you go!

“Impossible things are happening every day!”

Gone knitting.

Jasmine Romper

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One of my customer friends was making this adorable romper for her grandchild-to-be and needed some help on the lace work on the front of the garment. Some of the chart/stitch patterns were unfamiliar. We worked through the “issue”, figured it out and then I figured that I had to knit it for my little Sylvie.

The Jasmine Romper by Maria Atencia comes in sizes newborn through twelve months. The front is a lace pattern with bobbles and the back is a simple stockinette with garter stitch edges around the legs and at the top. It requires five buttons and is knitted in a sport-weight yarn on US 4 needles for most of the pattern. I chose Universal’s Bamboo Pop, a DK weight cotton and bamboo blend. It’s machine washable/dry flat.

I’m knitting the 6-9 months size for Sylvie. She’s a peanut. The size that I chose to knit had some minor inconsistencies between the written and charted pattern but the designer was quick to respond and has updated the pattern. So, after a couple of false starts (I always think it’s me who has the problem the first time … or two) the knitting began.

The front of the romper is a fun lace pattern with bobbles. I have been using the KnitCompanion app but you could print it out and use a chart minder. I have positive feelings about both but am loving the Knit Companion app and I am saving paper and ink by not printing my patterns. Regardless, the front is difficult to count rows on because of the patterning but it’s not impossible. Life will be so much easier if you mark your progress. Decades of experience have taught me this. I also use stitch markers to help me. That’s why we have them, right? I used stitch markers to mark the garter stitch edges and to mark the lace pattern at the center of the garment’s front.

There are a lot of ways to make bobbles and this pattern asks you to knit and purl into the stitch for a total of four stitches or three increased and then you yarn over and cast off the four stitches just knit. This makes a bobble that’s not particularly pronounced and that remains a little bit open at the bottom. For this garment, it seems like a good option. But I want to remember to return to my notes from a workshop I took with Annie Modisette in Florida many moons ago because I loved her bobble technique. When I get around to that, I’ll write a post on bobbles.

Anyway … the front is now complete and I’m working my way up the back. The back is simple stockinette stitch with garter edges in all the same areas at the front. If I’d continued working on it yesterday, it would have been finished and ready for blocking and seaming today. But I didn’t. So, I hope I’ll finish it today and get it blocked so I can seam it and send it on to NYC before my daughter and her family head to California in May. I hope Sylvie can wear this outfit this summer. We’ll see how it fits.

It seems that the back is a little fuller than the front and that may be to accommodate a diaper. Once finished and blocked, I think it will be telling. I love the yarn – Universal Yarn’s Bamboo Pop. It’s a blend of cotton and bamboo so it’s a sturdy yarn but like a lot of cotton or linen it doesn’t hurt my hands to knit with it. I also have had no problem with splitting. I love the pure white, too.

I can hardly wait to see this on her little body. With a little bit of a tan on those chunky thighs? Ha Ha! Gone knitting.