Swamp Donkey and Cherish
January 14th, 2008, 7:50 pm
Why haven’t I posted for so long?
Because I have been laying under a duvet on my sofa being a flu ridden Swamp Donkey (American slang for a moose that lives in the swamps or colloquial slang for a deeply unattractive woman)
I’m not pretty when I have the flu….I look kinda like this…
In fact it was the worst type of flu because I caught it from Ben …I had “MAN-FLU” - complete with whimpering, patheticness and frequent requests to check, “Am I hot? Feel my forehead?” and the pleading, “I need a lemsip, Darling…**cough**cough**wheeze**”
The good news is - the only thing I had the energy to do (or interest in doing)was knitting!
The lovely Ben bought me the new Kim Hargreaves book “Heartfelt, The Dark House Collection” for Christmas.
This one…
And as I had perpetrated a dawn raid on the John Lewis yarn department on the first day of the sale and snaffled an obscene amount of yarn (I’m still too ashamed to admit my purchases here!) and had some bargainous big wool - I decided to whip up Cherish - a cute little big wool bolero.
This is the book picture …
Wow! Pictures that show that garments! Take note Rowan 
…
I started Saturday and quickly knit the back…
I short rowed the shoulders as I usually do … then I knit the fronts - the short rowing kinda didn’t work because I had to continue with the neck edging to go around the back of the neck. If I made this again I wouldn’t short row because I think I fudged it and ended up a row short - that’s a lot when you’re on 12mm needles!
I do have to rave about the construction of this garment! The fronts use short rows (turning halfway though a row and wrapping a stitch) to give the front a “womanly” shape. The slightly frilled edging is knit in garter stitch as a strip, then you pick up a few stitches down one side an knit up the body of the garment. None of that annoying “pick up 300 stitches evenly around the front and sides” malarkey that always seems to take longer than knitting an entire sleeve! (If I had to name a part of knitting I dislike it’s picking up stitches….)
I have never liked jumping on the popularist bandwagons, preferring to make up my own mind and think for myself. But, the “I just love Kim Hargreaves. Her designs are wonderful. They just fit right” bandwagon, is one I am forced to admit, is fully justified in their enthusiasm! Count me on board.
I stormed on with Cherish - armed with a box of tissues, a ready supply of Lemsip, a duvet, rubbish TV (Startrek mainly) and a large ginger cat enjoying his suddenly very warm (feverish in fact!), sedentary and rarely moving owner’s lap.
The strain of constantly nursing me wore poor Thug out..
Poor baby! Mewsley was terrified of me - every time I coughed she ran, thinking some huge savage, cat hating dog was barking at her!
By Wednesday I had a new garment!
What do you think?
The button was one I saw in my local Hobbycraft - perfect I thought.
And the back view….
For 5 days of Sicky Swamp Donkey Knitting, I think that was a good result!
The flu continued…So did the knitting frenzy…see the next post for that!
| Completed Knit Report | ||
| Name: | Cherish | |
| Pattern: | by Kim Hargreaves from Heartfelt book | |
| Yarn: | Rowan Bigwool | |
| Pattern Problems: | None | |
| Pattern Modifications: | I short rowed shoulders but in hindsight not a good idea | |
| Washing and Wearing: | warm and cosy to wear. Sleeves could be a bit longer though? | |
| Knit It Again???: | Yes Very probably, especially as I have Big wool in my stash… | |
| Difficulty: | Easy to medium - only hard thing was short rows for shaping the front. | |
| Rating: | 5/5 a really enjoyably quick knit and very wearable too! | |
| Other Postings Relating To This One: | None. | |
feltboots said,
January 14th, 2008, 9:33 pm
Love it, especially the neck line. Looks great.
And that you made it whilst being laid low with Man Flu. Did you have to have Lucozade along with the constant attention ? ‘Tis a terrible thing…
yarnsnob said,
January 15th, 2008, 2:46 am
I love all you knits, they always look so professional.
Sorry about the flu, I know how it feels especially to catch it from Man flu…thats the worst. Get well soon, plenty fluids
Cheryl said,
January 15th, 2008, 8:08 am
Wow that is lovely,i want one.:)Hope you feel better now.
Arianwen said,
January 16th, 2008, 6:49 pm
that is very nice. I had forgotten how flattering kim’s designs are. A good result with or without the man flu.
Jo said,
January 17th, 2008, 4:30 pm
Ooooh - gorgeous! I’ve just ordered the kit for this from the Kim Hargreaves site - it’s just what I’d like to knit next. After I’ve done the Space Invader socks, and finished the other jumper I started over Christmas. And done the gloves that I promised my mum. So I’ll probably get started on this in about June!
Soo said,
January 17th, 2008, 4:52 pm
Looks great. I made Tess from the same book and echo enthusiastically all of your comments on the designs! Fabulous stuff.
charlotte said,
March 11th, 2008, 2:19 pm
Hi there. I stumbled across your site while trying to find some help with the short row shaping for the front of my Cherish cardigan. I’m a bit of a novice but a friend assured me that the pattern was pretty straightforward for a beginner. Not sure that I agree! However I will persevere. Your top looks wonderful and I can see that the back I have completed looks as it should, thank god. But to the short row shaping - what on earth does she mean about wrapping the yarn around the stitch and then working the wrapped loop together with the wrapped stitch? I’ve had to unravel it all once and don’t want to do that again so any advice would be gratefully received - though obviously I know that this is probably rather cheeky of me to ask …. all the best, Charlotte
susan crowe said,
March 11th, 2008, 3:46 pm
Hi Charlotte
I don’t think you’re the first to be baffled by this one!
The thing to get your head around is that you are turning around in the middle of a row. If you just turned and started knitting, you’d end up with a nasty hole. What this technique does is wrap the yarn around the next (unworked ) stitch before you turn around and go back the other way. Think of it a poking the ball of wool between the next two stitches on the needle - obviously there’s not space to do that so you have to jiggle a stitch to the other needle and back again (oh dear, I think I’m making it worse…)
Once you’ve wrapped your stitch there will be an obvious horizontal loop of yarn at the base of the wrapped stitch. To get rid of this, when you find yourself about to kint that stitch you poke the right hand needle up through that loop then into the stitch as normal and knit the two loops together.
That has probably confused the hell out of you !
There’s a really good video of how to do it here
http://www.knittinghelp.com/videos/advanced-techniques
(it’s second from bottom) - shows you how to do the wrap and how to work the loop and stitch together. The video does use the continental style and turn the work before wrapping the stitch but it gets the same result. It’s always easier to watch it being done huh?
Are you using the pattern fro the Heartfelt book? If so there’s an explanation on page 91 under the heading “wrap stitch”.
In case you don’t have the book (I know Cherish has been available as a separate pattern), the same text is on Kim Hargreaves site here:-
http://www.kimhargreaves.co.uk/acatalog/Help.html
(she explains it better than me!)
And there’s and explanation in pictures here too
http://www.sweaterscapes.com/shortrok.htm
Persevere - it’s a really useful skill to know.
I hope I’ve helped
Susan