Friday 13 August 2010

A Budgie with the muddy blues

I have wanted to make a Budgie sweater since Grumperina released the pattern, her blog is a favourite of mine and I read it almost every day.

This was also a serendipitous coming together of yarn and pattern, I have had the multi coloured 'mud season' yarn from Spunky Eclectic club since March 2008. I had tried to knit a pair of socks but the colours overwhelmed the pattern and the yarn is sports weight so the sock was thicker than I like. However using it in stripes enables the colours to really show up beautifully and not become too much.

The turquoise yarn is a Rowan RYC Cashsoft 4ply, I wanted to use this colour but it only came in 4ply which was very thin. I ended up using the yarn double so it is thicker than the sports but actually that makes these stripes pop a little more and I really like how is looks.


The pattern is really well written with excellent tips on the best way to sew up the sleeve seams to keep the stripes even and how to shorten the zip to fit.

I love the way the stripes curve round the yoke, so did everyone in the office - I have requests for 4 more!

My favourite part is the icord in the mud season colour that you sew the zip into. I think the colours almost look like the pictures of the earth from outer space.

The carpet is the office one - hence why it is so ugly, I didn't manage to take any pictures at home.

The recipient of this garment is not the usual person (my godson) but the son of a good friend from work. When Aiden was born, I knitted a cute little top for him and when his mum, Bev, came back to work she said how much she loved it and would I knit him something else, now he had outgrown it. Who could resist such knitting flattery? I started this some time ago and then snapped the needle I was using, I put it away in disgust. Over the weekend I went through my stash and WiPs and pulled a few out, this was amongst them. It only needed one icord edge, seams and a zip to be finished, so I got it done - very satisfying!

Pattern: Budgie by Grumperina
Size: 12 months
Yarn: Mud season by Spunky Eclectic and RYC Cashsoft
Needles: 3mm and 2.75 mm