Urban Sweater

Stopping blogging for a while is a very dangerous thing, that's if you want to keep a blog going....it breaks the habit and it's easy to find other things to do ...  Although I do feel like I want to write some posts now. I thought I'd start with my City & Guilds Sweater. Against all odds, I managed to finish this and it passed inspection. It was so difficult ... dealing with everything lately and finding the strength to carry on with the course.  I think actually that it was the knitting that provided a diversion and kept me going.  The whole process from start to finish was a good thing for me. I feel confident now in my ability to see a design project through to the end and explore many possibilities along the way.

I started with a fairly ordinary source and managed to develop it through a series of ideas into the finished article which I LOVE!

It all began with a grid I'd seen in a car park I use every weekday.

This led to me thinking about roads and markings in general .. I found lots more source material around the railway station at the other end of my daily journey.

I started sampling with different qualities of luxury yarns, some suited the end purpose, others looked good but didn't fit with the sweater theme ...  I can make use of those another time ...

This then led to combinations of elements.

I started to think how I could translate these further ideas into sweater shapes - I chose an oversized, easy to wear shape as a silhouette as I wanted the sweater to be a casual weekend garment I can wear with jeans.

I began knitting the sweater and noted down what I'd done as I progressed.  It all went really smoothly, probably because I'd done so much sampling to begin with.  I blocked the knitted shapes and darned in all the loose ends which took a lot of time!  Good finishing is really important to achieve a good look.

Note the smile on my face as I'm wearing it!