So – to the project. Purl alpaca run\/ran workshops at the farm that houses their alpaca whereby you spend the day chatting, knitting, choose a project to start, discuss and work out any modifications with Kari-Helene, their inhouse designer, and then Tracy takes you out to meet the yarn growers. The food is fabulous, the company (on our workshop, at least) was fab, and it was an excellent day. It almost made up for having to be relayed back to Wigan by the (lovely) AA.<\/p>\n
Overnight Debbie and I spent a lovely evening together, working on our projects and taking the piss out of The X Factor. Here she is pointing her pointy knitting stick at the telly. Forgive me, I can’t remember why, although Debbie may.<\/p>\n The project has grown intermittently over the past few months. The yarn is actually really nice to knit with – it definitely has a character of its own. It drapes nicely, yet is springy. When I sent the first work in progress pics to Steve that first evening (below), he said it looked like a string vest. I can see why he said that, but in person the yarn is a lot less stringy and a lot more springy. (did you see that I slipped in here that this is day 1 progress? I know I spent a lot of the day knitting, but progress was so good that Debbie threatened to steal it while I was asleep…)<\/em><\/p>\n It has a lovely slight halo of fuzz around it, which gives it a much softer feel than “string”. It’s also surprisingly warm. When I tried on the finished item the other day, I felt the slight chill when I took it off, and I’d only had it on for 5 minutes or so. I was pleasantly surprised.<\/p>\n Having made them slightly bigger with the longer-back modifications we’d worked out I wasn’t looking forward to ploughing through the big-flap fronts. It seems they were well in progress when the snow hit, and I went all Yarnharlot and decided to take advantage of the bright snow light and take pictures of all my works in progress out in the garden.<\/p>\n Since then, thanks to Miriam Tegels’ speed knitting techniques, I’ve skipped through the rest of it, doing the sleeves last, and after a brief breather, sewn the bits together to come up with the finished object.<\/p>\n One other minor modification made was down to the grafting\/kitchener workshop I went to in September. The pattern says to cast off the two halves of the collar and sew them together. Instead, I left the stitches live and grafted them together following woollywormhead<\/a>‘s instructions. It’s not invisible, but I’m hoping it’s at least less lumpy than a sewn seam would be.<\/p>\n It’s finished, it’s lovely.<\/p>\n And I heard purl alpaca were running their last workshop for the foreseeable this weekend, because the alpaca have had to move and they don’t have a suitable new venue yet.<\/p>\n The back has worked out quite well, too – I like the extra cables on the back as is brings it in a bit more and somehow seems a bit more flattering. In writing up the modifications I realised that I’d actually done 2 extra twists on the big cables, which makes quite a difference. Looking back at the original, it looks a bit trivial & frilly to me.<\/a><\/p>\n I wasn’t able to go to the farewell workshop, but have sent pictures. And one of my Ravelry pictures has been chosen to be featured on the actual design page. Fame, at last!<\/p>\n p.s. I just need to lightly steam it now…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We’re back to the knitting! This week I finished A Major Project – Duchess by purl alpaca designs. I started this project at a workshop Debbie and I booked as a “treat” weekend. I’d been feeling stressed and overworked, and … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2496\/4141806238_fb77db9af9.jpg\")
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