Maple Cardigan - part six

With the sleeves and buttons sown on, the cardigan is finished.  I chose simple mother of pearl grey buttons as the cardigan has enough colour and pattern on it.

This cardigan has been a big challenge for me and I am pleased I unpicked the back and knitted it again. I am chuffed with myself!

The cardigan is quite short and I am long waisted but it still fits me. These old jeans are low waisted and so do not help! I think the cardigan will look best with higher waisted garments.

Maple Cardigan - part five

All the pieces have now been knitted and blocked.  I had to re knit the top of one of the sleeves as it did not match for some strange reason.

I sewed together the shoulders and knitted the neck band and then each side of the front pieces. All the cardigan needs now are the sleeves and buttons.

Maple Cardigan - part four

The sleeves knitted up much more quickly as they were only in stocking stitch.  As I went a long, I started to try and knit in some of the ends but this proved a bit bulky at times.

The first sleeve knitted.

Maple Cardigan - part three

I thought I had taken more photographs of the back of this cardigan but for some reason they are missing!  I finally finished the back which seems quite short.

I knitted the two front pieces and again have a great shortage of photographs.  I seem to have started with good intentions and then just kept on knitting!

By now my technique had become quicker and I am quite pleased with the result though hope the  cardigan will fit me.  I laid the pieces out and blocked them by pinning them out on the carpet, spraying them with water and letting them dry.

Maple Cardigan - part two

I have found that I am becoming slightly quicker with catching every loose thread at the back of the work and I am enjoying it more.  I think this will result is a more dense and less stretchy knit.

Apple Blossom Appliqué - 3

I decided to mount my apple blossom applique on to some medium weight Lutrador ( a versatile man made fabric which may be purchased in different weights),  which I had spray painted with various green paints over some crayon doodles.

 I trimmed the Lutrador with a rotary cutter leaving a 3cm border.

I wanted to attach a channel on the back of the embroidery so that a strip of wood could be passed through for hanging, so I cut a strip of Lutrador and pinned it in place.

The strip had to be sown on before the Lutador backing was attached to the embroidery so I separated the two pieces while I did this.  I sewed on the top edge of the channel and then added the wood strip while I pinned it in place.  This was because the wood was curved and I wanted to allow extra room so that it would not distort the finished piece.  Once I had pinned the channel in place I removed the wood and sewed along the bottom edge.

I then laid the embroidery back in position over the Lutrador and sewed the two pieces together around the embroidery edge, making sure the hanging sleeve was at the top.

The border was then trimmed back to 2cms and I sewed on a curtain ring just above the wood channel on the centre back.

The embroidery was finished and may be hung as is or framed.

Apple Blossom Appliqué - 2

After all of the flowers and leaves had been sewed on I added one more larger flower on top as a focal point.  This was also bonded and stitched down in the same way.  To knock back the piece I then used a roller to add some white acrylic paint in areas.

To add some interest to the flower centres I used an automatic daisy pattern in three colours, followed by some hand stitched French Knots.

The piece just needs to be signed, trimmed and mounted.