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| Proudly present Hubby's vest by me! |
After 3 months passed, finally the vest that I knitted for my hubby was done! Yeeaaaaayyyyy! It's my longest journey in knitting project anyway [till now], so you probably could imagined how my feeling was. I smiled ear to ear when he finally wore it to go to work. I received many questions and compliments: "How long you did the vest?", "how could you keep the patience for doing big project?", "how long you learned knitting to be ready to knit the big project?", and so on. Somehow, I really want to write how you could keep the pace and curiosity in knitting, but since I am a very beginner and only learned since 4 months ago, I feel that I am not qualified to do so. Then, today, I just want to tell you how the story behind this knit project. =D
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| back-detail |
First thing first, asking the people that you will knit what s/he want. I asked my hubby, what piece of knitting that he really want. He said, something wearable, not too difficult to me to knit and looks good on him. I've a thought for making him a sweater, like what mbak Ajeng did here, but I realized that how to seam the sleeves and other part will be a tough challenge to me. Then I chose vest and start looking some patterns and my eyes got stuck to this! It looks classic yet do-able, because I've already learned cable knitting before. My hubby also liked it directly, so we move to another step: YARN!
Yarn is quite a tricky part of knitting, in my own opinion. It's the main ingredient of your knit-project, then almost every aspect will relate to yarn. At a glance, I looked for the price of the same yarn as cited at the pattern, but then the budget will go gaga. That's why I should do a bit research for yarn-hunting. Most of the knitters who had the pattern used import yarn, I simply can't afford the same yarn with the same price in Indonesia, then I narrowed my preference to local yarn. If I talked about local yarn, then I turned my sight to Poyeng first. Perhaps you've already read my previous post about me introduced to knitting by met this cute hobby shop, since then it's hard to find the rival of the same kind shop. Poyeng had their signature yarns and the latest [at June, it just came out] was Hand-Dyed Rayon. The colors were lovely! Especially for the Vintage series, I just want to grab them all. Huhuhu. My husband let me chose the color, and after a deep thinking process, I took maroon. In several times of buying, for total I bought 10 skeins, each 100gr. The vest only took almost 7 skeins though. And in the end, I bought the Light Magenta color too, 2 hanks and 2 skeins. Please, it's simply irresistible. =P
Once I got the yarn, I made the gauge, but then I realized that the pattern wouldn't match. I had to double it up to match the gauge mentioned there. What I feel relieved was, even though I did double-ply-ing, but the Hand-dyed Rayon just keep smooth and fitted perfectly to the pattern. I was afraid it will look awkward and not good in his appearance, but the result turned out very nice. The Vintage series also had irregular pattern and color gradual, it helps showing the smooth texture of the knitting. The only thing that surprised was the dye color of the yarn faded to my bamboo needles, huhuhu. My needles turned red-ish now. It seems they need to evaluate more in that, but for the price I paid, it still made me content. =)
If you're missing your favourite colour or always left empty handed in Poyeng's yarn, it's a sign for you that you have to be keep-updated. Follow the owner's twitter account, its Facebook page and their website. A little tips anyway, try to diligently click here, my happiness shortcut for their giveaway. Hihi. They usually give knitting tidbits that always encourage us to keep knitting on.
For finishing this project, somehow it was like a milestone for my knitting journey. It challenges my resilience, patience and procrastinating habit. Knitting sometimes just like a one side-started war with myself, with the needles as a weapon, pattern as a tactic map, yarn as the battlefield. The winning comes very sweet & delightful in the end. It is the reason why I want to knit more and more.
Quoting an old Norse-Viking saying:
"From his weapons on the open road, no man should step one pace away."
Keep knitting fellas, and Hurrah!
