“Big Yellow” was a 13-week long project and my inspiration came from the picture I saw on Pinterest. My goal was something warm for summer nights. Living on the island has it’s flaws you know.
Now, I couldn’t use the same pattern as we can see on the picture here. Not enough challenge for me. So I picked out one of the history patterns I had – “Lace with Cables”.
This one:
My expectation for yarn was simple – finished piece needs to be light, but heavy enough to “fall” nicely and at the same time I wanted it to be warm, but not too warm 🙂 (you can see where I have trouble…).
And then the color…. Pink like on the picture? Or maybe white. Or maybe something bright? Like yellow or blue … Oh, oh, oh – purple?
You can read about my Week 1 here…
I ordered my divine yarn from UK, so I had to wait for it… really long…
I used my time wisely though. On week 2 I started planning the thing. Luckily there were some outlines along with that pin.
So, If you want to knit something like this then here is the step by step for calculations:
First step, you need to measure the circumference of your hips and divide it by 2 (we are knitting two pieces that’s why we need to divide it by two). Mine is 90cm, so it will be 45 cm for one piece. And you can totally do this with inches you know…
Second step – add 5 cm. So I got 45cm and now I’m adding +5 cm. 5 cm would be 2 inches, if you want to know.
Third step – hands and neck. What you’re going to do is take your number from second step (n) and make a calculation: (30 times n) divided by 70;
For example: (30 x 50) / 70 = 21… I’m gonna round it down to 20.
Where did I get those numbers you may wonder. Well, my mind works proportionally. So Second step (50 cm for me) gave 70% of total length. In order for us to calculate our whole length we need to know how much is the 30 %. That’s where those 70 and 30 come in to play…
Are you following me so far?
I ordered 600 grams of yarn. I actually needed about half of it. About 300 grams, but I didn’t do the ribbing below. I may add it though – I’m still thinking about it…
You can read about my Week 2 here…
And then the yarn came…
It was the most expensive yarn in my yarn history so I was little nervous. When ordering online, I can’t touch the yarn…or smell it (I know, I’m weird…). That makes me feel like I’m lost at woods…totally lost of control…
Here’s what I told about this yarn: “This yarn is everything I expected and more. It’s soft as my first born’s butt, light as a feather and has this glow like watching diamonds in the sun.”
It was Findley, 50% merino and 50% silk from Juniper Moon Farm and I bought it from here. See that?
Pure heaven…
I actually hated yellow before 😀 …
As I knitted this thing, I set myself a deadline. May, 31st (2016). Let’s see – I started on April 11 and finished it August 8 – I think it’s safe to say I missed my deadline.
Week 5 was the naming time for “Big Yellow” and it was born from a lack of name. I also admitted myself that I will miss my deadline. Oh, and in this post I’ll show my very first tomato plant… so exciting 😀
I’m sliding over the Week 6, (but you can check that out here if you want) so I can talk about Week 7. Why? Because I finished the first part of the poncho.
I must say, I was tired by then. Bored and tired. So I took a 1 week brake…
Finishing almost half of the project gave me new strength and motivation. What a relief…
You can check out my Week 7 here…
Nothing new on Week 8 – started my second piece, talked about Ziva from NCIS and, oh right, kids went to summer camp…
I planned to do knitting and then some more knitting and read a murder mystery… Well, it wasn’t exactly that. The camp turned out to be a nightmare – I wouldn’t go too much into detail, but I was worrying constantly and didn’t get much done…
But I still like my yarn… 🙂
On Week 9 I published a yellow post – or yellowish post, to be exact. I showed my mother’s cat, bonfire and a project sheet for my yellow project.
On Week 10 I lost my motivation again, which I transmitted into a movie recap. But, to give this week a positive note, I think I may have found colors for my next big project. I still don’t know what that is though.
Lot of my inspiration is coming from nature. I usually can’t pinpoint the exact place or moment though. It will sneak up on me and hit me at 3 AM when I absolutely most certainly don’t want to think of knitting.
By this time, I was really sick and tired of this project and I decided to push it. Gather my willpower and make a run for it. Well – I did made a difference…
I knitted so hard that I knitted too much… Frog it, frog it, frog it… And I already thought that I can finally finish a project without unraveling – how naive of me 🙂
So close…
And finally on Week 13 I finished my “Big Yellow”
For a conclusion:
I loved to knit it. I loved every moment of it. Yes, including my low times.
It came out perfect and I would knit it again. I’m still thinking of adding that lower ribbing and higher neck, but I’m not sure. I actually like it the way it is and I’m afraid that maybe I don’t like it after the change.
Go figure…
I know a lot of you are waiting for the pattern, and I’m working on it… I’ll let you know if I finish it 🙂
