Thursday, 30 March 2017

New design: The Cat's Whiskers

My Instagram feed features an awful lot of knitting and yarn, and every now and again an adorable kitten or cat; it turns out cats are remarkably photogenic (and who wouldn't want to be a cat? I am a big fan of being able to curl up in the sun and while away the day). Inspired by this, a few months ago I decided to design a children's jumper featuring a cat's face: The Cat's Whiskers.

The Cat's Whiskers. Image copyright Practical Publishing.

This jumper would make an excellent first intarsia piece: the cat's face is mostly a single block of colour with the more complex colourwork coming much later in the chart, by which time you'll be pretty experienced in the colour changes! The project is also sufficiently small that it needn't be a daunting task.

The sweater is knitted in Lana Gatto Super Soft, which is an excellent value DK weight 100% merino yarn that comes in lots of lovely colours. I hadn't come across this yarn before I used it for this design, but would definitely recommend it; if you can't get hold of the recommended yarn, the design would work in any wool or wool blend DK. If you fancy making a cheap and cheerful version I often use Paintbox Yarns DK* for children's knits as it wears really well and comes in 60 colours - you could even use colours to match your own cats!

The Cat's Whiskers. Image copyright Practical Publishing.

The Cat's Whiskers is knitted flat in pieces from the bottom up, and the neckline is knitted on in the round after the body and shoulders have been seamed. The cat's face is incorporated using the intarsia technique, and the mouth is embroidered in upside-down duplicate stitch so that the sewn stitches sit between the knitted stitches. The pattern is written in five sizes: 2 (4, 6, 8 and 10) years, to fit chest sizes 53 (58.5, 63.5, 67, 71) cm [21 (23, 25, 26.5, 28) inches]; the sample shown is in the age 4 size.

The Cat's Whiskers is published in issue 72 of Knit Now magazine, which is available in all the usual places (newsagents and supermarkets) now. If you can't get hold of a copy locally, head over to the More Mags website to get a copy delivered to your door; alternatively you can order a digital copy of the magazine here and get started right away.

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1 comment:

  1. The only comment I have is when is this going to be available in grown up sizes?!

    ReplyDelete