Bowled over - by a Cricket Knitting Challenge

At last - I have completed my latest and most challenging knitting project since I took on knitting some Aran sweaters for a German priest friend in Tanzania in 1983 - the cricket vest for my son has finally seen the inside of his kit bag. I finished it last night and felt inordinately pleased with myself. I had begun to think it mightn't see this year's cricket season and I'm sure Shayne felt the same, but after some sticky wicket starts, I got on a roll a few weeks ago and really enjoyed making it. I'm slightly bereft now that it's done and I am already looking to my next project.

There's something incredibly Zen-like about knitting - it's relaxing and yet it concentrates the mind just enough without being tiring or tiresome - and there's the satisfaction of seeing it progressing through the various stages. The challenge comes in the form of the difficult bits I was unfamiliar with - the V-neck was a new design for me and yet it was very simple once I mastered the art of P2togTBL (purling two together through back of loop, for those knitting virgins among readers).

I had another hiccup when I realised I hadn't got the yellow wool as I had thought to do it in just green and cream - but then Shayne told me the Lismore Cricket Club colours were green and yellow - so I had to improvise the bottom border on the nearly completed back by ripping from the bottom rib to the border and effectively knitting from the border back to the rib rather than ripping the whole back and working back up - luckily the short-cut worked a treat.

So I hope you like the end result - it is incredibly heavy as it is made with about 14 x 50gm balls of Wendy Merino Double Knitting pure wool. The pattern called for Wendy Mode but when I went to the wool shop in Dungarvan - Monica's, a little shop packed to the rafters with wool and related accessories and a knitting browser's paradise - the lady there suggested the Merino instead of the Mode which is a wool blend. As both were the same price I opted for the Merino and it was fabulous to work with, and I really enjoyed making it. I was a bit shocked at the total cost as I am sure it would be cheaper to buy a factory-made jumper (and not in pure wool) for half I paid for the wool - and that's not counting the labour which I never factor in. The wool alone cost €65 - and if I was to make it for sale I suppose I'd have to up that to €100 to cover labour (which would be way below minimum wage rates!). So I will stick to doing the knitting for family and friends.

There is also a sentimental factor in all this that brings me back to my youth, as I recall my beloved mother who spent years of my childhood knitting Aran jumpers for a local designer who went on to achieve international renown on the fashion knitwear front. He was Cyril Cullen, and as he worked in the Social Welfare office in Lismore in the 1960s he recruited local women to work as home knitters when he went into the knitting and design full-time. He is still active in fashion and design and it is nice to think he got off the ground with his team of home knitters around Lismore back in the old days.

I guess that's where I got the love for knitting when I learnt it as a child from my mother rather than in Home Ec in school, where we laboured over sample squares and the dreaded sock with the impossible heel-turn I never could master. Even now I break out in a sweat at the thought of even attempting to turn a heel, though I am determined to give it a go one of these days.

I have an idea to make a mini-jumper for Sofia with the same colours and configuration - I have to try to find a V-neck cable baby jumper pattern now as I am not skilful enough to make up a pattern myself. I have got some great knitting books as presents in the past year and they have great tips on finishing garments and other useful stuff I always winged in the past. Now I am tempted to follow the expert guidance on joining seams and even experimenting with creating patterns, once I get a bit of confidence that my modifications might work!

Watch this space as I will keep updates and sit-reps and other progress reports coming!

The photos show:

• The finished slipover modelled by Shayne,
• The slipover after pressing
• The pattern
• The V-Neck detail
• The wool with the ripped rib
• The work in progress

Knitting - the perfect antidote to the Irish winter

After years of abstinence, I have taken up knitting again in the past few years - I already posted on an earlier project here. I knit primarily in the winter, which as any of you familiar with Ireland know is a grim affair that calls for endless reserves of creativity and diversionary tactics, some good and some not so good, depending on your perspective.

Examples of the latter abound - vegging out on the couch watching late night trash TV, overeating every kind of calorific comfort food, and risking rickets from lack of the Sunshine Vitamin D, and osteoporosis from lack of any meaningful weight-bearing exercise - a walk around the block with the dog or to the shops for the paper at the weekends is as good as that gets.

The former - reading all those books you didn't get to bring on your summer beach holiday in the sun thanks to the punitive Ryanair restrictions on luggage and the second mortgage you'd need if you decided to bring a few blockbusters that took you into excess baggage territory. And blogging - it seems to be more a winter activity, sitting in front of the computer of an evening, whereas if it's daylight till 11pm there's an imperative to be out and doing, or agonise about wasting the daylight. Baking comes into winter activities as well, as it seems to go with the comfort eating the bad weather induces.

As usual I went off on a tangent there - but it does come back to knitting in a roundabout way. I find it relaxing and enjoyable and I can multi-task nicely - knitting goes well with reading and watching TV so I can incorporate a number of the above-listed activities -even the eating fits in!

I've been having a ball knitting little baby clothes for Sofia - a matinée jacket with a bonnet or two, and another bonnet in progress right now - and I've made a few hats for myself, along with a few scarves and the furry waistcoat I showed in my last knitting post. The more intricate patterns of the baby clothes are a nice challenge and it's very satisfying to get the desired results.

You can see some photos of them being modelled by Sofia and myself. One of the caps (the blue random-dyed cotton one) was a new style, knitted on 4 double-pointed needles from the crown to the brim, in a sock-like circle. I was pleased it worked out and it's very cosy, down to even looking like a tea-cosy!

I've been having fun this past week showing our old friend Tandy how to knit - she is a whiz at crochet but knitting was new territory for her, so we spent the evenings she was here when we weren't otherwise occupied clacking away at the knitting.

I showed her the rudiments of casting on and off, which she practiced to perfection, both the thumb and two needle methods, and then she did samplers of garter stitch and of stocking stitch. I have this book which seems to have American knitting terminology and I've had to do some mental adjustments - Casting off is Binding off in this book, and Stocking stitch is Stockinette stitch. Everything is well illustrated so I should be able to cope.

I have some knitter followers - should that be Knitters on Twitter? - and I love their blogposts on their craft, but they are so advanced I feel quite inadequate - then I remember all the fancy stuff I did over 20 years ago when the kids were small - Aran jumpers with their intricate textured patterns - Moss stitch, Blackberry stitch, Cable stitches of every variation - and themed jumpers (sweaters) with cartoon characters - Dennis the Menace of Beano fame and Desperate Dan of Dandy fame -beloved of me in my childhood and a generation later their appeal to our boys was no less diminished.