On Thursday I gave my latest knitting project its first public airing… I present the Geography Cardigan! I got the idea from an old 80’s knitting book Mrs Morris (the shop owner) lent me as a joke. The tackiness of the patterns really needs to be seen to be believed. (The back cover, for instance, features a guy in suspenders and a bow-tie standing next to a woman wearing a sweater… with knitted suspender and bow-tie motifs. Get it? It’s an OPTICAL ILLUSION. Very clever.) Anyway, I was flipping through it and suddenly there he was: Sexy Geography Teacher. He had a Ewan McGregor ‘tache to go with his acid-wash jeans and the grooviest, daggiest cardigan I’d ever seen. I had to make one. After a period of trial and error I settled on Sirdar Nova as the yarn of choice. It’s not 100% wool, but it’s soft and it was the only thing thick enough to get gauge that had a range of bright colors. In terms of technical difficulty, it was my first ever attempt at intarsia and I bungled it a bit. It looks fine from the outside, but I made the mistake of occasionally carrying the wool across the back instead of cutting and starting a new strand (because it was only a gap of a few stitches, and I’m lazy). I’ve since found out that you NEVER MIX INTARSIA AND FAIRISLE, which is what I was doing. Consider yourself warned. Anyhoo, I also had to invent a way to knit the collar on to the garment since the one knitted to the pattern specifications was way, way too small. But it worked out. I’m actually pretty proud of it! I still need to head to Newtown for some appropriate buttons, but it’s definitely one of my more successful projects. And check out the back! (And as the Aussies keep asking, Australia’s on my left elbow. No, I wasn’t clever enough to do the thing where you reorient the whole world to put Australia on top. Sorry.)
8 responses
Ha! Cute! Good job, Kris!
love it! can you scan in a picture of Sexy Geography Teacher for us?
That is amazing! Great work, Kris.
cool!
what happens when you get to the arms? the globe not being body shaped i mean. do you have a duplicate copy of india in your armpit or something?
i’ve been burnt by the mixing intarsia and fairisle thing too – “oh but i can’t be arsed to start yet another new bit of yarn for a gap of three measly three stitches” followed shortly by “hell, i wish i had!”
I forgot to ask, where is Australia on it? Maybe you’ll have to knit some matching knickers. Then you can add a ‘map of Tazzie’ too!!! (bad joke, I know)
DOH! That’ll teache me to read a whole entry before I post….
Your wish is my command, RT… 🙂
you are totally amazing kris!!
by the by what happens when you mix the two?? Yarn Explosions?!?