Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Princesses, horses and pink - what a combination for a little girl.

Every little girl goes through a period of her life wherein everything has to be pink.

My creation, originally uploaded by Mariann-An.

That period starts around 3ish and continues often until boys enter into the pictures.

So it was no surprise when little I told me that she loves pink and princesses.
I did not know what to knit while waiting on the release of pattern 3 in Sock Madness 2010. I’ve started up several different things – from shawls to sweaters, without getting the “kick” to continue. Then I remembered the pink and princesses. I did not want to knit another dress or sweater; Then I got the idea; a poncho for a little girl.
There are patterns to use for the stranded work (not the poncho itself), but I wanted something custom made. I wanted to start at the neck and continue down, to enable me to add on additional rows if she gets tall too quickly. My inspiration for this poncho:
• the paper doll sweater
• horse sweater by Dale
• hønsestrik (from the 70’s - direct translation “chicken knitting” - I don’t know what you would have called it in English.
• a poncho that I had when I was around 14.
• Little I - the family’s 3.5 year princess.
How did I think when starting the project:
I did cast on temporarily as “few” stitches as I could to get it over the head. Temp cast on because I’ll add an I-cord when finish AND for me adding that afterwards make the edge more smooth and flexible. A permanent cast on would have (for me) required more stitches.
From neck to shoulder the average increases equal adding 8/4 stitches every second round/4 per round (as in raglan). However on the first few increases I do increase rather a lot to make it more like a circle at start.
When reaching the shoulder (or a little after that) my increases equals 2 per round for a while and at the far end even less.


Knitting notes:
Needle 2.5 for rib and 3 for remaining. Knitted in Bugga!, I did not use a full kein of any of the colors.

Cast on 84 temp. cast on. Those are picked up after the poncho is finished and then casted off again using a 4 stitches I-cord. 4 stitches to make it flexible go get over the head.

2 rounds pink. Then rib two knit, two purl using two strands, pink for knit and blue for purl.
Two rounds pink, on last increase one per 4th stitch.
Change to blue. Knit two rounds blue. On the last increase up to 128 stitches.
Knit hart border. On the 5/6th round increase in the blue section only 32 stitches. One blue round.
Three pink rounds.
Start second chart - 20 princesses. On first round increase 20 stitches to 180 stitches. In the photo shown above I've indicated the increases on the princess at the right.

Increase during the princess repeat up to 260 stitches. What I did do was to increase 1 per repeat on the first blue round to 200 stitches ( in the pink section) , then 2 per repeat on the “mouth” round - 240 stitches - both on the pink sections and then finally one on the last round of the skirt - adding one between the girls - 260
Finish the first princess repeat.
New hart repeat. Increase one between the harts on the 5th round after starting knitting harts - 26 new stitches 286 stitches.
Change to blue background. On second row increase to 304 stitches. I’m going to make 16 repeats of the horse pattern.
Inc to 320 on 9th pattern round horse.
Inc to 336 on 14th pattern round horse.
Inc to 352on 19th pattern round horse
Inc to 368 on 25th pattern round horse
Inc to 384 on the second last round horse.
Last pattern repeat is princesses. 35 princesses - starting over 11 stitches pr princess and increase 1 per repeat before round 15 to 420 stitches
Inc on second leg round 18 to 438.
To repeat the green color I’ve added three rounds using green before one pink and ordinary cast off.
The fringes are attached after cast off. I’ve used 4 strands and they are 3 cm measured from the edge of the poncho. In total, 140 fringes – a very boring part of the work.

11 comments:

  1. Som jeg kommenterte inne på Uformlet, dette ekke no' poncho, det er kunst! Nyyydelig!!!

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  2. Vakkert! Denne er nok ønskeobjekt for mange små jenter.

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  3. I am smitten! It is adorable!

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  4. Very interesting and beautiful. What a luck little princess.

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  5. This is adorable! Too cute.

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  6. Den er ganske enkelt helt fantastisk.
    Enhver prinsesses drøm.

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  7. So beautiful! I can't imagine doind anything so striking!!!
    Wanda

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  8. Du lager så mye lekkert! Lurer avogtil på om du har fått innvilget noen ekstra timer i døgnet ;)
    Klem fra en navnesøster Miann (Mariann)

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  9. Dette er rett og slett kunst! Fantastisk vakkert!!

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  10. I would like a copy of the chart for the pony--if you can share it. I have a little girl that would love a little jumper with a pony on it.

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