Sorry it's been so long!

Well, it's just been a few weeks, but it's been a hard month for a lot of people, full of challenges of all kinds.

It has been very cold, hasn't it? I had something bronchial, but am now on the mend and am back knitting.


















For a while, I frantically knitted dickey's, the first of which I have hardly taken off since I finished it. It's a charming salmon colour. I like to think that it makes me look healthier.

I used Meg Swansen's variations on EZ's basic pattern from page 42 of Knitting Around. You knit a tube with the circumference of a tuque and then cast on extra stitches and knit a "surround to cover the top of your chest and shoulders. The "surround" hangs down about 3-4 inches. I love that book, it's like a printed blog, really. I never get tired of reading about Elizabeth Zimmerman.

A word on dickey's - they are detachable shirt fronts, collars or bibs per the Wiktionary. They've been supremely unfashionable and draw remarks like, "What happened to the rest of the sweater?" In the category of "what not to wear," the dickey is lower than the turtleneck. For some reason, this makes it appeal to me more.

Then I got creative with the pattern. I made the second dickey open at the front and extended the extended the "surround" out on a curve so that it became more of a shawlette. I used one ball of Koigu KPPM and 2 of Art Yarns Merino something or other. They seem like the same yarn and the colours blended nicely. I added a basic lace edging and i-cord for the buttonholes.

Here are a series of shots...










Comments

Helen said…
I had an aunt who knitted dickies of the most acutely unfashionable sort, and I thought that I had a lifelong aversion to them, but your combination with a shawlette (which is a word I never thought I would say) begins to make them more feasible again. It's funny how one's eye for something changes.
January 23, 2009 at 6:28 AM
Mary Lou said…
I'm with helen - dickeys were a joke of my youth, but I like yours!
January 23, 2009 at 8:32 AM
Ella said…
I must try to do something like this ...it`s lovely.
January 25, 2009 at 10:57 AM
Marjorie said…
That looks pretty and practical. I too remember them from my childhood, and then they disappeared. I think they're nice for wearing underneath sweaters, as you have in your modeling shot.
January 25, 2009 at 3:38 PM
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