Details

Pattern:

Ship Shape by Heidi Kirrmaier

Yarn:

Drops Belle DK weight (53% cotton, 33% viscose, 14% linen), 50g balls. 4 x silver and 6 x petrol.

Cost:

Pattern: £4.10 including discount for buying 4 patterns at the same time.

Yarn: £17.45!!!! By far the cheapest garment I’ve knit.

Total (excluding labour): £21.55!!!! I had to check this a few times!

Timeline:

Started – 30th March 2022

Finished – 17th June 2022. Altered – 22nd June 2022.

Link to Ravelry Page

Pattern summary

I am a bit of a Heidi Kirrmaier pattern addict! This is the 6th pattern of hers I have knitted. I’ve already knitted (or started to knit) 2nd versions of some of her patterns, I don’t think I will re-knit this one though. Time will tell.

It’s an unusual construction which made it interesting to begin with but I found the body and arms a little boring, despite the stripes. You carry the yarn colours so there’s limited ends to weave in which is good, especially with this very splitty yarn that is hard to weave in neatly.

As usual the pattern is written well with clear instructions, schematic etc. It was easy to follow and I didn’t need to check on anything. On Ravelry, Heidi has a folder per pattern where you can ask questions if needed but this was pretty straightforward, although as I say a little unusual construction up to splitting for the arms,

I made a couple of changes due to the yarn chicken I was playing (with the initial 9 balls skeins). I only did 2” not 2.5” of ribbing at the bottom. I used Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off. On the arms I only did 2 sets of decreases on the 10th rows (instead of 4 sets) and then switched to doing them every 8th row. My gauge is significantly tighter on the arms, but they definitely aren’t tight sleeves. I ran out of the silver early so the sleeves aren’t full length.

However…I really didn’t like the finished jumper on. I could see the jumper growing and the neck getting wider and lower as I was stood there looking at it. The neck gap grew at least 4” as I stood there. With the designer’s specified yarn I don’t know if this would happen. The top is designed to have a lot of positive ease but the top, for me, needs a much less wide neck and a higher back.

Did I wash my swatch? Probably not to be honest, but I don’t think a small swatch would grow like this did, this was stretching before my eyes because of the weight of the garment.

I washed and tumble dried it and it was still too wide at the neck. So I bought more yarn and added a ribbed neck. It’s a different dye lot but close enough.

Adding the neck: I picked up 44 stitches on the front and back and picked up 24 stitches on each shoulder section. I did the K2P2 rib and made a mistake starting at K2…I should have Knit 1 so it was symmetrical but never mind.

On the 2nd row I started the decreases doing K1, SSK, then either Knit or Purl as per row below to 3 sts before marker and then K2Tog K1. I repeated this on all four sides and every row. 9 rib neck rows in total. I got carried away and did too many rows and couldn’t get the jumper on, so I ripped back a row, did Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off using a needle size up and this worked perfectly.

I’m at last happy.

Yarn Summary

The yarn was a bargain. It could do with a warning label about it growing though. It’s a little tough on the hands but I didn’t need to protect my fingers with tape or plasters like I did with the Drop Bomull-Lin (Cotton 53%/Linen 47%) yarn I used on my Quick Sand cardigan. I definitely found my hands getting more tired than when knitting with wool. It’s very splitty so if that’s something that annoys you then this yarn isn’t for you.

It comes in a good range of colours. I chose silver (which is more like a dirty cream) and petrol. A few people used this yarn for this project before so I knew it had looked ok and liked those who had used these two colours together.

I put a colour catcher in the washing machine and it came out totally dark teal colour and I suspect the silver is a little greener. No one else mentioned this but they probably didn’t wash theirs in a machine at 40°C to shrink it.

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