Olinda

I'm sitting here sewing buttons on what will more than likely be my last FO for the year. Eight little wooden buttons for a sweet cardie for Toby.

I feel like I've sewn a lot of buttons on this last month as I've busily knit away the festive season.

How about you?

Was the last month a crazy frenzy of gift creating?

Before all this crazy gift knitting began, I did release a new pattern. A pattern I love very very much. I mentioned this pattern in the last blog post back at the start of the month. See I've been too busy knitting to even blog!

My new pattern is called Olinda.

Olinda is a really lovely lace cardigan flowing from a circular garter stitch yoke. It is completely seamless, knit from the top down with lace panels running vertically.

What I really love about Olinda is that it is reversible; while it's not the same on both sides, each side of the garment is equally lovely.

In the photo above, Lily is actually wearing the cardigan what would be considered the wrong side out.

And below here, she's wearing it the right way.

Can you see the difference?

This cardie is named after a sweet little town in the Dandenong Ranges, just outside of Melbourne. I planned to name this cardie after Lily's favourite place. Up until our visit there in July, her favourite place was the Bollards in Geelong!

Olinda is such a pretty little town perched up high in the forest and surrounded with such lush green vegetation. It was like a winter wonderland for our kiddies, they hadn't really experienced weather that cold before. And the possibility of snow while we were there was just unimaginable for them. They fell in love. It is such a far cry in terms of landscape and weather for coastal dwelling folk like us.

While we were there we took the kids up to Lake Mountain so they could experience snow for the first time. What an amazing experience for them!

The lace in Olinda is quite intuitive and easy to follow once you get going. If you're a bit of a stop and start knitter I'd probably suggest using a life line to help you keep track of where you are up to and guard against too many accidents!

Having said that, Olinda is more suited to an intermediate knitter who is comfortable reading their own work. There are places in the pattern where you do need to be able to read what would be the next stitch in the pattern or the previous stitch.

The lace is both in written and charted form in the pattern and options are included to knit Olinda with either short or long sleeves.

Olinda is sized for chest sizes from 15 - 30", in one inch increments so will fit from newborn to around age 12 or so. It is available as a downloadable pdf from my Ravelry store for $6.

Give her some love.

Right now, I'm going to finish sewing on my buttons (I have seven to go!), and then ponder how much I've knit this year. I'm going to get out my scales and weigh those last few items and tally up my knitting yardage for the year.

Will it be more than last year?
What do you think?