Saturday, July 11, 2009

Commuter Knitting the Summertime Tunic by Katie Himmelberg


Commuter knitting
Originally uploaded by k_purls2
Commuter knitting, every knitter needs one project you can take on the road. I've been knitting in the mornings on the train and have found, by trial and error which projects work best for me when commuting. Projects with simple, repetitive patterns (so I don't have to try and hold a book open or cart one back in forth in bag) work well. Smaller projects that can easily fit in a little sac that Ms. Williams made for me work too. Finally, I have to be able to complete at least two rounds in 10 minutes (I need to fill a since of accomplishment!). I worked on the fitted shrug on the train and this week, I decided to give Katie Himmelberg's Summertime Tunic a whirl. It is from Interweave's Summer 2007 edition. Summertime Tunic - Interweave
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I think it is cute and it is a simple stockinette all the way through. I'm able to knit this baby and talk on the phone or people see. Today I knitted in the back of the car while my husband and son sat in front. My son took this picture of me with my iPhone. I uploaded the picture to flickr from the phone and thought I would be clever and blog about it on the expressway during traffic, but it doesn't look like that functionality is available through flickr yet. If someone knows how let me know, I'm curious.

Anyway, back to the tunic. I'm knitting it with Sirdars' Baby Bamboo, It feels very soft and knits the color up wonderfully. However, I've been through 3 spools and each one there is some sort of defect with the yarn midway through where the fiber is knotted or split. Twice it caught me off guard and so I have a two little stubbles in my top.

The other issue is the sizing of the top, I'm a little worried about how it will fit and drape. I probably should have figured in some shaping, but we will see. The size jumps from 29 to 33. I added a few extra stitches to do a 31" bust fit figuring there was a lot of ease in the top as I looked at other finished projects.

Today, the tunic comes with me to a picnic, hope I don't knit BBQ sauce into it.

3 comments:

Lynette said...

i love that tunic. it's been in my queue for a while so i can't wait to see yours.

did you finish your kusha scarf? i bought LB steel yarn to make one myself. yours look great.

Scheherazaad said...

That top will look so cute on you.

Sheila said...

That is a perfect commute project. I made that top and it remains a favorite of mine.