Knitted with 100% New Zealand wool, Wool Pak 10 ply. This photo doesn't capture the intricacy of the Aran pattern, so we'll be replacing it sometime with a photo taken when the contrast is not so great.
This is a warm Aran jersey with attached hood
for my daughter Tara, knitted with 100% New Zealand wool. There is
one long handwarmer across the front with openings on each side. I
ordered too much of this yarn and the remainder was sufficient for two
child-size vests for
www.afghansforafghans.org
Here my brother-in-law wears his Aran-style jersey outside Chepstow Castle, Wales. Although the stitches are Aran, the yarn is 12-ply rather than true Aran (10-ply). The colour is 'silver' and the yarn is 100% wool by Bendigo Wools. I knitted this in Australia. It was high summer in Australia but fortunately I found a good spot to sit right under an air-conditioning outlet while knitting. I had a lot of fun knitting this during spare time at work and hope some of the people who stopped to admire my progress will enjoy this picture of the finished result.
One of the boys decided that they wanted me to knit them a sheep. So here, from an old Jarol pattern, is the blue-eyed sheep. She is knitted from a variety of New Zealand and Australian worsted 8-ply wools. She wears a bell around her neck and has a store-bought nose. Her body is stuffed with white synthetic toy stuffing, her feet and muzzle with dark 'knee-highs' so no stuffing of contrasting colour shows through.
Tara's Pink Top.
This top is knitted in Sirdar Snowflake, which makes a wonderfully soft, stretchy, fluffy fabric. I don't like using synthetic yarns, because I knit with a high tension and need the elasticity of wool if I am not to get sore hands, but Tara loves this top. The buttons are little pink sheep that she chose herself.
While I was knitting this top, Elroy asked for a pillowcase knitted from the same yarn, so I ended up knitting fluffy pillowcases for him and for Gene. Elroy's is pale blue while Gene's is bright yellow! It had never occurred to me that a fluffy pillowcase might be nice, but in fact they are very comfortable.
Martin's Aran jersey.
This was my first attempt at an Aran. I'd used double knit (8 ply) exclusively for years, partly because I could use leftovers for intarsia sections of the next jersey or else for making Jean Greenhowe's toy designs. But I fell in love with the texture of Aran jerseys. This one is a King Cole pattern - that had a mistake in it, which I had to figure out and correct. I used a wonderful 100% wool Aran yarn from Bendigo Wools. I lengthened the arms a bit too because everyone in our family has long arms and arm length is often the first thing we grow out of. Martin selected the pattern and the yarn colour himself.
Tara's balloon jersey.
This pattern appeared in the Fall '96 issue of Family Circle Knitting, in which it was a dark green jersey with deep pink balloons. Green is not really Tara's colour so I did it in deep red instead. I decided to have balloons of two different colours because I wasn't sure I had enough wool to do them all in one, but when Tara wore it to school one of her friends, quite unaware that the original pattern was for balloons of all one colour, told her that it would have been a boring jersey with just one colour of balloon but as it is, is really interesting!
The yarns are all 100% wool, double knit (worsted weight), but are a variety of brands from New Zealand and Australia. The main colour is Clan Stewart 8 Ply. The strings are Thorobred and at least one of the pinks is Cleckheaton; I'm not sure about the other.
