Confidette completed

I have finished my Confidette bolero, which is something of a relief. I found it much harder work than the Wondrella cardigans - although I must stress that this was due to my limitations as a novice knitter, not Tasha's pattern, which was excellent as ever.

The bolero being blocked

To my surprise and relief, I had knitted the first sleeve head correctly, and it joined as it should at the underarm. Then it was just a case of knitting in the round, with decreases, until I reached the cuff. By this stage it was obvious that I was going to have sufficient wool from the Wondrella leftovers, and hadn't needed that extra ball after all. Still, better safe than sorry.

The second sleeve was a definite 'sleeve island' slog. My stitch pick-up was a tiny bit better, but still left a lot to be desired, and I can't say that knowing what I was doing made the second sleeve head much easier, either. Once the sleeves were done, I tried the bolero on to see if the body needed any more length. It was hard to tell, as the knitting curled up, but I decided that it was fine. Mind you, that choice may just have been from the desire to get the thing finished!

Apologies for the wobbly phone-and-mirror photo!

I don’t know if picking up stitches is anyone's favourite part of knitting, but it certainly isn't mine, and there were almost 200 stitches to pick up round the fronts and neck.

Knitting the first band of the border

I decided not to knit the border in the round, as I couldn't face the prospect of 400-stitch purl rows. Instead I followed Tasha's option of knitting it flat and sewing it up at the end, which has the advantage of creating smooth rows of the different colours.

Not perfect, but pretty good

It's only when you are casting off that you get to see the front corners properly, and to a newbie like me, they do look very impressive.

Magic!

One advantage of doing the sleeves first was that I got to practice the new to me (Icelandic) bind off on short edges. Despite this, I still feel that I may have bound off the fronts too tightly, as the fronts rise up at the centre in a way which they don't on Tasha's examples. Also, it seems to have ended up a bit too wide around the waist, and the fit just generally feels a bit 'off'. I'm hoping that some of these niggles are simply the result of what I did find at times a frustrating knit, and that they will fade over time. For now, I'm taking inspiration from my dressmaking and regarding it as 'wearable toile', and a good use of leftover yarn.

The length is perfect at the back

Showing the border round the neck

It also helps that it goes beautifully with this dress, which I bought from Fantouche Vintage when I was in Edinburgh in June. I very rarely wear true vintage, as it is always too long in the torso for me. However, Rhona had several seamstress-made dresses which must have been sewn for wearers who were as short-waisted as I am (the orange and green one in the photo above is another of my purchases), and fitted me perfectly - joy! The blue dress is sleeveless, so a light-cover-up is a perfect accessory.

The colours work so well with this vintage print

I have got yarn stashed for another Confidette, but I think that I will knit something else first before I dive into that. Watch this space!