Knit Poncho

Last spring, my brother Luke came up with the idea that I should knit him a poncho. I thought it would be fun to try to make one for him, so I started searching for a good pattern. I found a few different ones and showed them to Luke. He selected the Maderas pattern by Lauren Fréhel. However, I wasn't able to start it right away because life was just too busy.

A few months later, I decided that it was time to get going on it. I conferred with Luke quite a few times over the phone and through email and texts to ensure I had his correct measurements and the right colors. He loved the colors used in the original design, and we were able to find yarn in colors that closely resembled them. 

In September of last year, after all of that planning, I finally cast on. The poncho started to knit up quite quickly and I was loving the way the colors looked together.

I was a little nervous and a lot excited for the poncho's colorwork panel. I'd done a little colorwork before, but nothing this intricate. I had to go slow, and only work on this section when Connor was taking a nap or down for the night, so that I wouldn't get interrupted. It ended up not being that complicated, but I'm a perfectionist. I ripped it out and restarted it a couple times because I felt my tension wasn't quite right. 

   

Even after I finished it, I could see places where the tension wasn't perfect, but I forced myself to let it go and moved on. In the end, I'm quite happy with how it turned out. 

Throughout the process, I made Brian "try on" the poncho multiple times. I'd never knit a garment before, other than hats and scarves. As garments go, this wasn't very complicated. Besides some shaping at the neck line, it was basically two blankets sewn together along one side. Despite that, I wanted to make sure the poncho turned out just right. Brian is a little bigger than Luke, but having him serve as my model helped me get a good idea of how it was going to fit, and I felt more confident as I continued on. Despite his facial expressions in the pictures, he was quite happy to help. 

     

I finished the back panel during conference weekend in October. After pinning it out and steam blocking it, it was all ready to go. 

I started on the front panel soon after the back was finished, but didn't complete it nearly as fast. We had entered the holiday months, and life just got to busy for me to find time to knit. I had to set it aside for awhile. After the first of the year, things slowed just a bit, and I was able to finally get back to knitting. I was able to finish the front not long after. 

After steam blocking the front panel, I wove all the loose ends in on both pieces and seamed them together. Brian was quite happy to try on the completed project. In fact he liked it so much, that he didn't want to take it off!

Luke requested that I had fringe to the poncho's bottom. So after a couple afternoons of measuring, cutting, and tying bunches of yarn to the poncho's hems, it was complete. Brian modeled it one more time for me, donning his most Clint Eastwood-esque expression.

I took Connor to Idaho to visit my family this month. While we were up there, I was able to give Luke his poncho--completed one year after he'd first asked for it. He was quite happy with the result. I'm so excited with how it turned out. I had a lot of fun making it, and I'm so happy that he loves it!