Saturday, November 1, 2014

Jan Burch's Poncho Pattern

I'm presently helping my dear friend, Jan Burch.   Jan has been fighting lung cancer for a few years and is presently under the care of Hospice.    

I called Jan and told her that I mentioned her knitweave poncho pattern on the knittingmachines group and people were interested in it.  She replied that she didn't know what to do with her patterns and I suggested that she could send it to me and I would sell it for her, after all this one isn't going to go out of style any time soon.    One of the reasons people like Jan's pattern is because it has sleeves.  I know a poncho doesn't have sleeves as a general rule but Jan added sleeves under the cape section of the poncho which gives the clever effect of a sweater under the poncho.  

I further added a ribbed cowl neck to mine under the woven neck that Jan designed, not because I'm a clever designer but because I charted my Jan Burch poncho with DesignaKnit using the schematics that she included with the pattern.  Unfortunately I got the neckline a little large and so added the cowl under the woven section to keep my neck warm.   I know, there's a scarf in the pattern as well but when I'm driving around and buzzing around town I sometimes would prefer to go without a scarf although this one is pretty darned nice because it matches the poncho.

I'm selling Jan's poncho for $9 using Pay Pal which makes it easy for all of us and once I receive a note from Pay Pal that you have sent me $9 I will quickly email  you a PDF pattern file which also includes a couple pages of notes Jan wrote on one of the knitting machine groups.

The pattern is written for a standard machine and as I said, is knitwoven.   You can pretty much use any knitweave pattern you want, I chose the 1x1 which is the simplest and doesn't have any floats that get caught in the car keys (my thoughts anyway). 

You can make this on the standard machine as written or you can use the schematics and your own personal knit gauge and make it on the bulky machine or mid gauge machine.    My poncho was made on the Brother 965i and I used MaryLou's Symphony (no longer available) which is a bit heavy and wove it with a discontinued worsted weight yarn from Cascade.    I wish that Cascade yarn was still available, it was beautiful.   When I make the next one I think I'll use Tamm Trenzi for the background yarn and I haven't chosen the weaving yarn yet but I know I want something that won't fuzz when worn and I might go again with a variegated yarn.   

Below is a picture of Jan's poncho and below that a picture of my finished poncho.
 
Remember, Pay Pal, $9.  When I receive a notice from Pay Pal I'll get the pattern to you.  I hope you love this poncho as much as I do.  (ps this was the first woven pattern I made on my knitting machine and I found it easy to follow).   All money received from the sale of Jan's patterns will go straight to the American Lung Association in Jan Burch's name.    Both Jan and her husband agreed this was a great way to handle it.     
 
My email address and PayPal address is rozporter1@gmail.com