Web-Letter, Issue 60 – Girl's Floral Poncho Pink never seems to go out of fashion in the hearts of young girls—and older girls, too. Eleven year-old Sara Meier-Rioux recently moved from the U.S. to Switzerland with her mom Joëlle Meier Rioux (CEY design team member). With a little help from her mom and grandmother, Sara designed and made a charming (pink) poncho and sent us the pattern and pictures. Note the simple rolled edges at top and bottom, the large flower motifs randomly placed on the body of the sweater, and the neat row of smaller flowers that edge the bottom. This isn’t Sara’s first published design, her sketch and swatch became the starting point for the Cotton Bam Boo Girl-Tank shown in Make It Modern. Sara tells her story of the poncho just below.
The Story: Now that my mom and I have moved to Switzerland, I find that it gets colder earlier, so I wanted a simple thing to keep me warm. A poncho is a nice cover, it isn’t that hard to make and you can do whatever you want to it in the way of decorations. My grandmother and mom helped knitting and throwing in ideas. My grandma had the good idea of pearl beads made into little flowers. At first I wanted crocheted circles, but then I thought that using felt would make it faster. My mom helped me decide on colors that would look good with the yarn. The yarn, Renaissance, is made of 100% wool. It is warm and not itchy! The loose gauge makes it nice and light, which is good, because the beads and buttons can get kind of heavy. I wanted to put on many more beads and buttons, but that way it would have gotten way too heavy. So I chose five of my favorite kind of buttons and used pearl beads and felt cutouts for the rest of the decorations. My first idea of the poncho seems boring now, compared to how it really came out! The Yarn: Renaissance — 100% wool Renaissance is a 3-ply, classic, 100% wool yarn in a beautiful color palette. The wool fiber used in make Renaissance comes from sheep raised in Peru’s highlands—the wool makes a yarn that is lovely, soft, and warm. Renaissance garments are lightweight, but they don’t lack substance; the yarn has structure and drape at the same time. Most often worked on a medium needle for a worsted weight gauge, Renaissance can be worked successfully in a series of different gauges. Renaissance looks great in plain stockinette stitch, and it gives good definition to stitch patterns. Its many colors come in tidy 50-gram hanks, hanks that won't leave you with tons of leftover yarn if you plan on using several colors in a single project. And it felts beautifully—keep reading. The Stitches: Renaissance is a great yarn for felted projects. Instead of buying felt to make the flowers and circles for Sara’s poncho, try making your own. Here's how.	more photos The Pattern: Here is the free downloadable Girl's Floral Poncho pattern.
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