I think the story of this custom knit poncho started after I made a magical poncho for my younger. He organically advertised my knitting by wearing it everywhere and to parties.
My younger brother’s party monster! The tassels took forever by the way.
Fantastic Fantastitch Knitspiration
A while later, I had finished my Fantastitch Shawl. If you haven’t seen my Fantastitch Shawl, check out this post about the West Knit Shawls I’ve knit.
After seeing my Fantastitch via my brother, Clancy messaged his interest in ordering his own, custom knit poncho. He wanted it knit in similar UV yarns that I knit the Fantastitch with and he immediately paid a deposit. Therefore I went to Stephen & Penelope website and searched for similar yarns to what I had used on the Fantastitch.
Some guess work is involved when looking at the yarns online as to whether they will fluoresce when a UV or blacklight is used on them. But I had had success with Undercover Otter Yarns previously so predominantly I ordered Undercover Otter Yarns.
Custom Knit Poncho Stitch Patterns
I knit my younger brother’s poncho in plain stocking stitch striped with different colours. However, I didn’t want this poncho to be just striped and just stocking stitch. It needed to be a bit more… Fancy.
After the ribbed collar, I knit a chevron pattern with just stocking stitch and garter stitch. It was quite subtle but I liked it enough to keep it there. Then I knit a slip stitch chevron with orange and blue. I enjoyed this chevron stitch and I plan to revisit it in the form of a cowl and a hat at a later time.
Next was the large logo with a wizard hat and a moustache. During this section I stuck to plain stocking stitch stripes because I wanted the focus to be on the logo.
After that I tried out a couple more funky and trippy two colour slip stitch patterns broken up by garter stitch and reverse stocking stitch.
Nearing the end of the custom knit poncho…
By this time there were well over 900 stitches and it was high time the poncho had a border. Although I love the chevron borders on the West Shawls, I wanted to have something more unique and not just a copy paste of someone else’s hard work. I also wanted larger distance between the tip and the indent in the border than the chevron border of the Fantastitch and Slipstravaganza Shawls. It really is a wholly custom poncho!
I played around with the increases and decreases so not every row was the same. And also included a few popcorn stitches here and there as I’d done this stitch a few times in my recent projects. For example the Mix Tape Shawl and Frenchy Blouse. Because sometimes a bit of texture is just the thing that is required.
Again inspired by West Knits Shawls, I thought of binding off in i-cord. However, I really felt like it needed to have dangly bits. Plus, what’s one of the most fancy bind-offs out there? It’s only fitting to give a fancy bind-off to a Fancy Clancy Poncho! Therefore a picot bind-off was a necessity!
However, I had run out of yarn to do a picot bind-off so stash diving I went. I came up with NNK Yarns, colourway Radioactive, to do the picot. The yarn fluoresced somewhat, was superwash like the rest of the yarns, and was a dramatic contrast to the pink of the ripple border. Perfect! Two days later the poncho was off the needles!
Finishing a knit once it has finished being knit
Knitting a massive project like this is only half the battle. I’ve never done intarsia before so I’d hazard that my attempt at the logo was not as efficient or practical as it could have been with an intarsia master. Consequently this custom knit poncho generated thousands of ends to weave in.
I’d been weaving in a lot as went. But had a large portion of the logo threads still to weave in and that took me two days. But I managed to finish it all and get it blocked by deadline. It had to be done Monday as Clancy flew out Tuesday.
A Very Happy Customer!
Clancy was very happy with his Fancy Clancy Poncho and the surprise Fancy Clancy hat! (My poor younger brother was jealous and wanted the hat! “I called dibs…” He said. I’ll be reknitting the hat so that a pattern can be released soon and the second sample of the hat will have to go to my younger brother.
I felt kinda sad saying goodbye to the poncho. It had been a work-in-progress for a bit over a year. It was a constant bright squishy mess in the house. But it was such a relief that he was so happy with it. He hadn’t seen any progress shots throughout so I was really scared he wouldn’t be satisfied with the end result.
