Vespa

Ta dah! At long last I have finished my latest pattern. No one guessed that what I have been making is a Vespa scooter. Iconic, and I think those who are into them really, really love them. 

It was also one of my patterns where I was spurred on by being told I could not possibly knit one. You might say pig-headed, I would say determined.

So for Vespa-lovers, I would call this knit an ornament, and definitely not a toy. (I would quite like to display my knitted scooters under glass domes.) There are a huge number of different models of Vespa, and I have spent a long time looking at them. They have slight variations, but I would call this classic Vespa. I have a Pinterest board where I have saved loads of pictures of Vespas old and new, and also started saving celebrities on their Vespas, (also old and new). 

What I love is all the colours that Vespa scooters come in. You really could knit this in any colour and not be wrong. I thought I would need to insert wire in the handlebars, but by using thickish wool and small needles, the icord is rigid enough without.

The structure of the body is made by using a bit of card in the the front panel and base. There is a template for this in the pattern. The pattern is 14 pages long, and jam packed with photos to help with the construction.

One of the main problems I had writing up the pattern is that I don't really know the correct names for parts of the scooter. (After all, I am a knitter, not a mechanic.)  The knitting of the parts is not hard, but the sewing together is quite fiddly.

The pattern is available on ravelry, Etsy, and LoveKnitting.

And here is a photo of my daughter, sitting on someone else's Vespa at Goodwood this year.  I would love to be able to nip around on a Vespa.