FO: Gramps Cardigan

This has been sitting around finished for at least two months…just waiting for buttons.  Buttons duly found..and then sewed on two weeks later, I can finally wear this sweater.  I tried wearing it with no buttons, but I was too cold without the front being closed.

I originally thought about silver buttons, but found some grey-ish blue buttons with a silver floral pattern.  They don’t detract from the Cable Magnificence, but they also aren’t Blah Boring.

I shortened the body by approximately 3 inches and added 1.5 inches to the arms.

Bluejays were making a ruckus in the wilderness nearby.

 

I really love the detail of the welts on the back – they add a lot to the finished item, making it look more polished and higher fashion.

Also, Saturday, I got my first real hair cut in 5 years! I’ve just been trimming the icky ends every so often, but I was getting tired of wearing it in a ponytail all the time, so  it all got cut off.  New sweater, new haircut!

Pattern: Gramps Cardigan (adult) by Kate Oates

Yarn: Debbie Bliss Rialto Aran, 12 balls (I think..I lost track for a while during the summer)

Needles: erhm…whatever the pattern said

Mods: shortened body, lengthened arms

 

 

 

FO: Jamie’s Sweater

I finished the sweater for Jamie on time (mostly).  There are a few things about the zipper that I’m considering re-doing or adding, but the sweater was wearable for the rehearsal dinner, which he kindly consented to do (I’m not sure if it was because he actually wanted to or if he thought I might get upset if he didn’t wear it – I decided against close questioning on the topic).

I coerced him outside for a few photos before we headed to the church for the rehearsal.

There is a little bit of a gather at the bottom of the zipper, but I’m pretty sure I was the only one who noticed it or was annoyed by it.

I struggled with the sleeve caps and the armhole shaping – it turned out less fitted in the shoulders than I would have liked, but Jamie claimed the sweater fit well, so I’ll have to stop fussing over it each time he wears the sweater.

I’ve been considering writing up my notes and grading the sizes for publication, but there are definitely a few areas I’d like to tweak and I’m not sure I feel up to knitting a second sweater in Jamie’s size in fingering weight yarn at the moment.  I may just organize my notes and leave it for a few months… Although – the stockinette stitch body is good for mindless knitting. Maybe I’ll get started on a second one and not have a particular deadline.  I have enough of this yarn in a dark grey color for a second sweater.

Size: 44″ chest

Yarn: Debbie Bliss Rialto 4-ply, color #13, navy; 11 balls/ 2178 yds total

Needles: US 1 and US 3

 

FO: Kira

The summer has been busy, so naturally, four days before Jamie and I left for a wedding in Palo Alto, I decided a new cardigan was an imperative accessory for the new dress. 45 minutes of trolling through my ravelry queue, favorites and patterns that fit the yarn I wanted to use and I decided upon Kira by Cecily Glowik-MacDonald.  I did in fact manage to finish it before landing in California by dint of not doing anything else that week.  And as soon as we disembarked I was glad I had at least one handknit to wear – so much cooler than Texas!

This is a picture Jamie’s brother took at the wedding (which was a beautiful outdoor affair – exactly what I’d imagined it would look like).  Not the best shot of the new cardigan, but the only one I have of wearing it at the actual event for which I knit it.

In my mind, I had a bunch of red buttons in my button tin, but when I looked the night before we left, I couldn’t find ANY, so I settled for some plain jane transparent/pearl-y buttons in the right size. I swapped out the buttons for the red ones I had in mind (which I had to purchase because apparently I’d only purchased that button in orange not red).

I found the dress at the White House Black Market outlet store – a steal for the fit, quality and fact that it has POCKETS.

Since it is so comfortable, I’m planning to wear this outfit for our wedding rehearsal (and then changing into jeans and a sweater for the Oktoberfest-themed dinner in the backyard).  Two hours is about my limit for wearing a dress.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get my red Fluevogs into the picture, but they look really cute.

Re: the sweater: I do have trouble with keeping it up on my shoulders – this is a common problem for me with many cardigans, regardless of the neckline. I think my shoulders just angle downward at a steep slope or something.  I made several modifications to the sleeves – firstly, I knit the sleeves for one size smaller so that they would be more fitted.  When I joined the sleeves to the body, I eliminated several of the sleeve decreases from the yoke shaping in order to end up with the same final number for the cast-off. Secondly, I shortened the sleeves by several inches. The yarn I used is an alpaca/silk/merino blend so some growing in length is inevitable. I was slightly concerned about the amount of yarn I had (turns out I have four skeins remaining – the short knitting time must have addled my math skills) and I wanted this cardigan to be more in-between seasons than bracelet-length sleeves (for Texas).

Pattern: Kira by Cecily Glowik-MacDonald

Size: Medium, with Small sleeves

Yarn: Bristol Yarn Gallery Ashton

Needles: 6?

Mods: Sleeves

 

FO: Corazon for DFW Fiber Fest 2012

This sweater, started with plenty of time to spare, was only finished the night before I needed it – partly because I pulled out the whole yoke after knitting it once and partly because with only the sleeves left to knit, I did something to my right wrist and my knitting speed slowed considerably.  My wrist is still unable to really flex through a whole range of motion, although rotating it isn’t a problem.  My knitting style doesn’t require much bend in the wrist, so I can knit, although I took three days off just to give my wrist a little extra recovery.

The sweater is knit from the top-down with a lace pattern outlined by garter stitch columns and raglan-sleeve shaping. I started the sweater and was faithfully following the directions for when to begin the lace pattern and the increases for raglan yoke shaping.  I was knitting the 4th size available and somewhere along the way, I circled the 3rd size increases for the yoke (not the sleeves, because these were oddly listed elsewhere – I’ll return to this point).  I was rather dubious about only beginning the lace pattern around the increases once I had reached the full number of stitches for the pattern – in my opinion, this was leaving rather too much plain stockinette stitch but I didn’t want to pull it out.  However, the moment I realized that I had increased the wrong number of stitches for the yoke and the stockinette was still ugly, I tried it on (to make sure it was as ugly on as I thought it was) and then was rather happy to realize that I had to rip out back to the collar.   When I re-started, I worked the lace pattern into the increases and the result is much nicer.  I followed the directions as stated for the standard-length body (there is a long version included) and then began the sleeves.  The 3/4 sleeves called for 12 repeats from the cast-on edge of the lace pattern, but when I got to 11 repeats, I realized that either my row gauge was off or the sleeves were going to be bracelet-length (ick). I’m so glad I decided to leave off the last lace repeat. I also left off 4 rows of ribbing along the sleeves and the bottom edge of the body.

As far as the overall pattern – it is decently written and relatively easy to follow, but parts of it drove me absolutely crazy.  Firstly, the directions tell you to begin the collar with a 24″ circular needle. If the designer could get those stitches stretched out to join over 24″, I’d like to see it happen.  After several frustrating tries, I eventually got out a 20″ needle, which was much easier to manage. Secondly, the raglan-sleeve shaping was divided into increases for the sleeves and increases for the front/back – and then you had to put both of those together to figure out which rows had both shaping or just front/back shaping. YARGH. Thirdly, telling me to not begin working a column of the lace pattern until all the stitches were present created ugly and highly visible columns of stockinette stitch along the raglan shaping -  right along the shoulder lines.  As I mentioned before, when I re-started I ignored this part and worked such parts of the lace pattern as I could.  Fourthly, I am not at all certain as to why the columns separating the lace pattern columns are knit in garter stitch.  Reverse stockinette would set off the lace just as well and does not have the factor of significantly different row gauges to contend with.

The sweater did not end up quite as fitted as I had anticipated, but is more flowing and has quite a bit of extra space in the underarm area.  I knit to gauge and the size I chose was to give 1″ of negative ease…but I ended up with a bit of positive ease.  Don’t get me wrong – it looks great, but was not the style I was aiming for.

The yarn was lovely to work with – the end product is a delightfully smushy fabric that is soft and warm, yet not too heavy for summer-weather days in the spring.  I’m not sure if it is just the dye color or the yarn itself, but the yarn has a slight sheen, adding a pearl-y look to the sweater, making the sweater much more elegant than if it were knitted in a flat/matte yarn.  I’m definitely picking up some of this yarn for myself.  I maybe see a possible new sweater design out of this?

Onto nicer things!  I got sooo many compliments when I wore this on Friday and Sunday at the DFW FiberFest.  I was quite pleased that everyone loved the sweater and the yarn.  Also,  it goes nicely with the new hat I picked up from the Buffalo Wool Co.   All I need is a pair of awesome boots  to really make it an eye-catching outfit.  (Jamie claims I am on my way to becoming Indiana Jones but I think I’m aiming for Claire McLeod…all I need are some chickens and sheep.  And possibly a horse.  Nevermind the fact that I’ve only been on a horse two times that I know of, both times when I was 10 or younger)

Pattern: Corazon by Julia Trice (rav link),  size 35″  standard body length and 3/4 sleeve

Yarn: Sweet Georgia Yarns Superwash DK,  4.5 skeins, Tumbled Stone ( I had two dyelots  and was alternating between skeins- if I’d had only one, 4 skeins would have been plenty)

Needles: US 5

Mods: Worked raglan increases into lace pattern, eliminated 1  lace repeat from sleeve length, shortened ribbing by 4 rows on bottom and sleeve edges.

 

WIP: Gramps Cardigan

 

Last summer at TNNA, Pam and I wandered in and out of booths, around displays and wore ourselves out with eyeing yarn and sample garments.  When we stopped off at the area for Tot Toppers, our eyes light up and we cooed a lot over all the hats and baby things.  I also happened to spy some non-baby/toddler items in amongst the knitwear and was pleased to find that Kate Oates, the mind behind Tot Toppers, had another line called When I Grow Up which features items for larger kids and adults.  Kate was also nice enough to give us a coupon code for a free pattern download of our choosing.   I held tightly onto that postcard with my fiber-grubby and sweaty hand and when we got back to the hotel, I immediately pulled up the pattern list and set to deciding what  pattern to download.  I pretty much knew the one I wanted, but I tried to make it seem like I was weighing pros and cons of certain patterns – the store carries the Tot Toppers patterns, so those are easy to purchase, but we didn’t have any from When I Grow Up.

The Gramps Cardigan was calling to me – shawl collar, a casual style, and cables.  But I had plans for all the yarn in my stash that would fit the pattern needs (or I was short on yardage).  But then Clare asked me if I wanted some yarn that she had picked up and didn’t ever plan to knit – of course I would.  20 skeins of Rialto Aran in Denim were shortly in my anxious hands and I didn’t even bother doing a gauge swatch, but read through most of the pattern and crafted my plan of attack.  I have a thing with using a provisional or tubular cast-on for ribbed edges; I don’t like the line that most cast-ons leave at the edge of the work.  So, off I went – and two weeks later, I still haven’t remembered to show you any of my progress.  I have not been working on it every day – maybe every two or three days, but for the time I’ve spent on it, I feel like I’ve made quite a bit of progress.  Aran weight yarns work up so quickly. Or they seem to when you’ve been knitting in sport or fingering weight on all the other projects in the background.

The body is knit in one piece, with the arms joined to the yoke and the shawl collar band picked up, leaving little finishing work.

The color is definitely that denim color, but I had trouble with the lighting this morning and the picture is a bit more grey than in real life.  I am also planning to shorten the body by a few inches, since the original length hits me right around the widest part of my hips.  I prefer my sweaters, even my comfy, lazy-Saturday sweaters, to fall right at the waistband of my pants – basically where my hip bones are.

 

FO: Warriston

This is going to be a picture-heavy post.  I took pictures of my completed Warriston this afternoon and just couldn’t cut out too many of them because I have so many fabulous facial expressions. I call the photo series “Sweltering Afternoon in Wool Sweater with Threat of Rain.”  I’m so pleased with how well the final sweater turned out.  I broke the Number One rule I preach to people (who mostly don’t know what they’re doing, but it’s okay, because I do) which is to change the yarn weight and follow one of the other sizes in the pattern to achieve a different final size.  I did alter some of the numbers for the neck decreases to make a better fit, but really that’s about the only modification I made.  And adding length to the sleeves. Bracelet length sleeves just don’t do it for me.  I have a habit of pulling sleeves over my hands to keep them warm.

 

The cowl neck and pockets in the welt pattern are what caught my eye in the first place and both of those aspects came out just the way I wanted.  The sweater can only be better because it is in a shade of red that I love to wear.

Did you call my name? Is there a horrible smell in the air? Do I just always have a scrunched up facial expression?

If my face is always scrunched up, it’s okay, because I’m having delusions of being Napoleon (except my pocket is horizontal instead of vertical).

Hmm.  How would have I tackled Waterloo differently?? Let me look off into the scenery to contemplate such a question.

This is the face I practice for the future when I will be avoiding paparazzi in the grocery store parking lot. I’m concentrating so hard on how to get to my car that I have to bite my lip.

Never mind – I’ll just head off into the undergrowth and shrubbery.  I always seem to take at least one picture where I’m pulling my ponytail off the back of my neck.

Is this remote actually working? If I press the button a gajillion times, eventually the camera shutter will release while I’m not looking at it.

If pressing the button won’t work, perhaps speaking harshly to the camera will make it release.

Or I could point my wand at the camera because apparently my sub-conscious thinks I’m Hermione Granger.

This is my society sashay.

Was that rabbit or a squirrel in the bushes?

Dudes, I don’t even know what is going on here.

I have somewhere I have to be.  It’s inside. Out of the 98F heat in a worsted weight wool sweater.  What you don’t see is the sweat beading on my forehead.

But you really came here to see sweater details a little better. You can see the i-cord bind-off on the pockets and the bottom edge.  The camera is having difficulty capturing the red of the sweater and not even messing with the color on the computer can save this from looking over-exposed.

Sleeve increases and the welt pattern on the sleeve cuffs.

An even more up-close shot of the sleeve cuffs and the i-cord edging.  The stitches for the edging are picked up after the sleeve is knit and worked in an i-cord bind-off, which makes a pretty nice cuff – not too stretchy and the edge won’t flip out as it would have if left to it’s own stockinette-stitch devices.

The weather just needs to cooperate and get cool enough for sweaters.  The middle of September should not be this hot. I declare it so.

Pattern: Warriston by Kate Davies

Yarn: Ella Rae Extra Fine Merino Heathers, 12 balls

Needles: US 6 and US 8

Mods: Knit to a smaller gauge and less ease (negative or zero ease, in fact).

 

Warriston-in-Progress

I’ve never been this long knitting without working on a sweater (in my mind, vests don’t count). If you looked at my mental knitting queue, the sweaters I want to knit (some published patterns, some designs of my own) make up a good 95%.  Of course, finding the right pattern with the right yarn and the drive to knit it is sometimes hard to find, but in the case of Warriston, I’d downloaded the pattern (complete with fascinating historical article about smocks in England) a few weeks ago – mostly because I wanted to read the article and because I thought that at some point in time I’d get around to knitting the sweater.   My daily trolling of Ravelry kept including the projects for the sweater and on Monday, I realized that I had just purchased the ideal yarn in a bag sale. And so,  Monday afternoon I cast on and the knitting has been just what I needed at the end of some stressful days.

The welt pattern is repeated on the sleeve cuffs and  on the cowl.  The i-cord bind-off on the pocket edges makes a very neat finishing detail.

The knitting is moving along very quickly.  The body is in stockinette, which makes for great knitting while reading – and I have a whole stack of books that has been building up on my nightstand.   Yesterday I listened to one of the Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter by Susan Wittig Albert and daydreamed of fell-walking in this sweater upon completion, although, no fells being handy in Texas, I will accept cooler weather and a walk in the park with crunchy leaves underfoot as an alternative.

 

Pie in the Sky

DFW fiberfest is this weekend and I was hoping to have a new sweater design off the needles and ready to wear.  I’ve been knitting on it during all my spare time and when I started it, I thought two weeks would be plenty of time to finish.

Two weeks was not plenty of time to knit a sweater in fingering weight during only “spare time.”  Even as late as Tuesday night, I thought I might be able to pull it off.  I wish I knew what drugs someone had secretly given me, because I’d like to be that optimistic about a lot of things.

Yesterday afternoon I had a a reality check. The sweater, knit from the top down, only reaches half-way to the total length. The sleeves have not been started. No hood has been knit. No ends have been woven in. These things can not be accomplished in the amount of “spare time” I have before Fiberfest starts.  I’m setting up the Woolie Ewe booth tonight and then working all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

I’ll just have to wait until the sweater is actually finished to wear it.

 

Vista Hoodie in Progress

My apologies for the less-than-attractive photos – the lighting this morning was terrible.

As commenter Chelsea (from Classic Elite) accurately guessed,I’m knitting the Vista Hoodie from Shoreline.  I got a bit carried away with the stockinette border, knitting an extra 3/4″.  Once I got into the trinity stitch section, it seemed like I would knit three rows, then back out two rows because I wasn’t paying attention: not completing a 3 stitch increase, or not following with a 3 stitch decrease.  Once I got my mind wrapped around how the rows are supposed to appear as you work them, it was smooth sailing.  I’m sure that making this my tv knitting didn’t make it easier for my mind to visualize how everything was supposed to work together.

I’m using Addi Lace needles for this project which I feel are absolutely necessary to completing P3tog with any modicum of speed and ease, especially in a non-stretchy yarn.

The yarn content is 70% cotton/30% linen, which gives the fabric a lovely drape, but it is not fun for my hands.  I have this problem with all yarns that don’t have any natural elasticity.  But, since I really want this piece to be a three-season garment (including the Texas summer), I’m willing to tough it out for the cool-ness of the linen.

Over at A Woolie Tale, I’m getting all geared up for a knit-a-long of Susan B. Anderson’s new book, Spud and Chloe at the Farm. I’m going to begin by knitting Farm Dog.

 

FO: Oatmeal Sweater

Jamie prefers to call this the “medieval peasant” sweater.  I just want to call it “Done!”  I started the dumb thing the summer of 2008, based on the “Riding to Avalon” hoodie by Connie Chang Chinchio.  My gauge was off, and I’d recently read an article about altering patterns to the gauge you are getting, so I knit the body from the altered math.  I knit a sleeve and hit a brick wall.  The article had failed to mention that sleeve cap shaping and armhole shaping would need to be changed.  The sleeve cap was much too small for the armhole and I put the sweater away in disgust.

I pulled it out now and again and worried that I wouldn’t have enough yarn, because the stitch pattern on the hood and cuffs ate up the yardage.  I pulled out the hood and the collar and re-set the yarn. In the winter of 2009, I knit a plain hood and a ribbed collar onto the body.  I wore it around the house as a vest on a few cold days, but decided the armhole shape really needed a sleeve on it to be attractive. I prowled the internet and magazines for articles on sleeve cap shaping and math.  None of them helped very much.

Fall of 2010 rolled around and I found myself reading “Custom Knits” by Wendy Bernard, which included the technique of knitting sleeves from the top down, using short rows to shape the sleeve cap. VOILA!  I left the sweater behind during my two months in Virginia, but picked it up the week I arrived back in Texas.  And so, dear readers, in March 2011, I have finally finished the stupid, lovely, warm, delightful sweater that has been riding on my knitting conscience for so long.

It is such a plain sweater, but it fits so well.  I really don’t know why this sweater had to hibernate so long.

I used darts in the front and back to add waist shaping.

The obligatory picture of Tee with the finished item.

My cameraman called Tee – you see how well she can resist him.

Pattern: Whothehellknows

Yarn: Queensland Kathmandu DK (sadly discontinued)

Needle: US 5