Category: knitting

Hopping on the bandwagon

I made an executive knitting decision that the Sunrise Circle Jacket was just too much math and counting to be a good trip knit (I’m nearing all of the increases for the front, and my row gauge doesn’t match what’s required, so I’ll need to recalculate all of the increases -– a mess). While I was pondering what to bring instead, the Yarn Harlot made an irrefutable case for knitting the Noro Striped Scarf. I’d been hoarding a yarn store gift certificate from Kevin’s family for my birthday last year that covered the yarn perfectly, and now I’m knitting away. Choosing yarn was very difficult, since a skein of Noro is essentially a mystery, colorwise. I tried to find colors I liked, and nothing too neutral, but you really never know. Two skeins of each colorway, hopefully enough for a scarf and a hat.

I meant to just start and be sure that my needle size was right, but the color shifts are alluring and I got several inches in.

The yarn feels wonderful (soft and smooshy), and the sheen from the silk is amazing. What a great, fun knit, at the perfect time of year, and I’m so happy that I can show off the gift purchase to Kevin’s family since we’ll be there in two days! 🙂

Productive Sunday

We got up early-ish for a Sunday (10, to listen to the Eagles game). I worked on un-taping the MBR, which quickly spread to vacuuming, and then all out cleaning. Kevin helped me get the bed and mattress back in shape, and assembled our new coffee table (pictures soon!!).

The bright and sunny morning deteriorated around 1, so Kevin went out to work on the the roof and gutters before the rains came, and I went out to rake the lawn. The skies held and we got hours of yard cleanup in before it got dark.

My raking:

The leaves are only half down, but it makes such a difference to have the patio and grass clear!

We still have tons of wood on the patio (a co-worker may be picking it up) — perhaps it will kill some of that moss?? In the meantime, here’s the Sunrise Circle Jacket progress:

I’ve had to redo the math on the sleeves, and I didn’t have a chance to get to the math on the jacket fronts before I needed some mindless knitting, so I put the first sleeve on a holder for the moment and started the second.

The purple in these photos is still way brighter than the yarn — think more of an eggplant.

Here’s Kevin up on the roof, happy with his blower.

Isn’t this photo sort of deja vu?? Amazing how all of the needles pile up in just a few weeks.

I’m glad that we did all of the work — we’re about halfway through the leaf and needle season, but it’s too dark to do any of this after work, and we’ll be gone for most of the Thanksgiving week. I’d rather leave knowing that our gutters are clear and the lawn is happy, especially after all of the rain we’ve been having. 🙂

Purple Circle Sweater

Before we left for Ohio, I finally cast on for the Sunrise Circle Jacket. (You can see it here if you’re not on Ravelry and don’t mind scrolling.) It’s been sitting in my Ravelry queue for ages. I debated on the yarn – I had some Cascade 220 Superwash in my stash from Fall 2005. I’d bought it for a sweater in Vogue Knitting that ended up having too much errata, and the color didn’t appeal to me for any other pattern. It’s still not my favourite color, but I’m rather pleased about the idea of actually using it instead of leaving it in the closet to hang over my head. (I’m not a large-stash person, and the fun of buying new yarn is greatly diminished when I already have plenty at home.)

The back was awesome plane knitting, and the I’ve been working on it during Red Sox and football games. Nearly done and ready for the next piece!

(Sorry for the misshapen photo – it’s curling like you wouldn’t believe. Also, note fall leaves from the neighbours’ birch tree!) My stitch gauge is perfect, but my row gauge is giving me trouble – I’m a bit worried how it’s going to affect all of those short rows on the front…

Secret knitting

Knitting content on the blog has been fairly sparse mostly because August and September were devoted to finishing a sweater for a friend’s daughter’s 2nd birthday.

I don’t know if you remember the nearly–finished lace twist front top that I’d decided to rip a few months ago? I’d started it back in June 2006, and it was a ton of fun to knit. Later that summer, I used the lace from the twist front top to knit a sweater for the same friend’s daughter-to-be.

And then I returned to the original top, knitting away, and in fierce denial about how narrow it was.

I finally ripped it this August. Since it was actually the correct width for the 2-3 year sweater patterns I was finding, I decided to refashion the back and then knit a new front and sleeves. It turned into quite the long project (so much bigger than the baby sweaters I’ve worked on recently! Crazy how much they grow!), and I had several attempts at the correct amount to increase for the sleeves. They look incredibly long to me, though the measurements matched the patterns I was basing the dimensions on.

I love the buttons – they are simple, but an exact color match. I debated on the number, but three seemed good to me.

And one last photo on the counter – this one is harder to see, but it’s a much better catch of the color. The light blue is hard to catch in the grey fall light!

Details about the pattern and dimensions on my Ravelry site!

2nd and 3rd projects in two days

I seem (no pun intended) to be on quite the finishing kick. 🙂

Here’s a sweater (6-12 month size) for one of Kevin’s cousins, who had a son in May.

It’s been sitting since April, needing one shoulder seamed and a collar. I finished both in about two hours last night. Finally!! Here’s the back (identical, but the neck comes up higher – click for big on this one – it’s cute enough to be worth it):

I’m pretty much a fan. The shoulders in pattern were crummy – ugly, if functional, decreases – so I fixed them. The sleeves are actually wide enough I think, but they manage to crumple themselves down into skinny little things. I think that they’ll actually look proportional on. I knit it using the new version of Cotton Ease — probably not something I’ll choose again, despite being a cotton enthusiast in general.

In other news, I’ve been almost done with these fingerless mitts for over a year – just needed the seams up the sides. Less than ten inches of sewing later, I can finally present a set of entralac mitts, made with a pattern I concocted. Fun. 🙂

And palm-side:

One down

Now it’s up to seaming instead of knitting!

I finished sewing in the collar and weaving in the last of the ends yesterday, and now I’m finally done with a gift sweater that was due last winter. Yeah! Here it is, complete, with my new (8.5″ x 11″) quilting book for size reference.

And here’s the back:

Project details and notes are on Ravelry.

I am quite pleased with the way it turned out, though I probably won’t buy this yarn again (soft, pretty color, but quite fuzzy after very little friction — I worry about wear). And now I can finally mail it off this week! Yay!

Catching up

I’ve been knitting, though I know it hasn’t been making it to the blog recently. I have a few gift sweaters for friends’ babies in different stages of completion. This is the one I’ve been working on the most, and my project during passenger time on the road trip:

I’d knit the body, put it on holders, and then started working on the arms individually. Then, around the time we hit Crater Lake, I started putting the arms and body together. I made it about 7 rows after the join and was feeling very discouraged – the sleeves were about 3″ too skinny, and the whole thing just didn’t look as cute as I remembered from the photo. Plus, the chest from the join up was starting to look oddly tight… It wasn’t until I saw the back side of the sweater that I realized what had happened:

See how the ribs have neat lines of knit stitches between them at the top and a jumbled mix lower down?? The pattern calls for a broken rib, where you alternate knit and purl stitches row-by-row between the ribs. The pattern also calls for the sleeves to be knit flat. I tucked away the body in a ziplock once I’d put it on holders, and somehow I seemed to have reverted to plain k2, p1 rib without the body for reference – not nearly as cute. So disappointing to realize the mistake. I ripped right away (everything was wrong, including the proportions), but only back to the join, and then I decided to just go back with a crochet hook and correct the sleeves’ all-purl columns to the nice p/k alternating pattern. It was a somewhat sensible idea, but it would have been faster to rip the sleeves entirely and reknit – lesson learned. Here’s the halfway fix — you can really see that the fixed sleeve’s width is more what you would expect, compared to the ugly, skinny original (not to mention, such a prettier pattern!):

I finally finished the last three columns tonight (hurray! only three weeks later, to the day.) and can finally rejoin the pieces and continue with my life. 🙂

I’d been thinking I’d never knit this pattern again (so slow, not coming together well), but now I’m realizing that it was just user error. Ooops. Hopefully the rest will fly right by

A hat for the beach

I decided the day before the camping trip that I needed a new hat. I knit one for myself in Boston, but it’s not machine washable, and it seemed like I’d appreciate that feature after all of the campfire smoke. So, I grabbed some Encore from the leftovers of Kevin’s hat, and started at about 9 pm. To no one’s surprise, I didn’t finish by bedtime.

Here’s me all bundled up against the dusk with the work in progress against the sunset on Saturday.

Since we missed our ferry, I had fewer hours of daylight knitting than expected on Friday, and despite a valiant effort in the car after sunset, and on the beach in front of the campfire, I didn’t end up finishing until we got back. Those last few campfire-smoke rows were deadly. Note to self: if you’re planning to knit in the dark on a beach, don’t use a lace pattern!

The end result is pretty and I’m happy with it.

I used a tubular castoff, for the first time — quite satisfying though you can definitely see the ridge where the stitches divided. I wonder if this version would be better? It is stretchy though, and I’ll have to keep this technique in mind for sweater necks.

And if I knit this again, I should stop half a leaf earlier – it was perfect before blocking but now it’s a smidge too long.

So the specs:
Pattern: Foliage, from knitty.
Yarn: Plymouth Encore Worsted, about half a skein.
Color? A pretty mottled green but the ball band is long gone.
Needles: 7 for the foliage, 6 for the ribbing.

Awesome or Hideous?

Last spring, I bought two skeins of South West Trading Company’s Phoenix, colorway Parrot. I’d been admiring it for a year, and I found it 50% off and just couldn’t resist. It was one of those purchases where you argue desperately with yourself. One side of me thought that the yarn felt amazing (soft and sproingy – it’s “100% soysilk”, whatever that means), it was 50% off, and the colors are buoyant and cheerful. The grinch side of me didn’t have a pattern, doesn’t like variegated yard, and suspected the colors were in poor taste.

So I let it sit in my stash for a year and was rendered utterly cheerful every time I saw it, let alone touched it. 🙂

After a bit of pondering, I decided to try it with the multidirectional scarf. I’ve tried this pattern a few times with generally disappointing results, but it turns out this yarn is PERFECT for it. The stockinette highlights the colors nicely and feels wonderful. I started with #8 needles, per the ball band, but ended up ripping back and switching to #10s, which really is so much better. It’s my first time knitting with ribbon yarn, and I love it. I knit until the diagonal had 46 stitches, so the base is 7″ across, relaxed. Perfect.

The only issue is that I still suspect the colors are in poor taste.

They’re just so bright! Kevin loves them, Amanda (who visited from CA on Tuesday!) understood my hesitation… the jury is still out. But in the meantime, I’m knitting away and enjoying/ignoring the brightness.

Isabella is done

I finally finished the last step of Isabella! Pretty picot edging around the arms.

I cast on a few months before our wedding, made it about halfway through and then realized that not only would I never finish it in time for the Hawaii honeymoon, but that it was silly to try. I brought it for the series of plane rides – perfect plane knitting with all of that stockinette – and then kept working on it in spurts. And now it’s done!

(That photo of it is dreadful, but for some reason I just can’t seem to get any that look proportional – at least this one has pretty daffodils!)

Specs:

Pattern: Isabella from Knitty.com
Yarn: 5 ½ balls of Jaeger’s Siena 4 Ply, bought on sale from Patternworks in NH, in July 2006. The color is #412 (Sapling). #3 needles.