It’s fast becoming my favorite comfy sweater. Snow started falling shortly after this picture was taken. I stayed warm and comfortable all day long even when venturing outside.
Redoing the sleeves was a wise decision.
It hasn’t been blocked. Not sure that it really needs to be but I will do it before handing it off to Jean.
Like many knitters I’m always on the lookout for the perfect gadget holder. Here’s my latest find. Small enough to fit in my knitting bag but big enough to hold all my stitch markers, darning needles and a pair of folding scissors. Everything is safely stored in its individually covered compartment. No more worries about spilling all those tiny pieces!
I got mine at Restoration Hardware (with fishing tackle included) but did an Internet search and found them at Cabela’s, minus the fishing stuff.
Over the past week I focused on getting the green top-down pullover finished.
When I last worked on it only the neck was left to do. I planned on a simple roll-neck version which in my mine should have only taken a hour at the most. However, without going into much detail, it wasn’t so simple. I have a knack for making such things way more difficult than they should be. Of course after knitting several different versions I put the thing aside and swore I was going to leave it as is and not change a thing. It was time to move on.
A few weeks have passed and I started getting curious about those tight sleeves. I tried on the sweater again and the sleeves seemed even tighter than before. There was no question in my mind. The sleeves had to be rip out reknit with 2cm added to the width. That’s what I’m doing now.
One down and 7 more to go.
A word of caution – Rowan Felted Tweed yarn makes 1×1 tubular bind off a tedious job since the tweedy bits and alpaca hair that have a tendency to cling while sewing. Whenever I wasn’t careful pulling the yarn from the darning needle through the first knit stitch it would inevitably stick to the near by purl stitch and leave an ugly blob. Practice make perfect, right? Here’s a closer view
after much practice.
Jean’s formula for picking up stitches is actually very simple and looks great. Strategically pickup one stitch for every row/stitch and then decrease 10% of the stitches on the next round. At least that’s my interpretation of the instructions. Also, I’m not sure if she mentioned this in class, but I noticed that her DVD mentions picking up stitches with a needle .5mm or 1.0mm smaller than the one used for the body. I used one that was 1.0mm smaller and didn’t switch to a larger size to finish the rib.
Kate asked about my supple rib swatch. It’s for one of my class sweaters yet to be created so I don’t have a pattern. In fact I might never create one because this stitch probably won’t work so well for my class project. I tried adding ribbing and it look odd. This stitch really doesn’t need any. I’d suggest checking out Jo Sharp’s Knitted Sweater Style for a V-neck and cardigan that use this stitch pattern. Also her first booklet has a pullover called Tundra that uses it as well.
At the end of class last week Jean walked around the room checking swatches for the next project, a V-neck pullover. I didn’t have mine out so I off handedly mentioned, “oh, I’m doing stockinette again.” I can’t remember what her exact response was but I remember her firm encouragement to find a stitch pattern.
It’s not that I don’t want to do one, it’s just been difficult to pair one with 1×1 or 2×2 ribbing.
Here what I came up. It’s a stitch pattern from one of my Jo Sharp pattern books that she used on a V-neck with no ribbing. I’ve seen it named supple rib in some books.
The yarn is Louet Gems in eggplant.
I’m crossing my fingers hoping I have enough.
Zoey asked about the ribbing on my green top-down pullover. Well, I’m sorry to say that I haven’t blocked it yet. In fact I’m considering redoing the sleeves yet again. Several other students had the same problem as I, the lower part of the arm is too tight. I did, however, show my ribbing to Jean and asked if there’s any way to avoid that flaring of the knit stitch. She had no handy tip on that but remarked that some yarns do that.
This weekend I blocked the vest and sewed the side seams. Shouldn’t be long before I finish the ribbing on the neck and armholes.
Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat registration start tomorrow, 8am (PST) sharp!
With all my homework finished last weekend, I was finally free to swatch Arabesque.
It’s hard to tell but there are actually three colors of green in the background; chartreuse, pistachio and marjoram. The arrow is pointing to a band of chartreuse. Pistachio is just below chartreuse and marjoram is in the center (with the pink).
Here are the skeins laid out from light to dark (left to right) with two skeins of pistachio in the middle. The one on the left was purchased at the mill (and used in the swatch) while the other was purchased at a local yarn store. Can you see the difference between the two skeins of pistachio?
Ever since my problem with “Irish Moss” I’ve know that dye lots of the same color can vary significantly but I never stopped to think of the ramifications for a Fair Isle garment. These two skeins are so different that it’s hard for me to tell what pistachio should look like.
Karen was kind enough to indulge my curiosity this weekend and brought skeins from her stock for comparisons. It looks like my lighter skein of pistachio is similar to hers but my skein of chartreuse is a bit darker.
Gosh, this type of problem sure makes Fair Isle knitting even more tricky than I ever imagined. The right colors can be rather elusive.
I finally finished the last round-neck pullover piece yesterday.
After finishing the first piece I started swearing that this will be the last time I ever knit a plain sweater on size 3mm needles. I guess I wasn’t thinking clearly when I chose this Panda Cotton sock yarn at the last minute during the “heat” of summer. At that time I couldn’t imagine working on a heavy wool sweater.
It’s not that I don’t like Panda Cotton – it makes a lovely fabric that drapes well. I just got so bored with knitting plain old stockinette. Also, I’m not too thrilled with this “feminine camouflage” colorway but was pleasantly surprised that the colors didn’t pool too badly.
Karen asked about my camera. It’s a Nikon Coolpix P4 with VR and 8 megapixels. VR stands for “vibration reduction” which means that it’s suppose to help reduce blurry photos. VR works most of the time but I was very disappointed recently when most of the photos taken at the Nordic Knitting Conference turned out blurry. Over all, it’s a good click and shoot pocket camera but the key to taking good photos is to make sure there is plenty of light and to use Photoshop for touch ups.
Raglan
It’s almost done!
Only the neck is left to do. Not sure what we’ll do with it. Jean said to bring needles in a variety of sizes to the next class.
So far I’m satisfied with the results except for the 1×1 rib along the bottom edge of the body and sleeves. If you look closely (click on the photo) you can see how loose the stitches are. It looks sloppy even though I did use a smaller needle size.
I’m sure a 2×2 rib would look better but I really had no choice in the matter. On each sweater we’re learning specific finishing techniques and for this sweater one we needed to learned how to do an invisible bind off for 1×1 rib in the round.
I’m hoping it will look better after a little blocking or steaming.
Vest
Here are my finished vest pieces (front and back) laying folded in half on top of their corresponding life-sized patterns.
Notice the grids drawn on each armhole and neck. We draw them using special rulers that correspond to our stitch/row count. Once the grid is drawn we determine the decrease steps and trace them out using a color pencil.
If you’d like to use a similar technique I’d suggest using this grid paper from www.tata-tatao.to.
Round Neck pullover
One of our assignments for the last class was to have both pieces (front and back) knitted to the armhole. For the class in two weeks were suppose to finished those pieces plus knit both sleeves.
Earlier this week Sophie decided to check my work. Good thing she did. Turns out I hadn’t cast on the correct amount of stitches! On top of that mistake, my attempt to shape the waist by going down a needles sized didn’t quite work for the way I drew the pattern. Unfortunately I’ve spent the past week redoing most of what I had done for the last class. With luck and diligence I should be able to finish the sleeves soon and then I’m free to work on any project I please. At this point I don’t dare let myself get tempted with other projects.
Lately I’ve been itching to spin. I’m sure these two would love a change of pace as well.
Annemor certainly isn’t a typical knitting teacher/author. While most focus on techniques or patterns, Annemor brings insights into knitting history and myths from her home country of Norway.
In her Magic Knitting class she recounted many of the endless superstitions and folk beliefs related to knitting and spinning in Norway. As might be expected, most involve ways of discerning information about your future mate. One that has stuck with me is that a spinner or knitters should look up quickly when accidentally dropping fiber or yarn to catch a brief glimpse of her future husband.
The most magical part of the class was when she showed us how to efficiently double knit small tubes with two double point needles to create small magical creatures. The tube is knit with the purl side out . So, with every pair of stitches, knit the first and slip the second. The trick is to do the knit and slip all in one motion. It’s so easy and can be used to work fingers on gloves using only two needles.
Take Vivian Høxbro’s class called Color in Knitting.
Seems like I can never resist a class on color even though I’ve taken several and own a handful of color theory books.
Vivian kicked off the class with quite a story about how it came about. Apparently the idea started as a request from Harrisville Designs and after several months (or weeks) of reading about color theory she almost decided not to do it. All those theories seemed rather boring to her and began to drive her crazy.
This type of talk isn’t what you’d normally expect from an instructor and I’ve got to admit it kind of shocked me. But, as she continued talking I began to relate to what she was saying. I too get stressed out whenever I pull out a color wheel and try to apply those theories. Her remedy is to get out knitting needles and yarn and start playing.
She skimmed over basic color concepts such as – primary, secondary and complimentary colors, and mostly focused on mind stretching swatch exercises. She challenged us to break out of our comfort zone by introducing colors we wouldn’t normally use along with ones we do. Many students were pleasantly surprised to find that what they think of as a “ugly” color might not really be so ugly and can add interest.
Between the three swatch challenges Vivian shared a slide show of things/people that inspire her. At the end of class she passed out her garment samples and let us try them on. Nihon Kimono is on my “some day” list.
While Vivian had many memorable quotes but “Brown is a mistake” made me chuckle the most.
Here are some photos.
PS: Mittens is doing great. She had a good check up today but the poor girl has to keep the “halo” for another week when the stitches come out. Both cats are on a prescription diet that they actually like. No picky eaters here.
Thanks for all your well wishes.
Thanks for all your healing thoughts.
Turns out Mittens had bladder stones that had to be removed immediately.
Now she’s back from her four day stay at the vet.
Poor girl has to wear this collar for a couple of weeks and is now on a special diet (forever). I thought I was feeding her quality food but …
It’s a good thing we caught the problem when we did and she’s now on the mend.
Seems as if Sophie forgot she has a sister so I’m running around trying keep them both civil.
Purlwise 
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