Fishies!

6 March 2009 | Tags: Cardigans, FOs

So, in the last few months I’ve gotten seriously behind with FO-posts. In an effort to catch up, I’ll try to keep this one short.

Pattern: Cherry by Anna Bell (Ravel it!)

Yarn: Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece (4 skeins in New Age Teal)

Needles: 3.25mm Knitpicks Circs

Modifications: I added a little bit of length and ended up sewing the cardigan shut to keep the buttonband from gaping, otherwise I followed the pattern as written.

Cherry was finished in January and only photographed last week. This is a pattern I’ve always been drawn to, but it wasn’t until earlier this year that I decided to cast on. I had a big pile of wool swatches, and decided to start with something I could wear relatively soon. So, short-sleeved cotton it was.

I’m pretty happy with the result. I really love the colour. The yarn has been sitting in my stash for a while destined for another project, and since I’ve loved Cherry in teal ever since I came across this gorgeous version, I decided to go for it. I really liked knitting with Cotton Fleece. Even though it’s mostly cotton, it wasn’t too hard on my hands, and the resulting fabric is lovely. But even though it’s not too warm to wear, I’m still getting used to wearing such a heavy short-sleeved garment.

The finished product, knit with about one inch of ease, fits well. Originally, it was rather tight, but with a good blocking, it stretched out nicely and is now the perfect size. The buttonband did still gape a little bit, however, so I decided to sew it shut. Since I don’t see myself wearing this open anyway, I prefer the neater closure.

But it’s not all good news. I’m not sure Cherry is the most flattering shape on me. Although I lengthened the body slightly, it still feels too short. I also don’t have a very well-defined waistline and I feel like the tie highlights this particular part of my body. At the end of the day, my feelings about the FO are mixed. It’s already gotten quite a bit of use, but I don’t think it’ll become a favourite garment.

Oh, and the title? James says this makes me look like a fish. In fact, as soon as I showed him the pattern, he said it looked like a fish, and I’m sure the colour doesn’t help either. Boys!

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What would you do?

17 February 2009 | Tags: Accessories, Cardigans, Disaster!, wips

So, first off, I wanted to thank everybody who’s left me lovely comments about my Ursa. I’m still working on getting back to everybody. I also wanted to thank Mary-Catharine and Karin who both gave me awards on their blogs!

And now, down to business. Unforunately, every project can’t be a resounding success, and as noted on one of my favourite podcasts a number of months ago, it’s important to also acknowledge our failures. So, my most recent failure, with definately fits into the “disaster!” category.

So, remember this? Yes, that’s the sweater I was supposed to knit in November for NaKniSweMo. I abandonned it for a couple of months, but I picked it back up in January. After a few starts and stops (I always put off casting on a new pieces because of the time-consuming tubular cast-on), I have all pieces knit. I started the seaming by joining the shoulders and setting in one of the sleeve caps. So far, so good. The sleeve cap fit perfectly, and the stripes matched up nicely, as you can see in the following image.

But hang on. Everything is not right in the photo! Yes, once I started seaming up the side seam, I realized something had gone wrong with my math. The sleeve is much too baggy, and there’s a lot of extra fabric under the arm. I know I won’t be able to wear it this way; I envisioned this cardigan as a fitted piece and I know this will annoy me every time I wear it. On the other hand, trying to redo it at this point would mean ripping the time-consuming seams and most of the small-gauge fabric. I’d have to reknit most of the sleeves, and would probably want to redo the shaping on the body too since the extra fabric isn’t confined to the sleeve itself. After spending so much time and energy on this knit, that option really doesn’t appeal to me at all, especially since staring at it for so long has made me fall out of love with it.

So, what would you do? Should I rip it and try to reknit it to fit me? Should I rip the whole thing and repurpose/get rid of the yarn? For now, it’s been put into time-out. I’m going to completely ignore its existance until the thought of ripping it is slightly less painful. Since this project just about killed my knitting mojo, I’m spending my time with the simplest of projects, another stockinette shawl like the one I knit for my sister. This time, I’m using Malabrigo laceweight in Sealing Wax, and the shawl is all for me!

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Ursa!

13 February 2009 |

This is going to be a long one.

Pattern: Ursa from Berroco Booklet #279 (Ravel it!)

Yarn: Berroco Ultra Alpaca (6 skeins in Chianti)

Needles: 3.75mm Knitpicks Options & 3.25mm Knitpicks Fixed Circulars

Modifications: I knit a combination of the 36″ and 40″ sizes, knitting the bigger size to the armholes and then decreasing for the smaller size.

Ursa is a pattern that I fell in love with instantly. I sent the link to Ceylan and we started talking yarns. I found a yarn in my stash and started knitting on it pretty much straight away. I was really excited about the sweater, and blogged about it here. Pretty soon, however, everthing went wrong. I was using Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Worsted in Cranberry, a yarn that was wonderfully soft and beautiful to knit with. Although it looked semi-solid in the skein, however, the hand-dyed yarn knit up with a bit too much pooling and flashing for me. I’m sure a lot of people wouldn’t care, but I knew it would bug me every time I wore it.

So, I ended up frogging the back, both fronts and one sleeve. Since I still wanted the cardigan, I bought myself some Ultra Alpaca, the yarn called for in the pattern, in a very similar red colour. It sat in my stash until a couple of weeks ago, when I decided it was time to give Ursa it’s second try.

This attempt hasn’t been without problems either. Since I’m in between sizes, I wasn’t sure which size to knit. I wanted some ease at the bust, but with such a voluminous, I didn’t want to end up looking like i was wearing a shapeless sack. In the end, I cast on for a size bigger, knit until the arm hole shaping, where I did a few extra increases and continued knitting the yoke to the smaller size. I knit the smaller sleeves. I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out, but as you can see, it looks great. It’s still swingy, but it’s also fitted on top, which I think makes it a really flattering garment. I was also worried about the sleeves, which have no shaping, being too big, but they’re fine, and the large cuffs don’t annoy me at all.

Knitting this sweater was a great experience: lots of simple stockinette, and a yarn that just flew off the needles. But it slowed down considerably once I got to the finishing. I tend to think of most sweaters as as having four major seams: setting in the sleeve caps, then seaming the side seams from the bottom hem up to the arm hole then down the sleeve. This sweater had almost twice that amount, with buttonbands that are knit separately, then seamed to both the front and the back. The finishing was very time-consuming, but it was so worth it. The buttonbands look great, and make the sweater look much more polished.

The buttons themselves aren’t anything special, just simple wooden buttons which are my usual standby when I don’t know what else to use. At the end of the day, this is one of my favourite sweaters ever. I love the way it looks, and I love wearing it. I’m sure I’ll be using it a lot once it starts getting cold, and I’m even thinking about making another one in a more neutral colour.

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Impulse cast-on

4 February 2009 | Tags: Accessories, wips

So, what would you do if your WIP basket looked like this?

Yes, that would be six sweaters in progress. I’m nothing if not obsessive. Remember Socktoberfest? Yes, when I decide to do something, I go all out.

Faced with this pile, would you finish one of them? Cast on for another piece for another? I did neither. I ignored all six completely, and started winding up some of my pretty Sundara for a hat.

This is Sikkim, knit in Sundara sock yarn in Tomato Confit, Citrus Twist and Arabian Nights. The colours are similar to the original, and I love how they’re working together. I suppose that’s the advantage of stashing precious yarn without knitting it: eventually you’ll end up with colours that work perfectly together. These three all arrived in various club packages, so they were surprise colours. But they’re all colours I would have picked out myself if given the chance.

The hat is finished now and awaiting FO shots. And in all fairness, i did finish one of my sweater projects before I cast on. FO posts soon maybe?

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Trying again

31 January 2009 | Tags: Cardigans, wips

It all started with the yarn. Twelve balls of pretty mustard Rowan Wool Cotton purchased for a bargain on Ravelry. When I bought it, I have vague plans to knit this simple Drops cardigan. I changed my mind rather quickly, however, when I rediscovered Minty’s gorgeous version of the Norah Gaughan skirt from Knit.1. I swatched and cast on in December, with high hopes to wear it during my holiday in Singapore.

Of course, then Christmas knitting happened, and it got sidelined. And even when I did take the time to knit on it, I didn’t enjoy it. See, the pattern is a simple and easily memorised, but with the big purl sections and an eyelet pattern on every row, I couldn’t switch off completely. And knit in one piece, it seems to take forever. Not to mention the fact that I was knitting a rather inelastic cotton blend on tiny needles at a tighter gauge than recommended and I really wasn’t enjoying the fabric I was getting.

Anyway, I persevered and soon, the number of stitches on my needle had decreased considerably and each round was going twice as fast. I only had a couple of inches left until the waistband when I decided to hold the skirt up to my body. I was aiming for a knee-skimming skirt since I think that’s the most flattering length for my height. With a couple of inches to go, plus the waist band, the skirt had already passed my knees. I studied the pattern more closely and realized that I had been decreasing wrong, every fourth row instead of alternating every second and fourth row. The only way to fix it properly would be to either rip back all the way or wear the skirt like a highwaisted skirt–not the look I was going for.

Since I hadn’t enjoyed knitting it anyway and was sick of the whole project, I promptly stuff it in the closet and cast on for a new sweater project. I figured I’d deal with it later, either frog and reknit the whole thing at a later date, or repurpose the yarn.

Then last week, I came across Kingscot again. I’d seen it when Twist Collective first came out of course and liked the shape, but thought it was much too ornate for me. Lately, however, I’ve been embracing simple shapes combined with interesting details and techniques and suddenly, I just wanted to make it. This is not at all uncommon for me. I often don’t notice things at first, but when I look at them again, I must knit them. I immediately pictured this cardigan in a mustard colour, and dug out my swatches of wool cotton. The gauge wasn’t right, so I swatched again in a different needle size. I got gauge perfectly, and even better, I got a lovely soft drapey fabric, and the knitting was much more enjoyable on slightly bigger needles.

So, I’m switching one Norah Gaughan pattern for another. I hope this one works out. I’m halfway through the first front, and so far, I’m loving it.

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Contest Winner and Sweater Plans

27 January 2009 | Tags: Cardigans, Contest, Future Knits, Sweaters, wips

So, remember my little contest? I’m not sure whether it was too hard or too easy since although not that many people actually attempted it, I had four people who got every yarn right. Some people included colourways and some didn’t, so I ignored that completely when I tallied the totals. Here’s a reminder of what the swatches looked like:

And here are the yarns, from top to bottom:

1. Rowan Yorkshire Tweed held double, swatched for Ropes and Picots
2. Bendigo Woollen Mills Rustic 8 ply held double, swatched for Heroine
3. Beaverslide Fishermans Weight, swatched for Vivian
4. Dream in Color Classy, swatched for Favorite Cardigan and Amelia
5. Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece, swatched for Cherry
6. Rowan Wool Cotton, swatched for #12 Skirt
7. Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light, swatched for Anais
8. Berroco Ultra Alpaca, swatched for Ursa

Out of the four people who got the the yarns all right, I drew a name randomly, and Theresa ended up being the winner. Congratulations!

Anyway, that sounds like a lot of knitting, doesn’t it? Of course, I’m fickle, and every other time I’ve posted about my grand sweater plans, I’ve ended up changing my mind. In fact, I’ve changed my mind about two of those projects already.

But I’ve also gotten started on some sweaters. I tend to “save” up big projects like sweater projects, thinking that I want to save some special yarn until I’ve knit up some of the less special stash, or save a pattern until I’ve finally lost that weight. Honestly, that’s pretty silly since it often means that I fall out of love with patterns before I get to them. To counteract this, I’ve just decided to start casting on for the projects I want to knit, without worrying about “saving” them for some special occasion. The result:

Yep, that’s a lot of sweater knitting. I’ve almost finished two of the sweaters mentioned above. The final pieces for Ropes and Picots are blocking, and I’ll blog about that sweater soon. Cherry is also blocking. It’s already been seamed, but turned out a bit smaller than I had planned, so I’m attempting to add some width before sewing on the buttons. The middle sweater, of course, is my forgotten NaKniSweMo cardigan. It’s missing a sleeve and a whole lot of finishing, but I’ve gotten a head start with the seaming and my sleeve cap calculations seem to be working out.

For now, I’m knitting on a simple scarf to free up the needles I need to cast on for my next sweater, Ursa. Hopefully I’ll have some FO sweaters to show off in the coming weeks!

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There was also sewing

25 January 2009 | Tags: FOs, gift knitting, Sewing

I’m going to post the results to the contest tomorrow, but I’ve got one more Christmas present to share first, my dad’s present.

Pattern: Picnic Placemat by Lotta Jansdotter from Simple Sewing

Fabric: Natural mediumweight linen and striped denim

I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks guys are impossible to choose presents for. And my dad is especially impossible. So when I came across the perfect gift in one of my sewing books, I was very surprised.

First, you need a little bit of background. My family’s from a small town on the Swedish coast, and my dad has always loved going out in Stockholm’s beautiful archipelago by boat. He’s got a little motor boat there, and in summer, we often take it out to some random island. We’ll lounge on the cliffs, go swimming (well, some of us will) and eat some kind of picnic meal. A couple of years ago, my mum bought Dad picnic backpack filled with all the usual picnic accessories: plastic plates, mugs and cutlery. He loved it, and when I saw these picnic placemats in Lotta Jansdotter’s Simple Sewing, I thought they’d be the perfect addition.

There’s not much to saw about this. I made four mats because there’s four of us in the family. I followed the pattern almost exactly, except for using two different fabrics and backing the linen with interfacing to make it easier to work with. I chose a natural linen and a striped denim fabric to make the pattern both nautical and a little bit more masculine. I’m really happy with the way these turned out, and dad seemed to like them. I’m looking forward to trying them, out this summer!

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More gift knits

18 January 2009 | Tags: Accessories, FOs, gift knitting

So, all I want to talk about is my current sweater knitting, but I don’t want to give anything away as far as the contest goes. I’ll just say that I’ve currently got three sweaters on the needles (including my rediscovered striped cardigan!), and I’m dying to cast on for two or three more. But more about that later. For now, I’ll get back to the Christmas knitting.

Pattern: Improvised

Yarn: Dream in Color Baby in (1 skein in Happy Forest)

Needles: 4.50mm Knitpicks Options

In addition to my mum’s cardigan, I knit my sister, Jenny, a shawl. Last time I saw her I was knitting on my February Lady Sweater and she fell in love with the colour, and asked me to make her something with the leftovers. Of course, I promptly forgot about it, but when I starting thinking about Christmas presents, I remembered my promise.

Like my mum, Jenny lives in Singapore, so most knitwear isn’t really appropriate. She does, however, like shawls that can can throw in her bag and get out in the air-conditioned buildings, and I thought a handknitted shawl was in order. I chose a yarn in the exact colourway she had fallen in love with, and got to work.

The shawl is based on Melody’s Shawl, a design that I thought would fit her simple style. Since I didn’t have access to the pattern, I improvised. It didn’t turn out exactly how I wanted it too; it’s much longer and narrower than I’d aimed for, so it’s more of a scarf than a shawl. It also has a tendency to roll at the edges, which is all too noticeable in these pictures.

Still, Jenny liked it, and she loved the colour, so I’ll call it a success.

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Swatch-crazy (and a contest!)

13 January 2009 | Tags: Contest, Future Knits

I said yesterday that I’ve been trying to re-assess my sweater stash and queue. I even joined NaKniSweMoDo (a knitalong to knit 12 sweaters in 12 months!) to really get it into shape. And taking a closer look at my sweater stash means swatching. Lots and lots of swatching.

Obviously, I like to work from a pretty limited colour palette!

After I took this picture, I thought about discussing each of these swatches in detail and talking about what I was planning for each of them. That seemed like a pretty big job, however, and I though it’d be fun to do another contest. Your task is to try to figure out which yarns I swatched and what I have planned for each of them. Eight yarns for eight projects. Here’s a few hints to help you:

• All of the patterns I’ve swatched for are in my Ravelry queue.
• All but one of the patterns are sweaters.
• I’ve started two of the patterns, but I’ve only mentioned one online.
• One yarn is hand-dyed.
• One yarn is a tweed.
• One yarn is local Aussie yarn.
• Two of the yarns swatched are leftovers from other projects. One is my used stash on Ravelry, one is in my sold stash. I’ll be using the same yarn in other colours for the actual garments.
• Out of the other six yarns, four are stashed in Ravelry .
• Two of the yarns are knit double-stranded.
• Two yarns are cotton blends, two are alpaca blends, the rest are 100% wool.
• Two of the yarns are the same yarn in different weights.

Feel free to use my Flickr page, Ravelry queue, Ravelry stash, and anything else you might find helpful. Basically, this is your invitation to stalk me online.

The motivation? These pretties:

The person who gets the most answers correct gets to choose from these three beautiful skeins of yarn. Anti-clockwise from top: Yarn Nerd Bambylon in Buttered Popcorn, MadelineTosh sock yarn in Lettuce Leaf, and the Plucky Knitter Single Ply Worsted in Terracotta.

Post a comment here or email me at pressgangkid(at)gmail(dot)com by 24 January to be entered. (If you don’t want other people to copy your answers, I’d suggest using the email method.)

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Looking back

12 January 2009 | Tags: Ramblings

I’m a bit late with this, but I wanted to reflect on 2008 before I move on to talking about my new projects. 2008 was my second year as a knitting, and boy, was it a productive year. In the nine months of knitting I fit into 2007, I knit 20 FOs. In 2008, I knit at least 56 FOs (yes, the mosaics only show 54, but I’ve got at least two that were never photographed).

Six sweaters. Twenty-seven (!!!) pairs of socks. I probably should have split the mosaics according to project type, but I’m much too lazy for that.

One year ago, I wrote this: For 2008, I’m thinking more of the same. 2007 was about getting the basics down and trying my hand at different things, 2008 will be about challenging myself and learning new techniques. More cables and lace. Colourwork, maybe even steeks? And actual project in entrelac, not just swatches. I want to knit enough socks that I won’t need storebought ones in winter. I want to knit more sweaters and try my hand at some more originals.

As far as socks and lace went, I did well. I knit 27 pairs of socks, and I finished two lace shawls, including an epic silk lace project. But, I didn’t quite meet all my goals. I didn’t make as many sweaters as last year, and I decided that designing wasn’t really for me, so I don’t have any more originals. I did a couple of colourwork projects, and didn’t try entrelac or steeking. My forays into cabling were pretty brief and consisted mostly of socks and simple cables. In recent weeks, I’ve been very drawn to cables though, so I see that changing in 2009.

But even if I didn’t meet my initial goals, I’m happy with my achievements last year. And to continue that trend, I’m not making strict new years resolutions. I’m going to knit what I want, when I want. I’m going to try to limit stash acquisition with some general guidelines, but I’m not going to impose any crazy rules. I’m going to try to be more careful about my yarn purchasing, only buying yarn if I’m planning to use it for my next project instead of months in advance. I’m going to think more carefully about the projects I plan and how they fit into my wardrobe and lifestyle.

And, while I’m going to continue knitting socks, I think I’ll slow the pace down a bit and concentrate on sweaters for a while. Here’s to a wonderful 2009! I have new sweater projects on the needles, and I’ll be back to talk about my first steps towards that last resolution soon.

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