I’ll admit it: I’ve been bad about blogging recently. And honestly, I haven’t been knitting much either. The uni semester might be over, but I have other things keeping my busy.
Yes, I’m moving. And that’s the only corner of my apartment that’s remotely presentable (I had to keep a corner on the couch so I could knit and browse the internet). I hadn’t realized just how much stuff I’d collected, and how much time it takes to pack up and clean out a one bedroom apartment. Almost all my free time is spent packing, and I can’t wait to have a view that doesn’t include stacks of boxes.
My personal knitting has also taken a backseat to gift knitting. I’ve made some good progress on my striped cardigan, but I’m putting it on on hiatus, probably till after Christmas. There’s no way it’ll be finished by the NaKniSweMo deadline (Sunday!) The tiny needles make it slow going, and I have too many other things going on.
As for Christmas knitting, I’ll talk more about that as soon as I’m settled at the new place. For now, there’s a sneak peak on the couch up there. Any ideas?
My striped cardigan is coming along slowly, but surely. So far, I’m just about done with the first sleeve, and since I don’t have much to share in terms of the actual knitting, I wanted to talk a bit more about my thoughts behind creating this sweater.
I already went over the basics: plain cardigan, stripes. With such a simple recipe, the first thought might be to do it top-down raglan style to avoid seams and trying to match stripes. I did consider it, but when it came down to it, I knew that when it’s comes to straight-forward pieces, the details became more important. I know a lot of people don’t find seams necessary, and that’s fine, but to me, they add a bit of structure to a garment, and make a garment look more polished and professional. Since I’m working with a light drapey fabric, this became even more important.
That meant I had to figure out how to make that work with the stripes. I’ve heard seaming stripes is surprisingly difficult, and I had no idea how to match the stripes across the sleeve cap, but I decided to tackle it anyway. I had a hard time finding resources online, so I worked it all out myself. I spent a couple of days graphing out the sleeve caps (more about that later, once I know whether it’s going to work out). I also practised sewing up the stripes on swatches, and came up with a neat little trick to make them match perfectly every time.
The other thing did was to spend a lot of time researching cast-ons and cast-offs. I was set on 2×2 ribbing, and I wanted the cast-on and cast-off edges to match perfectly, while still looking good with the ribbing. Although I love the look of the tubular cast-on for 1×1 ribbing, I’m not overly fond of the 2×2 version. Of course, after countless swatches, I decided to go with 1×1 ribbing anyway, which let me use the tubular cast-on. Doesn’t it look pretty? To me, it’s details like these that take a sweater from just boring to simple, and from homemade to handmade.
Now, let’s just hope the rest of my math works out.
I always admire the complex sweater projects I come across on Ravelry, but when it comes to actually getting dressed, I’ve always been drawn to simplicity. I reach for the basic cardigans and the fine-gauge machine-knits. Of course, a normal person would probably just buy these kinds of sweaters, but I’ve always been a little insane.
So here’s my NaKniSweMo project, a very basic stockinette cardigan knit in pieces, with long sleeves, set-in sleeves and wide ribbing. Here’s my wonky little interpretation of what I hope the final product will look like. Yes, the arms are much too skinny; I’ve never been an artist.
{More}
Here it is, finally! I had a hard time getting decent pictures, but that’s mostly because I feel like such a beautiful cardigan deserves beautiful photos. In the end I remembered that I wasn’t brooklyntweed, so these will have to do (and that’s my Ravelry shirt I’m wearing under the cardigan!). Since it’s the last day of November, documenting my NaKniSweMo project also seems appropriate.
Tangled Yoke Cardigan by Eunny Jang from Interweave Knits Fall 2007 knit from Rowan Felted Tweed in Dragon {More}
I love this cardigan. Really, that’s all I can say. It is almost the perfect cardigan. I love the fit. I love the colour. I love how cable makes a simple cardigan just a little bit more exciting. Even though the cables were simple to execute, they made me appreciate cables in a way I haven’t before. Although I’ve tried them out (mostly because I want to try everything at least once), I’ve never really been that attracted to them. Now, I’m excited to challenge my knitting skills. Cables! Colourwork! More complicated lace! {More}
Yes, that’s a finished Tangled Yoke Cardigan. The round yoke (a construction I’m not used to) looks really weird lying down flat – where’s the shoulders? But it fits perfectly and I can’t wait to wear it.
I spent the weekend in Geelong with James visiting his parents, so I got lots of knitting done. The cable was easy, but time consuming. During the one-hour train ride to Geelong, I didn’t even manage to finish two rows. Although this was on a 400 stitch row where I think 11 out of 14 stitches are cabled, 4 cables per 14 stitches. That’s alot of cabling, especially for somebody who hasn’t done alot of cabling before.
Anyway, I’ll be sewing the buttons and weaving in ends tonight. I blocked it on a towel overnight, so the back is still slightly damp. I just turned it over and I’ll wait until it’s fully dry before finishing it. I went button shopping today during my lunch break and ended up with some pretty basic grey buttons. They’re pretty boring, but they match and I think it’ll look good. I always have a really hard time picking buttons because although I like buttons, I don’t know what’ll look good on a particular garment. I decided to go all out and also picked out buttons for Salina and Juliet. I figure if I decide I don’t like the buttons later, I’ll just replace them.
