around and around

This sleeve didn't work for a variety of reasons. My plan was to incorporate a steek at the top, so that I wouldn't have to work back and forth to shape the sleeve cap. Unfortunately, even my small 3 stitch steek added enough bulk at the arm hole (where there was another steek for the body) that it was uncomfortable and looked strange. I had planned to sew it in place, but literally over night about two inches of an arm hole steek mysteriously unraveled. I've been questioning the cat, but she pleads the fifth and reminds me that she's innocent until proven guilty.

So, I try again. This time I used a technique I learned from knitting the Crichton cardigan, also in Sweaters From Camp. After I grafted the shoulder, I picked up stitches from around the arm hole, added on the stitches at the underarm that I had put on a string, and started knitting down. I had thought that it would bother me that the body was knitted up, and the sleeves down, but I think it looks fine. I also had to pick up stitches from the actual pattern, not the line of brown that I had made because it unraveled, but I think after a blocking it should look okay. I've tried it on and there's none of the lumpiness that the previous sleeve had, so it looks like I'm on the right track. Sorry these photos are so dark - the ones in the last post are actually true to color. However, it's in the single digits (Farenheit) outside, and I'd rather deal with the poor lighting indoors than go anywhere near the door.

In the meantime, I've started Salina from Rowan's Vintage Knits and the Lopi Mittens from Folk Mittens. Salina is made from Cascade 220 in a heathered merlot color, and the Lopi Mittens are made from even more leftover Crichton.

I know some people hate thumbs that stick straight up on the mitten, but I love them. It makes the mitten look so tidy. I've also discovered that not having a tight cuff isn't a bad thing, as long as the mitten is long enough in the wrist to tuck into your jacket sleeve. This is good, because I find it more fun to start right in on the pattern than have to do a few inches of mindless ribbing first. The second one will be knitted as soon as the first sleeve of Snow Sky is done - they both use my US 3 needles and I don't want to buy another pair.

the charm

You know what they say about the third time...

Here's Snow Sky's body, completely done. I fiddled around (a lot) with the numbers and ended up with a formula for waist shaping that, if I did it right, I'll apply to all future patterned sweaters. The middle steek that you see is for the neck - the patterning goes wonky around it because I decreased on either side of the steek for a deep V-neck. The steeks on the left and right are for the sleeves. I figured out how to accomplish a set-in sleeve, and if this goes smoothly, I'll be applying this to other patterned sweaters as well. I'm not sure if I've done something to be proud of, or if I'm just causing the original fair isle knitters a lot of grief in their graves.

Next, I'll be cutting the steeks, and then grafting the shoulders together. After that, I'll knit the sleeves and sew them in and I'll be done!

I've already decided that my next sweaters will be the Shirt-Tail Hemmed pullover in Sweaters From Camp, and probably the wedding cardigan from Poetry In Stitches. If I can apply my same formulas to these two sweaters and have the shaping come out well, I'll be writing up what I did and hopefully somebody will find it useful.

I'm not completely stuck in Scandinavian knitting, though. I have a single color project that I'll be sharing soon.

the return of snow sky

I know, I know. This picture looks like old news. Actually, if you look closely, you'll see that this is my second attempt at Snow Sky. Last weekend I managed to finish both sleeves, and was well on my way to finishing the cardigan when I realized that I'd spent so much time worrying about matching the patterns on sleeve and body that I'd completely forgotten that the actual body of the sweater would have to be the same on front and back for the shoulder grafting to work correctly. So, out came all my knitting and I started again. Everything is pretty much the same, except that I went down one needle size to US 3s in order to fit in more pattern repeats in the same amount of space. I'm also being much more careful to keep my yarn in the correct hand, since in my last attempt I was unwittingly switching hands every time I picked up the sweater, and it was pretty obvious.

I really want to have the body and sleeves joined by the end of the week, so we'll see how that goes. After I finish this I want to start one of the sweaters from Poetry in Stitches - the projects in that book are so beautiful that it's good incentive to think about them as I churn away on this one.

free lunch

Today we're having our first official day of snow. I have to say that I think my own Snow Sky is much prettier - the clouds outside look something like dooms day is coming. Definitely not a pink snowflake to be found.

I decided that I wanted the sleeves to have the same pattern as the body. If I had followed the original design, they would have been brown with pink crosses. It still would have been pretty, but I think it would have made the sweater a little more casual. I'm also going to do a set-in sleeve in the round, because I really want to have the pattern continue throughout the sweater, and I couldn't figure out how to do that with the saddle shoulders in the pattern. So far all of this is working out to be easier than I thought, which makes me nervous - either I am creepily expanding my knitting IQ, gaining common sense (!), or have made a large error somewhere. Please tell me if you see it lurking somewhere...either my new-found common sense, or just some old paranoia, is telling me that there's no such thing as a free lunch or an easy fair isle solution.

I'm a little burnt out with this sweater right now, so I'm going to put it on hold and crank out a few more simple designs. I raided the yarn store today and found some nice black cotton yarn made by Butterfly, and burgundy cotton yarn made by Lana Grossa. I also finally found a set of sock needles that go below US 1 - in fact, I now have US 0 and 00! I have some devious plans for these tiny needles - pictures will follow if any of them work out well.

And I want to give everyone who commented on my Hourglass Sweater and Norwegian Socks a huge thank you. Your compliments meant so much to me and were such a nice surprise in an inordinately tough week.

goal #3

Norwegian Stockings from Folk Socks by Nancy Bush. I modified the heels to a salt-and-pepper pattern, as mentioned in this post. Yarn was modified to Morehouse Farm merino in charcoal and natural white, with periwinkle for the stars. And yes, they really do stay up.

when mittens attack

So, what happens when you figure that getting stitch gauge means you can knit your mitten in the dark without trying it on?

MONSTER MITTEN!!!

That's almost a full 12 inches (30.5 centimeters) of mitten there, folks. And it's not even blocked yet. These were meant for someone who has larger hands than me, but this is ridiculous. The cuffs are bad, too - way too wide.

Normal sized mittens just can not compare. Now, to figure out how to make a mitten chart work for a shorter size...

everything's better in fair isle

My new Nikon likes to photograph fair isle much better than my dumpy old Canon, who nastily broke on me about a month ago. This pattern is from Nancy Bush's book on folk socks. I hate the sock in the photo in the book, but after seeing a number of versions that I liked online, I tried my own with bits of leftover Crichton wool. I like it a lot, but I still don't like the book's photo. I think it might be the drastic look of the very black and very white leg, with the random bright red stars on top. I like fair isle colors to relate a little more to each other. I also changed the heel from the checkered pattern to a speckled one. I have about an inch of the second sock on the needles right now.


This sock's made out of leftover Crichton, too. It's incredible how much better it looks after it's been blocked. The tiny wool scraps made so many lumps out of the fabric before it was washed. It is still a little lumpy, but nothing I can't live with. The colors are so bright that I will probably only be wearing this pair as snow socks, anyway. I have about 3/4 of its mate done, and would have finished it last night if I had not been insane and mis-read the same instructions a grand total of THREE times. Heaven knows what goes on inside of my small brain.

And lastly, a lumpy 8.5 inches of Snow Sky. It plods along.

some reconstruction

I pulled my Crichton Cardigan out of the drawer the other day and had a hard look at it. I tried it on a few times, posed a few different ways in the mirror, and came to the indisputable truth:

First, that it is at least two sizes too big for me. (I was afraid What Not to Wear would show up any second.)

And secondly, that I would never wear something this vibrant. The colors are beautiful, but if it remained the way it was, only my drawer was going to be appreciating that.

So, I ripped:

This is what's left now. I think I might make it into a pillowcase. It really is so soft, and the colors and pattern are lovely. I'm also extremely proud of it - this was my first foray into colorwork.

Of course, I'm not going to leave the ripped out yarn sitting idly - so why not make them into socks?

This was as far as I was able to get with the hot pink and some of the white. When ripping, I discovered that the pink had bled onto the white in some places. I figured if I used the stained white with the pink, it would be much less obvious. My plan seems to have worked, because I can't tell at all that the pink is stained. I still have half a ball of the pink left, so I'm sure that I'll be able to get a full pair of socks. I have enough white to sink a boat - no worries there. This sock is based on Meg Swansen's design in the Vogue Fall 2006. I did a pattern of snowflakes (found in Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitting Around) instead of diamonds, and added a few rows of 1x1 ribbing at the top to help keep it up.

I was able to completely finish a pair of socks (this time following Meg Swansen's pattern without any additions) out of leftover charcoal and white. As you can tell, I really, really like this sock pattern. The arch shaping makes it so comfortable, and I love the striping up and down the leg. It's also much easier to make socks out of the ripped yarn than anything larger. Because I had used steeks in the cardigan, I have many short pieces of yarn instead of the nice tidy ball you might get otherwise. With a sock, I'm able to get about three rounds out of a length of yarn, whereas with something larger I'd be having to reconnect it every half round or so. I tried spit splicing, but for some reason it's just not working for me. At any rate, adding in a fresh piece of yarn only slows me down about half an hour for each sock. Not a big deal to me.

So! I am of course going to finish and make a mate for my pink sock, and I'll be able to make a mate for my red sock that I posted earlier out of my leftovers. This makes me especially happy, since otherwise I would have had to buy another skein to complete the pair. All of this success got me thinking about my poor silk yarn, which I've ripped a number of times, unsuccessfully and half-heartedly tried to sell, and finally shoved it into the back of my yarn container and tried to forget about. Surely, if something can be made out of 20 inch lengths of yarn, I could do something with this?

Enter Clapotis, a very popular pattern on Knitty.com.

This pattern takes good advantage of all of the qualities of the Reynolds Mandalay silk. It uses strips of stockinette between the dropped stitches, which allow the beautiful color variations to show. I had tried making lace out of it, but the variations got lost and it looked very muddy. The pattern also allows the silk to hang however it wants and still look nice. The garments I tried to make out of it were a mess of heavy material, which sagged in some undesireable places. I don't think I'm going to be buying a 100% silk yarn again (I don't mind if it's mixed in with more elastic fibers), but I've definitely gotten over my disappointment for now.

crichton takes an outing

Can you guess what I did today? Here's a hint:

The Crichton Cardigan's ends are all woven in, and button bands (finally) correctly on. Blocking did wonders for it - I really think it turned out beautifully, even if I did keep on forgetting that I had purposely made holes for buttons and kept on trying to darn them. Ugh. I'm glad that part is over.

I think maybe silver buttons?

crichton cardigan is close to finished

I finished the neck edging and the left side of the front facing before realizing that I may need to make some more changes to the Crichton Cardigan's pattern. I accidentally didn't continue the front facing up to the neck edge, making a right angle between the two. It would be a little more work than I feel like doing to pick up stitches along the neck and try to make it fit, or to rip out the entire facing and try again. I'm also very close to running out of the periwinkle color, and I don't feel like paying $9.50 for another 220 yards of it, or just risking it and see how it goes. So, I'm thinking that I'm going to put it snaps.
I like how this looks better, anyway, I think. I wasn't a big fan of how the front facing broke up the pattern. I'm going to have to work out the more technical details still, and find a local place that will sell me the snaps. I think it will go nicely, though.

crichton cardigan has one sleeve

The Crichton Cardigan looks quite jaunty here. Its first sleeve is all finished, and this time it actually fits. It's a little bit larger than I normally would make sleeves, but I like the look. I couldn't figure out the directions for the decreases at all, so I made up my own that seemed to work well. I knit the first and last of the underarm stitches in the dark color, and then decreased the underarm stitches (following the same rate as the directions) inside each dark color stitch.