ho hum

This old thing again?



And, just for good measure, a picture of the original:




Sorry for the rotten pictures - it's still way too cold to go outside without a coat. But here it is, all knitted, sewed, cleaned, and dried. And it fits!


This is, of course, Snow Sky by Amy Swanson from the book Sweaters from Camp, for Rebekkah's knitalong. I modified the colors to Morehouse merino's two ply in chocolate and raspberry (yum). I worked out my own waist shaping, and changed the drop shoulders to set-in. I also added a v-neck. In the original pattern, the sleeves are done with crosses, but I liked them better in the same chart as the body, so I worked that out, too. There were a few blips - the body you see is the third attempt, as are the sleeves, and I had a steek unravel on me - but overall, an excellent learning experience.

While this was drying, I went on a mitten spree and made these. The gray ones are done in a simple baby cable pattern and are of my own design, and the orange ones are the Lopi mittens from Folk Mittens. The lone mitten at the bottom is the Turkey mitten, also from Folk Mittens. Its mate is about halfway done.These are made with the remnants of the Crichton cardigan - all Morehouse merino. The gray is charcoal, the white is the natural, the orange is persimmon, and the blue is periwinkle.

And, because it's been almost a year since I've done any lace, I picked up the book Victorian Lace Today. I really like the patterns, but I'm disappointed with the pictures. They're lovely, but they don't show as much detail of the lace that I would like. For a couple, it's difficult for me to understand which pattern goes with which shawl, too, which is unfortunate. It's still worth the money, though, in my opinion. I've begun the Stripes and Torchon lace in Rowan's Kidsilk Haze, using US 0 needles. I've learned that this is not a project I can work on without my glasses, and for me, it requires more attention than the colorwork I've been doing.

Isn't unblocked lace sad? I'm only doing three diamonds across, not five like the pattern says. I've got four repeats done so far, out of something like twenty. Luckily, it's getting easier the more I work on it.

a month's progress

The cold weather has filled me with knitterly excitement. Or at least, that's how I'm explaining the fact that I have three sweaters on the needles right now. I haven't had much time for knitting recently because I've been busy, but as a freelance musician I'd much rather have little free time than sitting at home and wondering when the next job will come. It is disappointing to see my knitting progress slow, though.

The first sweater I'm making (and hopefully finishing first, too) is another men's sweater out of Debbie Bliss' Cathay in black. The first one I made was a hit, so I'm back to fields of stockinette again. I think I'll try a saddle shoulder instead of a set-in one this time, just to break up the monotony a little bit. I've managed to finish the body up to the armholes, and I'm about halfway through one sleeve. I don't know why I wrote in my notes that I used 10 skeins (1100 yards) for my first sweater, since I think I'm going to be at least two skeins short.

The next sweater I'm making is for myself. Hege I traded knitting books, and I ended up with Last-Minute Knitted Gifts. I love all of the patterns, and I started on the Hourglass Sweater almost right away. I was able to use some yarn out of my stash. This is the first yarn I ever bought, and after an unsuccessful lace sweater it's been frogged and waiting for more years than I'd care to admit. I remembered it as being 100% alpaca, but it seems to maybe have some cotton in it, too. It's a solid blue - any variation you see in the picture is the result of lumpy knitting making shadows. Thankfully it will be blocked. The fiber is a tiny bit scratchy, but apparently my Dutch genes have made me invincible to wool's scratchiness, so no problem there. My gauge was one row too short and I couldn't fix it, so I'm reworking some of the shaping in the pattern. Right now I'm 16 rows short of the armholes. I'm pretty impressed that I knew enough way back then to buy enough yarn to make a sweater. At the time I purchased this, I had never heard of Barbara Walker, fair isle, or double pointed needles - when sock patterns mentioned a set of 4 needles, I thought there was some magical way that you worked with the straights, all needles moving at the same time.

The Crichton remains are still waiting until I decide if I want to make something useful out of the body, or unravel it and use the yarn for socks. However, I did buy some beautiful wool from Morehouse Farm and started a much-altered version of Snow Sky, also from Sweaters From Camp. I've downsized the pattern a lot so it will fit better, and have also turned it into a cardigan. I don't really like the way the shoulders are worked in the original pattern, so I'm trying to come to an alternate solution. So far I think set-in sleeves would look nice. I'm going to have to do some charting to see if I prefer trying to match the pattern across the sleeves and body, or if I should let the sleeves have their own design. I've finished one pattern repeat, which is about 6.5".

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.