Recently in Sweaters Category

Yes, I know about the drawbacks of big yarn without much twist (both from a fashion and maintenance perspective). But I really really really want to make this in the Marble colorway (or perhaps I should say colourway, since it's from Colinette). I should probably know better (this sweater certainly wouldn't be popular with Stacy and Clinton or Trinny and Susannah), but I love the tunic shaping and the neckline.

I have never really been drawn to Point 5, but ever since first seeing Shimmer 5 on Marie's Blog, I have to admit I've started stalking the Internet for the stuff.

Yarn stalker. Yep, that's me.

You can see the lovely Shimmer 5 colorways here

And the other designs in from the Shimmer 5 pattern book here.

For pictures of the sweaters with yardage requirements described click here (link added on 10/28/04)

(Actually, Colinette seems to have had a small explosion of new pattern books recently... you can find some of them here)

I'm in the process of becoming a French yarn fanantic. Yes, I know, everyone else discovered Phildar wonderfulness last year while I was having Filatura di Crossa fever. In addition to Tendences (which I picked up to be ready for the Onde-A-Long that Bonne Marie is hosting), I also decided to treat myself to Famille which has lovely patterns for the Phil'Onde as well. (In case you are looking for a North American source for these publications (with English translation), you can find them at Knit 'n' Tyme in Canada.)

While paging through Famille, I came across this:

Thalassa in Jeans and Ciel

And I thought to myself, That Husband guy of mine with the big shoulders would look awfully good in that. But would he wear it... hmmm... it is grey... and then I put the magazine away for a while until he came home.

Then the big test came. I opened Famille, put it in front of him and asked him (as I have so many times) Do you like this?

Of course, I was expecting I don't think so, Therese (which is what he calls me, and what he usually tells me when I confront him with a sweater pattern. Instead... Yeah, I'd wear that. That's not bad

Whoa.

Now, Phil'Onde is actually a good yarn as far as man-friendliness is concernded. It's mostly acrylic, with a little cotton thrown in for good measure, so it's very washable, which means he can wear it against his skin, which he likes. It's also soft and friendly without having that acrylicky feel. It only has one little problem... it likes to be knit up on 3.5 - 4.0 mm needles. And the love of my life is not exactly a small guy -- he's got nice big shoulders. So this won't be a tiny sweater, but it will be on tiny needles

But he likes it. And it will be very striking on him.

What do you think? Should he get this sweater? Wouldn't it be great for fall?

P.S. Today's real "knitting content" can be found here at the Audrey KnitAlong blog. I've been swatching, and I finally got gauge!

  

I'm still pretty fascinated by how this shadow thing works. At some level it just feels a little magical. Even though the knitting is mostly garter and stockinette stitch, watching the patterning keeps pulling me forward. Where the Raspberry starts is the edge of the center color panel panel. There's a little bit of neck shaping that starts soon.

I also got something nice in the mail from my mom. On my last visit, I placed a special order at Knit A Round for some yarn to start Elsabeth Lavold's fabulous Culdesac from the Fall 2003 Knitter's.

The beginnings of culdesac

I think Culdesac will be the right combination of interesting detail and standard stitches for me to get accomplished this fall. The Matchmaker is Mmm Mmm Soft! It's almost an exact match for the Debbie Bliss yarn suggested for the pattern. I think there's enough sheen in the yarn that the cables will come out well. One more project to add to my "to do list". But I am going to make myself finish something before I get started on this one. Anyone else out there going to do Culdesac and want to knit along with me?

  

Wednesdays are not a high productivity knitting night for me -- but I did get half of the next color interval done. Ever since my husband and I started dating, Wednesday has been our date night. In the past 6 or so years, I think I can count on one hand the number of times that we haven't spent the evening on a date. Tonight we went to Frontera Grill for margaritas and a little new job celebration for John. If you want a good margarita, Frontera is one of the best places to go. It's also one of my happy places.

I also got a little work done on my travelling project today. It was just nice enough outside so that I could sit on the grass and soak up the fall sunshine. This picture was actually taken yesterday, I've now turned the heal and am doing the ankle decreases.

The yarn is Regia Multi Effekt, 5375. I purchased it from KnitPicks a while back when Knitters Review posted the 10% off coupon and I just couldn't resist fall sock yarn. Supposedly this sock yarn is "masculine". But when I tried it out on my resident male, I got a raised eyebrown. Good thing I didn't buy it for him. So I guess the folks at KnitPicks need to think again. (BTW, when did KnitPicks drop the free shipping on orders over $30?)

Here's a closeup that gives a little closer look at the colors and patterning.

It's such a pleasure to knit with Regia. I love how soft it is right out of the skein, and I am always intrigued by the patterning. Maybe another sock will be born this weekend!

   
The back of the cardigan begins...

This is the first color panel of the back of the Shadow Boxes Cardigan (which I will probably refer to as SBC because, a) I am lazy, and b) as a scientist I have a pathological need to turn everything into an acronym). This sweater is worked from side to side instead of top to bottom. The patterning is essentially garter stitch rows offset by stockinette areas. Only the lower part of the cardigan (the bottom 36 stitches) have the shadow patterning. The stitch work is a little wavy at this point, but I think a good blocking will take care of that!

So far, so good. Finished with the iris striping for a bit and onto plum!

Oh! And a big Happy Birthday to my very first knitting buddy and teacher, Judy Smith. She's busy being a pediatric rhumatologist, but hopefully someone is taking time to feed her cake!

Why was I so adamant about getting Pebbles finished? Well, in addition to really wanting the sweater, I had this yarn whispering sweet nothings in my ear...

Yarn Parfait

Iris, Raspberry, Plum and Black all waiting to become the Shadow Boxes Cardigan (see my side bar for a link to the sweater on the designer's site) for Mom for Christmas. Once I finished Pebbles I gave myself license to start swatching for this project. For once, I decided not to be a cheap cheeser and do a real swatch that I don't rip out -- with all the colors. If I'm feeling really ambitious, I might actually wash it....

Berries Behind Bars

Of course, this isn't really the interesting angle. Take a look at it from a different direction and it looks completely different.

Raised Berry Boxes

Neat, eh? And even better, I got gauge on the first shot, so now I am ready to go. Whaddya think, Ma? Do you like the colors? Click the link to my comments and let me know!

This year Mom and I decided to trade handmade things for Christmas (just so you don't think that she's the only one whose going to have something special for the holidays). She's getting this sweater, and I am going to get a beautiful handmade art doll. I've made her promise to take progress pictures of the doll project. Would you like to see them here? She doesn't think anyone would be interested, but I'm betting otherwise. Here's a simple little project that she did for me. Mom wasn't very happy with them, but I love them -- they sit in my knitting room. I think they're the perfect knitting mascots.

Froggy Went A Courtin'

You've gotta love those sculpted feet and hands and those great froggy eyes. I wish I could get Girl Froggy posed better with her hand crafted dress and pantaloons. My Froggies are a little more country than what's coming. My Christmas present is supposed to be some kind of fairy themed doll. Are there knitting fairies to go along with Mare's Felting Pixies? We'll know soon.

Oh yeah!

Here she is: Pebbles in all her Summer Tweed-y glory. The fancy pin holding her closed is one of my Chibi needles. Before I treat you to the glory shots, I thought I'd share some of the finishing process. This is the second raglan sweater that I've put together. I do like to put these sweaters together -- it's a lot easier and less fussy than sweaters with set-in sleeves, at least as far as I am concerned.

See the pretty cables...

This is probably the best picture I have of the cables. Summer Tweed in Powder is very camera unfriendly when the flash goes off. All that nice silk reflects the light and washes everything out.

When I first started working on this sweater, Emma made the suggestion that seaming with Summer Tweed was not a good idea. For any of you that haven't worked with ST, it breaks fairly easily if you pull on it too hard. I didn't have any problems with this during the knitting, but it didn't seem worth taking the chance at the finishing step. Instead, I went out and bought some fingering weight white cotton. Not only did this work like a charm, but it reduced the bulk of the seams. I may do this with other sweaters even where the yarn would work.

The following is a little slide show of the sweater assembly. I know it's a lot of pictures, but I think of this blog as a knitting journal, so I hope no one minds as I indulge in sharing the process of putting this sweater together.

Ready, Set, Seam!

The Front Left is Connected to the Left Sleeve

The Front Right is Connected to the Right Sleeve

The Right Sleeve is Connected to the Back

The Left Sleeve is Connected to the Back

Neck Band Added

All seamed up. Is there somewhere to go?

I wish that the pictures I took of the neck band had come out better. But don't worry, you aren't missing too much. You just pick up 101 stitches and knit two rows of garter stitch and bind off. Here's a close-up of my raglan seams from the right side of the work.

Can you find the seam in this picture?

I'm pretty pleased with how the finishing worked out. But the proof really isn't in the finishing, is it? It's in the wearing. So with out further ado, here's my new favorite sweater:

Comfy sweater and retro jewelry

Pebbles from the back

Look, Ma! Pretty side seams

Can you tell I like this sweater? I've decided that I am not going to add the press studs to the sweater as directed, I am just going to pin it closed when I want to wear it that way. I've worn it most of the day, and it's been keeping me warm and happy. It's loose without being too baggy and the shaping is perfect for me. After a day of wear, the sweater is holding its shape just fine -- gravity seems to be kinder to silk/cotton blends than to straight cotton.

This pattern, all things considered, is a pretty good one. I didn't find any errors and the yarn estimates were just fine (I had most of the 10th skein left over). The only thing I didn't really like were the edges of the pieces, but in the end that didn't make too much difference.

And what did I learn on this project?

• I'm done knitting with un-elastic yarns for a little while.
• I'm done knitting moss stitch sweaters for a little while.
• A Summer Tweed moss stitch sweater is a little unfriendly to knit, but the finished fabric is fabulous and worth the effort.
• Seaming is a lot easier with a finer yarn, and makes for less seam bulk inside the sweater.
• Becky is right to advocate selvedge stitches. If I were to do this sweater again, the edge stitches of all the pieces would be in stockinette. It wasn't that hard to mattress stitch the thing together, but that would have made it easier.
• My husband would wear a Summer Tweed sweater (OMG!), albeit not in baby blue.
• AddiTurbo circular needles ROCK! (And probably saved this project from oblivion)
• In my hands, Summer Tweed is not the demon yarn that a lot of folks wanted to make it out to be. It didn't break on me and I don't think it smells funny. I'd definitely do something else with it in the future if the right project presented itself.

And for everyone who had the patience to read down this far... I leave you with the cheesecake shot I promised if I got the sweater finished over the weekend...
No beach, no hotpants, no tan. Just a pasty white woman and my beachwear from France. My photographer selected the shot. All those Rowan models should start quaking in fear now! Can You Say Cheese?.

Have A Great Monday!

Not much progress tonight, folks

Well, that's it. That's the sum total of what I got done tonight. I wish I could make the cable stand out a little better. At least this is a better representation of the true color of Powder.

I've enjoyed reading all of the people who have posted the knitting things that they wished they had know earlier. Since Nanette, one of my favorite daily reads, invited us all to jump in and share, how could I not participate? Sometimes I wonder if we do know these things early on, but we avoid them and only decide they are important after some major knitting disaster like a far too large sweater or ugly seams. At any rate, here's my top ten list, in no particular order.

1. Two words: Mattress Stitch. The wonderful friend who taught me how to knit, showed me how to seam using backstitch, and it never occurred to me that there were other wasy to do this. Then, when I did figure out there might be other ways, I couldn't find a good picture of how to do it. I finally learned through Debbie Bliss How to Knit, which I definitely recommend.
2. Blocking is the key to a beautifully finished garment. Blocking makes it easier to deal with edge stitches and really does help set the finished shape the way you want it to be. Blocking is not hard. It just takes a space to do it in, patience, a spray bottle and rust-proof pins.
3. How you hold the yarn makes all the difference. For a long time I carried the yarn in my left hand, but was a thrower. It was a lot of effort for me to knit this way, and it was hard for me to maintain my tension consistently. With the help of Maggie Righetti's Knitting in Plain English and a few other pictoral references, I finally got it down. My tension is better and my speed is much improved.
4. Don't be afraid of speed demon needles. I used to worry about the loss of control with AddiTurbos. Now I don't want to knit with anything else. Along the same lines: circular needles are the only way to fly. I like straight needles as art objects, but I find I get a lot less strain on my joints when I use circs.
5. Sock knitting is not hard! I wish I had learned to knit socks much earlier in my career than I did. Socks are quick and rewarding and can be wonderful color trips. Self-patterning sock yarn can make even boring stockinette interesting.
6. There is no knitting religion. Everyone has favorite techniques, but that doesn't mean that there aren't other ways to do things. If I had to use DP needles to knit socks, well, I wouldn't knit socks. My best kntting buddy wouldn't knit them any other way. We both get great results. Don't let anyone tell you that there's only one way to knit something!
7. Patterns are only reference points. I'm still learning this, but I've ventured off the beaten path enough to know that there's no pattern police and no reason why you shouldn't make a garment be what you want it to be.
8. If you're going to knit for other people, knit with them in mind. I no longer expect my husband to want a brightly colored Fair Isle sweater or Koigu socks. If you knit something for yourself for someone else, don't expect them to be as excited about it as you would be. The only way to make sure that your gift is appreciated is to make sure that you fit the recipeint's style and likes.
9. Felting is fast, fabulous and therapeautic.
10. It's okay to have a range of projects going at any one time. In the late 90's I didn't do much knitting at all because I thought I could only do one project at a time, and I was working on a complicated project that needed a lot of attention. Now I almost always have a couple of simple projects (like socks and scarves) that can go in a car, and one or two more challengeing things. Even when I don't feel motivated to work on the hard stuff, I have something I enjoy.

Moss Stitch A-Go-Go

I do wish this yarn photographed better. Of course, it would probably help if I was taking my pictures during daylight hours. Tonight I made it over the hurdle of Pebbles' second sleeve. Miles and miles of uninterrupted moss stitch are now complete. I was hoping to get the last piece cast on tonight, but work and my masters thesis slowed me down a little on the sleeves. Tomorrow I'll be casting on the remaining front piece for the sweater -- cabling, moss stitch and nifty shaping all await. And possibly a new sweater in my wardrobe over the weekend. What more could a knitty girl want?

I'm also pleased to say that I have two full skeins of the yarn left at this point -- more than sufficient to finish the project. It really just makes me ecstatically happy not to have to worry about running out of yarn.

Some of you might have noticed that I re-organized my works in progress section. I broke my projects into three categories:

1. Projects I am actively working on.
2. Projects that I started but stalled out on.
3. Projects I could start if I wanted to.

I understand that there is nothing revolutionary about this scheme. However, like any good scientist, I couldn't just leave well enough alone and go on to something else I needed to do, I had to analyze exactly why these projects fell into the categories they did. Why things fall into the first and last category is more or less self-evident: I'm either working on them or haven't started yet. But what caused me to get stalled on the rest. Hmmm...

So I dug into my big basket of stalled projects... several scarves, the Pebbles sweater, the Malin sweater, a project I can't reveal here and a sock. Well, they aren't all the same kind of knitted item, so it couldn't be just shape or size. They're made out of wool, ribbon, acrylic blend, polar fleece, a cotton-wool blend and a cotton-silk blen. So no correlation there either.

Hmmm... Hmmmm... Hmmm.... Certainly there must be some connection. After all, I am a human, a creature of habit!

And then I had one of those "A-ha!" moments. I was doing all these projects on straight needles. And all the ones I was plugging away at happily were on circs. "But wait", you say, "What about that sock? You never do socks on straights!" Heh. Well. I frogged the sock when I realized that it had stalled because I hadn't followed the pattern and I wasn't going to be able to fit my foot into it. In other words, like all good scientists, if some data point didn't fit my model, I threw it out.*

Now, in the spirit of making deals with myself, I decided that I couldn't start anything off the third list until I finished something in the second list. I really do want to wear the Pebbles sweater before I grow old. Maybe you don't remember Pebbles? Here she is in all her Rowan glory:

And here is how far I had gotten as of May 7th. The back and one of the fronts.

And then I started on one of the sleeves and just coudn't keep myself moving on it. I told myself at first it was the moss stitch. And then it was the dry texture of the yarn. But now I know it was something else: the needles. I slipped that sleeve off the Casein straight needles and onto AddiTurbo circs. Et Voila! The stitches just seemed to fly by. No more problems with moss stitch or dry yarn.

Now I am in absolute love with this project and with the Summer Tweed again. This stuff has great drape and the moss stitch makes for a perfect texture for it. I've only got one more set of increases to go before knitting straight to the cap. It was all in the needles. Not only is the nickel plated surface better for me, but having the weight of the fabric shifted from my elbows to my lap is much more pleasant.

So Pebbles is no longer stalled. And I have more insights into my personal knitting demons. All it needed was a scientific approach. And if I can get it done by the weekend, I'll do my best to wear Pebbles just like the model -- minus the beach. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

*I hope you all realize that I am joking about scientists fudging their data sets. That's a no no. I would never do it in real life. But this is knitting, not trying to find a cure for cancer, so I hope you'll all be lenient with my data selection/manipulation techniques.