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Focusing on the good things created during the week...


This week:  Lots of freshly organized space in the studio, and one happy cat!

 

On my needles: The facing facts edition

On my needles this week are one project I have grown to love and one about which I have grown ambivalent.  On the right is a Pointy Elf Hat, for me, in the Strawberry Smoothie colorway hand dyed by Woolbearers in Malabrigo Gruesa.  I used this yarn to make everyone in the family such a hat at Christmastime except D and me, so now I am making ours.  The thick-and-thin merino is soft and luxurious to work with and I can't wait to put it on my head.  (Aside:  K gave everyone an "Elf name" on Christmas Day:  Grandma was the Cooking Elf, Grandpa the Sleeping Elf, D was the Computer Elf, Aunt S the Reading Elf, and Uncle A the Stinky Elf!  I, of course, was the Knitting Elf.)

The Shalom Cardigan, on the other hand, is turning out to be a bit of a disappointment.  Despite the many glowing comments I read about Cascade Ecological Wool on Ravelry, I am not entranced with the yarn.  I can see that it will make a good, sturdy, comfortable sweater but I am not falling over myself to knit on it.  I can see clearly that I will never make my end-of-February deadline with this sweater, and I'm having the occasional fleeting thought of frogging the thing and starting over with a chunky alpaca I have stashed away.  For the moment, however, I will persevere.  

If you have not already popped over there, I invite you to take a look at Soulemama's post for today, titled "an EZ set."  She has some whimsical and wise words to say about -- and quotations from -- the inimitable Elizabeth Zimmermann, knitter extraordinaire. 

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Focusing on the good things created during the week...

A pretty impressive tangle incurred when I tried to ply my newly spun "art yarn singles."  Hooray for time to spin!

On my needles -- the On-again-off-again Edition

I finally cast on for my Shalom in Ecological Wool on size 10 1/2's last Friday, then promptly lost track of it as I scrambled to finish K's quilt in time for Valentine's Day (which, as you can see by the lack of a corresponding post, I did not do.)  I felt kind of iffy about the extremely loose and stretchy fabric of the garter-stitch collar at the start.  Then I had some trouble with the twisted-rib portion of the yoke, which I knew I had been doing incorrectly in the original and which I wanted to set straight.  Between one thing and another, I decided to frog it.

I have started knitting again on a size 10 needle, and things are looking up.  Meanwhile, I have learned:

1. I was doing the M1 increase all wrong!  You lift the little bar with the right needle and place it knitwise on the left, and then there is no hole after the increase!  Hooray!
2. To do the twisted rib, you twist the knit stitches on the wrong side and the purl stitches on the right side.  Voila!

Even if I don't finish this sweater by the end of February (and I still very well might!), it will have been well worth making for the lessons it is teaching me.

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Another week, another bout with bronchitis.

Focusing on the good things created during the week:

This week, courtesy Aunt H:  A whirling dervish!

(Just like) starting over

I'm over my lost weekend with the green Lopi yarn and it's time to start rethinking the Shalom sweater.

Frogging was a disaster.  Apparently Lopi is pretty apt to give in and fall apart when you tug on it with any force, and it clings to itself fiercely, so reclaiming the wool I used was not an option.  I might have enough left to finish a 3/4-sleeved sweater with, but there's no way to be sure, and I really want this sweater to work.  Off to the LYS, where I purchased 2 enormous skeins of Cascade Yarns Ecological Wool, then home to wind the yarn into balls and crunch the numbers.

 

478 is a lot of yards to wind.  It took at least an hour before I was ready to start swatching.  The yarn called for #10 needles but the pattern called for #10 1/2, which is what I used.  

 

Before blocking, my swatch gave 4 stitches to the inch, and the same was true after blocking.  Using Elizabeth Zimmermann's percentage system from Knitting Without Tears and my favorite yoked sweater (not a cardigan, so I added 4 stitches for the button band), I calculated that I would need:

• 88 stitches for the neck
• 186 stitches for the chest
• 60 stitches for the arm circumference at the underarm
• 15 stitches at the bottom of the underarm (to be cast on after placing live arm stitches on waste yarn)
• 45 stitches for the arm to be placed on waste yarn and picked up when working the arms.

That was the easy part.

 

The number crunching got ugly after that.  I had to ask for help from an expert (thank you, D) and consider several courses of action before deciding that I would work the pattern as follows:

• Cast on 88 stitches
• Follow rows 1-7
• Complete row 8 as given; 142 stitches
• Follow rows 9-19
• Row 20: k5, m1, k2; (m1, k4) until 7 stitches remain; m1, k2, m1, k5; 170 stitches
• follow rows 121-131
• Row 32: k5; (m1, k4, m1, k3) until 11 stitches remain; (m1, k2) twice; m1; k5; 217 stitches
• Follow rows 33-44
• Row 45: k20, place 45 sts on waste yarn, k87, place 45 sts on waste yarn, k20; 127 stitches
• Row 46: k5, p to first armhole, cast on 15 stitches, p to second armhole, cast on 20 stitches, p 15, k5
• work in stockinette stitch with garter stitch border until desired length; knit 9 rows of garter stitch; bind off all stitches (note -- no waist shaping!)

I have not yet decided how I am going to work the arms -- I have seen several designs that I like and I want to try on the body before I make a final decision about that.  Also I want to get this yarn on my needles and get to work!

Frogging

Well, I had a premonition but I didn't want to say anything.  The neck looked a little too small, the sleeves a little funny, the chest not quite chesty enough.  And (oh, shame) I had not swatched.  I got about three inches into the body and had started inserting some desperate little increases when I noticed three little links on the Ravelry Shalom Cardigan page:

Shalom Tips 1

Shalom Tips 2

Shalom Tips 3

Oops.

On my needles

My February Challenge Sweater is coming along nicely.  I have finished the yoke and bound off for the sleeves, and am ready to begin the body.  I also found some buttons in my button box that I think will work nicely.  From here on it should be smooth sailing.

Things I have learned so far:

1. I love, love, love the look of garter stitch.  I'm looking forward to starting the Sonnet sweater from Knitty.com (well, ok, I already started it, but it's on hiatus till I finish a couple of other WIP's) which has rows and rows of garter stitch. 
2. Do buttonholes neatly.  The first time.  I am not going to want to go back and fix sloppy ones later, and it may not be worth it.  I plan on keeping my sweater buttoned most of the time.
3. Maybe I should not watch tv or listen to podcasts or music when I'm working on a pattern stitch, even a simple one as appears here.  I had to rip out the first tier of the yoke at least three times because of mass confusion in the second or third row, and it was only when I began working in complete silence that I got control of the thing.
4. I can weave in ends invisibly and firmly.  It's not hard to do that, but I need to take my time to do it right, which I never want to do when I'm frantic to get a finished sweater on my body.  I heard someone on a Knit Picks podcast suggest that weaving in ends as you go might be a good idea, and I wholeheartedly agree.
5. I am learning quite a bit about top-down construction and how miraculous and versatile this sort of design can be.  I rather think I'm going to prefer it from here on in.

All in all, not bad for a week's work.  What's on your needles?

created

Due to a bout with bronchitis, I'm afraid I haven't been particularly active this week, and so haven't been taking many photographs.  "created" will have to take its form in words today:

Focusing on the good things created during the week...

• Progress on my tea leaves cardigan
• One spinach quiche for Sunday dinner and one herbed quiche for the freezer
• Cottage cheese dill bread and French Lentil Soup 
• A good start on K's Science Fair project with help from D
• A totally doable challenge to myself to knit a sweater in a (short!) month
• A significantly greater challenge in accepting the role of craft table chairperson for the church Christmas bazaar -- but still doable
• A precious memory of time spent with a good friend in need

If you are inclined to share, please leave a comment with some of your week's good creations.

February challenge: Shalom cardigan

On the first of the month I began working on the Shalom Cardigan in Lopi Wool, having finished all of the interesting parts of the Tea Leaves Cardigan for a while -- I have miles of boring stockinette stitch to finish there.  And, while I am still devoted to Tea Leaves, I got to thinking how I love working in bulky yarn, and what fun the Shalom pattern is to knit, and could I?  Maybe?  If I really pushed myself, could I get the Shalom sweater finished by the end of February?  I think maybe I could.

 

It's going to take some discipline, particularly since I want to follow Soulemama's lead and add sleeves to the finished garment (where would I be without her creative guidance?), but I think it's doable.  Look for updates here as I work hard to create an actual finished garment -- we process knitters have to do that occasionally -- and feel free to add your own comments and suggestions along the way.  Won't this be fun?

On my needles

Making plenty of progress on my Tea Leaves Cardigan!

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Focusing on the good things created during the week...

Ties on the quilt that was meant to be K's Christmas gift -- it should be bound by Valentine's day!

Spin to spin

When I first got my spindle, and then spinning wheel (and I know that some people name their wheels, but I think that's a little bit silly, so mine will just be "spinning wheel," at least until I acquire another, which I'm assured I will) I felt certain that I had to produce knit-worthy yarn right away, even if it was lumpy-bumpy "art" yarn (which it was.)   I was spinning for quantity, as well -- if I were going to knit with the yarn I made, I wanted to make enough yarn to make something useful, which for me is nothing smaller than a sweater -- so you can imagine the fluffy puffs of fiber knocking around our house.  But I have taken some time off from spinning to wash my two raw fleeces and do some sewing and knitting, and now I have some new spinning goals:

 

created

Welcome to Created, a new feature of this blog inspired by Dialectic Dichotomy's Sanguine Saturday and designed to focus on the good things created during the week by me, by my family and by my friends.  I would like to eventually include submissions from readers, too.  The post will normally appear on Sundays but is a little late this week because I have just developed it as the response to a challenge from a friend.  I will try to keep the narrative to a minimum -- I plan to simply use photographs with captions, and I hope that the format will become clear with time.

Plenty of progress on my 'Tea Leaves' Cardigan.

My fiber closet!

It was almost too easy to do this, after The Yarn Project -- just a matter of emptying the craft closet of unrelated items, inventorying the fiber and tools and packaging it all up neatly in the enormous space I had created.

Little boxes

Hooray!  Every last ball of yarn is assigned to a project, collected into a labeled box and tucked away until I am ready to knit it, and the books I need are filed in my bookshelf.  No more random bags of projects hanging on doorknobs with books hiding inside like bottom-feeders, never seeing the light of day.  My needles are organized into sixteen manageable bags (plus one for the crochet hooks), and I am left with a double handful of straight needles to donate along with the big bag of odd yarn hanks.  Looks pretty good to me.

Now I need to sort through my fiber collection (oh how I am dying to spin again!) and set up my new (to me) sewing table in the studio so I will have access to both sewing machines at once (yes, I really do need that.)  I made a decision early in the year to purge my fabric collection of all but my very favorite quilting cottons, so I donated many bags of remnants bought from JoAnn Fabrics (when I first started quilting and didn't really know what I wanted to work with) and yards and yards of baby flannel (I seem to have had some idea of making receiving blankets, but I'm not sure for whom.)  The remains are some really interesting vintage fabrics, a lot of wool felt and linen, and a vast collection of vintage pillowcases and bedsheets, with which I am well pleased.

Stash sorting snafu

Someone please tell me how this happens!  I began this project with the best of intentions for organizing my stash, and now high holy heck has broken loose. Now I'm playing a sort of game of Yarn Tetris, fitting hanks and skeins into projects of sweaters and vests and ponchos (because I can never plan a small project, though I do long for them from time to time.)  This is what I'm looking at right now -- I'll talk to you when I've dug my way out a bit more:

Sweaters on deck

My one fiber resolution for 2011 is to work primarily from my stash.  I have come to an understanding that this will involve a deep and honest evaluation of my yarn and UFO collection, and that some difficult decisions will need to be made.

This first decision was not at all difficult:  Frog City.  I hate it so much I may not even bother to unravel the yarn, I may just pass it on to the Goodwill in vest form.  It was meant to be a Berkshire Sweater from Weekend Knitting like the Violet Beauregarde sweater I made a year or so back, but the gauge was all funky and the yarn was not delicious and the whole thing was just sad.  I will need to think of something to do with the yarn -- it's Debbie Bliss Chunky Donegal Tweed -- or else it goes to someone else's stash, so ideas are welcome.

 

This sweater is another no-brainer.  It's the Millie Cardigan from Vintage Crochet and it's so close to done!  I just need some concentrated quiet time to get the counting right.  I can't wait to wear this!

 

Okay.  This is just what it looks like:  a pile of Lopi yarn in a bunch of colors I thought looked pretty together.  It was way on sale.  I'm thinking of something in garter stitch, maybe vertical stripes?  Input is, as usual, appreciated.

And this is where I broke my no-new-fiber rule.  Because I found the Blizzard yarn that I made my original Violet Beauregarde out of in a warehouse sale for, once again, way cheap.  And I have a bunch of modifications that I want to try with the sweater to make it more attractive and comfy to wear.  Nuff said.

 

Another pile of Lopi yarn, this time destined to become knitty.com's awesome Sonnet sweater.  I'm going to have fun looking for buttons to go with this one.  Have I mentioned that I love working with bulky yarn?

And, at last, my current fave, Madelintosh's tea leaves cardigan, done in Cascade Eco Duo that had been meant for an EZ seamless yoke sweater which I was simply not ready to tackle.

I would love to stay and chat but K's birthday party is this afternoon and I am using up precious knitting moments.  Until next time!

One mitten

Remember my handspun angora?  From away back?  My beautiful, bulky, teal, thick-and-thin, fuzzy, wonderful handspun angora?  Here is what I made from it:

 

Yes, that is correct.  One K-sized mitten.  I know I should have made a scarf, I knew when I began the mitten that I would not have enough yarn for two.  I was banking on my provider having -- or being able to dye -- some fiber to match the fiber I had already spun.  Lesson learned:  do not bank.  So I am left with one bunny-fluff mitten to hang on the Christmas tree next year.  I think it will look natural there.

Necessary neatening, with audience participation

This is what my knitting needle drawer used to look like:

Mayhem had ruled my drawer for far too long.  This weekend, I took action.  Now I have a bag dedicated to crochet hooks and one dedicated to notions.

I have my circular and double-pointed needles in individual plastic bags, corralled in large zipper bags, one for each needle size.

And left over? My ridiculous collection of straight needles.  I do not knit on straight needles.  Ever.  One might reasonably ask why I have any at all.  I would, at this point, donate the ones I have, but I am saddled with the notion that I may soon be running a church knitting group where there will be ladies who will refuse to knit with circular needles, even if they're just knitting flat.  So for the moment I'm holding on to them.  I'm trying to think of something artistic or at least decorative to do with them, so they don't wind up just cluttering up a drawer. 

My questions to you are:  1) how do you organize your knitting needles, and 2) what have you done with your straight needles, if you are no longer using them?