Here’s another UFO found in that stash – an unfinished chullo hat.
This hat is knit of Knitpicks Palette and was a kit. Here’s the Rav page for the Andean Chullo Hat pattern, which is still available. Here it is at Knitpicks. The kit, which isn’t available any longer, came with several balls of Palette – I’m thinking maybe 8 colours. Palette is a fingering weight wool, which comes in a lot of colours.
I remember the pattern being a bit of fun, as there were numerous motifs that you could place on any of the sections and knit in any combination of the colours to make your hat your own. Have a peek at the projects on Rav to see the many variations. Of course, I had to march the llamas around the hat, though they might have shown up better if I’d knit them in the white in the kit. It’s also possible I mucked up the decreases at the crown because the circumference does diminish very quickly. (?)
This hat stalled without the tassels, partly because of the chullo hat shown below. I didn’t knit this one – I bought it at the Mountain Equipment Co-op a billion years ago (give or take). (In the 90s there were a lot of South American knits available for sale.)
It’s knit of a yarn that seems a lot like Lopi Alafoss – but its special magic is that it’s lined with polar fleece. The mister grabs this hat whenever it’s really cold.
I meant to do the same with my chullo hat, but was stymied as to what shape to cut the pieces for the crown. Now I realize that the creator of this hat avoided that challenge by only lining the main part of the hat and the flaps. I’ll do that with mine.
We also have a couple of chullo hats from one of the mister’s trips to South America. He hiked the Inca Trail back in the day (to end up at Machu Picchu at dawn) and it was so cold that he bought two hats from the local knitters. Both are chullos. He wore this navy one.
He bought this second hat just because, and I’m glad he did. It’s so beautiful.
The wool is so fine, it’s almost thread. Look at the detail.
Someone had a very fine set of needles! I love that the colour placement is apparently random. It’s such a lovely piece of work – and very inspiring.
And here, finally, is my own lined and finished chullo.
I found this bag partly completed in a stash of WIPs. The pattern is Sipalu and I knit it in Patons SWS. (That’s Soy Wool Stripes in the red mix and Soy Wool Solids in the solid red. I used another yarn with the same content for the solid black, Gjestal Garn Bris. I suspect that yarn is discounted. The SWS is.)
My Ravelry project page says I knit it in 2011 and finished it in 2013 – but that, alas, is not entirely true. It was completed this far – as above – but the lining pieces were only cut out and unassembled. They were stashed away with it.
I added piping to the interior of the red bands and you can see them in the picture above. That one is a before-felting picture – the one below is after felting. That button is a porcelain one from a local maker and I just love it.
So, the lining. I suspect I put this aside because the construction of the zippered edge was a little complicated. I had assembled the lining for the body and put a pocket on it already.
I’d also secured a plastic base in the bottom with some purse feet. Ikea makes these thin ones that come in packs of two, and you can cut them to size with a utility knife. The colours change with each new batch, but I always have a few in my materials stash.
Now that tricky bit. The bag is essentially a box and is maybe 3″ deep, so I needed to centre the zipper between two pieces across the top, between the handle ends. Once I got out my ruler and made a plan for that, the lining came together quickly. There was a good bit of handsewing, to line the handle and secure the bag lining, but it wasn’t that big of a job.
Why is it that these incomplete projects that sit waiting for years always take a very short period of time to finish up? It happens every time.
And here’s the finished bag. It looks a bit dark in this pic, thanks to a dingy day – but it’s DONE!
Soon after posting it, I saw the mistake. Do you see it? Look at the left wing of that completed butterfly. You can see a row of black stitches, making the five dots into two dots and a weird V. It’s maybe 15 rows back.
I failed the trick of inverting the chart – what’s black on the chart is being knit in the pinks and what’s white on the chart is being knit in black. That always bends my brain a bit.
I’ve been looking at it ever since, pondering what to do, and finally decided to pick it back and fix it. I don’t know why I ever linger over this choice. Once I’ve seen an error, I can’t un-see it and I always have to fix it. Maybe it just takes me some time to accept the sad truth. I had knitted further than shown in that picture, so there was even more to frog.
So, here’s the same sock with the error fixed. I knit to the end of my kinked up yarn, so this is how far I was. The light is a bit harsh, but that butterfly’s wing dots are now right.
I tried on the sock because it seemed short. It won’t be a knee sock for me – it looks like the sock will end at the widest part of my calf. That means they’ll definitely be lounging socks, because they’ll slide down when I’m walking.
My friend sent me this book at Christmas, full of pretty sock patterns. I don’t usually make pretty socks – I stick to my tried and true, usually in a self-striping yarn – but the socks on the cover are so pretty (and knee socks!) that I had to cast on a pair. I was due for a little fair isle project.
It’s curious that I find knee socks so irresistible – I never wear the ones I’ve knitted, but I do love them.
The book is called Knitted Socks from Finland, and it’s by Niina Laitinen. (The title and image are both linked to the book’s page on the publisher website, which displays buy links too. A lot of smaller stores appear to have the book in stock, so there are plenty of places to buy a copy other than the big river.) The pattern for the socks on the cover is called Dear Sister, and the book includes complete charts. I had a peek on Ravelry before casting on, and could only find the book in the original Finnish: the pattern is called Siskoni Mun. (Those are both Ravelry links.)
It’s always fun to scroll through the completed projects there and look at yarn choices – some Ravellers had knitted the socks in Knit Picks ChromaFingering, a single ply fingering weight that is available in both solid colours and gradients. (That link will take you to KP’s product page.) I have some Chroma in my stash, but wouldn’t have thought of using it for socks – it’s very soft, partly because of the loose way it’s spun, and even though it has 30% nylon, I wouldn’t expect it to be tough enough for socks. But, I love the gradient look and I had the yarn, so I cast on. I used my trusty pair of short circular needles in 2.5mm, which usually have a sock on them.
I also loved the projects that had used a different background colour than the off-white shown in the pattern picture – why not have dramatic socks? I’m using the solid black for the background and a gradient – the colourway is Lupin – as the contrast. Making a change like this always bends my brain a bit when it comes to the charts. I’m knitting the white squares in black so have to think about that for a minute each time I pick up the project again. I have used some patterns (mittens, mostly) that offered the charts both ways around, which was just great. They were digital downloads, though. In a printed book, that would take up too many pages.
Here’s my progress on the first one. I didn’t do a twisted rib because I’m not a fan – my socks have just plain ribbing at the top.
This is the first chart completed, about a dozen rows of ribbing and fifty-some of pattern. There’s another chart of another 40 rows or so before the beginning of the heel. I’m not sure they will actually be knee socks. They might be mid-calf socks, which is fine, too. We’ll see. Part of that will be due to the yarn substitution, but another variable is legs. 🙂 You can see the model has slender calves. My hiking/biking calves are not that slim, so the sock will be stretched wider rather than taller.
It’s not a difficult knit, but not a TV knit either. Each row is different and there are deceases down the center back of the sock. I have to pay attention a bit. Although I always worry that stranded knitting in socks will get too tight, I think my tension is in a good place on this project. I’m not one of those fast fair isle knitters with one colour in each hand. I put down each yarn and pick up the next one, which does give me a chance to check my tension. It means for slow progress, but it’s meditative. Watching the butterflies form and the colour change keeps me knitting just one more row.
This project also had me reaching into my knitting library for a book filled with wonderful fair isle sweaters – The Tudor Roses by Alice Starmore. I have the hardcover edition from Calla Editions and it’s such a lovely book. I’m tempted to order up the yarn and cast on the Mary Tudor cardigan (that’s a Ravelry link) but need to finish up some other projects first. I have two fair isle cardigans already on the needles, waiting on me. (There were changes to the sweaters between editions. In the first edition, the Mary Tudor sweater was a pullover. That’s a Rav link again.)
The Chroma yarn is very soft (and a bit splitty, as loosely spun single ply yarns tend to be.) These will be lounging socks, not hiking socks. And yes, I’m hoping to make them match because that’s just how I roll. It looks as if there are two repeats of the colour gradation in the ball, so fingers crossed.
Onward. They are a bit addictive once you find a bright spot to work…
Well, May vanished in a hurry, didn’t it? I have been crafting but not finishing many things – partly because the day-job has been busy. I’ll catch you up in another post, but today, let’s talk about an interesting conundrum.
I found a stash of yarn at the thrift store this week. It’s kind of a puzzle when this happens. The first thing I want to do – if I like the yarn and bring it home – is try to figure out what project the de-stasher had in mind when the yarn was originally acquired. In some instances, that’s easy; in others, not so much. Ravelry is such an awesome resource for that. You can use the Advanced Search to specify the yardage you have, the weight of the yarn, even the name of the yarn, then sort through the results.
Last winter, for example, I found a stash of Briggs & Little worsted, with the old label. No colour names or numbers, just dye lots. I think this weight would be called Regal now. (That’s a link to B&L’s website.) Briggs & Little is located in the Maritimes and the oldest yarn mill in Canada. I really like how sturdy their yarn is and particularly like the heathered colourways.
This stash was nine skeins when I found it: 1 red, 1 grey, 1 cream, 1 light blue, 1 navy and 4 medium blue.
Skald, a Järbo SE design
I think this last one might be Quoddy Blue. It has a lovely heather look to it. (As does the grey.) Someone likely planned an icelandic or fair isle sweater, so I had some fun looking at options on Ravelry. (There are lots.) The skeins are over 200m each, so this is a lot of yarn.
The mister likes blue, so I found this pattern called Skald (that’s a Ravelry link) which I think will work out. (Here’s the designer website, but it’s in Swedish.) There might not be enough of one colour to do the lice. We’ll see.
My inclination is to leave out the red, but it might make a nice pop if used as an accent. Hmm. That one’s waiting for me to finish up one of my projects on the needles.
This week’s thrift store find was eight skeins ofAllHemp3. (That’s a Ravelry link.)
My Ravelry search came up with this pattern, Flaming June from Knitting 2012 (that’s a Ravelry link – here’s the one on Knitty), as a likely candidate spurring the initial stash. The designer is Cheryl Niamath, who designed the Fetching fingerless gloves that I’ve knit a bunch of times. (That’s another free pattern from Knitty.)
Eight skeins is enough for the main colour in the middle sizes, in which case there would have been two or three skeins in a contrasting or coordinating colour, too. Someone might have grabbed those for string bags earlier. For a teeny size, eight skeins might be enough for the whole sweater.
I read the pattern and learned that hemp grows in blocking. My first swatch on the recommended needles had perfect gauge, but wasn’t blocked yet. I went down to a 3mm, which resulted in a much tighter fabric, then washed and blocked it. The hemp was interesting to knit, similar to cotton in that it has no boing at all, but even stiffer.
The hemp softened nicely when washed and this swatch now has perfect gauge. I read the project notes on Ravelry from others who had made this sweater and it seems that many of them found that the sweater grew a lot in length after blocking, when they wore it.
I’m between sizes and already know the sleeves as written will be too long either way. My inclination is to make the smaller size of those two. From the notes on Ravelry, I should maybe go down another size again. Hmm. I also know I need to watch the width of the shoulders, because mine are narrow.
One variable is the effect of weight upon the finished garment. My sweater coat knit following that Kaffe Fassett pattern gets longer all the time – just the weight of the garment pulls it down, making it grow. (I actually took a repeat off the bottom of that coat after it was done, because it had gotten too long for me. I was caught once in a drizzle, which just made it worse.)
The other wrinkle is the tightness of the knitting. The looser the stitches, the more likely the garment is to stretch in wearing. Only one person who specified their needle on Rav was using a small one (2.75mm in that case, while I’m using a 3mm) – most were using 3.75mm or so. Are they tighter knitters than me? Did they wash and block their swatches? It’s hard to be sure.
So, I’m going to knit a sleeve first as a big gauge swatch, maybe even wash and block it to see what happens before knitting the body of the sweater. It’s a weird plan, but I’m hoping it will save me frogging the whole thing and knitting it again.
I may have to buy another skein or two of the Allhemp3, but at least it’s still available. I don’t want a second colour, and with any luck, the black dye lots will be close, if I do have to add more to finish the project.
One thing about making a discovery like this at the thrift store is that it’s a good way to play with a new yarn or fibre.
Now I’m digging out old sweaters that I’ve never blogged about. 🙂 Today I’m posting about my Scandinavian Family cardigan from Knitting the New Classics by Kristin Nicholas. (The title and the book cover are linked to the Ravelry page since this book is out of print. It was published in 1995.)
The Scandinavian Family sweater is stranded knitting, with contrast bands at the shoulders and hems. It’s a drop shoulder boxy design (more square pieces!) and I had some fun mixing up the colours.
One of the interesting changes in patterns is that many companies (like Rowan and Elite) once offered many size variations in each design, so you could make the same sweater pattern for every member of the family. (Rowan also used to offer sleeve and length variations.) Here’s the photo spread for this sweater from the book:
The picture is dark so it didn’t photograph that well, but they’re all wearing a version of the same sweater.
And here’s my version:
I split mine up the front to make a cardigan, which meant I added facings all around. I started with the mixy gold blend in the borders, which had been in my grandmother’s yarn stash, and chose colours to coordinate with it. I have no idea what the content of it is – it was a huge handwound ball when I got it. The green and white yarns used in the main body are from a farm/mill that used to be near Ottawa called Belle Vallée Wools. (They might still exist. I’m not sure.) I bought the green and white in Carleton Place on a road trip to Ottawa in the mid-90s. The yarn is a lot like Briggs & Little Regal. Many of the colours in the yoke are actually fingering weight and I held them double. Again, I bought yarns all over the place, but mostly on that road trip.
A detail pic. I love this fair isle pattern and all the colours in the green tweedy wool:
This is a really warm sweater, probably because it’s knit tightly. No worries about the wind with this one! The other thing about this kind of wool is that it doesn’t change much over time. It doesn’t pill or show wear the way that softer yarns do. This sweatter looks very similar to the day it came off the needles, thirty years ago, and not because I haven’t worn it.
This hat is a free pattern in the most recent Knitty online magazine. I knit one of these right away for the mister – here’s that blog post.
I folded it in quarters for this picture.
The pattern is called Planetarium (that’s the Ravelry link – here’s the Knitty link) and it’s knit in two colors of a fingering yarn. These two are from my stash. I had a skein of a zingy purple Koigu KPPPM and some leftovers of Lichen and Lace sock in Citron. (I used it for my Stargazer Mittens.)
I made the same changes to the pattern as the last time. This one doesn’t feel like it’s going to pill, so that’s a good thing.
This hat is a free pattern in the most recent Knitty online magazine. I thought it was so pretty that it jumped right onto my needles!
I folded it in quarters for this picture.
The pattern is called Planetarium (that’s the Ravelry link – here’s the Knitty link) and it’s knit in two colors of a fingering yarn. I used KnitPicks Chroma for mine, because I had it in the stash. The colourways are Black and GoGo Boots, which is a gradient yarn. it’s a very clear pattern and an easy knit IMO.
I made a couple of changes to the pattern. I knit it exactly as written the first time, but the mister doesn’t like slouchy hats so much. My gauge was also a bit tight. Rather than changing needles, I knit a larger size (actually one repeat larger than the largest size) and I left out one of the three star bands to make the hat shorter. It fits more like a watchcap, which makes him happy.
As much as I like the colours, I think the yarn is going to pill – it’s a single ply, loosely spun. If I make a second one for myself, I’ll use a yarn with more of a twist, maybe Koigu KPPPM. Hmm. Time to check the stash!
Things have been quiet here on the blog. I had a bit of a crazy January – I was (as usual) racing toward deadline on a new book but got sick with a mild case of Covid-19. It still pretty much flattened me, which makes me glad we’re vaccinated. I’ve been working like mad on that book ever since and now need to catch up on everything else.
Of course, I’ve been knitting, too, just not documenting it all. Today, we start to fix that.
This pattern is called Mummers. I was so excited to discover that they have mummers in Newfoundland – yet another reason to visit one of these days. How amazingly blue the light is here right now. I took these pictures at midday but in the shade since the snow was so bright.
I knit mine in yarn from my stash. One of the recommended yarns is Briggs & Little Regal – that’s the B&L website. You can order directly from them. I have some of that, but I also had Harrisville Designs Highland left over from Mr. Math’s sweater and I like the colours together and thought it similar. This is an interesting yarn because it’s put up in two different ways – washed and skeined which is the link above, or unwashed on cones which you’ll find on this link. It’s cheaper on the cone if you need a lot and I like seeing it full when the finished garment is washed.
On the left is Mr. Math’s sweater in the same yarn – the pattern is called Balkan by Brandon Mably (that’s a Ravelry link) and here’s the link to my Ravelry project page. I made a yarn substitution – it’s supposed to be knit in Rowan Colourspun (Ravelry link) which is a yarn I like a lot and is now discontinued. The mister thought it was too soft plus he wanted a more graphic color combination. Done and done. (Hmm. Did I blog about this project? Yes! I did! Balkan sweater for Mr. Math.)
I made the medium size and chose which colour to use as I went. It was a good pattern and a nice knit.
I like the colours of it but don’t love wearing the hat. (I hate hats, really.) It fits around but is the wrong height – not enough to slouch, so it just makes my head look bigger. (My head is bigger than this foam one.) Mr. Math will adopt it, I’m sure. He loves all the hats in Felted Tweed.
Meanwhile, I’m still knitting on the Rowan shawl/stole and have used half the wool in five repeats of the pattern. It’s about 30″ long now, so will be a good length when done. It’s a lovely knit, a bit too complicated to memorize the pattern, but the yarn is giving a nice definition to the stitches. I’ll show you that one when it’s done.
Alive & Knitting 