Audrey is Done

Posted on February 15, 2023 by Deborah Cooke

This year, I have a plan to finish up some of the projects that are on my needles. Some of them have been waiting for my attention for a while. (Sleeve Island is a precarious location for me. Sweaters can be marooned there for years!) I had a look through all the project bags at the first of the year and chose this one to finish up first.

Audrey is a cardigan designed by Martin Storey in Rowan Angora Haze. It’s on the cover of the pattern book, Rowan Angora Haze, which is now discontinued. (That’s a Ravelry link for the pattern book.) The yarn is also discontinued. Here’s the Ravelry link for Rowan Angora Haze yarn and here’s the Ravelry link for Audrey.

Audrey, a cardigan designed by Martin Storey in Rowan Angora Haze, photo by Rowan

It’s a pretty cardigan in a very fuzzy soft yarn. I’ve blogged about this one before, since it’s been SEVEN years since I cast it on. Gah. It’s ten years since I bought the yarn and the pattern, which means it aged in the stash even before I cast on. (This little summary and a birthday on the horizon makes me give my stash a side-eye.)

Let’s look at those blog posts before we explore the why of the timeline. Here’s the first one, and there’s a mention of my Audrey in this post, then here’s the most recent post about (ha) the plan to finish it, dating from two years ago.

The big issue with this knit was that I didn’t like the shape of the sweater as designed. It’s kind of an 80’s shape, with wide shoulders and a narrow waist, an inverted triangle. I didn’t originally realize that from the pictures – I saw it in the schematics and instructions. As a pear-shaped individual myself, I knew this wouldn’t work. I eliminated the increases in the upper body, which then meant that the armhole decreases and the shoulder cap had to be recalculated. I also changed the neck, so that there’s another button there instead of a ribbon threaded through a casing. Then I discovered that the sleeve instructions made a sleeve that was far wider than I wanted, so I frogged the sleeves back and started them again. Finally, the dark fuzzy wool was tough to read in the cable and eyelet pattern. This wasn’t television knitting at all, even though I soon memorized the pattern stitch.

This project was castaway on Sleeve Island twice – once for the recalculation of the sleeve cap and once for ennui – as well as having an earlier time-out or two. The yarn shed like mad at first, even after being put in the freezer (that’s an old tip for sheddy yarn) but when I picked it up this last time, it seemed to be shedding less. That’s a good sign for actually wearing the sweater and not having everything I own covered in purple fuzz.

Here are some in-progress pix of the body of the sweater from those older posts, one with a test button. I’m going with those faceted clear ones – they’re pretty but not too fussy. A plain button wouldn’t be right with this sweater IMO.

Audrey by Martin Storey knit in Rowan Angora Haze by Deborah Cooke

Now it’s done (finally!) and I love it. It’s very soft and fits exactly as I’d planned (yay), and oh, it’s warm!

And here it is FINISHED!

Audrey, designed by Martin Storey, knit by Deborah Cooke in Rowan Angora Haze

I bought 12 balls of yarn and used almost 10.5 of them, which means the sweater took 1438 m or 1573 yards. (I don’t even want to think about how many of them I knit twice.) Here’s my Ravelry project page.

If I knit it again (not a chance!) I’d make the armhole a little more shallow, maybe even an inch. I’d add that length into the body so the sweater overall was the same length. I bought 12 balls of black Angora Haze way back in 2013, enough to make this sweater, but I think I’ll knit it into something more plain than this cardigan.

Make Mine Black

Posted on December 21, 2022 by Deborah Cooke

Here’s a sweater I started a while ago and shoved away. I dug it out again recently and got back to work. What made me put it away? The yarn is black and it’s Rowan Kidsilk Haze – and I knit at night while watching TV. Fortunately, it’s in stockinette and I was able to find my rhythm this time.

Here’s the current state of my progress on the back of the sweater:

Hebrides in black Kidsilk Haze, knit by Deborah Cooke

You can see that it’s crumpled where it was shoved in the bag. What I’ve knit recently is smoother. The pattern is Hebrides, which was a free pattern from Rowan by Lisa Richardson – although it was designed for Kidsilk Haze Stripe. I knit it twice in that yarn:

Hebrides by Lisa Richardson knit in Rowan Kidsilk Haze Stripe by Deborah Cooke

Hebrides by Lisa Richardson knit in Kidsilk Haze Stripe by Deborah Cooke

It’s just a basic sweater with long sleeves and a round neck. I wear these cardigans all the time, especially the purple and green one. The KSH is awesome, too – the sweater is light (it weighs less than 150g) and I especially loved it for travel. You can scrunch it into any bag then pull it out whenever you need it.

I’ve needed a plain black cardigan for a long time and had the black KSH in my stash, so a match was made. Sometimes Ravelry is a bit scary – I evidently cast on the back of this sweater in July 2016. (!!) Well, I’ll get it done by next July. I remember that the back was the trudge and the project picked up speed after that. Maybe not the best choice of a night knitting project in the winter, but knitting KSH in the summer heat didn’t work out either.

I’ll keep on keeping on with this one, but will probably sneak some smaller projects into the queue in between.

The Koigu Tent Sale 2022

Posted on August 24, 2022 by Deborah Cooke

We took a little road trip last week and went to the tent sale at the Koigu farm. This annual event has been on hiatus thanks to the pandemic, and I was really excited that it happened this year again. Here’s an old picture of the Koigu barn, taken the first year we went to the tent sale:

Of course, I bought some (more) KPPPM home. 🙂 I have such a hard time choosing from the array of colours at this sale, but here’s this year’s selection:

The top seven are all the same colour and dye lot. They’re a little less blue than they look here, more pinky-lavender. I’ve already balled one up and cast on a Tegna. I’ll show you that when I’ve made more progress than just casting on.

The blue at the bottom left is insurance yarn for my Halo jacket. (That’s the Ravelry link for the pattern. Here’s my previous post about mine.) I think I’m going to run out of the KPPPM blue before I get to the cuffs. (Yes, I’m knitting faster, just in case.) That’s not a huge surprise as I’m a bit short on the yarn requirements.

This jacket has an interesting construction – it’s knit sideways, starting at one side. You knit across the back and around to the centre front, then go back to the cast-on edge and knit to the other front. Then you pick up the stitches from the shoulder to knit down each sleeve to the cuff. I love the feel of the KPPPM knit with Rowan Kidsilk Haze – it’s a wonderfully squishy soft sweater. When I started the sleeves, I had two skeins of KPPPM left, so one for each sleeve, then (maybe) some of this other blue at the cuff.

Here’s my progress on Halo so far:

Halo knit in Koigu KPPPM and Rowan Kidsilk Hazze by Deborah Cooke

The other four skeins that I bought at the tent sale are just pretty. They’re more earth-toned than they look here, russet and brown with some green. Three are the same colourway and I chose the dark one because it coordinated. I think they’ll be a shawl, probably another Charlotte’s Web. The one I made for Nikoo used four skeins and it was a nice size, even without the fringe.

I hope they have the tent sale again next year. By then, I might have more of my Koigu stash knit up.

Halo Cardigan

Posted on February 25, 2022 by Deborah Cooke

Sometimes, you just need a quicker project. I have a lot of projects on my needles right now, but most of them use small needles, which means slow progress. I’ve finished eight repeats of the pattern on my Rowan Lace Scarf and am partway through the fifth ball of the six provided in the kit. I’ve almost finished the body of my Noro Mitred Jacket. I’m coming down to the hem on my Spector pullover, which may be the slowest knit on the planet for me. (Will it languish on Sleeve Island? Maybe…) And I’ve been knitting a lot of Barbie clothes. There’s a whole pile of them waiting for their ends to be sewn in. Last weekend, I felt in need of some more immediate knitting gratification.

And then, an ad from Fleece Artist sailed across my screen. Ooooooooo. I’m a complete sucker for their gorgeous yarns.

The Halo Jacket is a free pattern from Fleece Artist. (That’s one of the pattern images from Fleece Artist.) You can download it from their website, or grab a copy here on Ravelry. It’s knit side to side with two yarns held together, a fingering yarn and a mohair-silk laceweight yarn (which creates, hey, a halo!) Here are the yarn bundles at Fleece Artist — as usual, their colours are absolutely scrumptious.

But….in the interests of managing my own yarn inventory, I decided to shop the stash. I have some Koigu KPPPM in a purpley-blue, which I bought for a sweater I ultimately decided not to make. I also have some Rowan Kidsilk Haze in Turkish Plum. I’m a little short of yardage in the Koigu, but fortunately, the original pattern (the one that wasn’t knitted) required two coordinating colours. I have the coordinating colour and will use it on the cuffs and collar if necessary. The best part is that those bits are knitted last, so I can decide after the majority of the garment is done.

Here’s my start:

Halo Jacket knit in Koigu KPPPM and Rowan Kidsilk Haze by Deborah Cooke

I’ve pinned it down because it wants to roll into a tube! The actual colours are darker than they appear in the photo, but look at how much the KSH darkened the KPPPM. I hadn’t knit up this Koigu because it wasn’t dark enough – although it’s very pretty – but I love it combined with the KSH. The fabric is wonderfully squishy and soft.

What do you think?

Cheater Stripes

Posted on December 8, 2021 by Deborah Cooke

Here’s another project that’s been hanging around for too long, without a very good reason to do so. This sweater was stuck on Sleeve Island because I was too lazy to cake up another skein of yarn for the second sleeve. The cakes I had didn’t start at the right point in the stripe sequence to match.

Finally, I got out my swift, caked the yarn and got back to knitting.

Here’s the finished sweater:

Stripes by Drea Renee Knits knit in Sugar Bush Motley by Deborah Cooke

The pattern is Andrea Mowry’s STRIPES!, (that’s a Ravelry link, although you can buy it directly from her website, too.) Instead of knitting it in a multitude of colours and creating stripes, I knit mine in a self-striping yarn. The yarn is Sugar Bush Motley in Peppered Teal. (That’s a Ravelry link, too – here’s one for Yarnspirations.) Of course, a self-striping yarn has a fixed repeat, which means that as the number of stitches in each row changes, so does the width of the stripes. I kind of like how this one came out anyway.

I first posted about this sweater in March.

Of course, I had my usual panic moment of being convinced I didn’t have enough yarn, and raced back to get another skein in the same dye lot. There were only two left so I bought them both, and (you saw this one coming) I didn’t need either of them, so I have a lot leftover.

Motley is a soft yarn made of an alpaca and merino blend. It runs thick and thin, which I always like better in the skein than when it’s knitted up. It’s a little bit itchy, so I’ll need to wear a t-shirt underneath.

Basic Sweater by Louisa Harding knit in Rowan Colourspun by Deborah Cooke

I have this sweater which I knit of Rowan Colourspun a few years ago, which is a bit big for me and looks dumpy as a result. I never do the waist shaping because it always ends up in the wrong place, but this sweater would have benefitted from a bit of that. I do like the long ribbing on the cuffs and the collar. The yarn is soft and has a lot of other colours in the grey, which is pretty.

I wanted this new one to fit a little more snugly and it does. Here they are, dancing together:

It’s good to compare them, because it shows other differences. I think the sleeves are a bit skinny on this new one – which happened with my Comfort Fade Cardigan from the same designer, too, so I should have kept that in mind – and it feels a bit short. Just an inch! My bind-off is a bit tight, so I may pick that back and add an inch of ribbing at the waist. maybe another inch on each sleeve, too. I don’t love the round yoke – it has a bit of a ripple in it still – but then, round yokes fit me so seldom. I really should concentrate on sweaters with set-in sleeves.

Another one off the needles!

Edited to Add – I picked out the hem last night and added another inch and a half. That extra length makes me much happier. 🙂

Felix #4 Finished

Posted on November 17, 2021 by Deborah Cooke

I finished my most recent Felix cardigan over the weekend, so wanted to show you. I just love how this sweater came out!

Felix cardigan knit by Deborah Cooke in the Loving Path Fiber Arts Aura Lace and High Twist Sock — **Felix** by Amy Christophers knit in the **Loving Path Aura Lace** and **High Twist Sock**

The colour is the most true in this image – you can see all the wonderful little flickies of colour in the yarn. This sweater is very soft and drapey. Even though I made the same size as my other Felix sweaters on the same needles, this one is a bit smaller. It took about 750m of each yarn, and they were held together. Here’s my Ravelry project page with details. I think I’m going to get a lot of wear from this one!

It did jump queue because I loved the yarn so much. I’ve picked up my Cheater Stripes pullover again. It looked like this the last time I posted about it:

Andrea Mowry's Stripes top-down pullover knit in SugarBush Motley by Deborah Cooke — **STRIPES!** by Andrea Mowry knit in **Sugar Bush Yarns Motley**

I just have one sleeve to finish so will probably be able to show you that one next week.

Felix Update

Posted on November 3, 2021 by Deborah Cooke

I finished the body of my Felix cardigan – I told you about it last week – and wanted to show you how wonderful it looks.

This photo is more true to color than last week’s photo. i just love it! I had 80g of the fingering weight yarn left, so I split it into two 40g balls. We’ll see how long the sleeves end up being. I might manage to have long sleeves, or they might be 3/4. I’m good with it either way. There’s more yardage in the mohair silk, so the fingering weight yarn will run out first.

I had the perfect buttons in my stash. Here’s a close-up of them:

You can see all the colours in the yarn in this image, too.

The yarn is knit quite loosely for its thickness, resulting in a very light and drapey fabric. It’s soft and warm. It reminds me of this cardigan, which I knit of Kidsilk Haze Trio. That yarn has three strands of KSH spun together in coordinating colours. It’s discontinued so that’s a Ravelry link. The pattern is called Paige and was designed as a colour-blocked pullover with changing shades of KSH. I knit it all one colour, and split the front to make a long boxy cardigan. My Ravelry project page is here.

Paige by Lisa Richardson, with modifications knit in Kidsilk Haze Trio by Deborah Cooke

But being reminded of this sweater meant I was reminded of something. You can see the gradations in the green sweater in this image and also (aha!) a ball of KSH Trio in Loganberry, which is red.

Felix cardigan knit by Deborah Cooke with two shades of Kidsilk Haze Trio

This has been sitting in my stash because I don’t have enough of it to make a sweater like the green one. I do, however, have more than enough to make another Felix in it—and some coordinating buttons in my stash too. So, I’ll cast on another red cardigan once this grey one is done and the stash will be a little bit smaller.

Another Felix Cardigan

Posted on October 27, 2021 by Deborah Cooke

As I mentioned last week, we went to a knitting event a few weekends ago, and some yarn demanded to be adopted. It’s so pretty that it jumped the queue—even though the sweater isn’t finished, I thought I’d show you the yarn and my progress today.

The yarn is from The Loving Path, an indie dyer, and was put up in a kit for Love Note, a pullover pattern from TinCanKnits. (The dyer’s link goes to Etsy and the pattern link goes to Ravelry.) It included two skeins each of a fingering weight yarn (High Twist Sock) and a mohair silk blend (Aura Lace), both dyed in the same colourway (Bewitched) and intended to be held together to knit the sweater. I wasn’t sure I wanted a pullover but realized once I got home that the yarn combo would work perfectly for the Felix Cardigan. (Another Ravelry link.) I’ve knit this three times and love it.

Here are my three previous incarnations of Felix:

Felix Cardigan by Amy Christoffers knit in Rowan Renew by Deborah Cooke — Felix in Rowan Renew

Felix knit in Noro Cyochin by Deborah Cooke — Felix in Noro Cyochin

Felix is a shorter boxy cardigan, knit top-down with a lovely eyelet detail on the raglan increases. All three of these were knit with a single strand of Aran weight yarn. These two yarns together will be more like a DK weight, but Love Note is knit on even larger needles than Felix. The result is a lacy airy fabric, like this:

Felix cardigan, in progress, knit by Deborah Cooke in yars by The Loving Path

The fabric is soft and squishy, and as light as a cloud. I just love all the gradations in this hand-dyed yarn. It’s all silvers, greys, blacks with hints of turquoise, blue and pink. This looks lighter than the actual yarn in real life. It was a dingy day so I added a lot of light, which means you can see the colours but the shot is slightly over-exposed. It really appears as a smoky black with flicks of other colors. I have some buttons in my stash which perfectly mirror that combination, too.

Another great thing about this is that I’ve known for a while that I need a black cardigan. I have a Hebrides on my needles in solid black Kidsilk Haze but haven’t made a lot of progress—since I tend to knit at night while watching TV, thin black yarn isn’t the best choice for my eyeballs. I’m almost half done this Felix in a week, so (as long as it doesn’t get stuck on Sleeve Island) I should have that black cardigan soon. I’ll show it to you when it’s done.

And finally a bit about admin. I feel the need for a little more organization here on the blog. I’ve been cutting back on my online time (which had crept upward during the pandemic) and am spending more time with my many projects. This is all good but I’ve ventured beyond just knitting. As projects near completion, I want a plan for posts. I’ll keep knitting posts on Wednesdays but will put sewing posts on Fridays and anything related to dolls on Mondays. That should give you an idea what to expect when you visit.

The Final Navelli

Posted on July 9, 2021 by Deborah Cooke

I finally finished my teal Navelli, and it’s actually the season I could wear it!

You might remember that this top (which has been a cursed project) was a bit too short for my liking. Here it is alongside the red version of Navelli that I knit (and love):

I had knit the teal one first, in a larger size. I thought it was done and blogged about it here. For the red one, I went down a size, then discovered that I’d measured incorrectly while knitting the teal one. Here’s the post on the red one. I wasn’t really looking forward to ripping out the sleeves, neck and top of the sweater to fix it. It sat for a while, then I had an idea.

I picked out a row below the split for the sleeves at the underarm, putting the live stitches from the lower part of the sweater on one needle and the bottom loops from the live stitches on the top of the sweater on another. I knit two more inches onto the bottom of the sweater, then grafted the two pieces back together. The grafting took ages because of the number of stitches, but I kept reminding myself that I hadn’t had to reknit the top of the sweater.

Here’s the result:

In this picture, you can see the newly knitted band. I wasn’t sure whether there was a difference in colour between skeins (it’s all the same dye lot, but Koigu sometimes varies anyway) or whether it would vanish when the sweater is washed. Those stitches look crisper and more tightly twisted than the rest. It turned out to be a bit of both – the stitches relaxed so they look like the ones that had already been washed, but there is a teensy bit of colour difference due to variation within the dye lot. There are a couple of lighter zones on the back and the front, but overall, I’m happy.

This one is FINALLY done!

Noro Mitred Jacket

Posted on June 17, 2021 by Deborah Cooke

Remember when I showed you this?

It’s Noro magazine #17, the fall/winter 2020 edition. I bought it online just because of the jacket on the cover. It’s made of mitred squares and knit in Noro Ito.

The plan was to finish a few things before casting on, but I love knitting mitred squares so that resolution didn’t last too long. I ordered some Noro Ito, which comes in huge balls of 400m each, then cast on. That link will take you to the distributor’s site. The sample in the magazine is knit in colour #4 and I ordered colour #24.

The construction of this is so interesting. You make I-cord which runs along the hem from that front corner where the neck starts on the bodice all the way around to the other side. Then you pick up stitches to knit the first square, which is in the location of that beigey one on her right hip. You make the squares individually on the hem, all the way around to the one under her left hand. Then you make the in-between ones for the back, then for the two fronts.

Here’s my jacket in progress:

Mitered Jacket knit in Noro Ito by Deborah Cooke

At this point, I’m wondering whether the i-cord should have been knitted on a larger needle since it’s tight at the lower points and wants to roll. Hmm.

I love mitred squares because they’re addictive knitting – in a self-striping yarn, they’re even more so. I can finish one or two squares easily each night while watching tv – although I had to write out the directions for the square again to get them right. Now I have it memorized.

I wish the schematic had more measurements, and that the gauge was for a square instead of rows in stockinette stitch. I was so excited to get going that I didn’t swatch so I’m hoping the size is coming out right.