Sweetheart Cardigan Completed

Posted on May 30, 2012 by Deborah Cooke

This week’s knitting post is a few days early, but things are a bit upside down with the blog tour etc. It’s done so you get to see it now.

This is the Sweetheart cardigan – the pattern specifies regular KidSilk Haze. Instead, I knit mine with solid KSH on the borders and Kidsilk Haze Stripe for the main part of the body. I used the Forest colourway for the KSH Stripe and the borders are in Nightly, which is solid navy. Here it is:

It still needs to be blocked, but looks pretty good already. 🙂

I showed you the back of this sweater in an earlier post here on the blog, which is right here.

This sweater has a two-piece cuff, which closes with three buttons. This required a bit of fiddling, because I wanted the striping to come out similarly on both sides of the cuff. I knit one side (the front cuff) then rummaged through my remaining KSH Stripe to find a good match for the other side of the cuff. This is the first one I did – the second one, which you can see in the picture above, came out even better.The other modification I made was adding two more buttons to the front – I used seven instead of the specified five. I thought the five buttons looked too far apart compared to the cuffs.

I’m pretty happy with this sweater and I’m thinking of making another one in another colourway – but not until the fall. (KSH is definitely a yarn to knit when the weather is cool!) It’s an amazing yarn – so light and yet so very warm. This will be a great sweater for travelling, or to take along “just in case”. The pattern as written does require a lot of finishing, but there’s one change I’ll make to reduce that. The front button bands are knit separately and then seamed to the front – when I knit another one, I’ll just knit them in as I go.

What do you think?

Sonny Vest

Posted on May 24, 2012 by Deborah Cooke

Here’s a finished project to celebrate the end of the week. This vest is for Mr. Math and is knit of Rowan’s Colourscape Chunky. The colourways were designed by Kaffe Fassett, so you can imagine that I’ve been fingering this yarn (and lusting after it) since it was introduced. It’s a single ply chunky weight yarn, spun of merino – and now it’s discontinued.

Here’s the vest:

The pattern is called Sonny, from the Colourscape Folk Collection pattern book. I knit it almost 2 inches longer because Mr. Math is tall. It’s even knit in the same colourway as in the book – Camouflage – and Mr. Math is very happy with it. It was a pretty quick knit.

The yarn is fabulous. It has so many more colours than even show in the photograph. And it’s soft. I hope it doesn’t pill as single plies often do, but we’ll see. On the one hand, I’m disappointed that it’s discontinued because that means it will eventually disappear from the world. On the other hand, the fact that it’s discontinued means that it’s on sale at a lot of outlets, and that price drop makes it easier to acquire.

I’d bought four skeins – the pattern calls for three – thinking I might need more for the extra length. I did go into the fourth ball to play matchy matchy on the second side of the v-front, but all my bits together weigh more than one skein. Theoretically, I could have bought just three skeins, but I do like the matchy matchy. And I love the orange on the neck ribbing. I was hoping for that!

Lady’s Circular Cape

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Deborah Cooke

And here it is!This is the Lady’s Circular Cape from Victorian Lace Today, finally finished and blocked.

I blocked this a bit too hard at the time, and later was disappointed that it came out so flat. The illustration in the book showed the finished shawl having some ripples in the main body of it and since I’d used the specified yarn, I wanted the same effect.

I spritzed it down with water and left it in mound to dry. I did that again, letting it relax into the shape it wanted to take, and think that this is a happy compromise between blocked and not.

This was the first pattern from VLT in which I ran out of yarn, despite using the specified yarn and having the specified quantity.

I’m thinking of adding a line of crocheted chain stitch around the collar. It seems a bit fragile to me there, given the fullness and weight of the shawl. I think that if I did it in the same yarn and chose the location well, it would never show and it would ensure there was no damage in wear. I’m probably over-engineering it, but I would like to wear it with a pin at the neck (which is comparatively heavy) and also the neck is a bit bigger than expected. Got to think a bit on that.

Sweetheart Cardigan

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Deborah Cooke

Here’s a project I have on the needles right now, which I’m loving to bits. This is the Sweetheart Cardigan from Rowan, knit in Kidsilk Haze Stripe in the Forest colourway.

This is the back.

It’s fine knitting, but I really like how the colours are evolving. Not exactly striped, but not exactly not-striped either. I’m letting the stripes evolve as they come off the ball, instead of letting my inner Fussy Knitter manage them into matching. The left front, which I’ve cast on now, starts with the green. The right front, looking at the ball, will start with the red. (I will deal with this and love it. I will.)

The button bands are knit separately from the fronts in this pattern, and I didn’t want another gradation of colour up the fronts. So, I decided to knit all of the edges in solid navy Kidsilk Haze, which I had in my stash. That means casting on in navy on fronts and back and sleeves, then using the navy up the fronts and around the neckline. I’m not sure that it’s precisely the same navy as in the stripe, but there are so many blues that it looks okay.

Also, I found some buttons in my stash (ha ha!) that are abalone, with similar blues, greys and greens. Some of them even have a glimmer of a reddish tone. They are smaller than specified by the pattern, so I think I’ll use seven up the front instead of five. Not sure about the specified three on each cuff. I’ll have to see what it looks like.

What do you think?

Top Down Raglan

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Deborah Cooke

I finally finished Mr. Math’s new sweater. This is a pullover, a top-down raglan with a crew neck – here’s a link for the free pattern. I used the same pattern for his Elrond Sweater, which he wears all the time.

These sweaters are kind of fun to knit because there’s not really a pattern to follow. You calculate the cast-on at the neck – based on your gauge and measurements desired for the finished sweater – then start knitting. You increase at the raglan seams every second row, and keep knitting around until it’s time to split the yoke into the arms and the body. You decide this point by trying the sweater on. Then you knit the body until the sweater is long enough, ditto on the sleeves, and you’re done. If you knit in stockinette, in the round, you just knit the whole way down. It’s not very challenging once you have it going, which makes it good television knitting.

Mr. Math wanted a basic sweater to wear around the house and he prefers wool. So, he chose a shade of Patons Classic Wool – his pick was Dark Grey Marl. Marl means that one ply of the yarn is one colour and one ply is another. This yarn has one charcoal ply and one off-white ply. Knitted up, the effect is more flicky than tweedy. I put some red stripes in PCW on the cuffs and neck.

And here it is.

The photo is mediocre, both because I’m a mediocre photographer and because marl yarn doesn’t photograph well. I only had a chance to take one shot – then the sweater was on him and he was heading out to get things done. I think this one is going to get some serious mileage!

Plum Cordial

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Deborah Cooke

This is a quick project that I finished last weekend. In the middle of finishing so many big projects, I needed the encouragement of something that could be knit in a hurry.

The pattern is called Cordial from Rowan magazine, and it’s knit in Rowan Big Wool. Here’s mine:

I did make one modification to the pattern. You knit the cardi from the front bottom, over the shoulders to the back hem. The only seaming is the underarm seams. As it’s written, the cable runs over the shoulder and down the back, and as it’s written, the back doesn’t mirror the front. In my side, the cable would have ended in the middle of a diamond at the back hem. I knew this would bug me. Also those two little V’s between the diamonds would be upside down on the back. This would also annoy me.

So, I reworked the chart to keep knitting over the shoulder but to have the V’s end up right side up on the back. I also knit to the end of a full diamond at the shoulder, then switched to my upside down chart. The back of my Cordial looks just like the front, and that makes me happy.

It was maybe a little on the loose side when it was done, but not enough to be worth frogging and reknitting. When I washed it to block it, though, it grew and grew and grew. Yikes! I think this might be a merino thing – its springiness uncoils when wet – but it freaked me out a bit. I wrapped it in a towel and pressed out as much moisture as possible, laid it flat and worried about it for a few hours – then I put it in the dryer. I only left it for a couple of minutes at a time and checked it obsessively. It is a little bit felted, which I like, and fits perfectly now.

Ha. I really like it. And now back to finishing those UFO’s…

Cable Cardigan in Butterfly Super 10

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Deborah Cooke

I have thought for a couple of weeks that I would have a sweater to show you. This cardigan has been on my needles for years. It feels as if it’s been in process since time began, but that can’t be the case – the pattern was published in Vogue Knitting in a 2003/2004 issue.

It’s supposed to be knit in a 100% wool called Zara. I remember looking for the specified yarn at the time and finding it pretty expensive. So, I did a yarn substitution – I knit mine in Butterfly Super 10 cotton in a wonderful dark teal. This means that the resulting sweater is much heavier than it would have been in wool, but that’s okay with me. What slowed me down in the knitting is that cotton has no stretch, and you really notice that when knitting cables. I kept putting this sweater aside to knit more enjoyable projects, even though I really liked how it was working up.

I had to block it after it was done before sewing the pieces together. (Yes, you’re supposed to do that every time, but I tend not to.) There was no choice here because the seed stitch pulled up shorter than the cables on each piece. I’m still sewing the beast together, even though it’s been off the needles for over a week. It looks as if I might have to pick some of the seaming back because I can’t figure out how to make the collar fit. The neckline seems too large for the collar piece. Hmm.

So, maybe next Friday I’ll be able to show it to you, finally complete.

The good news is that it’s a sweater for transition seasons, so I should have it done just in time to wear for spring!

Update – here it is! I had forgotten that the collar didn’t extend over the button bands, then it just had to be eased slightly across the top of the saddle shoulders. All good and all done. 🙂

Tuffy Socks and Easy Peter Vest

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Deborah Cooke

It’s been a while since we talked about knitting, so today is the day. I have a couple of things to show you. They are both man-knits.

First off, new thick socks for Mr. Math. These are knit from Briggs & Little Tuffy. He loves to wear these around the house in the winter and inside his rubber boots. The colour is a wonderful purpley blue with red flicks – it’s called Blue Jeans.Secondly, a bit of a surprise. I knit a vest for my FIL for Christmas. He’d lost a bit of weight over the past year – whereas once I would knit something to fit Mr. Math and know it would fit his dad, this time, I knit a bit smaller. It was snug for Mr. Math and I figured we were golden. No. My FIL has gained back some weight. This is all good, but the vest doesn’t fit him.

So, now I have a new vest, and I need to knit another one, in the next size bigger. 🙂This is the vest from the free Berroco pattern called Peter Easy. (The other Peter has some fair isle flash, which evidently makes it less-easy.) The pattern is for a pullover, but I split the front to add a zipper so it would be easier for my FIL to put on and take off. Then I decided I should add a 4-stitch cable on either side of the zip to fancy it up. They turn in opposite ways, to make a V. I also added I-cord on the zipper side of each cable, to ensure that there was a nice edge for sewing in the zip. (Thanks to my brilliant photography skills, what you mostly see here is the plastic teeth of the zipper. Yippee.) The vest came out well, and I’m not that disappointed to end up with it myself. The yarn is Patons Classic Wool in a nice flecky variegation that they only seemed to have at the mill. My Ravelry project page is here.

Another man-knit coming off the needles this weekend – a new sweater for Mr. Math. I should be able to show it to you next week, with all the ends sewn in. No seams with a top-down raglan, which works for me in a big way. Lots of plain knitting in the man-knits, which is good for tv knitting but makes for some pretty dull photos. I’m ready to work on one of my more adventurous projects. Winter is always a great time for knitting lace IMO and I have a shawl whispering that it wants to be finished.

Baudelaire Socks

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Deborah Cooke

More socks from me. I guess they give me a fresh footing for the new year.The pattern is Baudelaire, which is a free pattern on Knitty by Cookie A. I’ve knit this pattern a couple of times before, but I’ve always given the resulting socks away. Even though I’m a very generous person (!) I’m not usually so generous with handknit lace socks. Those earlier socks didn’t fit me. I gave them to people with bigger feet. There. I’ve confessed. I finally learned that you start the heel for toe-up socks when the work reaches the front of the ankle bone. I did that this time, and these fit perfectly.

Which means they’re MINE!

The yarn is Viola Sock, from a handpainter whose website is Viola and the Moon. My crummy photograph doesn’t begin to do justice to her artistry. There are (roughly) zillions of purple and blue hues in this yarn and little flicks of colour, too – like hot pink. It doesn’t want to pool at all. It’s scrumptious.

These socks stalled last spring because I became so inspired by the yarn that I decided I wanted to make knee socks. (Why do I love knee socks so much? I can’t explain it.) I only had one skein, which wasn’t enough. The store was sold out of what they’d had when I bought the skein, so I contacted the designer. She didn’t have any more either, but – after warning me about dye lots – she dyed me another skein. It was and is just as scrumptious as the first, but it is also much more blue. Hmm. I tried to blend the dye lots with alternating rows, but no matter what I did, I ended up with stripes around the calves. Not good. So (big sigh) after letting them gather dust for a few months, in December I frogged back and knit regular socks instead of knee socks.

The good news is, though, that I still have a whole new skein of Viola Sock to knit another pair of socks! I also have an idea that I’ll make stripey knee socks with it. (This is very good news.)

Kidsilk Haze Bedsocks

Posted on December 1, 2011 by Deborah Cooke

There is a book, pretty much a perfect book for Kidsilk Haze addicts like yours truly, called Silky Little Knits. It’s by Alison Crowther-Smith. In the UK, the book was called Little Luxury Knits, but the content is the same.

There are lots of yummy projects knitted with KSH in this book, but the most interesting thing to me is a technique Ms. C-S presents called colourwashing. What she does here is blend different colours of KSH to gradually change from one colour to the next. Sadly, I can’t find any pix of this out in the big wide world, but if you are on Ravelry (and you can be, because it’s free) you can see examples here in her Colourwash Mittens and Colourwash Cushion.

This book also has a pattern for bedsocks knit of KSH held double. I have fantasized about having socks knit of KSH since reading this pattern, and since I live in a cold place, I have the perfect justification for more socks. Recently, I had a rummage through my leftover bits of KSH, determined to knit bedsocks and to knit them in a colourwash kind of way.

I found a bit of KSH in Candygirl, a bit of KSH in Splendour (both leftover from these gloves), a nearly full ball of Elann Silken Kydd in Raspberry Wine (this is a copy of KSH, ordered for fingering purposes, and actually is only a teensy bit darker than KSH Splendour), a full ball of KSH in Blackcurrant (the “bad match” for the yarn crisis associated with the Lady’s Circular Cape) and a nearly full ball of Elann Silken Kydd in Sapphire.

I didn’t follow her sock recipe, just used my own. I’m lazy like that.

So, I cast on with two strands of Candy Girl held together, then worked 8 rows in stockinette. (Her bedsocks have a ruffle, which is adorable, but I decided to just let my cuffs roll instead.) Then I held one strand of Candy Girl together with one strand of Splendour, and knit 8 rows. Next I used two strands of Splendour together for 8 rows and somewhere in here, I started to knit ribbing – 3×3 simply because there were 18 stitches on each needle and that was easy math. Next, one strand of Splendour and one of Raspberry Wine – these colours are pretty close, so the effect is lost a bit. I knit four rows with two strands of Raspberry Wine, then turned the heel, then knit four rows more.

After that, 8 rows with a strand of Blackcurrant and a strand of Raspberry Wine, 8 rows with two strands of Blackcurrant, Blackcurrant with Sapphire, then Sapphire held double. Then I reversed the colour sequence, hoping it would work out well. I got all the way through the sequence again and had one little snippet of Candygirl which I used on the toe. (Even a meter of KSH is too much to waste.)

Here’s the first one!

The colours appear a bit more emphatic here – because of the flash – than they do in real life. That blend down the length of the foot is really just all a wonderful blue purple mush, and it is almost impossible IRL to see the distinction between the Splendour and the Raspberry Wine, which looks obvious in the shot.

I had been seriously tempted to dig into my non-scraps of KSH. There are three full balls of navy in my stash, which would have made for a nice transition between the Blackcurrant and the Sapphire, also two full balls of another medium blue (Hurricane) and I could have poached some turquoisey Trance from the Lace Jacket still on the needles. I decided to be tough, though, and am glad I was. The Blackcurrant and the Sapphire made navy music on their own when they danced a duet, and I like that the colour sequence went there and back again once.

These are divinely cushy, soft and warm. I can’t wait to get the second one off the needles and feel pampered!

Alive & Knitting

Knitting and other tangled webs we weave