Scandinavian Family Cardigan

Posted on March 1, 2023 by Deborah Cooke

Knitting the New Classics by Kristin Nicholas

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 Scandinavian Family sweater from Knitting the New Classics by Kristin Nicholas

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:

The Scandinavian Family sweater from Knitting the New Classics by Kristin Nicholas knit by Deborah Cooke

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.

Here’s my Ravelry project page. I called this one my Snowflake Sweater.

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.

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.

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.

What do you think?

Juicy Gloss Cardigan Done

Posted on June 2, 2021 by Deborah Cooke

Juicy Gloss is a top-down cardigan designed by Asja Janeczek, which I cast on in Koigu KPPPM in April 2018. (Here’s my project page on Ravelry.) Yup. Three years ago. I’ve blogged about this one a few times – Juicy Gloss in Koigu, and Juicy Gloss in Progress – but (as is so often the case) I stalled out when it was time to knit the sleeves.

Here’s what it looked like the last time I showed it to you:

Juicy Gloss by Asja Janeczek knit in Koigu KPPPM by Deborah Cooke

It’s a long cardigan, longer with my modifications to the front, and the colour variegation is very pretty. Here’s a detail shot of the Koigu – it still doesn’t do the color justice:

This cardigan was marooned on Sleeve Island for a while. I think that happens because there’s always counting to do with sleeve decreases and I tend to knit while watching television – it’s easy to lose track and even easier to just pick up another project with a few thousand miles of stockinette to knit. In this case, I also realized after I knit the first sleeve to the elbow that it was too wide. Projects that need to be frogged and reknit often end up in time-out for me.

I frogged back to the armhole and decreased an additional 8 stitches from the sleeve at the underarm. The pattern specifies to knit two inches before beginning the sleeve decreases but on this version, I started the decreases right away. I was working four rows, then decreasing on either side of the marker (at the middle underarm) in the next row. I did that twelve times. If I’d wanted the elbow length sleeves like the pattern, I could have continued to the specified length and done the cuff, but I wanted long sleeves.

I continued, working 5 rows between the decrease rows. I did that fourteen times. The sleeve needed to be 34cm long, so I knit 62 rows to get the length then worked the I-cord cuff as specified.

Here’s one finished sleeve (although the ends still need to be sewn in):

Juicy Gloss Cardigan knit in Koigu KPPPM by Deborah Cooke

I could have continued the decreases and made the cuff fitted, but I know I’ll push up the sleeves.

When I blocked the sweater, the Koigu stretched like mad. It seems that the yarn loses its “boing” when wet. It’s freaked me out before, but I just had to let it dry as planned. When it was just a little damp, I put the sweater in the dryer on the Touch Up cycle. That’s 15 minutes on low heat on my machine, and I checked it every five minutes. It came out perfectly after ten minutes, then I left it overnight to be sure it was completely dry.

I still have to sew in the ends, but here’s the finished cardigan!

It looks a little lighter at the top right because there was a bit of sunshine there.

Here’s my Ravelry project page with the modifications.

What do you think? I’m really pleased with this one.

Finishing Audrey

Posted on February 17, 2021 by Deborah Cooke

Audrey is a cardigan designed by Martin Storey in Rowan Angora Haze. It was the design featured on the cover of Rowan Angora Haze pattern book (that’s a Ravelry link, since the book is out of print). It’s another project that I cast on very soon after the pattern was published – in the specified yarn – but then lost my mojo. As usual, it was the sleeves that got me. The book is now out of print and the yarn is discontinued.

I started this one in February 2016, and blogged about my progress a couple of times. Knitting Audrey was the first post in 2016, then there was an update in 2019: Navelli, Nightshift and Audrey. I talked about the sleeves in this post about my Navelli.

I made a few modifications. In the book, the sweater is styled with a ribbon at the neck, like a bed jacket. The collar is actually a casing for the ribbon. I did a regular round collar instead. I omitted the increases in the body – the design is a bit 80’s with the shoulders being wider than the waist. Mine is just boxy.

This was my last progress shot of the sleeves:

And that’s pretty much where I stopped cold. I had a feeling the sleeves were too wide, so put the project aside to think about that. I took it out in January when my Starling Wrap was done and knew I was right. 5.5″ into the sleeves, they were 12.5″ wide, even though I was making the smallest size. So (sigh) I frogged the sleeves and cast on again. This pattern has a couple rows of garter stitch at the cast-on edge, then increases in R4. This time, I didn’t do the increases, but just switched to the larger needles and started the cable pattern. What a difference that made!

Here you can see the new sleeve, which is knit to the underarm. (Yup. There I go, tossing my knitting into the snow again. The light is so much better outside right not.)

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

I’m much happier with these proportions – the top of my new sleeve is about the same width as I’d reached in a few inches, following the pattern directions. Now I need to figure out the sleeve cap since my stitch count is much lower. I’ve ended on the same row of the pattern repeat as for the body of the cardigan, so the pattern will line up. It’s just a case of working out the decreases. I have a plan, and we’ll see how it goes – I’ll put in a lifeline, just in case.

Another Felix – in Noro Cyochin

Posted on January 7, 2021 by Deborah Cooke

I had so many fingering-weight projects on my needles last year that it felt as if they were all taking forever. For a quick break, I cast on another Felix cardigan, this time in Noro Cyochin. (That’s a Ravelry link – Cyochin is discontinued now.)

Iced Blackberry designed by Claudia Wersing in Noro Cyochin

I bought this Noro when I fell in love with this poncho, called Iced Blackberry. It was designed by Claudia Wersing, specifically for Noro Cyochin, which is a blend of wool, mohair and silk. I bought the same colourway as shown in the pattern photo – that’s the picture from the Noro book, Sweet Winter.

Here’s Sweet Winter on the website of the distributor, Knitting Fever, so you can see all the patterns included in it. They were all designed by Claudia Wersing. This is her website, which is in German.

I love this poncho and bought the book for this one pattern, but partway through knitting it, I realized I’d never wear it. I love the look of ponchos, capes and stoles, but I never wear them. I didn’t want to waste the Cyochin, though.

Tithe by Jane Ellison knit in Noro Cyochin by Deborah Cooke

I ripped it out and then knit a Jane Ellison sweater called Tithe. (That’s a Ravelry link. My finished sweater is on the right.) This pattern is included in a book called Noro Unlimited – that’s a link to Knitting Fever – which includes all Jane Ellison designs. This is her website. I got gauge but the fabric was a bit stiffer than I wanted. I discovered that I don’t really like sweaters with 3/4 sleeves or floppy lapels. If it’s warm enough for a bulky sweater, I want long sleeves! And the lapels drove me a bit nuts. This one lasted long enough for a picture before it was frogged.

I have learned (alas!) that my taste in sweaters is deeply conventional.

I really like both of my Felix cardigans (here’s the red one and here’s the green one) so last fall I cast on a third with my Noro Cyochin. It spent some time on Sleeve Island, as all of my sweaters do, but I finished it up last week. Here’s the finished sweater:

I like the fabric better than the Tithe sweater since it’s knit at a looser gauge. It’s nice and soft. I had lots of yarn but couldn’t get matchy-matchy – of all my skeins of Cyochin, I had only one run of those turquoise-y blues. The Cyochin seems to have more variation skein-to-skein than other Noro yarns I’ve used – that run of icy green doesn’t appear in every ball either. The sleeves couldn’t be matched – and yes, I thought about ripping it out for a while. I do like it, though – it’s comfy, warm and purple – so this one is a win.

I’m currently in the Land of Use-It-Up with my knitting wool leftovers, so next week, I’ll show you what I knit of the remaining Cyochin.

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