9.19.10

The sleeves to North Shore. Seaming it today, maybe?

9.18.10

Need to clean up the studio--it is almost time for September company! I am moving along well with the sweaters after a few setbacks. This afternoon I intend to finally figure out for all future sweaters how to set up decreases for top-down sleeves. I have this book to help:


Which you can still buy for about $20.00 and if you click on it, it should take you to Amazon where you can order your own copy. I heart Barbara G. Walker.

9.13.10

Sleeves almost finished and ready to block, back and front halves blocking since Saturday. This is the North Shore pullover by Oat Couture. I called them when I found that one of the back halves knits out to be TWO INCHES bigger all around than the other. I asked if there was a problem in the pattern since there is obviously a discrepancy in the number of cast-on stitches for each half. I asked if I should keep knitting or block it before joining. I was not given much help so I am forging on as if I know what I am doing. The person "helping" me said to just follow the directions and everything would be just fine. Hah.

As you can see, the parts are NOT sewn together and I AM blocking them first. I decided to skip the insipid stitch pattern for the sleeves and I have substituted one of my personal favorites, broken rib. I don't think the sleeves will be too ribby since I intend to block them! Before sewing them to the sweater! So there! This sweater may end up belonging to HMHC. It may suit her better.

9.12.10

This school scarf was knit a couple of years ago in a horrible yarn called Comfort. For awhile it was my stoplight scarf. Don't need one up here! there are not many stoplights and when you find one, the red doesn't last long. Anyway, I knit it for this sweater.







Take a last look, it will be unknit and put up in balls by the end of this week. It is Takamay cotton with little flecks of deep red. The pattern is for a Henley style sweater and it was a disaster from the very beginning. I signed up for a class, figuring I could learn the finer points of sweater making from an expert. Since it was a class at a shop, I was expected to buy the yarn there. I could not afford what I liked and when I found something that would do, inevitably there was not enough of it. This was probably my fourth choice.
It was okay to knit with, but there was very little to the lessons. I wanted to make a top down, crew neck sweater with long sleeves. I was given a Henley pattern with short set in sleeves and told it would be easy to convert it. Several weeks of struggle (figuring out rewrites to a pattern that had NONE of the features I wanted) got me as far as the sleeves. I was told to find yet another pattern to cobble together some sort of decrease system for those sleeves and rip it back if I didn't like them.

This week I AM ripping it back and I AM ripping up the pattern! The yarn will become the top-down raglan I wanted. I even have the RIGHT pattern this time!

9.7.10

In the front of the sweater queue:


This is Oat Couture's North Shore Pullover. Mine is at the 4 panels done stage and I have re-knit one of the panels because I could not figure out where I stopped knitting in the stitch pattern when I put the needles down. I think this is the second year this has been a project.

I am using Encore Worsted in a seafoam green color. Not my favorite yarn, not my favorite color but HMHC and I cast on at the same time and it was a dual knitting project. The yarn was inexpensive and there was enough of the seafoam color in the sale bin for my size. Maybe I should send this to the front of the queue. It IS nearly finished. Needs sleeves.

This is a project from Knitting Pure and Simple and is for Elder Son. Also in Encore, it is a tweedy blue which after I cast-on and knitted a few rows I could see was completely wrong. He wants it quite short. It is worked top down and I just got to and knitted the bottom band last week. This December will be its second Christmas on needles. Needs sleeves.



There is no picture of the Maggie Mae and Me sweater on the needles. I have looked all over the web for it and my copy is pretty raggedy. Here is the yarn. It is Berrocco Vintage in the juniper colorway. It is lovely to knit. It reminds me of blueberries. The blue yarn is exactly the color of blueberry skins and it has a little halo in the red-violet color of the meat of the berry. This sweater is a top-down raglan with a crew neck. It has been on the needles only 3 weeks and is finished down to the band at the bottom. Guess what. Needs sleeves.

New project as of Thursday. It is an Ann Norling. Beautiful sale yarn in a grape. I am making the smaller, front version with the wide neck. It is almost done! Needs sleeves.




Watch for the sock queue, coming soon.

8.7.09

The knitted sample is Berocco Peruvia. I am planning a cardigan to be knit on the bias. To break up the solid color a little, every 10 rows or so I thought I would knit a row of Green Mountain Spinnery mohair. It is the darker ball, color claret. It has great little orange flecks in it that give it a little life.


Even so, it seemed a little flat so I looked through my fiber collection and came up with two balls of Targhee from Susan's Spinning bunny in the Chocolate Covered Cherries colorway. I do not think Susan sells targhee anymore. It is spongey and not that good for socks, a friend told me, but I love it plied with the Green Mountain. I am still working out how to set up the sweater and waiting for some more size 8 needles in the mail.

More From What I Meant to Post in January

Here is a dachshund sweater I knit last week. Lily really needed it a couple of days. I had it all bound off two times before I was satisfied with the fit. It has a unique dart system under her chest and a V-shaped gusset of ribbing that narrows and continues around the edge. When it gets to the saddle shape over the rear, I had to make stitches for the ribbing to lie flat. Although I would have liked to have had it go longer, I really wanted her to wear it at least once while we were InTheMountains and I had already ripped it back twice. She seemed to enjoy it. I used Lamb’s Pride with a strand of some kind of Jojoland long repeat. It photographs much bluer than it its. It is really a grapey purple. It has a fairly stiff hand because I thought if the stitches were closer together, it might not felt as easily.