Prime Time Knitter

Diversions

The seaming of Thora has gone well, but some trial and error was necessary to decide which edge stitch to pick up in order to have an invisible join on the outside.  And, sorry to say, crocheting, which I find so much more convenient than mattress stitch, only worked to attach the neck edge. To get invisible seams on the sides and sleeves, I had to use mattress stitch.

The underarm seam looks very good:

 

The side seams need one more try so that they more closely mirror the decorative columns that go up the fronts and back and truly are inconspicuous.

 

But even I could not help but notice that Christmas is nearly upon us, and the few gifts I had intended to knit required some immediate attention.  There are several reasons I like knitting presents.  The most notable is that it keeps me out of malls.  I suppose that age has at least a little do with this (the old “been there, done that” mentality kicks in), because when I was younger I looked eagerly upon the thrill of finding the right present at the right price.  I did most of this shopping in Fifth Avenue department stores in the days when the merchandise at one store wasn’t a clone of the merchandise at another.  I think the homogenization of retail, and the ability to shop online, have diluted my enthusiasm for physical shopping.  I also find I can live quite happily without being jostled by other shoppers and without cajoling sales clerks to take my money.

But another reason is that I can use up bits of stash yarn that I’ve bought to try out or are leftover from other projects and only good for small items.  I had some Knit Picks Elegance (alpaca and silk) that I bought to try out—and it is quite a nice yarn for the price.  The pair of mittens I made for a prior present left me with nearly two skeins left.  And so after trolling Ravelry, I decided to knit my first cowl: Gundrun Johnston’s Crofter’s Cowl.

Although the pattern calls for worsted, this works perfectly in dk, knit on size 6 US (4 mm) needles.  I added one pattern repeat, but the blocked length seems perfect.  The cowl is knit in two parts and grafted at the center, and I’ve finished one of the halves—modeled inelegantly on some tissue paper.

 

I also have some KnitPicks Andean Silk that will end up as a similar present, and I’ll use my trial skein of City Tweed (heavy weight) for either a hat or another cowl. 

I’m headed off to New York City this weekend for the Nikon School, which I hope gives me some help in improving my photographs.  Surely I can manage another present in the four hours I’ll be on the train (and possibly more, if we really do get the snow that is predicted).

Making Co-Neck-Tions

Thora’s neck edge is so fascinating that I thought it was worth a blog post of its own.  Also, the instructions are not particularly intuitive, and I hope anyone knitting Thora, who finds this part of the pattern unclear, can benefit from these photos.  I have looked for similar pictures on other projects I’ve knitted, and I’ve found bloggers who posted close-ups like these.  I’m thankful for their help, and in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’d like to do the same thing.

When you knit the fronts, the pattern asks you to put 5 stitches at the neck edge on a holder.  When you knit the sleeves, it asks you to put 4 stitches at the top of the saddle on another holder.  To start the neck edge, you pick up the 5 neck edge stitches

and then knit them (p1, k4—or k4, p1—depending on which side you’re on) until you reach the second group of picked up stitches.  It is neater to start knitting the stitches from the attachment side of the border so you can hide the tail when tidying the ends.

 

Once you've knit enough to fit across the saddle, you pick up the second group of stitches knit across all 9 stitches in the pattern for the back neck edge.  These are knit until the strip reaches the center back.  Here it is on the right front:

I’ve finished both sides of the neck edge, and tonight I’ll be grafting them together and (probably) crocheting them to the neck edge.  I’m favoring the row of single crochet, if it looks good, because it will provide a less stretchy, firmer edge. 

I’m departing a little from the pattern instructions, which ask you to bind off each side and have a seam at the center back.  This pattern is so elegant in its styling that this instruction seems surprising.  Why have a seam when an invisible graft will do?

The rest of the finishing is more of the garden variety—side seams and buttons.  But being so close to the finish line, I don’t think I’ll falter here.  So I know what I’ll be doing as I wait for Thanksgiving dinner to cook. 

Enjoy your Thanksgiving.

Back in the Saddle Again*

Thora’s wet-blocked sleeves were ready on Saturday, and I began to attach the pieces.  Things are working out so well, that I think I’ve shaken off my lethargy about blogging and my mind is racing to consider my next projects.  In fact, on Friday night, I started swatching for my new stranded sweater, Sirdal, and stayed up until midnight watching videos on how to catch long floats.

Here’s where I am now on Thora.  The saddle sleeves are attached at both shoulders, and one sleeve is attached to the body.

The pattern didn’t disappoint at all.  All the pieces match up perfectly, and the only challenges are to be sure that the rows of vertical stockinette are aligned and that I insert my wool needle in the same row on each side in my mattress stitches.  

This is when being severely nearsighted is a good thing—in fact, this is the only time that I like being a “high myope”.

I had originally thought I’d crochet my seams together, but crocheted seams don’t always look great at shoulder seams.  When I learned to use the three-needle bindoff, I got much better shoulder seams than on earlier sweaters when I used crocheting.  Crocheting seems to leave a deep ridge.  Since I can’t use a three-needle bindoff on Thora, I tried mattress stitch, and it forms a very neat join.

I have always enjoyed the final assembly of knitted pieces, and Thora is particularly satisfying.  Once the second sleeve is attached, I’ll begin work on the neck edge and gently steam the seams in place.  Then all that will be left are the two long seams from wrist to the bottom edge, sewing on the buttons, tidying the ends, and finding a suitable location for a modeling shot.

 

*Apologies to Gene Autry, America's Singing Cowboy, who inspired this blog title.  If you would like to hear his signature song, which I awaited eagerly as a small child when watching Saturday morning (black and white) TV in the 1950s, go to this link.  In fact, I had watched so many Westerns by time I reached age 10 that I had my fill for a lifetime, and rarely watch any now.

Nearly Thrilled to Pieces

I have not succumbed to second-sleeve syndrome, but barreled ahead on Thora’s sleeves, and they are nearly done.

To the untrained eye, these may look as if I have only a few rows to go on Sleeve 2 to proudly proclaim that all the pieces are knit, but a closer inspection tells otherwise.

One reason I fell in love with this design at first sight was its beautiful construction.  The pieces are set up so that the columns formed by k2, p2, k2 align at the sides and underarms.  But they also line up across the saddle.  To create the finish, I must pick up the stitches left at the neck edge to get a single column (p2, k2).  Then I join it at the back of the neck to get the double-column edge as a finish along the back.  I am really looking forward to this because it seems so interesting. 

But before I get that far, I have to match the tops of the saddles.  The finished saddle was supposed to be the left sleeve, and it has turned out (inexplicably) to be the right sleeve.  The sleeve I’m working on now needs to have one row frogged because I did something weird on the decrease row, and I have to match the other side.  Here, my copious notes failed me.  I have nothing written down for the next few rows that become the neck edge.  I suspect this tiny bit of knitting left to go will take me around an hour to figure out.

But then it is on to blocking, seaming, and sewing on the buttons.  And, oh yeah, trying it on!

Color Saturation

The failure of my plan to knit twelve sweaters in 2009 has not daunted me from making similarly grandiose plans for 2010.  I do intend to finish Thora (the fourth of my 2009 sweaters) and to reevaluate my WIPs, but I’d decided to depart from my usual style of one-color, cable or lace sweaters, knit in pieces to tackle new things.  In fact, 2010 will be “the year of the new” (although if the summer is miserably hot, it may be time for a lace shawl again).   

This will be my foray into stranded sweater knitting.  One thing that’s prompting this huge change in my one-color, knitted-flat-with-seams sweaters is the prospect of knitting an Alice Starmore sweater.  DH and DS got it for me for mother’s day (yes, mother’s day in 2009), and I knew it would never be one of twelve knit this year.  I have been staring at the yarn longingly since it arrived because the colors are so beautiful. 

This is the Oregon Cardigan (in Autumn), which was also featured in VK, Holiday 2007 and is available from Virtual Yarns.

I’m not that much of a knitting fool to think I can manage this as my first stranded project, and so I have decided to gradually ease up to the challenge.  I’ve had 20 balls of brick red Heilo in my stash for at least 10 years, which was intended for a project that I abandoned after swatching.  My swatch for this sweater, that looks so lovely in the picture, lacks the stitch definition shown in the picture (in fact, it looks like crap).

I bought the Heilo when Patternworks was still in Poughkeepsie and had the most fantastic after-Christmas sales—40% off on almost everything, as I recall.  So the yarn was very inexpensive for me.  (I still dream about those sales and walking through the warehouse of metal racks filled with yarn.)

So the 20 balls languished until I discovered Sirdal one late night while ogling the color sweaters on Ravelry.  

Sometime in late spring, I bought the Dale of Norway book that has the instructions and saw that all I needed was the contrast yarn.   So in preparation for starting it, I bought the necessary skeins of Heilo in natural. 

I also decided to work very traditionally on my first color sweater (no modifications except needed gauge changes), and when I discovered there were pewter Sirdal buttons, I added them to my order from Woolybaabaa (excellent service, and a great selection of Scandinavian yarns and projects).

I also don’t think that my experience with Sirdal will be enough to give me confidence for the Alice Starmore project, and so I’m going to tackle another stranded kit in my stash before that.  This will give me practice using more colors and reinforce what I’ve learned working with Sirdal.  The second stranded sweater is from a Philosopher's Wool kit (the Design Your Own Sweater), which I will try to adapt a bit so it isn’t quite so billowy. 

 

I’ll be knitting Sirdal as part of a Ravelry KAL, Knit a Norwegian, and I have until January 1 to get started.  So I’ll be swatching to decide what needles to use, studying the pattern, and doing background reading on stranded knitting.  The first step is to figure out how to get the dominant color.

Cable-Ready

My pack-rat tendencies extend beyond yarn, patterns, and knitting books to cable hooks.  [I actually find it shocking to stumble upon Ravelers who claim they do not have a stash and complete one project before buying yarn for the next.] I don’t cable without a needle, and so cable needles are essential.  When I first started knitting, there didn’t seem to be many options for cable hooks.  My first one, which I used for years and years, is this:

I believe it came in a “small” (as shown) and “large”, and since I rarely knit or cable with very heavy yarn, if I had one, it has long since disappeared.  I also have a set of Clover cable hooks that I inherited from my mother, but I have switched from hooks to the straight or wing variety, and seldom use them. 

I try to get a cable needle that matches the needle size I’m working with (to avoid cables that have a different stitch size from the rest of the knitting), and therein lies the need for many different cable needles.  And so as a public service, I’ll give you the needle sizes of all my cable needles. 

The Clovers are equivalent to 2.50 US (3 mm), 6 US (4.25 mm), and 8 (5mm) needles.

The Knit Picks cable needles are equivalent to 3 US (3.25 mm), 5 US (3.75 mm), and 10 US (6mm) needles.  I prefer the cable needles without the grooves, and although these are pretty and have nice points, they aren’t my cable needles of choice.

The Brittany Birch match 3 US (3.25 mm), 7 US (4.50 mm), and 9 (5.50 mm) needles.

 

This left me with a dilemma when I began to knit Thora.  I am using size 1s (2.50 mm) for the body and cables.  I searched everywhere for a cable that would work on such thin needles, partly for Thora and partly to cable on socks.  I found one from Inox and ordered it immediately, but it is very odd.  It is much too long to use conveniently.  The Inox cable needles come in sizes 1 US (2.50 mm) and 5 ½ US (4mm).

While knitting Thora, I had an epiphany that will probably eliminate the need for any more cable needle purchases (although I can’t imagine there are too many other cable needles out there that I don’t already own).  Why not use 4-inch dpns—or, more precisely, one 4-inch dpn?  That is indeed what I did on Thora.

I have a few pairs of Suzanne dpns, which I got in sizes that would be typical for knitting gloves and mittens.  And when I saw that Knit Picks had a whole set of Harmony 4-inch dpns, I immediately added them to my needle arsenal.  Those shown below (from top to bottom are Suzanne ebony in size 2.50 mm, Suzanne rosewood in size 3.0 mm, KnitPicks 0 US (2 mm), and KnitPicks 1 US (2.50 mm). 

The Suzanne needles aren’t that easy to find and they can be expensive.  I got mine at Patternworks, which no longer seems to have them, but WEBS has a few sizes.  I like them better than the KnitPicks because they feel more substantial and have rounder points, but the KnitPicks are very good, especially for the price.

So armed with my 4-inch dpns, I’ll be cabling away on socks as soon as Thora is done.

Measure for Measure

I've been on more of a roll with my nightly knitting since Stitches, and I've barreled through the right front. Both fronts are now on my foam pads and old towels, ready for blocking:

Here's a close up of the buttons that I had purchased when I was still knitting with the original dye lot.

They are brown-gray, and they looked better with the lighter shade of Zara.  But for now, I will use these  unless I find something when I finish the sweater that better complements the darker gray.  I like how the neck edge turned out.

Now it is time to think.  [Hum some scary music here.]  This is my first saddle sleeve, and I'm relying on the pattern instructions more than I usually do.  I recite the mantra "trust no one" when I look at pattern instructions, and I remained suspicious of the sleeve measurements.  How could every single size have an 18-inch sleeve?

I tested the measurement by putting the blocked back on my purple sweater, which has sleeves that fit perfectly, and projecting where Thora's sleeves would end:

To my astonishment, the length is perfect.  [Hum some even scarier music here.  This seems too good to be true.]

When I have knit a big piece, usually the back, I find it more accurate to work with it than the gauge swatch.  And so I used the blocked back to figure out how many cable repeats I'd need for the 18-inch sleeve.  And again, this appears to work out perfectly--15 repeats should do it.  I hope this isn't an amusing Halloween trick that the knitting gods are playing on me.  

My vertical gauge is not at all like the pattern (I get fewer rows), and I need to work out just where the instructions ask you to increase and then where I should increase to get something comparable.  So there's a bit of math in my future.  Perhaps this is where everything that seems so perfect will turn out to be less so.  But I'll sketch my version and the original version on graph paper, measure and review my calculations at least three or four times (when I get two that are the same, I'll stop), and then cast on for the left sleeve.  I'd like to hum something like "Happy Days Are Here Again" when I've figured all this out, but let's not push it.

Life's a Stitch

I’m just back from Stitches East, and my mind is racing with mental knitting.  I should be exhausted because the ice machine, adjacent to my room started to rev up at about 5:30 AM, and I could not get back to sleep.  But I’ve spent the last few hours fondling my purchases, looking at some knitting books for project ideas, and sorting through the class notes.

My classes in Japanese knitting were wonderful.  I took two with Gayle Roehm, who is an excellent teacher.  She spent Thursday afternoon working us through the intricacies of some unusual stitch maneuvers and revealing some of the not-so-obvious nuances of Japanese charts.  On Friday (all day), there was a second class in interpreting the truly amazing patterns that are in Japanese pattern magazines and books, and on line (even for free).   Here is an example of the free patterns.  Click on any picture and the links that follow and you can see the charts like those we analyzed in class.  My hope, however, is to work with the sweaters in this book, especially #5 (the stranded sweater).  If you scroll down the page to #11, you’ll see some of the kinds of stitches we worked on in the class—one student wore her completed FO of the sweater, which was sensational.

Despite being totally engrossed in the classes, I did manage to fit in some visits to the Market on the Thursday Preview and on Friday, when I almost (but not quite) forgot to eat lunch since I spent the break shopping.   Here are my stash enhancements. 

I fell in love with the yarn in the String Theory booth.  My photographic skills are not up to the task of capturing the glowing color of their DK in black tulip.  The color really is like a black tulip, much blacker than it shows up here, with more vibrant and subtle shades of purple.  Even though this is superwash, the yarn is as soft as butter and I intend to wear it next to my skin. 

I succumbed to the lure of the Green Mountain Spinnery booth, and got enough of the Maine Organic yarn for a traditional sweater, either Aran or Gansey.  This is Aran weight, and it is organic Maine wool that is processed in Vermont. 

I am hoping to go beyond my top-down, flap heel socks, which is why I’ve been adding sock yarn to my stash.   When I spotted some Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock as a show special, I could not pass it by.

And finally, to get my fix of Blue Faced Leicester, is Luster Sox from Dye Dreams.  This is superwash BFL.  You can see their other colors here.

And I can’t resist knitting notions.  After Thora, I’m planning to tackle the several stranded knitting projects, and I will definitely need highlighter tape for them.  But I also discovered something called “highlighter guides” that stick to a page by static electricity.  Both of these were from The Mannings.  The highlighter guide is great for less complicated charts than those for Fair Isle, such as the chart I needed for Thora’s big cable.

 

I restrained myself a bit in the Market because I’m looking for some interesting tweed yarn.  The yarn I’m favoring is from Beaverslide Drygoods, but I may also consider some from Harrisville.  And there are sock yarn vendors that I’ve seen on Ravelry that have some intriguing options.  But for now, I’m pleased with these purchases and eager to finish Thora so I can move on to other things.

It's Always Fair Weather

To say I was heartbroken at the thought of missing Rhinebeck this year is an understatement.  I enjoy fiber fairs so much, not only for the yarn I buy, but for the energy of the crowds, the gorgeous things visitors wear, and the chance to mingle with other knitters.  I spent a large chunk of Friday checking the hourly forecasts on weather.com and accuweather.com, watching the subtle changes in the estimates of the timing of the storm.   This morning the prediction for Rhinebeck was:

 

And so I decided to go and spend as much time as possible before the clouds started looking truly ominous.  (It still wasn’t raining in Rhinebeck at noon.)

At 7:30, with Mozart’s horn concertos fired up from my iPod through my car’s sound system, I headed off.  I arrived at the Dutchess County Fair Grounds at 9:01, and it seemed as if it was a bit less crowded than last year.  The trees weren’t as colorful as in past years, and it definitely was a lot colder, but everything else was great.

I spent less time looking at the sheep, llamas, and alpacas, but this fellow was outside the barns, attracting a crowd.

 

Although I think the number of visitors seemed down, at least at 9 AM, it still took me an hour to replenish my Socks That Rock stash.  This year I didn’t have to wait to get into the booth, but there were two lines of about 40 people each on them eager to pay.  The colors in my photo are a bit off (and it is raining now, so repeat pics aren’t possible), but I got one skein of medium weight corvid (the top skein) and two skeins of lightweight  in chestnutty (middle) and Meet Brown, Joe (bottom).  The medium weight will be for fingerless gloves, and the lightweight for socks.

As a counterpoint to these somber hues, I discovered a vendor new to me: Creatively Dyed Yarns.  Most of the yarns are variegated, but I’m a semi-solid fan. The choices were still captivating, and my selection was bronze:

I’ve visited the Buckwheat Bridge Angora booth many times in the past, and they have the most beautiful mohair.  This year I was enchanted by the lace-weight 100% Cormo (produced with solar power!).  It is more muted than it looks here, and I bought enough for a small lacy scarf.

I have trouble thinking of sweater projects at yarn fairs because I like to mull over how a particular yarn will work up before committing to 1500+ yards.  This year Green Mountain Spinnery had yarn that I hadn’t seen before:  Wonderfully Wooly.  So I bought the color cards, which also have colors of Mountain Mohair that aren’t on my current color cards (I love that yarn).  So at Stitches East I may buy a skein to play with—for a hat, perhaps, just to see how it knits up.

And I stopped at the Got Soap (gotsoap.com) for four bars of handmade soap.  The lemonilla is sensational.  My intent was to use these for presents with knitted washcloths, but I may reconsider. 

I purposely skipped over some vendors that I know will be at Stitches:  Shelridge Farms and Ellen’s Half-Pint Farm.  Rhinebeck became as crowded as ever about 11:30, and by then I spent a little more than I intended and felt tired.  And I did want to drive home before the rain, which started falling just as I was about 15 minutes from home. 

Now to play with my stash and get ready for Stitches on Thursday—it doesn’t get better than this. 

Holed Up

Why have I had so much trouble getting around to putting up blog posts?  This is a question I’ve been asking myself for a couple of weeks now, and it seemed as if there was no good answer.  But this week I figured out why—interruptions.  Here’s one example.  On Monday, I promised myself that I’d get to work at 7 AM, print out the chapters I’d need to read, and then post about my knitting progress.  But my printer had other ideas.

When things on the side panel flash, the printer is not happy.  And so I unearthed the manual and discovered I needed a new drum.  Ok, so I checked to see if Amazon had it.  And indeed it did—but for nearly $80.  The printer only cost me around $100, so this seemed as though it was a typo.  When I checked around, I found that this was really quite a good price. About an hour had elapsed by this time—so much for starting work at 7 AM.  After spending more time on the web, I discovered that the replacement printer for this model was on sale at Staples and Best Buy for only $60.  How can that be?  I can get an entirely new printer, with a toner cartridge and drum, for less than the drum for my existing, perfectly fine printer.  I wrote an irate email to Brother Printer’s customer services, and have gotten no reply.  So a day later I started composing an irate letter to the president of the Brother Printer Company criticizing their “green” policy, only to discover its head offices are in Japan.  (I will eventually write to someone, even if it is just a rant to Consumer Reports.)  And so after this, and a trip to Staples yesterday, I lost hours of work time.  I felt guilty taking time for a blog post.

But despite needing the time today to install this

and getting a truly late start on my work, I am posting anyway.  (Thank goodness I have a Mac and not a PC, or the entire day would be ruined trying to hook up a new peripheral.) Besides, we’re in the midst of a nor’easter, making it very unlikely that I will go to Rhinebeck this weekend, and I can make up the work time as I’m holed up watching the wind, heavy rain, and even, perhaps, some snow. 

Knitting has taken place despite the dearth of blog posts.  I am up to the buttonholes on Thora.  The instructions for the buttonholes leave something to be desired.  They merely say to bind off three stitches on a front row and cast on three stitches on the next purl row.  There is no indication of what row to do this on.  It is clear from the picture that the buttonholes have to go in the middle of the front cable:

Here is the chart for the cable, and the only rows that I can imagine binding off three and casting on three are rows 13 and 14, which fall in the cable repeat. 

This makes for a somewhat lopsided buttonhole, and not the centered buttonhole I thought I’d be getting.  

Still, I think I will always wear this sweater buttoned because it would lose some of its gracefulness if the fronts flapped open.  And if you look closely at the magazine picture, you can see that the button is positioned near the top of the cable, not in the center.

The hard part of Thora’s front (the Viking cable) is done, and now it is very easy to finish the right front.  I’m eager to get to the saddle sleeves because I don’t recall ever knitting a sweater with them. I'll need to block first to be sure of my row gauge, and I'll do that rain or shine.