Prime Time Knitter

Indecision Is a Bore

The Leaning Tower I adore

Indecision is a bore

I’ve had two songs stuck in my head for a couple of weeks.  The first is “Baby Love,” which is ironic, because by 1964, when this was a hit single, I did not like or listen to Rock ‘n Roll.  By that time, I was a hard-core Classical music devotee and a student of the Baroque recorder. (Yeah, I know this is stuffy, but it’s the truth.  And I did learn to play the Handel flute sonatas on my recorder.)  Pop music was foisted on me when I attended summer camp, where 77 radio and Cousin Brucie blared from every bunk.  That was when I heard (over and over) all the popular songs of the day.  And there also was some parental pressure to attend dances, for which I was totally unsuited, in the unrealized hope of finding my life partner.

So how has this ditty entered my middle-aged brain?  I’ve begun to experience some subtle ageism.  It ranges from people talking to me very slowly as if I have some mental impediment that will prevent me from understanding simple instructions to the postal clerk who shoved the Priority Mail receipt in my face to show me how I could log on to the Web to track my package.  I didn’t think it would creep in at the gym, where there’s an ongoing class in weight training and balance to stave off the ravages of time.  But it did.  The trainers in my exercise classes select CDs that they think will appeal to us over-50 participants.  And apparently there are music CDs intended for exercisers of my generation—to get our geriatric limbs moving, I suppose.  (Now this is silly too because the people in the class range from their mid-50s to an 82-year-old who can still do pushups, and we’re hardly all of the same “generation.”).  But there you have it.  One trainer has a CD with songs like “I Will Survive” and “YMCA,” another has Rock ‘n Roll songs from the 60s and another CD of swing from the late 40s.  I’d be perfectly happy with no music because this isn’t aerobics, but the first thing each trainer does is rev up the stereo.  And so until something else replaces “Baby Love,” I’ll probably continue to sing it at odd moments, especially since I’ll be pumping iron to it week after week.

I started humming the lines from “It’s a Bore,” from the musical Gigi, of my own accord.  Before I fell in with choir members who introduced me to the choral masterpieces of Bach, Handel, and Mozart, I liked musical comedy.  And Gigi is a favorite, even now.  The lyrics—particularly the lines about indecision—captured my mental state as I flitted from one swatch to the next, still unable to find some summer knitting to fill Sirdal’s shoes, so to speak.  Well, more precisely, Sirdal’s sleeves.  The Monkey socks showed me that sock knitting was possible in June’s heat, but then I thought I would switch to lace shawls.  After some evenings of balling up yarn and swatching, I just didn’t like what I ended up with. And so weeks passed without any firm commitment to a project, aside from the Sockotta socks. 

Even with the Sockotta socks, I spent many nights wondering if I should do a short-row heel or a heel flap.  I wanted to try a short-row heel, but the tops are a little snug, and I wanted to be sure that the foot fit.  So I’ll save the short-row heels for another time.  For a yarn that is only part wool and feels like cotton, Sockotta is very pleasant to knit with.  Sock #1 is now ready for its gusset:

I finally got tired of repeatedly pulling out stash yarn, swatching, and ending up with nothing, and I began to pull out partially finished projects instead.  Not much of a remedy to indecision, but at least it was different.  I took advantage of the scorching, not very humid weekend to wash and reblock the front, back, and sleeves of the Calvin Klein cardigan.  (It dried in a day and a half, down from three days the first time.  Cotton Fleece takes a long time to wet block.)

Yup, you’ve heard this before—I am going to finish this sweater that has been decades in the making (sounds rather like a trailer for a Cecil B. DeMille epic, doesn't it).  “All” it needs are the button bands, pocket finishing, and seaming—it has been in this state for about three years.  The indecision here arises from the buttonholes.  Lucy Neatby has a great way of grafting them that I’d like to try, and until now, my Kitchener stitch skills weren’t up to the job.  After fixing the ribbed cuff on my purple sweater, grafting stockinette has become very easy.  This is the bang-your-head-on-the-wall-because-when-you-stop-it-will-feel-good philosophy.  But now that I can graft 2x2 ribbing, I can manage stockinette without too much cursing—although doing it in the space of a ¾ inch buttonhole is something else.

While the red sweater was drying, I reevaluated a project started last year.  It is just a plain jacket from some discontinued Cherry Tree Hill variegated silk-wool yarn.  It will be in linen stitch.  This is the swatch.

The yarn feels like cotton, and now that the “balmy” 80-degree temperatures of June have become the downright miserable near-100s of July, this yarn is ok to knit with, albeit a little tough on my hands.  Last year, I had started to shape the body of this jacket, but the decreases on linen stitch looked awful.  So I took them out and started knitting the giant rectangle that will be the body (front and back) until the sleeves. I'm about 2 inches into it.  Perhaps it is the heat that is influencing this decision (but at last I’ve made a commitment!), but a loose-fitting jacket seems more appropriate for this yarn than a fitted style because it has the feel of hand-woven cloth.

So summer projects are now on track, and I’m indecisive no more.  My fear now is that we will have an early fall, and I’ll want to go back to knitting with wool before these sweaters are done—but when the temperatures are soaring into the 100s and I’m holed up in AC for days on end, that hardly seems as if it will happen anytime soon. Humming “Autumn Leaves” seems very premature just about now.

Finishing Touches

For the last week or so, I’ve been working on small projects and planning (in my mind only, I’m afraid) the stranded sweaters I want to knit starting on January 1.  I often play a trick on myself to get things done, and it sometimes works but mostly doesn’t.  A few weeks before the “start date” (say, January 1), I’ll ease myself into the task I want to accomplish.  If it is losing weight, I’ll cut back a little on my calories, presumably giving myself a head start.  If it is some odious chore with many parts, I’ll finish the easy bits.  And so, I had intended to do the preliminary swatching and pattern reading for Sirdal by now, but I’ve worked on everything but that.  

I completed the cowl I have already given away as a Christmas present:

 

This Gudrun Johnston’s Crofter’s Cowl, available on Ravelry.  It is a fine pattern and an easy knit.  I used Knit Picks Elegance for it, which is only DK rather than the recommended worsted, so my only modification was to use 90 stitches (instead of 80).  I should have cast on and bound off a bit more loosely, but aside from that I’m pleased with it.  And I now want to have some cowls for myself. 

I had knitted Ed a scarf earlier in the year, but it lay unfinished for months.  Now that he needs it, it seemed time to redo the bind off, which was too stretchy, and weave in the ends.  This is just the seeded rib pattern stitch that appears in Barbara Walker (in the original hardcover Second Treasury), knitted from 4 skeins of KnitPicks Andean Silk (color: chocolate; needles: size 6 US, Colonial rosewood).

  

I’ve been strategizing about working on stranded knitting, and I’ve considered that there may be some nights where I am only capable of knitting something easier.  So I started a pair of socks as a traveling project, but I got so captivated in the pattern stitch that it pushed all else aside.  In the summer I had started socks from Shibui yarn to keep my hands busy and mind occupied when Ed had his operation.  But when I knit just the simple 1x1 rib, the color clumped in unattractive ways, and I was getting bad vibes from the project in general.  So I ripped what I’d done, washed the yarn, and balled it up for something new—a stitch motif that would break up the color.  I found an 8-stitch honeycomb pattern in one of my Japanese dictionaries that seemed perfect—and quite like socks I’ve seen others knit and have admired.  I thought I’d plug this motif into one of Charlene Schurch’s simple socks from Sensational Knitted Socks, and I’m now up to the toe:

I’m still not thrilled by the way the color changes, but it is much better than the plain rib.  The stitch pattern makes a nicely dense fabric that is very warm. 

And in the spirit of virtuousness, I pulled out a dormant UFOs for completion.  Remember this one?  It is my Calvin Klein cardigan.  All it lacks is the button band and seaming, and I think it will be nice to start the new year with it finished. 

 

Can I manage Sock #2, the stranded swatches, and a FO in the few days left in 2009?  Probably not, but it’s worth a shot.

It's Only Fitting

I held my breath a bit as I basted in the sleeve on the Calvin Klein cardigan. I really hoped this modification would work because I want to cross this project off my WIP list. And I was really pleased when I checked it in the mirror. Here it is in the harsh light of day (as I’m trying to instruct Ed on how to work the camera while modeling):

The sweater is very stretchy around the fronts and neck edge, and I think I’ll try swatching in sizes 2 and 3 needles to see which gives me a firmer finish before starting the front bands. The buttonholes will also be tricky because Cotton Fleece has no memory. The pattern calls for vertical buttonholes, and I’m not sure they’ll work—and so that will be the next obstacle to finishing. I’m hoping that YO buttonholes will look okay and fit my buttons because they will be the least likely to stretch out of shape over time. If I were starting this sweater now, I would have done the buttonbands differently. I certainly would have started them with the bottom ribbing to avoid a seam there. Or I would have knit the bands with the fronts. But this project is too far along to make such adjustments now. The sleeve should take me most of the week, so I have time to ponder these complexities.

Also half-done are my new socks.

If I have any spare time this coming week, I’ll try to finish sock #2. These are from the first pattern (four-stitch patterns) in Charlene Schurch’s Sensational Knitted Socks, and it is one of the alternative patterns at the end of that group of basic instructions.

Another reason for my eagerness to get to sleeve #2 and sock #2 is that my notes leave something to be desired in the way of clarity:

If I hurry up, I will remember most of what I’ve done. If these sit a while, they may return to WIP limbo.

Twisting My Arm

Despite my best planning, I modified the sleeve on the red sweater yet again as I knit it. When I held it up on my arm after finishing the 17 ½ inches I planned for the cuff-to-armhole distance, it seemed to need more than 2 inches for the cap, as I projected initially. I made these new measurements alone, and I contorted myself into some unnatural positions to balance the pieces and measure while I looked in the bathroom mirror, so it was difficult to know for certain whether changes would help. I thought a third inch and a more gradual slope to the top of the sleeve would improve the fitting of the cap of this sleeve, and I adjusted to do that. The measure along the top edge of the sleeve (the part that will attach to the armhole) is still the 19 inches that I want, even with these changes. The test of my decisions will come today, as the sleeve blocks. Cotton Fleece takes a long time to dry. The body required three days. But we’re having a preview of summer today (temperatures in the 70s F), and I’ll dry it outside, in the shade. At least there is some benefit to the heat.

I’m a little fanatical about the way cables end at the top of a piece. As I was approaching the top of the sleeve, I saw that I’d get the stretchy, fat part of the cable at the top edge. Adding the extra inch allowed me one more twist, firming up that edge and giving the sleeve top a better look.

And, unlike Liv, the knitting in Cotton Fleece seems to stretch more horizontally than vertically. I’m hoping the twist at the top edge will counteract that stretch, where I really don’t want it.

When this is blocked, I will baste it to the body for a fitting. If I don’t succumb to second-sleeve syndrome, it should be on to the pocket tops and button bands.

Electronic Spring Cleaning

When it comes to tidying up, I think I’m missing some crucial gene that most women are supposed to possess. I realized long ago that I hate housework. There are some household chores that are less odious to me than others—most of my “favorites” have to do with fabric: laundry and ironing. I don’t mind cooking, but Ed is so much better at it than I am that he does the lion’s share of all the chores required to purchase food and create meals. Dusting and vacuuming are always at the bottom of my to-do list, despite my fitful attempts to galvanize my efforts toward becoming a Martha Stewart wannabe.

So when it comes to spring cleaning, I pick one thing to do (clean out a closet—is this fabric-related?) and try to get it done and feel good about myself. This weekend I contemplated a chore that would enhance the order and cleanliness of my house, and rejected it immediately. There were other things that needed doing that didn’t require any heavy lifting. And so on Saturday, I sorted through my emails, work and otherwise, and organized them into folders that are now neatly stored on my Mac. This wasn’t a total success. When I logged on to my mail on Monday AM, I saw that I had completely neglected my work “sent messages”. Still I managed a sense of satisfaction for doing something I had been putting off for months, and months, and months.

For some time I thought my blog was kind of lackluster and barebones compared to those I visit. Typepad has obligingly come up with new designs, and I’ve been tempted by them. I’ve always been a fan of type with serifs, and so I selected the new design you now see. I hope you like it. (Now that I see how easy it is, I may do this more often.)

I also wanted to add a categories list to my sidebar, and I spent much of Sunday sifting through old posts and arranging them by topic. But in reviewing my 2007 projects, I thought that the entrelac jacket and Ed’s green sweater were far more engrossing than my current projects, and I want to get done with Liv and the Calvin Klein cardigan so I can move on to the complexities of lining the Devonshire jacket and working on the Deco sweater. I’m also thinking of an original sock design, and that will take some work because I’ve never made one two “from scratch”.

If I had spent all this time knitting the sleeves on the Calvin Klein sweater, one would be finished. Last week I knitted a very large swatch going down one needle size (5 to 4 US on the body; 3 to 2 US on the ribbing), and I thought that the new knitting matched the old. And so I’m about up to the elbow on one sleeve:

Sleeves seem rather like shawls on training wheels. When you start out at the cuff, it appears that you’re making miraculous progress and you will be done with the sleeve in no time. But then as the increases begin to, well, increase, the progress slows down. I think it will take two more nights to finish sleeve #1. This is a very easy pattern. The cable crosses occur at very large intervals—rows 9 and 19 on a 26-row repeat—so the knitting seems fast, and a trifle dull. I will block sleeve #1 just to be sure it is correct, and I'll baste it onto the blocked fronts and back for a fitting. In the days that it takes Cotton Fleece to dry, I’ll seam Liv. So this week’s work is cut out for me.

Losing My Grip

The knitting gods have had another little joke at my expense.  I started the week thinking that if I were diligent, I could have a Friday or Monday post called “One Sock, One Sleeve, and One Sweater”.  In this post, I saw myself proudly modeling Liv and showing off my amazing progress on the other WIPs.  And I’d declare that next week would be devoted to finishing sock #2 and sleeve #2.  Rewind that scenario in your mind, because it isn’t happening.

The sock part looked on target after my knitting session on Monday evening.  I fixed the gusset and got it to the point where I only have to pay modest attention to the pattern stitch to finish it.

Yesterday I was feeling uncharacteristically perky as I sat down to knit, and so I started the first red sleeve.  After all, only a few rows needed attention.  I had to count to see that I cast on the correct number of stitches.  I don’t know how it is for you, but if I don’t count at least three times, there is a good chance I will have too few or too many stitches, and that results in some amazing swearing once I figure out that I’ve made this mistake.  Then I have to increase the right number of stitches before switching from the cuff to the pattern.  I usually get this correct because I do take the trouble to figure out exactly where I’ll put the increases and often sketch out the placement of the increases on paper.  Then I have to set up the cable pattern.  This can take one or more tries (it took two on this sleeve), but I’m willing to give myself a break and allow for a (minor) misstep—tinking a few stitches is ok, ripping the entire row isn’t.  And so, it would be smooth sailing after that.

Well, it was smooth sailing until I looked at what I had accomplished before I headed for bed.  My gauge doesn’t match the original sweater gauge.  The difference is subtle, but it matters for the feel of the fabric and the size of the sleeve.

If I needed confirmation that I was knitting more loosely than I had in the past, this was it.  I really can’t remember when I started this sweater.  I know I haven’t touched it for two years, but it could be longer than that.  There are things I did on it that I don’t do any more.  When I attached the fronts and back at the shoulders, I saw that I didn’t hide the wrap on my short rows, and I had to knit across to do this.  The side seam isn’t invisible.  So the basic knitting took at some point in the past when I must have knit more tightly than I do now.  Susan warned me that this could happen with knitting that you put aside for a while, and she was right.  I don’t feel as if I’m knitting differently, and the stitches slide along on the needle as they always seem to.  But the evidence is undeniable.

So what to do now?  Swatch, of course.  Tonight I’ll try smaller needles and different types of needles.  While the swatches are drying, I’ll work on Liv’s sleeves.  Perhaps I can have a “One Sock, One Sweater” post soon.

Seeing Red

It almost seems as if I made negative progress last week.  On Thursday, I finished the assignment that was interfering with my knitting.  Because the work was tedious and exhausting, I decided to fall back on my “easy project”—a second pair of STR socks from a simple pattern in Sensational Knitted Socks.  On this second pair, I wanted to make the socks a bit higher, and to get the twist of the pattern stitch to fall in a better place under the ribbing, I started with row 6 of a 12-row pattern and not row 1.  This bit of ingenuity caused multiple problems.  First, I couldn’t follow the instructions for repositioning the stitches for the heel, and my first heel fell asymmetrically in the pattern. So I frogged.  Second, the pickup row for the gusset didn’t have the attractive row of purl stitches along its side that the pink sock did. 

So I frogged.  I decided to fix the knitting so I could follow the instructions, and I knit 6 more rows so my work would match what Charlene Schurch had in mind.  But this time, I messed up the pattern stitch, and I had to tink back two rows.  I’m finally back at the point where the heel is correct.

I managed to do some blocking without messing anything up (aside from my living room floor, for a few days—Cotton Fleece takes forever to dry). I blocked Liv’s sleeve and I blocked the pieces of the Calvin Klein sweater so I could use them as a giant gauge swatch for redoing the sleeves.  The Calvin Klein design has oversize sleeves, but even so, my first attempt at these produced sleeves that would have billowed on Arnold Schwartzenegger’s arms.  Luckily my arms are considerably less muscular, despite all my swimming.  So the pattern needed adjustment to narrow them.

In addition to adjusting for the width, my recent experience with Liv taught me to check the length also.  The original pattern calls for sleeves that are 17 ½ inches from armhole to wrist—and it calls for a 5-inch cuff that you turn up.  This is a warm-weather sweater.  I don’t want to have the bulk of double-thickness cuffs so the first, easy change, was to reduce the cuff length to 2 ½ inches.

But to check the overall sleeve length, I had to measure from shoulder to wrist, and this required attaching the fronts to the back and basting the sides. 

So far the sweater looks pretty good, but the thing I was after was exactly where the drop shoulder fell.  The 17 ½ measure seems fine, but to verify, I measured the sleeve of the brown Rowan sweater I knitted in 2007.  (The drop of the sleeve goes lower on my arm for this sweater than the red one, so this sleeve measures just about 17 inches.)

It also allowed me to check the sleeve width at the bottom of the armhole, and the 19 inches across seems ok too.  And I narrowed the cuff width from about 10 inches to 8.

Another measure I checked was the cap circumference.  This measure (the heavy black line) should equal approximately the circumference of the armhole (black line on front schematic—doubled for front and back). 

I measured this on the assembled sweater body, and it was ok too.  (If you want more fabric in your sleeve than the body, you should have a bigger cap than armhole—and then you’d need to ease in the sleeve.  For sweaters, I don’t think this kind of alteration is worth the trouble because knitted fabric stretches.  I like them to be approximately equal.)

So the only major change is in the width.  Using the blocked sweater back as a guide for width, I decided that I need three cables over the cuff.  After increasing, they will end up as five cables at the armhole.  The red shaded areas are the cables—and this isn’t drawn to scale.  I’ll need to increase 1 stitch on each side, every half inch for 10 inches, and then one stitch on each side every inch four more times.  I plan to knit the sleeves one at a time so I can check the length on one before knitting the other.

So this week I have a choice of tasks—assembling Liv, getting one red sleeve started, and getting past the heel on the sock so it returns to “easy project” status.

 

What Gives?

It was probably naïve of me to think that a simple adjustment would cure Liv’s sleeve ills, but I wasn’t prepared for this.  After removing the original sleeve, I measured carefully to determine how much to shorten (1 ½ inch).  And so, I figured out how many rows I’d need to cut and knit the new sleeve accordingly.

When I blocked the new sleeve (right), it was only about ½ inch shorter than the original (left). 

How can this be?  Clearly I’m violating the laws of physics and questioning my sanity.  Although it just doesn’t seem right, I will remove rows on this blocked sleeve to get my desired 15 ½ inches, knit the cap, and baste it into the body.  If it seems ok, then I’ll work on the other sleeve. 

I did something one is not supposed to do when I reknit the sleeve—I changed my needles.  I didn’t remember if I used Addi Turbos or Inox Mattes to knit the first pair of sleeves.  And just to be on the “safe side”, I switched to my new Knit Picks Harmony wooden needles, thinking that I’d get a slightly tighter gauge.  Here too my expectations are out of whack with reality.  I loved those needles (and immediately rushed to my computer to buy the DPN set and the circular needle set from sizes 4 to 11), but they don’t seem to tighten my gauge at all.  If anything, I might be knitting more loosely, but I think the real problem is that Silky Wool stretches like crazy.

Last week was a disappointment in making progress.  I fell back on my sock, only to realize when I started the gusset that I’d divided the pattern so it wouldn’t be symmetrical.  Yes, I ripped back. 

Although Charlene Schurch gives great instructions, I modified the pattern slightly, starting with row 6 instead of row 1 so I could get a twist row right after the ribbing.  I also probably had the pattern divided differently on my needles than the instructions specified, and so when it simply gives advice on moving a stitch from “needle 1 to needle 4”, my changes didn’t match those Charlene had in mind.  But I do understand how to divide for the heel now when I’m working a pattern stitch.  That knowledge is a useful thing.

And my experiences with Liv have caused me to rethink the red Calvin Klein sweater.  It too stretches because it is knit from Cotton Fleece.  I will block the fronts and backs before I plan the sleeve measurements.  Will this help?  Maybe a little.  Because I don’t have much to show on this sweater beyond what I’ve photographed before, I’ll show you the buttons I purchased to go with it. [The yarn color is not as “tomato red” in the picture as it is in reality.  It matches the buttons exactly.]  I think the sweater has a 1920’s feel, and I picked buttons with a Deco pattern--making me long, as I look at them, to start on Susan Duckworth’s Deco sweater.

So tonight I’ll rip back a few rows on one new sleeve for Liv and start the cap.  I hope I end up with the right measurement.  After Liv and the Cotton Fleece sweater, it is back to wool for me.  At least with wool, you know what you’ve got—well, usually.

Handling the Heat

I don’t do well in hot weather, and when we enter a heat wave, as is happening now, I become so uncomfortable that my judgment is often impaired.  I find the heat discouraging, and there seems to be no end to it.

Two years ago, toward the end of August, I got a sale notice from Handpaint Heaven featuring Faux Fur.  Now, until that time I never knitted with synthetics since completing some ill-fated project about forty years ago made of some sort of nylon or Orlon that was insanely popular.  I did manage to select one of the less horrendous colors (white), but the shell I knit stretched in ways that would make a yoga instructor jealous, and I think I wore it once before giving it to Good Will.    So I surprised myself in purchasing six skeins of this soon-to-be discontinued yarn and knitted scarf after scarf of it.

In defense of this yarn, it was really fun to knit with it, and non-knitting recipients of the scarves liked them.  The colors were as nice as any Cherry Tree Hill yarn.  I kept two for myself, but each time I take one out of the storage box and try it on, I just think I look silly—and I put it back.  I’ve never worn either.

Last summer, I did somewhat better in my summer knitting choices, perhaps because we finally installed central air conditioning.  I could think somewhat rationally as long as I didn’t venture outside.   I switched from wool to Cotton Fleece, and started this UFO—a Calvin Klein sweater from an old VK issue.  As I’ve recounted before, the knitting went very well until I realized that I botched the sleeve measurements.  I need to frog them and reknit because they will be far too big.  That ought to happen soon.

Despite my current heat-induced doldrums, I think I may have selected what seems to be the perfect summer project.  I may be angering the knitting gods, who will find some way to thwart the smooth progress of this sweater, but Liv is turning out to be an excellent choice.  I’m a few inches away from the armholes, after only two serious nights of knitting.

I love Silky Wool, and the drape and weight of the fabric will be perfect for a fall sweater to be worn next to the skin.  I also love the color (cinnamon).  This is the first time in a while that I’ve worked only in stockinette (no knit-purl pattern, no lace, no cables), but I’m finding it very relaxing and enjoyable.  And the gauge and pattern adjustments seem to be working out perfectly.  For now it appears that I can knit away happily and have a FO in a few weeks, as I hoped.