Prime Time Knitter

The Half of It

Having mulled over the shawl collar for weeks, I finally took advantage of our first wonderful “unseasonably cool” day to knit the first part of the shawl collar.  I didn’t realize how important the coolness was until I knitted for several hours with the entire sweater body on my lap and used nearly a full ball of Mountain Mohair for the collar itself.

The half collar turned out well, but quite differently than I imagined.  After all those measurements last weekend, the only really important one is the length of the neck edge.  The rest of the collar bows out thanks to the short rows.  I left my temporary marker used for constructing the front as a lifeline—and I won’t remove it until I’m sure that the entire collar (left and right sides) is ok.  (This will ensure that I don’t have to rip.  Got to keep those knitting gods happy.)

When I designed the sweater, I divided the back for the neck based on the cable pattern.  I wanted only the Saxon Braid on the shoulders, and so this left me with more fabric around the neck than I would have planned if the sweater had no design. 

I therefore will have to ease in what is about 10 inches so that the back neck distance is only 8 inches.  I don’t expect this is any harder to do than setting in sleeves, but it does mean that the length of the collar at the neck side should be just 8 inches.  The photo makes it look as if there is less to ease in than 10 inches, but if you measure around the collar it is a longer distance than in this shot.

To construct the right side of the collar, I simply adapted Katharina Buss’s directions and knit until the neck side of the collar was 4 inches long (the half collar on the other side will also be 4 inches long, for a total of 8 inches at the neck side).  She tells you to make short rows every 4th or 6th row.  My short rows are on every 4th row, which makes for a very dense collar.  For this sweater, that’s fine because Ed wants a thick and warm collar.  When I do this again, I may vary the distance of the short rows, alternating some so that they’re ¼ of the collar width and the others so they’re ½ the collar width.  I also think that placing six rows between each short row will make a less dense collar. 

Tonight I’ll do the second half of the collar, and if possible join it at the center.  The join Katharina Buss recommends is a kind of “double Kitchener stitch”.  You put the knit stitches of the k1, p1 ribbing on one needle and the purl stitches on another. 

You then do the Kitchener stitch on each side of the collar, working only with the knit stitches on each side.  I’m sure this is going to take several tries to get right.

But I made Ed try on the sweater as it exists so far, and it looks nice (even he thinks so). 

I expect the collar will need some light steaming to shape it, and I do plan to wet block the fronts and back once the collar is in and the pockets are done, primarily so I can get an accurate sleeve measure.  I did take an approximate sleeve measure while Ed had this part of the sweater on, and so I can get fairly far on the sleeves before deciding on how long they actually should be.

So this week’s knitting, although not particularly easy, should require no additional major planning.

Perfectly Matched

I made good but not great progress this week.  Overlapping work deadlines have left me ready for easy nightly knitting rather than the challenge of the collar on Ed’s sweater.  But it was very satisfying to work on Liv, and I’m about up to the amholes on the front.

I find it difficult to match pieces in stockinette because there are no natural markers like cables or patterns, and so I make lots of notes on my pattern instructions on where I do anything significant, which in this case is the shaping.  But to make the finishing easier, I used plastic markers on the front so I can align the increases and decreases with the back.  I actually should have used more of them on the back, but I wasn’t clever enough to think of it when I knit the back.

But the true highlight of my week is this:

I want to reinforce the buttonholes on Ed’s sweater to make them look more professional and to keep them from stretching.  On a trip out yesterday, I stopped at a small local store that sells fabric (mostly for quilting) and sewing notions, and I hoped that they’d have buttonhole thread that would save me a trip to NYC, where I know I can buy thread in the perfect color.  And I’m sure you appreciate how thrilled I was to find that this store did.

When I proudly showed the thread to Ed, he simply said, “What’s the big deal?  The colors look the same.”.  Slack jawed, I couldn’t respond immediately, but eventually said, “What color did you expect?”.  Well, he told me that he wanted reflector pink, so that he would be safe if he ever went jogging in the morning while wearing the sweater.  In the nearly thirty years I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him run.  (This, of course, is in contrast to myself.  Although not a jogger, I react as any proper New Yorker does when seeing a bus, particularly one on the other side of a busy street when the traffic light is against you.  I immediately leap into traffic and act as if it is the last bus on earth, and if I don’t catch it, I’ll be stranded somewhere in the City for the rest of my life.  Ed, being a Californian by birth, has no sense of what to do when traveling on public transportation.)

It may seem as if Ed and I have nothing in common.  This isn’t true in general, but it is when it comes to clothing and making it.  So it is reassuring that even if we aren’t perfectly matched, the thread and the yarn are--and the pieces of Liv eventually will be.

Ring Around the Collar

Thanks to two unseasonably cool days, which left most people grumbling because one was cloudy and damp, I was finally able to finish the left front of Ed’s sweater.

Not only that, but I also attached the fronts and backs.  The Saxon Braid does not have a natural place to make the cables match.  The cables flow into one another, and there isn’t really a beginning or end.  And so I chose rows that keep the circular shape and do not have cables crossing right at the point where the seam would form—to avoid unnecessary bulk. 

I hadn’t even brushed my teeth or made coffee this morning when I asked Ed if he saw the sweater on the couch, where I left it last night.  Of course, he hadn’t.  When I dragged him over to look at it, he simply remarked that he thought his sweater was going to have sleeves and pockets. [And to show you the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, when I showed it to DS, he also blurted out, “What happened to the arms?”]   So much for my hard work. 

But the really hard work has just begun, because at this point I really didn’t have a good idea of how to knit the rest of the collar.  I’m generally following Katharine Buss’s description of knitting a short-row shawl collar, and she does not give gauges.  She just tells you what she did to create the collar in the picture, with no details about the yarn or how many stitches per inch she gets.  One bit of advice that does seem to apply to my collar as well as to hers is that she starts the short rows about ¼ of the distance from the neck edge.  So on my 46-stitch collar, I’ll begin the short rows leaving 11 stitches at the neck edge.  But as far as the shape, the placement of the short rows, and the specific dimensions, I’m on my own.

A bit of serendipity was at work today.  I was having difficulty imagining what the collar would look like.  When I took my bathrobe off, I noticed that it has a shawl collar and I traced it on tissue paper.  I marked the shoulder seams, and I realized that it is basically trapezoidal.  The neck edge on a knitted shawl collar is smaller than the outer edge.  The magic of short rows will give me the added distance on the outer edge, which will make the collar roll. 

But what dimensions do I use?  I spent about another hour measuring various sweaters and coming up with 10 inches at the neck edge and 12 inches at the outside edge.  I cut out another piece of tissue paper in these dimensions, and I tried it.  Allowing for the difference between unstretchy paper and actual knitting, I think these dimensions will work.

This is a rough schematic of the collar before it is folded over.  Katharine Buss tells you to add stitches by using short rows every fourth row.  I used the actual gauge from the part of the collar I knitted, and so I’ll need 30 rows of neck ribbing to get the 5 inches. It looks like every fourth row will work for me too--I'll end with about 38 stitches for just over 6 inches on each collar half.  The collar is joined at the center back, and so I have to shape each side and eventually seam it together.

If these measurements aren’t quite right, the adjustment will be minimal.  So I hope to have the collar done and attached to the sweater body this week.  I’d like to complete the pockets too and block the fronts and backs.  I only can measure for drop sleeves once I know where the shoulder seam will end, and only by blocking will I get a reliable distance.

Unphotogenic Progress

I’ve been knitting away this week, and I’ve made good progress on my WIPs.  But they’re not terribly exciting to look at.

I’m up to the shawl collar on Ed’s sweater, and so I should have it done by Friday—in time to think about the short-row shaping I’ll have to do to finish the rest of the collar. 

And I knitted another swatch for the Liv sweater, this time in size 3 US needles.  I’m getting 24 stitches to 5 inches, which is still bigger than the pattern gauge of 22 stitches to 4 inches on size 6 needles.  If the bottom swatch seems to pull in a bit after it dries (it’s the one on size 3 needles; the top is on size 4), I can knit to the small size and get dimensions that will work well on me.  In other words, I will have a 40-inch bust circumference on the final garment, giving me adequate ease.  Perhaps I should also try size 2 needles, just to be on the safe side.  I’ll consider that when I measure the blocked swatches tonight.

This project, like the entrelac sweater, is deflating my confidence about knitting to gauge.  This has never been a huge problem for me.  I’m either on target or I have to drop down one size, but the difference between the suggested needle size and the one I need to get gauge is dramatic.  And the Liv pattern instructions don’t give enough information to adjust the sizing easily, since there is no schematic.  I didn’t want to work that hard on this project.  I wanted something I could knit in a few weeks, to while away the hot weeks—and to have something lightweight and comfortable to wear in the fall.  So this one is requiring more decisions than I was prepared to make, and if there are many more, I may put it aside until I’m ready to spend more time mulling over the sizing.

I’m new to Silky Wool.  If you’ve knit with it before, have you managed to get gauge on the recommended needles?  Does it stretch after you’ve worn your sweater for a while?

Speed or Accuracy?

One of the benefits of being raised in New York City and attending its public schools, at least decades ago when I did, is that you get free or low-price Broadway theater tickets.  Way back when I was in sixth grade, I saw my first drama, Gore Vidal’s The Best Man.  It was made into a film, starring Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson, that is still incisive and apt given the jockeying of the current front runners of both parties.  My first musical was Bells Are Ringing with Judy Holliday.  After that, I was really captivated by live theater, and I took advantage of all the tickets I could get.  [In fact it was years before I could see the movie of My Fair Lady with Audrey Hepburn because I thought Julie Andrews was the quintessential Eliza Doolittle.  Audrey is ok—I did get over it—but she is no Julie.]

Another early favorite was Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple, which I saw well before it was a movie or TV show.  And one line has stuck with me all these years.  It is uttered toward the end of the play. At one of Oscar’s poker games, there is a very dimwitted player, who I think is "Murray the Cop" on the TV show, and it is his turn to deal.  He deals with incredible deliberation as all the other players are eager to get on with the game.  When one player criticizes him, I think it is Oscar who says, “Whadda ya want speed or accuracy?”.  This question has popped into my mind many times over the years, particularly in work settings when I’m waiting for someone to provide information that I know is neither speedy nor accurate.  And it popped into my mind this week as I thought about how much—actually how little—I accomplished.

I hoped to be done with Ed’s left front, but this is as far as I’ve gotten.  It turned out that  I positioned the first buttonhole incorrectly and had to rip down and do it again.  And I seemed to take forever to get the pocket in place.  I hope to reach the armhole tonight.

This weekend I will finish and block my Shetland Triangle shawl, and I also must decide on the project that will replace it.  Once I get done with Ed’s front, the major challenge of designing the collar looms, and that is not something I can do on a weekday night.  That’s a task that has to wait for a free morning when I have every bit of my brain hitting on all its cylinders.

In a Bind

I’m done with the knitting on the Shetland Triangle, but it is suspended in an inactive state until I figure out how to handle the bind-off row.  I was knitting along happily on this project last week, as my eye slowly recovered, until I completed the 14-row bottom border design.  Then I read the last couple of instructions, which have you (1) ending on a right-side row, requiring you to bind off on the purl side, and (2) merely binding off loosely.  Neither of these seemed right.

The decision to correct this was not entirely voluntary.  When I looked at my work, I noticed that my decreases did not line up in one of the bottom motifs.  I’m a kind of “slash and burn” knitter.  When I find a mistake, I rip and start over.  I’m actually in awe of those of you who can just drop down to the error, fix it, and pull the stitches back onto the needle.  I thought I’d give that a shot.  When I ripped down to the decrease row, I discovered that was where I joined a new ball of yarn, and everything fell apart.   I had to slash and burn—ripping down 6 rows and reknitting.  And so when I knitted back to row 14, I decided not to do the row that would have me end on the purl side.  So here I am:
 

I also thought that a regular bind off, no matter how loose, would not be the best choice for this edge.  And so I started looking for alternatives.  In Myrna Stahman’s book, there are instructions for what she calls the Icelandic bind off.  Anne's July 12 post showed some other good alternatives, and other members of the Lace Shawl KAL also had good advice.

I thought I had done the Icelandic bind off before, but when I checked the shawl I knit from Myrna Stahman’s book (last book on this link), I realized that there was an elegant border that saved me from dealing with this problem before.

So last night I gave the new methods a try, only to become confused.  I’ve been working extra hours to make up for my lost time at the eye doctor (with another visit today), and I was not up to the challenge after a full day's work.  I guess I’ll try to figure out how to use one of these methods by the end of the week and then block the shawl next weekend.

For now, I’ve returned to execute a problem I already solved—Ed’s sweater front.

I finished the last couple of rows on the right front and started the left.  So the left front is this week’s knitting:

 

Into Uncharted Territory

It has taken me three nights to accomplish this:

But from here on, at least for the right front, I think it will be smooth sailing until I’m done with the collar shaping and up to the shoulder seam.

Why did it take so long for such a seemingly simple thing?  Well, here is where the Katharine Buss book becomes fuzzy.  The directions for the shawl collar in that book are given for specific stitch counts (a buttonband of 11 stitches—one selvage and ten in 1x1 ribbing).  I could tell right away that her yarn is different, because a buttonband in Mountain Mohair of 11 stitches would be huge.  But how different?  I still have no idea what thickness yarn or needle size she is using because the book doesn’t tell you that. 

So I picked a buttonband that works for me—seven stitches plus one selvage.  Notice, though, that my buttonband leaves me with a knit stitch at the point where the band meets the sweater body, and Katharine’s leaves you with a purl.  This difference is not insignificant. 

To widen the collar, you need to add a stitch and then convert the one of the body stitches to ribbing.  This means that you have to make one at the end of the ribbing:

And then you convert the next stitch to ribbing, which for me is to knit it.

I’m left with the awkward process of purling into this make one.  The only way to fix this would be to rip and start over—and there is no way that is happening.  I like the way my ribbing looks when it ends with a knit, so I’m living with the awkwardness of purling the make one, but it is slow.

Now Katharine’s yarn being thinner allows her to space the increases every six rows.  This clearly isn’t going to work for me.  And to figure out how often I needed to increase, I took my charts and pasted three of them to mock up the front:

Notice how many tries I have just on the pencil-and-paper chart.  The solid red circles are a different try from the open red circles.  I made an equivalent number of tries in the actual knitting--also complicated by some screw ups in the armhole shaping.  To shape the collar, I have to increase every row, and I was concerned that this would make an angle that is too sharp.  Even though I’m not at the end of the increases for the collar, I think it will be fine.  I’m also pleased with the way the cable travels along the collar shaping—this was serendipitous.

The next major challenge, after I finish the left front, is to figure out how big the collar should be.  And I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing.  The book fails me again because it gives no measurements at all.   The neck has to be eased into the collar, and so I think I’ll have to do at least one collar swatch just for guidance.  I can’t bear to think about that now.  I want to finish the front tonight, chart the left front over the weekend, and knit it next week.  Then I’ll worry about the collar itself.

(Almost) Up to My Neck and Armpits in Cables

I’ve finally made major strides on DH’s sweater.  The right front is done almost up to the armholes.  I’m on repeat four of the Celtic Braid cable, and the armholes start on row 10 of the fifth repeat (this is a 16-row cable).  The button placement is approximate.

Some of the other bits of finishing are falling nicely into place.  I described in an earlier post that I don’t like to sew patch pockets on the inside of the sweater because they pull on the fabric.  And so I fold the pocket lining and attach it to the top of the pocket, where I’ll pick up and rib for a few rows.  For this sweater, I used a provisional cast on for the pocket linings.  When I remove it, I’ll have live stitches, and I’ll pick up the stitches on the holder with those live stitches to have a smoother join at the pocket top.

I also did not want to knit the buttonband separately and attach it later, and I’m using size 5 US needles for it.  The sweater body is knit in size 7 US.  Using my Brittany birch DPNs is not a problem at all.  This needle “sticks” in the yarn.  It might seem a bit fiddly to knit with one size for the body and then switch needles for the ribbing, but I like it a lot better than attempting to stretch a separate piece of ribbing along the fronts when the attaching a separate buttonband.

I thought I’d have an option of two different size Vs along the front, but that does not turn out to be the case.  In all of the shawl collar instructions I read this weekend (and there were a lot of them!), the patterns call for the decreases up to a point and then even knitting to the shoulder.  In order for this to happen, I have to start the V just slightly above the armhole.  If I use the higher mark, then there is no space to knit straight—the V will end at the neck edge.  The S cable will determine the exact position, because I want the V to start over the last button, and the buttons (and buttonholes) will be in the center of the S cable (and on row 10 of the Celtic Braid).

If all goes according to plan, I’ll be up to the armholes and starting the V tonight.

I'm still having a harder time photographing this yarn than knitting with it.  The color is really a gorgeous, rich, dark green.

Fasten-ating

I tried the Lana Grossa buttonholes for K1,P1 ribbing, and I think I got one that I like.  I couldn’t follow the instructions exactly as given, but here is what I did.  If you compare my work with the link's description, keep in mind that I'm using a 3-stitch buttonhole, and the instructions ask for a 4-stitch buttonhole.

I started a swatch in the yarn I’m using, and with the needles size (US 5) that I plan to use.  This buttonband swatch is 7 stitches in K1, P1 ribbing, with a selvage stitch on each side.

To make the buttonhole, over 3 stitches, I knit the selvage stitch plus two rib stitches.  That is the point where the 3-stitch buttonhole will start.

Then, as for a one-row buttonhole, I moved two stitches from the left needle to the right needle, without using the working yarn.

Then I bound off simply by slipping one stitch over the other—again, not using the working yarn.  After passing the rightmost stitch over the stitch closer to the tip of the right needle, I transferred another stitch from the left needle to the right needle and did the same type of bindoff.   This is what the work looks like when all three stitches that form the bottom of this buttonhole are bound off in this way:

The next step is to slip the last stitch on the right needle back to the left needle, and wrap the yarn around the right needle.  Here things got confusing because the instructions ask for three wraps for a 4-stitch buttonhole.  I assumed that I’d need a two wraps for a 3-stitch buttonhole, but this didn’t work.  I needed three wraps (and they must be tight).

Then I proceeded in ribbing to the end of the row:

When you turn the work, the instructions ask you to work the wrapped stitches in K1, P1 ribbing, but that didn’t work for me.  Instead, I had to knit very tightly, through the back of the stitch the three wrapped stitches.  In this photo, I've knitted to the point where the first wrap is and I'm knitting the first of the three wraps:

This is what the back (wrong side) of the work looked like when I knitted all three wraps and completed this row:

On the front, I proceeded with K1, P1 ribbing, and I ended up with this buttonhole:

I think it looks good, but I still plan to use buttonhole twist thread to reinforce it and keep it from stretching.    There is a polyester buttonhole thread made by Guttermann that will have the thickness and strength I want, and it lacks the sheen of silk buttonhole twist so I think it will be less noticeable when paired with this yarn.  I don't have the right color on hand, and so a trip to NYC will be necessary sometime soon.  But I do like how the knitting around this buttonhole is narrower than for a standard one-row buttonhole, and it is the one I'll use for DH's sweater.

As for the sweater itself, it is now officially back "on the needles again".  The bottom ribbing is done.  I also redid my chart.  But this post is so photo heavy that I'll save the in-progress photos for another time.

If you have worked this sort of buttonhole, and you do manage to use one less wrap than the number of stitches bound off, I'd love to know how you managed it.  I could only find two sources on the web for this buttonhole--the Lana Grossa link with no step-by-step photos, and one that seems to have photos that do not load on my browser.  Or if you know of shortcomings to this buttonhole, I'd like to know that too.  My nagging thought is that if this buttonhole is so great, why don't we see it more often?

Warm Needles

I can’t say that my needles have been on fire this week, but I’ve done some work—and more thinking about DH’s sweater.  (DH is now convinced that this sweater will never be done, but we know the truth.  Rushing means ripping.)

There were evenings this week where I simply didn’t feel I had the mental acuity to count the stitches for each of the cables accurately, and I could imagine finishing the ribbing and starting the first cable row only to realize I was one or two stitches short or over.  Events like these are the ones that cause me to construct new expressions from and combinations of unprintable words.   I also lacked the patience of working with KnitVisualizer to assemble a new chart from the individual cable charts I completed already.   I did the next best thing.  I printed the cable charts and pasted them to give me a general idea of what the pattern on the right front would look like.

You’ll notice that the 3x3 cable is not correct after the first repeat.  It was easy enough to count where the cross would go on the back, when I had only two cables to think about.  But on the front I have three, and I think that exceeds my mental abilities for counting.  I’m much better at math subjects that do not require arithmetic (geometry, for example) than those that do.  And so knowing my mental limits, I thought it would be better to create a new chart--something best saved for a weekend morning.

Then I considered the buttonbands.  On the sweater sides, I planned to end with a knit stitch, and when I assembled the sweater I planned to take a half stitch from each side to make a whole stitch on the public side—and I was slapping myself on the back for thinking of this deft bit of finishing well ahead of time.  But this edge will not do on the front, and I should add a selvage stitch.

Selvage stitches should be easy.  But I am a combined knitter, and instructions for knitwise and purlwise need translation because my stitches are mounted differently.  So to really figure out what to do, I have to swatch using continental knitting, see what I get, and then figure out how to work the stitches in combined.  This is definitely worth the effort for me because my stitches are far more even when I knit combined than any other way.

As I was looking at directions for selvages, I also looked at buttonhole options.  I am leaning toward vertical buttonholes because I think they’ll look neater in the ribbed band. I discovered that Vogue Knitting’s Ultimate Knitting Book said that vertical buttonholes weren’t really sturdy and they recommended them mostly for decorative finishes.  But Katharine Buss’s Big Book of Knitting shows a type of vertical buttonhole that has a strong edge along the buttonhole.  This requires a purl stitch in the center of the ribbed buttonband, and I had planned for a knit stitch to be there.

So it seems that some more swatching is in order.  I want to try the various techniques for selvage edges on ribbing and this buttonhole.  (And I haven’t yet checked Montse Stanley’s book because I couldn’t find it last night.)

So, I knitted on my Shetland Triangle:

JudyG warned me that this shawl would be small if I merely followed the directions.  It calls for eight 10-row repeats after the first 20 rows (for a total of 100 rows for the shawl before the edging).  I’ve completed 5 of the 10-row repeats, and she was absolutely right.  It would be tiny.  But luckily I have 21g of my first 50g ball, and an entire 50g ball untouched.  So this will end up being a small shawl, as I hoped it would.  It is going very fast because the 10-row repeats are easy, and four of those rows are basically stockinette.  But you know how shawls lull you into a false sense of your progress.  The rows get larger and larger, and soon it takes entire evenings to do just a few.  Still, I think this one will be done quickly because the pattern is so easy--it would be a great first-shawl project if you've never knitted one before.

So I have accomplished something this week, but not what I expected.