Finis

Pattern: Lismore from Alice Starmore's Celtic Collection
Yarn: Hebridean 3-ply, purchased as a kit from Virtual Yarns
Needles: size 4 (3.5mm) circular needles for the body and size 3 (3.25mm) circular needles for the ribbing
Gauge: 5.5 spi and 6 rpi in stranded colorwork
Size: large (from the kit)
Started: January 1, 2009
Finished: January 5, 2010

Mods: Only two real mods on this project. First, I decided to switch out the high turtleneck from the pattern in favor of a more modest crew neck using the pattern colors as indicated. Second, I lengthened the sleeves and modified the rate of decreases because my row gauge was more compressed than what the pattern called for. You can read more about that little adventure here.

I pretty much knit this pattern as written and now that it is done, I have mixed feelings about doing so. When I bought the kit, the description stated that I would have enough yarn to make the sweater and a generous swatch. But I had no idea how much extra yarn that would be (a lot, it turns out). So I decided to work the pattern as written and trust in the genius that is Alice Starmore.

The design is absolutely beautiful, don't get me wrong, but the next time I knit a stranded colorwork piece for the DH I'm going to update the fit. Drop shoulders just aren't that flattering. Plus, there's a ton of extra fabric there and it would be really nice to cut the knitting time a little bit. I'll have to pull out the fantastic book Knitting in the Old Way by Priscilla Gibson-Roberts and take a look at some of her suggestions. I think the saddle shoulder from the other Christmas sweater looked very nice on the DH and a set in sleeve may work well, too. Really, I just want more structure in the shoulder and a touch more length in the torso. Perhaps it's time to knit Gudrun Johnston's pattern Audrey in Unst (Ravelry link) to learn her technique for set-in sleeves with short-rows.

The actual knitting part of this project was a bit of a challenge. Normally fair isle patterns involve geometric designs that are symmetric on at least one axis and have relatively short (and thus easily memorizable) repeats. Not so with Lismore. Each repeat is a 50 x 50 square chart, only part of which (the floral pattern in the center) is symmetric across both axes. This meant that I was staring at a chart for nearly every row of the sweater, making for some slow knitting. The patterns had a logical progression, so I could tell when something was out of place and go back to fix it, but I never managed to memorize them enough to free myself from the chart.

I have to say that the yarns for this project were an absolute joy to knit with. I have never seen such depth of color in another commercially available yarn. Each color is a glorious heather with an array of highlights and shadows. I think my favorite one is "sundew," which lies in the two rows just above and below the red rows in the pattern. These yarns are not cheap but, especially if you can catch the exchange rate at the right point, they are well worth the price. An added bonus: the fibers are very sticky so you won't need to reinforce your steeks before cutting.

Finishing this sweater took quite a while, in large part because I had neglected to take care of loose ends as I was knitting. Ends are never fun to deal with but they can be especially troublesome when knitting stranded colorwork. One option is to spit-splice different colors together at the end of the row. This has the advantage of greatly reducing the number of ends you'll need to weave in but can leave the pattern looking muddy at that one side. Even though the Hebridean 3-ply would have spit-spliced very well, I didn't like the idea of blurring the pattern. A better option would be to weave in your ends every couple of rows. I did this a little bit at the beginning and then got tired of dealing with the ends. (Note to self: next time, just deal with it.) So I was confronted with several hundred ends waiting for me once I had bound off my last stitch and was anxious to be done with the project. That took several days to take care of and then finishing off the steek edges took another day or so. Then blocking and drying for a couple of days after that. But now it's done and it looks pretty good both inside and out.

Almost There

I don't have a modeled shot yet, so this is just a teaser. I'll do a real FO post next week once the DH has had a chance to try the sweater on. For now, what else can I say but "voila":

That's right. I finished Lismore this week. I wove in the last end (trust me, there were a lot) on Sunday evening, gave the sweater a little bath in some Soak, and set it out to dry. Thank goodness the sweater was dry by yesterday afternoon since we had a friend coming over for dinner and I needed my dining table back!

I have plenty to say about this project but I'm going to wait until the FO post. How about some gratuitous pics instead?

An inside-out shot or two?

Can you stand one more?

More on this project later. The DH and I are heading off to Maine tomorrow for our last round of holiday visiting. Our trip includes an excursion to Halcyon Yarn in Bath on Saturday. It should be a lot of fun. Just cross your fingers that we'll be able to get out of Chicago before the worst of the snow hits.

A Year in Review

I didn't think I had knit very much this year. Or rather, I didn't think that I had finished very much in 2009, so I was a bit surprised when I saw that I had completed 32 projects in the past year. Not bad, if I do say so myself.

Here is a brief look at what has happened here at Tinks and Frogs:

2009 Finished Objects

4 sweaters: Victoria, Alpaca Raglan, Staghorn, and the Barbara Walker Sweater






3 hats: Seaman's Cap, Shedir, and Claudia (which was gifted away too quickly for me to remember to snap a picture)

2 Toddler Gifts: the Owl Dress and Tomten




6 pairs of fingerless mitts (5 of them look like the garter mitts shown first)




2 Blankets: Bear Claw and Hemlock Ring




7 shawls/scarves: Cluaranach, Fiddlehead Scarf, Madli's Scarf, Ene's Scarf, Peak's Island Hood, Handspun Scarflet, Fir Cone Cowl

And 8 pairs of socks (not counting all of the single socks waiting for me to knit their mates)

What does 2010 hold for Tinks and Frogs? Well, for one thing, I would like to blog more and more consistently. I have some fun projects planned for this year: Forecast and Miralda's Triangular Scarf are on the needles right now and there are more to come. My two giant Christmas gifts from 2009 are almost done. The secret project just needs its buttons sewn on and Lismore has about 100 or so more ends to weave in. I hope to have FO pictures of both of those soon.

I hope you all have a happy and productive new year. Thanks for reading.

Sleeve, take two

Phew. I've finally made it past the point where I ripped back the sleeve last weekend. It sure is nice to be truly moving forward again.

Before and after:

That sleeve looks much better now, don't you think? Only another half-repeat to go before I start the ribbing at the cuff. I may actually finish the first sleeve this month after all.

Forwards, backwards, and forwards again

Last night I finally acknowledged the problem with Lismore that had been nagging me for the last several days: I really did need to rip the sleeve. I had abandoned the pattern directions for the sleeve decreases weeks ago because my row gauge is a bit off from what the pattern calls for and because my husband's arms are rather long.
The pattern calls for starting the ribbing after two pattern repeats. As you can see below, that would never have worked. So, with no calculations (and apparently not much luck), I settled on a rate of 2 stitches decreased every 5 rows.



A bit too wide, don't you think? I had noticed this bloomy fit when I had my husband try the sweater on over the weekend and have spent the last few days trying to talk myself into keeping the sleeve. Last night I gave up and called for reinforcements. Sometimes you really need someone else to tell you that you have to rip back 50 rows of intricate color work. Out of sheer preservation, I decided to rip back only to the second green band rather than all the way to the beginning of the sleeve.

Well, it's done. Not the most pleasant process, I have to admit. On the plus side, the yarn sticks to itself very well and I didn't have any problems with stitches dropping as I ripped. That certainly makes me feel better about the unreinforced steeks.

I'm moving forward on the sleeve again, now decreasing at a rate of 2 stitches every 3 rows. This is how far I had progressed earlier this evening:



For some reason, these rows are flying by. I can't wait to get home from class and knit on this some more.

Cut the Steeks!

Come to think of it, I've actually cut steeks on two projects in the last couple of weeks. The first project had the more challenging steek but the less nerve-wracking cut, oddly enough. I believe EZ famously recommended the benefits of a dark room and a stiff drink after cutting steeks. Happily, neither were needed here.

In just under a week's time, Lismore went from this:



to this:



For the steeks, I alternated the colors as the pattern called for, ending up with a checkerboard-type pattern. Then I did something I've never done before: just cut. That's right, I didn't reinforce the steek before touching scissors to fabric. I'll tack down the edges once I've knit up the sleeves and the collar but for now it's just a raw edge.

Of course, I haven't touched this sweater since snapping that picture since I've been distracted by other things.

This little Wisp scarf (Ravelry link) is a fantastic way to use that stray skein of malabrigo lace.



While others have complained that the simple lace pattern gets a bit mind-numbing, I've yet to see it because of how much I adore this particular yarn. Even the garter stitch sections are delicious. I'm omitting the buttons and buttonholes but am otherwise knitting the pattern as written.

My current evening tv knitting is Staghorn (Ravelry link) from Lisa Lloyd's lovely book A Fine Fleece.



I'm using a lovely merino/alpaca blend worsted weight yarn from Frontier Fiber Mill that I picked up at the Midwest Folk & Fiber Festival in July. My stitch gauge is a bit smaller than the pattern calls for, which will be nice since I'd be swimming in the smallest pattern size. So far, I'm knitting the pattern as written, although I plan to make the sleeves narrower than the pattern calls for.

What was that other steeked project? No, I haven't forgotten (nor did I count the Starmore twice). The last project worth mentioning today is a little experiment I've been working on:



This is a simple striped pullover knit with seamless, simultaneous, set-in sleeves using Barbara Walker's fantastic book Knitting from the Top Down. That picture is a bit misleading since I've been working on the bottom ribbing while uploading the pics for this post, but you get the idea. What a great technique! (More on that later when I've finished the sweater.) I wanted a v-neck but didn't like the idea of knitting flat more than I absolutely had to so I decided to steek the neck. To do this, I just increased along the neck edges outside of the steek stitches. Once the body of the sweater is done, I'll pick up and knit the ribbing from the edge stitches.

Unlike Lismore, which had two colors in each row and yarn fibers that really liked to stick together, this sweater (made from Nature Spun Worsted) uses yarn that is smoother and has only one color in any given row. Because of this, I decided to sew a reinforcing line of backstitching on either side of the center line the steek to keep the edges from unravelling when I cut. If I wanted to be really careful, I would have waited to cut the steek until I was finished with the rest of the garment. But the whole point of a top-down sweater is to be able to try the piece on as you work and cutting the steek at the end would have defeated the purpose of this construction. So snip, snip I went. Everything looks safe and secure for now and I'll tack down the edges after I knit the neck band.

I've got to run but I'll leave you with evidence that my spinning wheel has seen some good use this summer. 1050 yards of 2-ply merino/silk heavy laceweight spun from 8oz of fiber: