Tales from the frog pond: misadventures in gift knitting

It's that time of year again. My sister and both of my parents have birthdays in October and November, which means that fall is gift knitting time. Once the birthday gifts are done, it's time to start in on holiday presents. I don't know what has happened this year but I'm finding myself frogging far more often than I like to think I do. Thank goodness my sister's knitted gift will get to her with "some assembly required," if you know what I mean.

I blocked my mother's gift last week and sent it off just in the nick of time (well, maybe a day or two late, but who's counting?). This was a labor of love, let me tell you.



Pattern: Fiddlehead Scarf by Anne Hanson (Ravelry link)
Yarn: Handmaiden Lace Silk - somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of a skein
Needles: size 2 Crystal Palace bamboo straight needles

The lace pattern is lovely and I think I would really enjoy knitting it again in a bouncy merino. But silk, oh my did I hate knitting with the silk. I think it was the purls on the right side of the pattern. Something about having to alternate knits and purls in the same row with a yarn that has absolutely no elasticity in it was a pain in the neck. As with any lace project, the WIP can look rather sad, to say the least. Therefore it shouldn't have come as a surprise to see just how lovely the scarf was once I pulled out the blocking wires and pins. The yarn had such an amazing sheen and drape that it made the whole project worthwhile.

But why stick with silk, you are probably asking. Why not just frog and re-knit in that nice bouncy merino you were dreaming about for all 40 or so pattern repeats? Because my mother has a slight wool allergy - not enough to keep her from knitting, but she can't wear pure wool right next to the skin. So silk it was. If you know any nice superwash laceweight yarns, I'd love to hear about it.

Here's a self-modeled shot:



As you can see, I won't be giving up my day job for self-portrait photography. I cropped my head out for a reason.

Unlike this scarf, which narrowly escaped a trip to the frog pond, two projects for the DH dove right in. First up is a little set of Dashing mitts that I had planned to whip up two Christmases ago. This is what they still look like today:



Again, lovely pattern, really lovely yarn (it's Road to China from The Fibre Company in color Sapphire). The problem? I was knitting it on double pointed needles. Ever since I learned magic loop several years ago, I haven't touched double pointed needles with a 10-foot pole (unless I had a really good reason like I-cord or didn't have a long enough circular needle in the appropriate size). A quick check of my needle collection today confirmed that I don't have a size 6 needle, which is what I was using on Dashing, long enough to work magic loop and finish the darn thing.

Instead, I whipped up this lovely little garter stitch mitt:



This took two hours and used one skein of Road to China. That's right, two hours. I think I know what I'm doing for assorted family gifts this Christmas. It's also a great way to use up single skeins sitting in the stash. You'll need less than 200 yards of worsted weight yarn to make the pair.

The mitt is loosely based on the garter mitts in Robin Melanson's mitten book. A friend of mine was making several pairs of these out of a Manos silk/wool yarn and I decided to jump on the bandwagon. The concept is very simple: a garter stitch rectangle with short rows creating a gusset for the thumb.

The other project for the DH that has been giving me trouble is another secret Xmas gift - this one a sweater. At first, I wanted to make Urbanite from this fall's issue of TwistCollective. The DH and I drove out to The Fold, where I wanted to pick up some silvery brown BFL or corriedale to spin up for the sweater. I found just the color that I wanted, but the store didn't have enough fiber to make a man's sweater. When we got back to the city, the DH was very nice and took me to Loopy to look around a bit for a substitute. We came home with some lovely Berocco Ultra Alpaca in color Mahogany Mix.

I promptly cast on for urbanite and knit through the ribbing and into the cabled pattern. One of the things that annoys me in many cabled patterns is when designers ignore the transition between ribbing and the cables. When done right, the result is beautiful and the pattern looks like a cohesive whole (go take a look at the Anne Hanson's new sock pattern for one example). When the transition is ignored, the result is jarring and enough to make me rip and discard with no second thoughts.

Urbanite has a panel of 2x2 ribbing that goes up the sides of the body. Compare the where this panel meets the ribbed hem on one side



with the join at the other.



The second ribbed panel did not flow at all. If I had been happier with the marriage of yarn and pattern, I might have reworked the numbers on the ribbing in order to avoid this result. This pattern needed a yarn with a little more cushiness (for lack of a better term), so I decided to rip and move on to a new pattern. I think my handspun idea is still a good one and I'll probably come back to it another day.

It did not take me long to figure out what pattern I wanted to work with. This cardigan made by Jared Flood, of Brooklyntweed fame, had caught me eye a while back and I happily jumped right in. I looked up how to make the sheepfold cable in EZ's book The Opinionated Knitter, knit a gauge swatch, figured out the cables I wanted and thus the number of stitches to cast on, and started knitting. I got this far before I realized that there was nothing to do but frog and start again:



First problem: do you see that lovely pepulm-like garter stitch hem? That's right, I forgot to cast on for only 90% of the stitches that I would need for the body and as a result, the border was much too big. It would have made a nice skirt, it was flaring so much. If this were the only problem, I would have kept knitting since the border could have been unravelled and re-knit.

Second problem: loose purl stitches. It's tough to see in the pic above, but the traveling knit stitches on the edges of the sheepfold cables were really loose where they lay next to purl stitches. The reason? A purl stitch knit in English (or Western) style uses slightly more yarn than a knit stitch. When a knit stitch is immediately followed by a purl stitch, the extra yarn from the purl stitch causes the knit stitch to relax and look sloppy. (See p.49 of Priscilla Gibson-Robert's fantastic book Knitting in the Old Way for more on this) I knew this. I've actually known this for a long time. I also knew that the trick was to work the offending purl stitches in continental style, wrapping the yarn up from below, rather than over from above, in order to avoid the problem. Why didn't I do this? No idea. So I ripped again and started over, working my purl stitches continental style every time they were preceded by a knit stitch.

Much better, don't you think?

It's Sweater Weather

As I have probably already mentioned, this year's Midwest Fiber & Folk Festival produced another good haul. First, I picked up some beautiful hand-dyed BFL top from Briar Rose Fibers that wants to become a Coraline. Then there were some assorted single skeins from Knitting Notions - always a treat - that will become gifts later in the year and so must remain incognito for the time being. But the best find of the day was a beautiful new worsted weight merino/alpaca blend from Frontier Fiber Mill, a family alpaca farm and mill in Indiana. You've seen some of their alpaca in the offerings at Briar Rose. As soon as I saw this particular yarn, I knew I wanted to turn it into a cabled sweater. Right then.

First, I was thinking of Demi - that favorite from Rowan's Vintage Knits book - but Lisa Lloyd's Staghorn was a close second. I went home and dutifully swatched. I even washed the swatch - this should let you know I was serious about the project. The sample I was happiest with was knit up on a size 8 (5.00mm) needle with a gauge of 4.5 stitches and 6 rows per inch, which was a bit small for both sweaters. Despite the gauge, the yarn itself kept pushing me towards Staghorn with its deep, subtle heather and very slight halo - perfect for fisherman sweater cables. And that got me thinking.

As much as I liked the design of Staghorn - and don't get me wrong, the design is beautiful - I wasn't a huge fan of the size and shape of the piece as presented in the book. That was just it - the sweater would have been huge on me as written. With the smallest size clocking in at 40" at the bust, I would have been swimming in that sweater. So, with the smaller stitch gauge, my new yarn just might be perfect.

I had my doubts here and there as I knit. After all, how flattering is a heavily textured rectangle? But last night, once the final seems were sewn and the ends woven in, all my worries were put to rest. What do you think?

The cable sections act like ribbing, pulling in at the waist and stretching as needed for bust and hip. Just what I was hoping for.

I was also a bit worried about how the saddle shoulder would look. The design calls for a basic drop shoulder with a saddle and in the wrong proportions, a fair amount of extra fabric can bunch up around the underarm on a fitted sweater. But no problems here either.

The sleeves are the perfect length, too.



The pattern itself isn't particularly difficult, but that doesn't mean this project went without its share of tinks and frogs. As others have noted on ravelry, if you don't pay attention to the direction of your crosses in the XO cables, they're pretty easy to screw up. I knit up the back uneventfully but had to drop down and fix cable crosses several time while knitting the front.

What do I mean when I say "drop down and fix"? This is my favorite way of fixing an incorrect cable cross without ripping back the whole piece. I cable without a cable needle (there are several ways to do this so run a google search and find your favorite, if you are interested) but this method works with a cable needle, too. Assume that you are working on a 4-stitch cable and you need to fix the cable cross 3 rows down. Knit until you have worked the last stitch before the cable. Then drop the next four stitches off the left-hand needle and unravel 3 rows worth of knitting on those 4 stitches. Most wools are sticky will and need a little help to unravel so don't worry about accidentally dropping those 4 stitches back to your cast-on row. You should have 3 long ladders and the four live stitches - this is your previous cable row (the one you want to fix). Place those 4 stitches back on a needle (it can be your left-hand needle or a spare DPN). Now re-work the cable in the proper direction. Then knit across the 4 stitches for 3 rows, using the ladders you formed when you dropped the stitches earlier. There's no limit to how far down you can drop but since it's a bit of a pain to re-knit like this, it's a good idea to keep an eye on your knitting so that you can catch the problem when you only have to go back a few rows rather than 50 or 60. The Yarn Harlot had a nice tutorial on various ways to fix cabling mistakes a while back, so go take a look in her archives if you want to see some other options.

My other mini disaster with Staghorn came as I was finishing up the last shoulder saddle. The saddle is worked over a 22 stitch staghorn cable, which includes a purl stitch on either side, plus 2 selvedge stitches. Come to think of it, that might not be what the pattern calls for but it is what I did on the first saddle and what I needed to do on the second. However, I forgot about keeping the two purl stitches when I was binding off the top of the sleeve and didn't notice the mistake until I started to sew in the saddle. Unfortunately there is no way to drop down 40 rows and add two purl stitches to each row so I had to frog the whole thing. Just the saddle, not the whole sleeve, thank goodness.

Well, that's been a lot of text without any more pictures, so I'm going to shamelessly stop and distract you with another pic:



Ok, one more.



Here are my mods and specs in case you, too, would like a more fitted Staghorn:

Yarn: Frontier Fiber Mill 50/50 Merino/Alpaca

Needles: size 8 (5.00mm) for the body and size 7 (4.5mm) for the ribbing on the cuffs and neck

Gauge: 4.5 spi and 6 rpi

Bust: 34"

(Note that you will lose about an inch of bust circumference when you sew the pieces together. I had blocked the front and back pieces to be 17.5" wide but the finished measurement is 34".)

Length to Saddle: 20.5" from cast-on to bind-off.

Sleeve Length: 21" from cast-on to bind-off.

Collar Length: 2.5"

I ignored the pattern instructions, which call for a 72-stitch neck, and instead picked up what looked like an appropriate number of stitches (96). I used a ratio of 3 stitches out of every 4 on the cable sections When picking up from cables, it's always good to remember that a cable pattern uses more stitches than stockinette over the same width. This means that you probably don't want to pick up one stitch for every stitch bound off.

The neck on this sweater ends up being pretty big, so I decided to knit a much longer neckband than the pattern calls for. A 2.5" length seemed proportionate with the length of the sleeve and bottom bands and was long enough to ensure that my t-shirt wouldn't peek out the side of the neck opening (always an important consideration).

Mod: other than the collar, the biggest modification that I made to the pattern itself was in the sleeve width. The pattern calls for increasing every 4 rounds, which will produce the sort of big, baggy sleeves that many of us associate (for better or worse) with traditional fisherman's sweaters. I wanted a much more fitted sleeve, so I started increasing on the 17th pattern row (the first row of the 3rd staghorn repeat) and increased once stitch at each side of the sleeve every 16 rows. This produced a final circumference of 11.5" unstretched. There was no great calculation involved - I just kept holding the sleeve-in-progress up against my arm and increased until the fit was right.

While I was sewing the pieces together, I kept asking myself why I didn't just convert the pattern for knitting in the round but I am very glad that I didn't. This is a heavy garment: I used somewhere in the ballpark of 25oz of yarn. A garment this heavy really benefits from the structure and security of a sewn seam. The drape of the alpaca combined with the weight of the yarn would have caused the sweater to begin to sag almost immediately without the reinforcement of the seams. I suppose this means I should be glad that I sewed the saddles onto the front and back pieces, rather than knitting them together, despite the fact that I ripped and reworked the seams several times to make sure the pieces attached evenly.

That's all I've got for now. I hope you're all enjoying this lovely fall weekend. After all, it's sweater weather!

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:

Works in Progress

Oh my. I can't believe how long it has been since I've posted to this blog. My sincere apologies. The last two months have seen some big changes in my knitting life. I finished my second year of law school and began working as a summer associate in BigLaw. Needless to say, I haven't had nearly as much time to knit. But don't think that my new job has kept me away from my knitting needles. Here is a quick peek at what I have been working on:



First off, my latest sock project - Bex (Ravelry link) from Cookie A's new book. I'm using Shibui Sock in colorway Rapids. Those of you who have used Shibui's sock yarn in the past will know that while it has a lovely, sproingy hand and terrific stitch definition, the yarn tends to pool and flash in certain patterns. So you will be very surprised to know that it is not the excessive sunlight in the picture but the pattern itself that is doing such a lovely job of breaking up the colors in the yarn. This is definitely my favorite use of the Shubui to date.



Next up is the first half of a pair of Druid Mitts (Ravelry link) by Jared Flood. This is yet another stunning pattern from Jared of brooklyntweed fame. I'm using some of my 2-ply handspun colonial wool, spun from a braid that I bought during my first visit to MS&W several years ago. I spun this yarn two years ago and point to it as the sign that spinning had finally started to "click" for me.

If you really want to see what I mean, compare this



with this



There you have my very first yarn and my latest project off the wheel.

I've also been working on some mindless, yet strangely satisfying garter stitch. Here is my closest-to-completion current WIP: a tomten.



The sleeve seams are now sewn up and I am ready to start an applied i-cord around the edges. On second thought, I should probably hold off on that until I can get my hands on some buttons. Hopefully there will be a nice selection at the Midwest Fiber and Folk Art Fair this weekend.

Last, and certainly not least, I've made progress on Lismore.



'Nuff said.

My spinning wheel has started to see some action again in this last week or two as I've begun the second bobbin of a merino/silk blend. If you have suggestions for how to keep the silk from sticking to my fingers when it gets humid (other than not spinning when it's humid), I'd love to hear them.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading.

Sometimes a little self-delusion can be a good thing

I've always been a little intimidated by intarsia. The thought of maintaining even tension at the color changes, never mind weaving in hundreds of ends, drives me a little bit crazy. Perhaps a not-so-little bit of self-delusion is what kept me from realizing that I can do intarsia until I had completed at least one third of Veronik Avery's Bear Claw Blanket. Each time I knit one of the claws – a mitered square, with each side a different color – I just thought: "oh, I'm changing colors mid-row." 

It wasn't until I went hunting for a method of twisting the yarn that produced something other than a tangled mess that I realized that what I was doing was actually intarsia. So thank you, Veronik, for allowing me to maintain that bit of self-delusion until I could get hooked on the project. You see, the description just talked about things like "garter stitch" and "mitered squares" - nice, easy techniques that would not get a beginning knitter's guard up.

And yes, I was something of a beginning knitter when I started this piece; I had only been knitting for a couple of years. Thus it was with a beginner's confidence that I ignored the designer's comment, and I quote, "this is not a quick project." That won't apply to me, I blissfully thought, after all, I knit rather quickly, if I do say so myself. Let's see, the pattern was published in the Spring 2005 Interweave Knits, I started it the following fall, and it is now May 2009.

Wow, it took me three and a half years to finish this blanket. It sure was worth the wait, don't you think?

Jared Flood over at brooklyntweed has long been a proponent of garter stitch and I really must agree with him after this project. Even after knitting what felt like mile after mile of border stitches, I still love the feel of the simple garter, especially when combined with Veronk's clever construction.

This is by no means a quick project. Between the many components of the project itself and other distractions, only a very dedicated knitter could expect to complete this project within a couple of months. That said, it is well worth the effort. The construction is seamless and very clever. Plus, you'll learn intarsia without the heart-stopping terror (and, to be perfectly honest, awe) that a Kaffe Fasset piece inspires.

Fair warning: this is by no means an inexpensive project, either. I can't remember what I spent on yarn for this project (I'll have to try to remember how much yarn I bought when I update this project's Ravelry page) but it was certainly more than I spend on most sweaters, even with substituting Dale of Norway's Baby Ull for the suggested Koigu.

One last shot:

Now that the blanket's done, I'm happy to have a break from all of the intarsia squares and miles of garter. But I'm not finished with this pattern; I think a worsted weight version knit up with charcoal grey and a deep blood red would be pretty fun, too. That means it's time for me to work through a bit more of the stash before I can justify a big purchase like that.

This made me smile

A great way to start off the week. Enjoy!

Ides of March

March 15 is a fateful day. You all remember Shakespeare's "et tu, Brute?" right? Well, March 15 was the day that I fell down in a big way with my 2009 fiber resolution. I don't think I've ever explicitly stated my resolution, which was "minimize fiber acquisitions." Actually, it went more like "see how long you can go without buying any new yarn or spinning fiber." For two and a half months I was doing really well! I was knitting from stash yarn (there is quite a lot of that, as you can probably guess) and had not brought any new fiber of any sort into the apartment. And then the DH and I went to New England to see family this past week. On our drive up the Maine coast we stopped by Purl Diva in Brunswick and I got into a bit of trouble. Ok, a lot of trouble. Four skeins of sock yarn and one skein of malabrigo laceweight. To be fair, three of the sock skeins were for gifts for other people (and more importantly, were gifts that could not have been made with stash yarn) and thus fell within one of the exceptions to my fiber resolution. So the single skein of sock yarn and the little bit of laceweight for me isn't too bad a fall, right? Unfortunately, my camera stayed in my bag during the entire trip so pictures of the new acquisitions will have to wait until I get back home and can pull the skeins out of the checked luggage.

Before I forget, Purl Diva is a gorgeous shop! Amazing yarn selection, great atmosphere, welcoming owner, you name it. I'll definitely be back on my next trip to Maine. (End of shameless plug, but really - great shop and you should definitely go if you are in the area.)

Just in case you thought I was going to ramble on without offering any distractions, here's a quick glimpse of my latest spinning project:



640 yards of approximately aran weight Corriedale/silk that I picked up at the Midwest Fiber & Folk festival last July.

Want more?



Even more?



Yes, I'm shameless and in love with my new yarn. I'm thinking of doing a top-down basic raglan with some sort of a cable running down the center front. A staghorn cable is at the top of my list right now but I'll pull out my Barbara Walker volumes and rummage around to see what else might look good.

I also officially finished Cluaranach a week or so ago. By "actually finished," I mean blocked and snipped the ends. I finished the knitting part of this project back in January but had been dragging my feet on the blocking. Even with blocking wires (and those are certainly a lifesaver), blocking is still quite a chore.





I'm thrilled with the result (although you probably can't see much in these pictures with either too much light or not enough). The yarn is a 70/30 merino/tencel blend that I spun up last spring. Now that it has been blocked, the yarn is absolutely stunning. Modeling shots soon.

To close out, I'll leave you with a pic of my newest pair of socks: Pomatomus. I had been planning to knit up a pair of Scottish Kilt Hose from Folk Socks with some Shibui sock yarn (color: peacock) and then ran into some major issues with color pooling. After frantically trying to save the kilt hose, I gave up and switched the yarn over to Pomatomus. I'm wearing the finished product right now and I'm happy to say that they looked very fetching going through airport security.