WIP: Serif

Every January 1st I drag all of my stash out of hiding and sort through it and organize it. It takes half the day to do a proper job and put it all away, nice and tidy. Throughout the sorting process I'll cull a few yarns to destash and a few yarns to knit right away, but most of it goes back into my cedar chest or large space bags. This year, I was particularly taken with inventorying my sweater quantities of yarn and I set aside some Quince & Co Lark and Chickadee that I purchased last October.

I'm knitting Serif from Elizabeth Doherty's book, Top Down, in colors Honey and Storm. My gauge swatch was spot on for row gauge, which is super duper important for top down knitting, but off on stitch gauge. However, I really liked the fabric I got on US #8 (4.5 mm) needles and didn't want to sacrifice my perfect row gauge for a better stitch gauge. Turns out I just needed to knit one size up to get the correct width measurements while following the length measurements for the size I originally intended to knit - 42-ish for length and 45-ish for width. 

It just so happened that I was ill last weekend so I spent a lot of time laying in bed while knitting and watching movies so I got a ton of this sweater knit. A lot as in most of the body. As of last night I joined the contrast color for the skirt and am knitting merrily along in garter stitch. My goal for today is to get through the garter stitch portion of the body so I can get to the sleeves. I'm usually not too keen on Sleeve Island but I'm eager to try Elizabeth's method of top down sleeve construction again (I knit a sample for her book) and to get a real feel for the fit of the sweater. I'm almost always a bit "meh" about sweaters until they get at least one sleeve because it really changes the way they fit the body; drawing the armhole closer to where they actually sit during wearing and allowing any stockinette to unroll and lay properly.

I've also looked through my wardrobe to see if this sweater fits criteria for filling a hole in my wardrobe and it certainly does! I have two dresses that should look fantastic with this cardigan not to mention a pair of slim cut navy pants that will look super cute with this sweater and a patterned top. Not too shabby for meeting my handmade wardrobe goal for this year!

OAL 2015: Finished Outfit

I finished my Outfit-along outfit before the deadline! Hooray! I'm super happy with the results and I've gotten so much wear out of my dress that the pattern is going to be a sewing staple. I sewed New Look 6223 and knit Tambourine by Julia Farwell-Clay.

Let's talk about the dress first, shall we? 

I chose a dark blue eyelet cotton blend and lined it with a light blue daphne - the eyelet is a mid-weight cotton and the daphne is very lightweight so between the two I get a dress with nice weight and drape that feels very summery but won't blow up around my head at every breeze. I did my first ever full bust adjustment following this tutorial and love the result. 

This dress has pockets, soft pleats at the waist, and comes to just above my knee. I can see myself making a ton of dresses from this pattern in various fabrics - I might even try one in wool! 

 On to the knitting! Tambourine is a pattern by Julia Farwell-Clay from the Spring 2015 issue of Pom Pom Magazine. I loved this sweater at first sight and knew that it would be perfect in orange. Earlier this year I frogged a sweater that never fit quite right and while the color was perfect, French Marigold by Miss Babs, the gauge was all wrong.

I took my gauge swatch and plugged the numbers into the schematic numbers to see if I could follow another size to get the fit I wanted with my yarn. I followed the size 43, which is my full bust measurement, with my smaller DK gauge to get a nice fit through the shoulders and added extra increases for my bust. The other thing I had to factor into the row gauge was the stitch pattern along the front of the sweater but this ended up working out with my gauge - six repeats of the pattern fit perfectly into the front of the sweater without having to adjust anything. 

I knit the entire sweater on US #5 (3.75mm) needles. Besides the gauge modification, my biggest change to the pattern was to knit the sleeves from the top down following Barbara Walker's method in Knitting from the Top. You may have noticed that my sweater doesn't have buttons and that's because: 1) I haven't found the perfect match and 2) I almost never button my cardigans. As soon as the weather cools down a bit I'll be sporting my new outfit pieces together, for now I'm settling on wearing my awesome new dress.

WIP: Prussian Glitter Cardigan

A couple of weeks ago I was experiencing a bit of knitting ennui. I was between projects and wasn't quite sure what to start next. My Ravelry queue seemed a bit lackluster so I decided to take a different approach and start with the yarn and work the other way round. Guess what? It worked! I dug out four skeins of Malabrigo Arroyo - three in Prussian Blue and one in Glitter - and swatched my little heart out. 

I used a US #4 Hiya Hiya Interchangeable and loved my stitches! See? That little bit of knitting isn't even blocked and it's so beautiful! After washing and blocking my swatch I went back to my Ravelry queue and nothing quite fit the bill. I knew I wanted a cardigan with a contrast yoke and maybe a teeny bit of color work for interest. Could I find it? Nope. I sketched out a cardigan idea and pulled out all of my knitting reference books and decided to go rogue. 

And looky there! That's the right front of my cardigan all done and ready for the rest of the sweater. A few details about my Prussian Glitter Cardi: it's knit in pieces, has four rows of colorwork, is all in stockinette stitch, uses the same needle throughout, and has 1x1 twisted ribbing at the edges. 

I decided to knit the sweater in pieces because superwash yarns seem to behave themselves better when they're given some structure, especially in larger projects like sweaters. The sleeves are picked up around the armhole and knit down toward the cuff with a little bit of colorwork just before the ribbing starts. I'm incredibly happy with how my sweater design project is coming out and I have tentative plans to grade the sweater and release it as a published pattern. Woot! This whole working backwards from the yarn to the pattern is working out pretty well, I'll have to do it again!

WIP: Tambourine

You may have noticed that I took a little vacation from the blog for a couple of weeks. I was sorting out plans for the Summer and getting my feet back under me from a busy month, not to mention sending Little A down to my mom's for a week for some quality time with Nana. But I've been knitting my bit every evening despite the warm weather and working on writing up a few patterns for release this Fall. My WIP du jour is Tambourine. 

You might notice that my stitches look a little wonky and that's because I'm a terrible knitter and didn't wash this yarn after liberating it from the previous project - Aislinn. Aislinn was pretty but I wore it twice and was never quite happy with the fit so I decided to repurpose the yarn, which is Miss Babs Yowza! Whatta Skein in French Marigold.

Tambourine is a cardigan by Julia Farwell-Clay from the Spring 2015 issue of Pompom Quarterly. The construction is bottom up in one piece and has little circles of nupps along the fronts. The buttonbands are knit concurrently with the body of the sweater and there's quite a bit of twisted ribbing at the hem of the sweater and the cuffs of the sleeves. You can see that I've made pretty good progress even though I'm knitting this at a dk gauge (22x32 over 4 inches) which is different than the pattern. This gauge change means that I'm getting an extra little circle of nupps along the fronts but I'm okay with that. This is the sweater I'm knitting as part of my OAL goal with Andi of Untangling Knots and Lauren of Lladybird. I hope to have the body finished by the end of the weekend and sleeves started this week.

FO: Welcome to the Flock

 

It has been a little quiet over here. I'm working diligently on two projects but also doing a fair amount of sewing. However, I did manage to finish baby sweater and it's ADORABLE.

 

See? The perfect little sweater to knit when Winter is desperately trying to become Spring. It reminds me of verdant fields and little lambs. 

Pattern: Welcome to the Flock by Julia Farwell-Clay

Yarn: Vesper Sock Yarn in Ivy League (green) and scraps of white and brown for the sheep

Needles: US #3 (3.25 mm) & US #5 (3.75mm) Hiya Hiya Sharp Interchangeables

Mods: I used larger needles than the pattern called for since my gauge was too small using the needles listed in the pattern. The pattern calls for a sport weight yarn knit at a dk gauge but I used a heavy sock yarn that knit up beautifully on size five needles. Fair warning, there are two rows of colorwork where you are knitting three colors in the same row which makes keeping even tension difficult. So worth it.

Knitting Fail: Wee Wildflower Cardigan

Sometimes projects just don't work out. See this sweater? It's Wee Wildflower by Alana Dakos which is an adorable cardigan for little girls. My little girl picked it out from my Ravelry queue and said she wanted it in pink (the picture reads red but it's actually a berry pink). We went yarn shopping and she picked out the yarn she wanted which also happened to be the entirely wrong gauge. C'est la vie with kids so I purchased said Cascade 220 Superwash, knit up a big swatch, and did the maths to compensate for the difference in gauge. All set, right? WRONG. The sweater is skin tight and too short! There could be a multitude of things wrong here: 

1) The math is wrong - I double-checked my numbers and they all work out.

2) My gauge lied - I measured the sweater gauge against my swatch gauge and all is well.

3) My kid grew while I was knitting the dang sweater - entirely possible! 

Well then, what's a knitter to do? Frog the whole thing and start over, of course. Little A still wants the sweater so I've frogged the whole thing and will cast on this Thanksgiving weekend to see if I can't plow through the bulk of the body during my four days off work. It has been a really long time since I've had anything come so wonkily off the needles so I'll take it in stride and eat my knitterly humble pie as I cast on....again.

FO: Ella Funt

 Aren't tiny sweaters wonderful? And tiny sweaters with tiny elephants are maybe the best kind of tiny sweater. After a lengthy period of time where no one in my world was having a baby now there seems to be a spate of them, isn't that the way?

 All of the expected babies are boys so I had to do a little digging into Ravelry and my knitting library to find something appropriately adorable yet masculine for the little guys.

I think this is perfect.

Pattern: Ella Funt by Pamela Wynne

Yarn: Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino in various colors

Needles: US #4 (3.5 mm) Hiya Hiya Sharp Interchangeable

Mods: I knit the ribbing and button bands in a contrasting color rather than the main color of the sweater. I had an odd amount of the gray yarn in my stash which I knew would not be enough to knit the pattern as written (turns out it wasn't enough for my mod either. I had to run out and buy another skein, oops!). I also didn't think that the gray/beige color of the yarn would be great up close to a baby's face so I wanted to use a brighter color for the ribbing. It turns out that I really like this modification and will use it on the next one (coming soon). One thing about baby cashmerino is that it does show every little inconsistency so there are some bits of knitting that aren't quite smooth even after blocking. I'll sacrifice perfectly consistent fabric on the altar of machine washability, though. 

Do you have a favorite pattern for baby boys? Patterns for baby girls are everywhere but I've found it difficult to find cute things for little guys.

WIP: Russet Owl Sweater

It's true. I did it. I started another cardigan. Last weekend I went on a mini Twin Peaks road trip with my friends Monica and Andi that also brought us to Tolt Yarn and Wool (no TP affiliation). Imagine my delight when I remembered that they were getting their Quince and Co shipment that very weekend! I fell in love with Owl Tweet in the Russet color and decided that, yep, I needed a sweater out of it. 10 skeins later and a good sized swatch and I'm plugging away on a CustomFit cardigan. The yarn is so beautifully nubby and tweedy that I wanted a super simple cardigan with some squishy garter stitch edges to show off the texture. Owl Tweet is a 50/50 wool alpaca blend and it's a dream to knit. It has a very different feel to Berroco Ultra Alpaca - rather than being drapey and soft it's lofty and soft so that the sweater will feel light and warm. If you've ever knit with woolen spun yarns like Brooklyn Tweed Shelter you can imagine the lightness I'm talking about and it's going to be a gloriously warm, soft, and light cardigan for this Fall and Winter.

FO: Ravellenic Acer (finally)

 I finally got around to taking pictures of my second Acer Cardigan (sorry about the graininess of the pictures - not sure what happened there).

Cabley back.

Pattern: Acer Cardigan by Amy Christoffers

Yarn: Green Mountain Spinnery Cotton Comfort in Navy

Needles: US #5 & US #6 Hiya Hiya Sharp Interchangeables

Mods: I knit the 42 (just like last time) but ended up making the body slightly longer and increased the sleeves up to the number for the next size since the sleeves were quite snug on my other Acer. These sleeves fit perfectly even with a t-shirt underneath. I opted not to put buttonholes on the front bands since I never wear my other Acer closed. This yarn is kind of amazing - it's an 80/20 wool/cotton blend that feels light and lofty and has wonderful bits of lighter blue tweed. In fact, when I was at Stitches West I contemplated getting another sweater quantity in red but wanted to plan my project more. The ladies who work at Green Mountain Spinnery are a hoot and a half and give great customer service. What else can I say? I love this cardigan and get tons of wear out of it.

Start to Finish: Pomme de Pin

 My Pomme de Pin cardigan is finished!!! Yesterday morning I bound off the buttonband and yesterday afternoon I sewed on buttons. This cardigan turned out better than I imagined it would - the length is perfect, the sleeves hit just where I want them, and I'm absolutely positive I'll get a ton of wear out of it. 

Let's talk stats!

I started this project January 5th and bound off February 1st. Three weeks for a sport weight sweater isn't too shabby and I used stash yarn and library pattern stash to knit this up -that meets two of my goals for 2014. I was a little worried about having a couple of inches of positive ease built into the sweater but I don't feel like it necessarily translated into the finished garment. My yarn isn't superwash so it didn't do that melty opening-up thing that superwash yarns usually do, but it's totally fine with me. I did a slightly rough block on the sweater after setting in the sleeves and before picking up the button band - a more thorough block after the first wear will open up the lace a little more and smooth out the button band.

Pattern: Pomme de Pin by Amy Christoffers

Yarn: Valley Yarns Northampton Sport in Ocean Heather

Needles: US #6 (4 mm) & US #5 (3.75 mm) Hiya Hiya Sharp Interchangeables

Mods: I knit the sleeves two at a time until the sleeve caps and then knit them one at a time. The sleeves are shorter - only 17 inches instead of 19 - and I did 20 rounds of ribbing at the cuff. I used 1394 yards and the pattern called for 1400 yards. I think if I had decided to knit the sleeves as long as the pattern indicated I would have run out of yarn instead of having about half a skein left over. Phew! 

I hope you liked my Start to Finish series! I found it pretty rewarding to think more in-depth about my decision-making process regarding sweater knitting and how that translates to a finished garment that I'm happy with. In fact, I liked it so much that I'm planning on doing another one later in the year. Thank you for following along!

Start to Finish: Pomme de Pin

Are you all tired of my sweater posts? Let me tell you, I had an incredible urge to set it down while knitting the body and start knitting something else (in fact, I cast on another sweater) but after a day-long break I picked my cardigan back up and powered through. 

It helps that I was sick on Tuesday of last week and was able to spend almost the entire day recovering on the sofa while knitting and watching Dawson's Creek (guilty pleasure!). I finished the bulk of the knitting, sewed in the sleeves, and blocked the body of the sweater before picking up the button band. 

Now all I have is 300+ stitches to knit back and forth before I'm ready to sew on buttons!

Then and Now: Yarn Repurposing

In 2011 I purchased some Imperial Yarn Columbia and knit the Hollyhock pullover. This sweater was short-lived because I had multiple issues with my yarn and pattern choice. Let's talk about them, shall we?

The pattern is well-written and I actually really like how the giant cowl stands up in this yarn. But Columbia is definitely a heavy worsted to Aran weight yarn and is not happy about being squished down on the US size #7 needle I used. You can see that the fabric is really firm and almost stands on its own. Columbia blooms A LOT after blocking and I didn't take that into account when I chose to forge ahead. Oi. Also, Raglans don't do a whole lot for my shape, which is proportional, so the blueprint of the sweater coupled with my poor yarn choice doesn't really do a whole lot for me (I still like that giant cowl, though). I think I ended up frogging this pullover late in 2011 since I almost never wore it.

Fast forward to now-ish.

Meet Wethersfield by Cecily Glowik Macdonald. She's the same designer as Hollyhock but I think this design works much better for my yarn and my body. 

As I've progressed as a knitter I've begun to shy away from heavier gauge yarns. Even though my body is proportionate (my bust and hips are the exact same measurement) I'm not exactly what you would call svelte. This cardigan is meant to be worn like a jacket since there is no body shaping and the entire thing is knit on a US #8 needle. But the lines work better for me - the cardigan creates vertical lines that break up my (ahem) substantial bust and the set-in sleeves make a nice line at my shoulders. My yarn is waaaay more happy in this little cardigan than it was in Hollyhock. I knit this at 4 stitches to the inch on a US #8 needle and the fabric is just the right density and the cables look squishy rather than strangled. I ran out of yarn half-way through the edging and picked up another skein in a different dye lot to finish off the sweater. There you have it, yarn repurposed. I'm sure I'll get a lot of wear out of my cardigan this Fall since it's a cozy, throw on, weekend around the house kind of sweater; perfect for knitting on the sofa while sipping my coffee.

On a roll...

You may or may not know that I've been doing sample knitting for a couple of different designers lately. This is exciting because I get to try out new yarns and patterns at absolutely no monetary cost to me, just my knitting time. But my knitting time? It never seems long enough! As of Tuesday evening I finished up a large-ish sample and will be sending it off to the designer and that means that I'll soon be finishing up my own large project - Aislinn. 

Half a sleeve down and one sleeve to go! Minimal finishing and a good wash and block and I'll have a spankin' new sweater to wear. 

Mr. B's socks are finally finished after a long-ago failed May 6th deadline. Can you believe how fast this year is flying by? That may be why I don't feel like these socks were on the needles for so long - I also happened to lose them for a week and then run out of yarn. Oops.

Aaaaand, I'm plugging away on my stripey socks during lunch time and short breaks between any, and every, day-time activity that requires my attention.

FO: Audrey in Unst

 This sweater is an instant favorite! It fits seamlessly into my wardrobe and is light and lofty and easy to wear.

Pattern: Audrey in Unst by Gudrun Johnston

Yarn: Rowan Felted Tweed DK in Rage; #150

Needles: US #3, US#4, US #5 Hiya Hiya Sharp Interchangeables

Mods: There are only 30 rows of twisted rib at the bottom rather than 36 and I lengthened the body to 15 inches before splitting for the sleeves. After picking up for the sleeves I started the short rows seven stitches past the shoulder seam rather than 5; this fixed the pointyness of the sleeve cap that some people complained about in their project notes on Ravelry. The sleeve cuffs were knit using the same needles size as the rest of the sleeves (US #4) because my yarn has alpaca in it and I didn't want the cuffs to stretch out too much and become floppy. The neckline is finished with an i-cord bind off and some people had issues with the back of the neck rolling back toward the body of the sweater so I changed the rate of pick up for the back neck only - using the same 3 of 4 ratio as the rest of the neckline rather than the called-for 1 to 1. I'm wearing the size 42 bust which gives me -1" of ease and the cardigan looks good open or closed with no pulling or gaping at the bust when buttoned.

WIP: Audrey in Unst

Last Wednesday I pulled out some Rowan Felted Tweed DK purchased in the great sweater yarn accumulation of 2009* and cast on Audrey in Unst.

 

 One week later and here we are. As soon as I got past the 1x1 twisted rib at the bottom of the sweater the knitting was smooth sailing and I just couldn't stop. The BIG PLAN is to finish this in time for Vogue Knitting Live so I can wear it when the Shetland Trader herself, Gudrun Johnston, will be doing a book signing at the Fiber Gallery booth where I'll be working. Overachiever? Yes. Kiss-ass? Possibly. It just took three years for this particular sweater and yarn combination to come to fruition so why shouldn't I gloat?

*Also known as Nakniswemodo, or the National Knit Twelve Adult Sweaters in a Year thereby driving yourself insane KAL. Before 2009 I had zero sweater quantities of yarn in my stash and that KAL ended that trend, seemingly forever.

WIP: Tiny Rocky Coast

Tiny Rocky Coast Cardigan

yarma
Originally uploaded by ErinBirnel

There are a lot of people in my life who are expecting babies this Spring. While baby things are thankfully quite tiny and make quick knits the sheer number in my list is a little overwhelming. I cast on this little cardigan over the weekend. Tiny Rocky Coast cardigan by Hannah Fettig from the Coastal Kids Collection. It's knit in a very nice fingering weight - Dream in Color Smooshy with Cashmere in the color 'Ponder Dusk'. I'm knitting the 12 month size to try and use as much yarn as possible.

Cuteness for Boys

Knitting patterns for baby girls abound. There's a whole lot of lace and smocking and tiny mary janes out there to knit but what does a person do when confronted with knitting for baby boys? Research. Ravelry has made it pretty easy to advanced search for just about anything but I went to my queue to search and found the perfect thing. There aren't any baby boys coming into my corner of the world but I felt like knitting something decidedly boyish and found that perfect balance between pattern and (stash)yarn.

Pattern: Candy Cardigan from Pickles
Yarn: Dale of Norway Baby Ull in nondescript beige & Sundara Sock Yarn in Bronzed Sienna
Needles: US #5 & US #6 Addi Turbo
Mods: I knit the body on the smaller needle since the slip stitch pattern of the yoke pulls in a bit. I added stripes of the contrast color to the edgings for a bit more color and bound off on a smaller needle to help the garter stitch edges from flaring out.

Drifting

I finished a lovely lightweight cardigan for Summer (if it ever really gets here) on Sunday. It's yet another great pattern by Cecily Glowik MacDonald.

Pattern: Drifting
Yarn: Dye Dreams Luster Sox in Olive (2 skeins)
Needles: US #5 & US #6 Addi Turbo
Mods: Knit the body half an inch longer. Dye Dreams is no longer in business but one of the ladies has gone on to dye under the name Dirty Water DyeWorks. The Luster Sox yarn base is BFL which lends great drape to my finished cardi. I think the Paula base for DWD is the same as my Luster Sox. In any case I'll be putting DWD on my "must visit" list for Sock Summit to see it in person and possibly purchase.

Castlegar Cardigan

My Castlegar Cardigan is finally done and I love it! After all of my complaining about how long it was taking to knit I totally love the final sweater. In fact, I put it on and said "I want another one!"

Pattern: Castlegar Cardigan by Laura Chau
Yarn: Miss Babs Baby Bamboo/Merino Sock
Needle: 2.75 mm (!!!)
Mods: Slightly shorter sleeves cause that's how I roll.