Archive for the 'WIPs' Category
Melissa’s been a dear and done some photos for me, so I can begin to share a few of my recent projects.
First up are two versions of Sourwood Mountain.
Version one is knit in two strands of DROPS laceweight heathered alpaca. The color is one of my absolute favorites, and these babies are soft, soft, soft.
Unfortunately, they came out a bit tight—which is what I get for swapping out yarns and choosing a pattern size without swatching. Normally, I am quite happy to give away finished knits and don’t worry about size (”Every knit will fit someone.”) But as I worked on these babies, I knew I would not be parting with them. The fit my hands ok, but are too tight for the overpping button closure on the wrist, so I just sewed on a decorative butting to help keep the wrist opening from pulling too much and left them at that. I am occasionally haunted by the fact that they didn’t come out exactly as they were supposed to, but then the color and comfort distract me and I am nothing but pleased, pleased, pleased again.
The minute I finished my first pair, I cast on for a second pair using Argosy Yarn’s Jo Jo, an absolutely delicious wool/cashmere/angora blend. Argosy was one of my finds during Stitches ‘08. I believe the owner/dyer Melissa originally planned to run a wholesale business, but she now sells her yarns via on-line retail. You absolutely must check out her yarns. These are some of the finest quality fibers I’ve ever worked with, and the colorways are rich and striking. (The prices are also quite reasonable for goods of this quality.) She has a knack for coming up with colors that stand out from the usual crowd—witness my mitts in the Cherokee colorway, which moves from burgundy to brown to black and also back and forth between dusty and clear hues.
Every stitch of this project was a pleasure, and I had to stop after every round to pet them and coo at them and marvel at the softness of the fiber and the joy of the color. These mitts do have enough overlap for the button closure, though I haven’t yet found the perfect buttons.
And here’s the yummy neckwarmer I gave my mom for Christmas. I knit this out of Plymouth’s Mulberry Merino, which is soft and glossy and comes in wonderful colors.
I’ll be publishing this as a free pattern when I get a chance, although that probably won’t be until sometimes after the end of this academic year.
May 01 2009 | FOs and Uncategorized and WIPs | 3 Comments »
Melissa found this beauty at Dover Cards.
Damian would love to have one of his own, but I’m afraid he’d be a bit overeager about using the horn.
January 06 2009 | Beatrice and Curious Creek Fibers and FOs and Spartacus and Uncategorized and WIPs and Yarn Reviews | 1 Comment »
I’ve transitioned from my recent shawl binge to a shrug binge. Do you knit like that? I find myself captivated by a particular shape or construction method, and then work variation upon variation on it until I feel as if I’ve made it “mine.”
Several years ago, when I was a much newer knitter and just starting to work in the round, I went through this process with hats: lace hats, cabled hats, hats with ribs in Fibonacci sequences, pointy hats, slouchy hats, hats with all sorts of designs worked into them in K/P combinations.
Now it’s shrugs.
This is my version of Lacey from Knitty. I used malabrigo instead of mohair (no surprise there).
My modifications to the pattern:
• knit on dpns, then a circular, rather than using magic loop method
• shortened the cuffs (to 4.5″)
• worked wrist-to-wrist based on my measurements (this took three skeins—one for each sleeve and one for the body)
• worked the body-opening ribbing using my remaining skein of yarn and just kept going until it was done
What I love about this pattern is that it involves no seaming at all: just round and round for the sleeves, back and forth for the body, pick up the ribbing, bind off and—voilá—you’re done.
Next came the Interweave Knits Sugarplum Shrug.
Their version:
Mine (knit in Ella Rae Angora Extra that I got on sale from—where else?—Little Knits):
My modifications:
• K wrong-side rows so that lace pattern has a garter stitch base, rather than stockinette
• rather than knitting lace border separately and attaching it, I sewed the side seams, then picked up stitches at the wrists and body opening and knitted a ruffle in modified feather-and-fan
As you can see, I am so pleased with the results that I am starting to go all Berroco…
Now I’m working away on an Aran Cabled Shrug for my sister in Lamb’s Pride Bulky (on sale at Discontinued Brand Name Yarn).
The pattern is a bit frustrating, as the two cables are knit over different repeats, so I did a lot of cut and pasting of print-outs until I had them both centered satisfactorily. My gauge is also bigger than theirs, so I’m using the pattern, but knitting to my sister’s measurements, rather than following the recommended number of repeats.
Coming up next?
I’m thinking about Nashua’s Unstructured Shrug in Noro Transitions.
Or perhaps this somewhat frivolous little number from Drops.
I’m sure to have enough malabrigo…
February 18 2008 | Aran Cabled Shrug and FOs and Lacey and Sugarplum Shrug and WIPs | 6 Comments »
Last night, I suddenly realized that with the exception of a bit of mindless knitting-in-meetings I hadn’t done any real knitting since Sunday. Egad! It was a miracle that I was still upright and could form semi-coherent sentences. Of course, I remedied the situation right away by sitting down for two-and-a-half hours and knitting another skein’s worth on my Swallowtail. I am now past the central lace pattern and working on the three remaining lace charts.
And in keeping with complete disorganization and behindedness, let me share a few pictures from the winter break. As Melissa and I were driving home from Walking with Dinosaurs: The Live Experience, we saw a great twinkling of lights along one of the frontage roads. One crazy swerve and we were off the highway and investigating things for ourselves.
We had to pay $12 to enter, but we were on a date, so we excused the extravagance as a romantic gesture.
Apparently Nessie celebrates Xmas.
And what holiday would be complete without a smiling tooth to remind us of the importance of good dental hygiene?
In keeping with the evening’s theme, there were dinosaurs.
We also saw a pirate galleon that launched illuminated cannon balls from time to time.
And then we were exiting the display by a different route entirely…
… which resulted in complete disorientation and forty-five minutes of driving about in utter confusion until we found a highway again. It wasn’t even the right highway, but it was a highway (an highway?), and we gave thanks for its discovery and gradually worked our way back to our original route.
P.S. Here are the latest knits I’m drooling over.
• Bee Fields Shawl. Check out the interplay of vertical and horizontal lines and the way the two lace patterns are worked together along the border.
• Japanese Vines Scarf. This lace pattern has wonderful lines—it reminds me of deco fabrics from the turn of the 20th Century.
• Puppy Mittens (that’s right, puppy mittens—so cute even a cat person loves them). You can get an English version of the free pattern here. The colorwork chart is here.
January 17 2008 | Patterns and Swallowtail Shawl and WIPs | 2 Comments »
I’m posting from one of the computer classrooms at UCSC while on a break from a day-long Excel class. In my new position, I receive, modify, and create many Excel documents. I’ve been using the program intuitively, but clumsily, and am glad for the opportunity to have a systematic go at it. I have not yet come up with any knitting-related uses for Excel, but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.
Thanks for the great responses to my question yesterday! I’ve enjoyed the sites you’ve steered me to and welcome more suggestions.
Yesterday afternoon I finished up the Lacey Shrug in Malbrigo. It’s a good fit, and I expect to get a lot of use out of it. I’ll ask Melissa to photograph it when she’s back from visiting family in NY.
Of course finishing one project left me itching to start another, regardless of the fact that I have a whole stack of WIPs. After an hour or so leafing through back issues of IK, I decided on the Swallowtail Shawl. However, I’m not knitting it in lace-weight as recommended; that would be far too safe. Instead I’ve cast on using size 9 needles and Cinnabar by Louisa Harding (color 8). The shawl as shown in IK is actually more of a scarf, and I’d like a larger version that will really be worth wrapping up in. I’m not sure yet if Cinnabar is the ideal choice. It has a high cotton content, so it’s heavy, and the different fibers in the marl make it a bit splitty, but it sure is pretty. With the metallic sparkle in this yarn, I’ll either have a show-stopping shawl or something that looks like it’s made for a high-pomp junta dominated by grannies. We’ll just have to wait and see.
P.S. If you’ve got the Winter 2006 issue of IK, check out the clever cast on for this shawl. You start with a two-stich provisional cast on (which is manageable even for the provisional-phobic), work six two-stitch rows of garter, pick up a stitch along each of the three garter bumps on one side, then undo the provisional stich holder and knit those stitches as well. Voila! You have seven stitches on your needles and a very tidy start for a shawl.
January 10 2008 | Academia and FOs and Lacey and Swallowtail Shawl and WIPs | 2 Comments »
I fell in love with the December Lights Tam on the cover of Inerweave Knits‘ holiday issue, but I know my limits—both knitterly and economic. I wasn’t going to buy eight skeins of yarn to knit up one tam. Instead, I decided to try knitting it up in just two yarns from my stash, one solid and one variegated.
Here’s how my version is coming along. I suppose it’s immodest of me, but I absolutely adore this piece and the mix of dark and light it offers—like looking into the the windows of a lighted cathedral on a chilly winter night. I’m working all the red/pink stitches on the original pattern in black and all the green stitches in the variegated. The handful of blue stitches on the original pattern I’m working in either black or variegated, depending on which seems best in each spot.
Here’s my latest piece of “meeting knitting”: Miss Crazy from Knitting Delight in silk Habu.
Really the scarf was just an excuse to buy the yarn, which I couldn’t pass by. (In fact, I also got a second cone in a wonderful charcoal grey/pine green colorway.) I am planning on keeping this piece simple, leaving the eyelets as eyelets, rather than running ribbons through them as the pattern suggests. My only complaint—but I knew this would be the case—is that the silk is a bit stiff to work with. The next time I find myself succombing to the siren-call of Habu, I’m going to try to steer myself in the direction of some wool.
Finally, here’s a picture of my completed Rosebud.
This took just one skein of Cherry Tree Hill’s Ariel and came out nice and big.
P.S. Here’s a question for discussion—
How many of you knit things you know you’re not going to wear?
I find myself doing this all the time. I’m not a hat-wearer, yet I had to make December Lights. I also design hats, though I don’t really wear them. (In fact, I’m at that peri-menopausal place where almost any knit garment is much too warm to even think about wearing.) Sometimes I just see a pattern and I have to know how it’s going to look as I work it up, regardless of whether I’ll wear it or not. I figure that by time I’m done with the piece it will have told me who it’s for.
November 15 2007 | December Lights and FOs and Intarsia/Stranded Knitting and Knitting Techniques and Rosebud and WIPs | 3 Comments »
… done on the shawl. I’m definitely going to have enough yarn to make it longer. I just finished skein number two and got twenty rows out of it. I’ve got two skeins left and twenty-one rows to go if I follow the pattern. This shawl is going to be soft, soft, soft. I’m already pawing through my malabrigo stash and thinking about which one I’ll start next.
I’m also thinking about a yarn for Revontuli. I love this colorway of Noro Silver Thaw, but I’m not sure it would produce the striping effect the shawl is designed for. If I’m doing my math right the pattern calls for a worsted/heavy worsted yarn. Any suggestions of wool or alpaca yarns with big self-striping runs? I vaguely remember something from a Patternworks catalogue, but I’m not sure. Oh, I’m going to be thumbing through catalogues and magazine ads when I get home from teaching today. If you have sources/ideas (especially if they’re reasonably priced) do let me know!
Meanwhile, we have made more cat progress than I’d anticipated. I still put Penny in the bathroom to sleep in order to prevent late-night altercations (George Bush isn’t the only fool who knows how to go all pre-emptive), but for an hour or so in the evening all three cats were stretched out in the same room, dozing and mostly ignoring one another. Bea seems to find the closed bathroom door with a cat behind it much more unnerving than a real-life cat across the room from her. And, having backed Penny into a corner under a dressing table, Sparky has decided she doesn’t merit any more than the occasional growl.
October 19 2007 | Beatrice and Cats and Penny and Revontuli Shawl and Spartacus and WIPs | No Comments »
Last night I just gave up and completely unraveled the shawl I’d started in Noro Transitions using a pattern from Wrapped in Comfort. I was perfectly happy with how the shawl looked, but I was getting more and more impatient with the mistakes I started making when I hit the lace pattern with a twenty-stitch repeat. With two hundred and seventy-nine stitches on the needles at that point, tinking had become an endless slog. The fact that I was tinking Noro only added to the torture. I love Noro, and have decided I particularly love Transitions, which has a consistent weight, but a variety of fibers that make for stroke-y, pat-y goodness. But the color variegations—particularly in one of the rare subtle shades of Noro, which is what I was using—make the individual stitches hard to see, which increases both the likelihood of error and the difficulty of tinking. I still count this yarn among my treasures, but this isn’t the pattern it wants to be knit up in.
Instead, I think I’ll start over and try using Malabrigo. How’s that for rationalizing another yarn purchase? And in the interim, I’ve started knitting up Rosebud in Ariel, a nubby cotton-rayon blend from Cherry Tree Hill, in their Fall Foliage colorway.
Technical notes:
I wanted to add two observations about the pattern in Wrapped in Comfort that may be helpful for others using the book.
First, while the written instructions for the lace stitch were correct, the chart had an error. On Wanda’s Flowers Shawl p. 32, Chart B, row 33, the first SSK should be replaced with a K. If you like working from charts, I would strongly recommend either comparing the written instructions with the chart or knitting a swatch before beginning to avoid ugly surprises when you have a gazillion stitches on the needle.
Second, most of the patterns begin with a large, loose cast-on with ten stitches or so—which, in the version I was knitting up, seemed to make a rather narrow initial neck measurement. When I case on my Malabrigo version, I’m going to start a few rows down with a cast-on of twenty or thirty stitches. I don’t know yet how this will work out, so I am not necessarily recommending it; I’m just mentioning it as a possibility.
And please don’t let either of the two above comments turn you off from this book. The patterns are lovely and very do-able (despite my Noro-related problems).
October 04 2007 | WIPs | 2 Comments »
Melissa calls this shot “and the lion shall sit on the bookcase with the lamb.”
Yes, it’s one of those rare moments when a household’s worth of cats find themselves able to all just get along.
* * *
Now, by “why I am insane” I do not mean “this particular thing has just driven me over the edge.” I mean “here’s proof if you still feel you need it.” I finished my second sock yesterday. So what did I do? I cast on a shawl.
But I’m not completely insane. It’s not an elaborate, lace-weight shawl. It’s a sport-weight shawl from Alison Jeppson Hyde’s Wrapped in Comfort. If you want to see the pattern I’m using, click the “view more images” button on the link—my shawl is the off-white one in the upper right corner. Because I am apparently incapable of reading and following directions, I’m not knitting mine in sport-weight, but in Noro Transitions color 1 (go Little Knits!), which is a bulky yarn. I started out on U.S. 10.5 needles and have been moving up every ten or so rows, so I’m now to the largest lace pattern and am going to switch to size 15. The entire shawl as written is worked in less than 50 rows—I finished row 28 last night—so even if I decide to lengthen it, I should be done before the weekend.
And then I must get back to the Origami Cardi—but I needed something new to help me build up my stamina for more of the same.
October 02 2007 | Archy and Cats and Damian and Maggie and Origami Cardi and Socks and WIPs | 5 Comments »
Tragically, the A’s lost Sunday’s game, despite the fervent cheering of the many knitters and other needleworkers in attendance. But we knitters are a stalwart bunch and remain faithful despite the setbacks.
Not only was Sunday Stitch ‘n Pitch, it was also Hispanic Heritage Day, which meant we were treated to some folklorico before the game.
Our Stitch ‘n Pitch gift was a darling little project bag.
And, because we were among the first 10,000 fans, Melissa and I also received A’s cowboy hats. I am so not a cowboy hat kind of a gal, but let me tell you, that was one comfy hat. It’s nice and roomy, the open weave keeps it from being too hot, and it makes a heckuva lot more shade than my usual baseball cap. Much to Melissa’s delight—she has a cowboy hat she likes very much, thank you, and has been frustrated by my disdain for it—I intend to make mine a regular part of my baseball wardrobe. Yee-haw!
As at the Giants’ Stitch ‘n Pitch, I found myself surprised that relatively few knitters brought projects in the team colors. Really, I think we would be more effective knitting missionaries if we took the time to color coordinate. Here’s one knitter who did not have that problem. She was wearing an absolutely gorgeous examplar of the beautiful union that knitting and baseball can be.
I worked on my Origami Cardi.
I’m down to just an inch or two more on one front panel and then the sleeves, one of which I hope to work up at tomorrow’s all-day meeting.
Here’s a beautiful Midwest Moonlight Scarf (pattern in Scarf Style) in an absolutely delicious yarn from Cider Moon.
Th day’s big irony was a bench-clearing melee in the bottom of the first. Nick Swisher—who’d just received the Athletics’ nomination for the Roberto Clemente Humanitarian Award in a pre-game ceremony—was hit by a pitch and charged the pitcher.
Needless to say, neither he nor the pitcher spent any more time on the field that day.
P.S. Have you seen Nanette’s (of Knitting in Color) new “Bewitching Gloves” pattern? Now I confess that I may convert them into wrist warmers to avoid niggling with all the fingers, but I am definitely buying a download—genius!
P.P.S. There’s a new free Harry Potter dishcloth pattern over at InsanKnitty. Whee!
September 19 2007 | Baseball and Origami Cardi and WIPs | 2 Comments »
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