The Unfinished Jumper

It's been a long time, I know.

I guess my excuse is that I really haven't had anything knitting related to share in the last year. I'm still knitting, but probably not as much as before. I think the Easter Show shawl really took it out of me last year.

On the weekend I was over at my folks' place and raided my mum's stash. This sounds a lot more exciting than it really was, because my mum has a very tiny stash. The best find in amongst the acrylics and pastel baby yarn was 6 balls of Jaeger Matchmaker in a kind of navy. The receipt was still in the bag - bought in Hong Kong for HKD$10.50 a ball on 15/3. How I wish I knew the year.

Actually there were also 2 balls of yarn passed down from my (paternal) grandmother. Apparently she bought these in Shanghai - gotta be at least 50 years ago. The ball band doesn't even provide any information about the yarn. I'll post a picture if I remember to take one. It's a really soft fine yarn, probably a 2 ply weight, probably wool.

The most exciting discovery of the raid however was a half finished V-neck jumper my mum had been knitting for my dad, in Cleckheaton Country 12 ply, probably around 10 years ago? We found the half finished front (just one side of the V to go) first, and after a bit of hunting, found the whole of the back piece.

The pattern? Well thankfully it was in the same bag as the back piece, only it's in CHINESE, and there's only 1 page.

So now it's become a challenge for me to finish it. I'm thinking it could be a birthday present for my dad (22 April).

So far I've rewound all the odd balls into skeins, washed and dried them, worked out the stitch pattern, done a gauge swatch (seems my mum and I have the exact same tension), and started on the left front last night.

Watch this space.

Oh and I'll post pictures as soon as I remember to take them.

Blue Ribbon

I can't believe this but I won a first prize for the Sun Ray shawl at the Sydney Royal Easter Show.

This was the Sun Ray shawl by Marianne Kinzel from her book The First Book of Modern Lace Knitting. When I set out to do this I wanted to choose something that was challenging to knit and also had a varied enough pattern so I wouldn't get bored. This project was definitely both.

The yarn is the 2/36NM cashmere in Adriatic Blue from Colourmart, held doubled. I used 3mm circular KnitPicks.

Altogether I would probably describe the experience as nail biting. When I started the shawl in the new year, I never thought I would still be blocking it on the eve of submission day.

Nor did I anticipate running out of yarn with half the final round to go plus the bind off. I couldn't find any more of the same colour on the Colourmart website and out of desperation emailed them directly. Thankfully Sue at Colourmart found some and sent it to me FOR FREE. How generous is that? I received the extra yarn on the Tuesday before the Saturday deadline.

One of these days I'll work out how many stitches went into this. The final rounds which had over 2,000 stitches took me well over 2 hours each! I know the crochet bind off was roughly 4,800 stitches and that alone took me 2 nights. Didn't help that I don't really know how to crochet.

Here's a pic of the display in the category. I must say the competition was pretty stiff - especially that beautiful white shawl that came second.

A couple more pics on Ravelry.

Emily's Cardigan

Unlike the many generous knitters out there, I make it a rule never to knit anything for other people unless they specifically request something. Even then I'm quite cautious about agreeing to make something because in my experience, the requester usually has very little idea about the amount of investment that's involved (and I mean investment in terms of hours not dollars). I get the feeling some of them ask only because they think a handknitted garment is cheaper than a store bought one. Really, I'd much much much rather buy them one, or two, or three.

However, when a friend of mine asked me to make a cardigan for her unborn baby girl, I enthusiastically agreed. She and her husband were expecting their first child and they'd moved to Australia a little over a year ago so they don't have a lot of family around to help them. I know it's a small thing but I wanted this baby to have something handknitted. Afterall, a handknit baby is a loved baby, right?

That was a bit of a long introduction but here's the finished product...

The pattern I decided on was the beaded fair isle cardigan from Debbie Bliss' The Baby Knits Book. It took me months to pick a pattern because I wanted it to be something special but also interesting to knit. By the time I picked the pattern the baby was due in less than 4 weeks so I decided to make the 6-9 month size since it won't be cold enough to wear until next winter anyway.

I had 5 balls of Baby Cashmerino in lilac in my stash (purchased in Stockholm, of all places) for the main colour, and used contrast colours from single balls of 100% merino I bought from Wilfert's in Copenhagen and odd balls of Baby Cashmerino.

I have to say the pattern was very difficult to understand. There was no schematic and no summary of how the cardigan is constructed. It was also impossible to work anything out from the 2 highly styled but very uninformative photos in the book.

Basically in the original design, the body is knitted up to the armpits, then the fronts and back are worked separately and a series of bind offs involving short rows creates the semi-circular yoke shape, then the remaining stitches are joined at the shoulders and stitches picked up along the cast off yoke shape, then the patterned yoke is knitted, incorporating decrease rows to shape the yoke and then finally using smaller and smaller needles to shape the neck. The sleeves are knitted separately and joined to the body in a drop sleeve style.

Is this over complicated or what???

I did some simple calculations with the help of EZ's Knitting Without Tears and ended up knitting the sleeves in the round, joining them with the body at the armpits, decreasing evenly to the number of stitches needed for the yoke, then followed the rest of the pattern.

Too easy.

I also used a rib tubular cast on and bind off to give a smooth edge. That's about all the changes I made and it meant virtually no seaming, except for the few stitches under the armpits.

More pics on ravelry.

Oh and Emily arrived early last Sunday. I hope she likes her new cardigan.

Neglected

I've been neglecting the blog. Sorry. Here's a few things I've been doing...

Inspiration

She makes "limited edition handmade knit ranges" according to the new Frankie.

Good things and those who wait

Well believe it or not I got my hot little hands on 3 extra balls of that elusive lilac DB Cashmerino Aran not only in the right colourway (which is discontinued), but in the right DYELOT. Amazing, eh?

All thanks to Ravelry with a little help from eBay. By searching in the 'Stash' section of Ravelry I found one person in the US who had the exact colour and dyelot AND she wanted to sell but she had just listed it on eBay so I had to bid for it. Talk about timing! Needless to say it was a somewhat nail biting experience especially as the auction ended in the early hours of a Saturday here. In the end I won the 3 balls I wanted easily enough but I feel sorry for the person who bid for 10 but only won 7.

Thankfully I had stopped working on that jumper - so now I'm remaking the sleeves into long sleeves, and I'll probably have enough to make the body longer too. Yay!

As promised

A few pics of what I've been doing knitting and sewing wise...

Haven scarf from Kim Hargreaves' Heartfelt book. I used this one skein of cashmere I got when we were in Denmark a couple of years ago. It's so soft. More pics on flickr.

A stack of cushions using fabric from our last Japan trip. More pics on flickr.

I'm also making this jumper modified from a pattern in an old Rebecca magazine. Except I kind of ran out of yarn when I got to the sleeves and will probably have to make it a short-sleeve top (which is pretty impractical). Anyone with random balls of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran in colour 300604 please contact me. Although since it's long discontinued I don't have high hopes.

There's something about the DB Cashmerino range that I find really appealing in a ball, but when it's made into a garment I just don't love it. And it pills.

I did really enjoy the stitch pattern, which is probably why I stubbornly ploughed on even though I knew I didn't have enough yarn.

Wedding Bolero

I made this for a friend's wedding last October.

The pattern was designed from scratch, knitted on 3mm needles, and took me 3 months.

I was going to post a photo of her wearing it at the wedding after the big day.

But she didn't wear it.

Blankie

I used about 2.1 balls of Bendigo Woollen Mills' Rustic 12 ply in Elm. The .1 of a ball was courtesy of knittyrobyn from Ravelry. More pics here or on ravelry.

Oh and I finished the bumpy socks started just before our Japan trip.

The yarn is from Live2Knit, Joan in colour Choc Cherry. The pattern is based on Gentlemen's Half Hose in Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks. I think I started with more stitches and made a longer heel, and used a tubular cast on. Needles were 2.5mm KnitPicks Options dpns.

V

I finally finished the v-neck for my dad. He's happy, I'm happy.

Pattern: My own
Yarn: Jaeger Extra Fine Merino in Natural (SH 937), about 15 balls
Needles: 3.5mm/4mm Knitpicks Options circulars

Comments:
A pretty generic v-neck pattern with set in sleeves. I knitted both the body and sleeves in the round to reduce seaming.

The only difficulty I had was with the sleeves. I managed to mis-measure my dad's shoulder to wrist length, which led to a pretty long first sleeve that had to be completely ripped and remade. Designing the sleeve caps was also pretty tricky, but I found the article on the topic by Pam Allen in the Winter 07 issue of Interweave Knits pretty helpful.

This is the only photo I've got of my dad actually wearing it. It's taken on my phone, hence the awful quality. I can't take credit for the retro kitchen background though.

Dead Sock Day

First up, I've been hibernating. Partly because life has been really really busy, but mainly because there's not much knitting to show.

I've pretty much been working on my dad's v-neck in all my spare time, and that's about it. All the knitting got done last week and as soon as I finish this post, I'm going to attach the last sleeve and block the whole thing. And boy will it be a relief!

Not that it's not been fun. In fact, it's been quite a challenge since it's the first jumper I designed from scratch. But more on that when I actually finish it and have something to show with the commentary.

Today's post is mainly one of comiseration. Yesterday could aptly be called Dead Sock Day.

First I took out the laundry to find that this...

had become this...

I've machine washed these socks many times before, and there's never ever been a problem. For some reason, this time they completely felted!

When I checked the settings, I realised I had set the wash cycle to intense wash for the previous load and forgot to switch it back. And I only did that because (out of the kindness of my heart) I had taken the dirty stinky tea towels from work home to wash! Just goes to show doing good is bad for you.

After the anguish of this incident, I decided to mend another hand knitted sock just to make myself feel better. This one had a hole in the toe. Easy. Rip back a few rows, reknit, rekitchener, done.

When I finished, I went to get the other sock to try them both on. But when I put the 'good' sock on, this happened!

A stitch near the heel snapped and created this big hole! I just couldn't believe it. Two pairs of socks ruined in one day. If someone knows a good site on darning socks - please send it my way.

Anyway, I want to finish up on a happy note. I did manage to finish the Child's First Socks yesterday, from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks.

More pics on my flickr. And details on Ravelry.

Oh, and we're going to Japan in 3 weeks!

A New Hobby?

I have some Liberty fabric in my stash that I've been meaning to make into a simple skirt. Then I found this book at Kinokuniya (ISBN 978-4-579-11149-7).

It contains 28 simple patterns for floaty tops, smocks and dresses. Even though it's in Japanese, the instructions are largely pictorial and I think coupled my Chinese (many of the characters are the same), I should be able to figure most of it out.

As with so many Japanese craft books, the photography and layout is simple but oh so pretty. All the projects are for loosely fitted garments, which is a plus for covering up my fairly basic sewing skills, since I've never been able to make anything that's meant to be fitted actually fit.

My first project is going to be the top on the cover, although there are quite a few things I like. Here's a small selection to whet your appetite.

And finally, I've just finished my first sock in 2008.

This was mainly a distraction (oh no, not another one) from my Dad's v-neck. Pattern is Child's First Sock from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks. More pics on my Ravelry.

Convertible

Thanks to the unusually cold weather this weekend, I finally took some photos donning the very very warm Convertible Cardigan by Wenlan Chia from KnitKnit by Sabrina Gschwandtner.



For my 2 cents about this pattern, see this previous post.

Seeing it's meant to be convertible, I tried wearing it a few different ways - see here, here, here, and here. Or just visit my Ravelry.

And finally, here's a glimpse of Dad's v-neck. So far so good.

Happy New Year Everyone

At least I managed to post before January's out. Just a quick knitting update really...

1. Second crochet bag, done!

For all the details check it out on my Ravelry. Incidentally this was made over our Christmas holiday near Jervis Bay where we stayed on a property with ALPACAS!

They are such funny creatures.

2. The Convertible Cardigan finally has buttons. They look like giant chocolate buds.

One day I may decide to model this cardigan (it's more like a jacket) but for now, I'm not insane enough to wear it in 30 degree heat.

3. Oh and I finally moved beyond swatching for my dad's perfect v-neck jumper.

Back in August last year, my dad asked me to make him a jumper after he saw the cardigan I made my mum for her birthday. So I promised to make him one for his birthday which is not until April. Plenty of time.

He specified that he wanted something he could wear to any and all occasions - casual, formal, weddings, funerals (my father is a pastor, so he actually goes to a lot of these). It has to be not too dark, not too light (definitely not Aran), not too plain, but not too fancy either. Piece of cake.

I then proceeded to do what I always do when I promise to knit someone something - I procrastinated. (This, incidentally, is why I do not knit Christmas gifts.) Since promising to make my dad this jumper, I've made 3 bags, a scarf, a cardigan, a baby sweater, a pair of socks and half of another jumper.

What have I done on dad's jumper? This...

So far this is my 3rd attempt at the border. And I still haven't quite decided on a pattern. I guess I work better under pressure.

Summer is just too good to blog. Talk next month.

Garter Scarf & EZ Baby Seamless

Done!

I like the buttons on this one. Here's a closeup.



Details: Baby Sweater on Two Needles from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitters Almanac
Needles: 4mm KnitPicks Options
Materials: Jo Sharp Silkroad Tweed DK in Autumn, about 3 balls, and 7 buttons

Also done is the garter stitch scarf I started in the Deathly Hallows queue.



Details: 3 balls of Noro Kureyon colour 134
Knitted on 5mm bamboo circs. Cast on 25 stitches and knit every row. Super easy.

Love the colour changes on this one.

Mini Tote

A quick little project using a ball of Drops Muskat bought in Oslo. Free pattern here. I made a mini version by casting on 25 st (using 5mm circs) as I only had 1 ball in this colour.

In other news, I'm finally attempting to conquer my fear of crochet. My very first attempt shown below...

I have no idea whether it's meant to look like this. (It certainly doesn't in the book I'm using.) The holes are massive and ridiculously uneven. For some reason the holes are always bigger at either end of the row so the piece is kind of trapezoid in shape. Advice, anyone?

The Brown Issue

This is fast becoming a monthly blog.

Just want to show you a couple of things I've nearly finished.

The Convertible Cardigan by Wenlan Chia in KnitKnit.

Incidentally, this is a really interesting book. Most of the things I won't actually make (e.g. the giant teddy), but the stories about the designers are really inspiring, and of course it's a beautifully presented book with great photography and layout. (My next project from this book will be Anna Bell's Bridie.)

Back to the cardigan, I swapped the cable pattern for one I found in Vogue Stitchionary 2 (due to my aversion to giant bobbles) and lengthened the body and sleeves. I also shortened the collar - looks good on the model but don't think it's really that practical.

Ok. My 2 cents about the pattern.

I should preface this by saying I'm not really a chunky knits kind of girl. In my view, chunkies only look good on people who are not chunky (read: stick figures). I decided to make this purely because I was trying to avoid starting my dad's v-neck (still in the swatching stage btw).

Overall, I did enjoy the process. There is one error but it's easily picked up - pattern asks you to [k, p2] 3 times for pocket edge but you should [k2, p2] 3 times.

In fact, my only gripe would be the lack of collar shaping, which I assume is actually a design feature. The cardigan is basically a conical tube with sleeves stuck in the middle. It completely falls off your shoulder and while the name suggests it can be worn a variety of ways, effectively it can only be comfortably worn as an off the shoulder with the collar folded down. There is no way it can be worn as a turtle neck as the collar opening is way way way too wide.

Having said this, I think it is something I will wear quite a lot in the coming Australian winter (not for another 8 months). It's quite snuggly and warm though the yarn is not as soft as Rowan Big Wool which I used in a similar jacket - photo can be seen from this post.

The next almost finished project is the EZ Almost Seamless Baby Cardigan (I don't think that's the official name but heck, I can't be bothered looking it up).

This was a really fun project (started again because I am still procrastinating about dad's sweater) with interesting shaping that works! Disclaimer first - making this has NOTHING to do with my biological clock ticking (it's not) or the need for a baby gift (I make it a rule not to give handknitted gifts to unappreciative recipients, of which babies would be the front-runners).

My only query would be about the width of the collar. I got gauge and made the thing pretty much according to pattern but the neck opening seems considerably narrower than my observation of the real life specimens.

Anyway, that's all I've got for now. Until next month.