fo: ulina baby sweater

Success! With 2m of the main color to spare and probably 10m of the contrasting color:

Pattern: Ulina

Yarn: Wollmeise Pure, 100g in Spinaci; Wollmeise Twin, 50g in mystery summer sale colorway

Needles: US 1.5 / 2.5mm

Size: One; see below

Mods: Changed button placement to fall a bit lower and eliminated buttonhole in neckband. 

Pattern is written for one size - about 6 month - and calls for US 2 / 2.75mm needles; I knit it on smaller needles to make it slightly smaller for (hopefully) more-or-less immediate wear. 

Raveled: Here

burying the lead

So I tinkered with the featherweight yet again. I can wear it sort of comfortably now, though the band still does some weird things. Thought I'd successfully wrangled it over a year ago with this little solution, but it was less than ideal. The bands were unattractively distorted when I tried to wear it, and it wanted to ride up in front and (still) slide off my shoulders. It was better - not physically falling off - but still not getting any wear.

New solution: hook and eye closures

Persistent band problems in evidence here

Something else
in evidence here

I-cord picked out; button removed; hook and eye closures carefully installed. At this rate I'm going to run through my little 5g ball of leftovers pretty soon.

Anyway, you may have noticed from the photos that a steady diet of beer and pretzels appears to be taking its toll. But seriously folks, that's a baby in there. I'm due in late November. We're pretty darn excited. 

/burying the lead

FO: Westport Shawl

When I received my really exciting copy of the summer Knitscene, after jumping around a bit, I of course paged through to see what else was in it. One of my favorite projects, and the first one I decided to knit, was Sarah Wilson's Westport Shawl. It seemed like a good fit for the leftovers from a never-ending skein of Wollmeise Lace-Garn in Neptun (also seen in: the original prototype for Castanea Sativa and an upcoming small accessory pattern). It turned out to be a pretty quick knit and one that I really enjoyed. There's something magical about following a well-conceived pattern written by, mercifully, someone else. No constant second-guessing of the wording, no wondering if I'm glossing over an error that I've read to many times to actually see it.

All that aside, here's the finished object, pre-blocking:

...and post- :

Only one mod: Since I was considerably under the recommended yardage (and slightly under the actual required yardage), I checked weight and eliminated a single center repeat. Since the shawl is symmetrical and knit sideways in one piece, it's really easy to customize for more or less yarn/more or less length.

triple your pleasure, triple your fun

...or why I'm not crazy about holding yarn double, but triple's just fine:

I just knit a Baby Sophisticate cardigan for my niece.  It's cute, see?

Other than a few mods mentioned in the last post, I pretty much followed the playbook, except for subbing soft, sturdy, superwash merino sock yarn in two colors into a pattern calling for aran weight (and it didn't take weeks and lots of math).  I held the yarn triple.  It worked beautifully.  I don't usually think of multi-stranding my yarn - I'll sooner change up the gauge of a given pattern if I have my heart set on a particular yarn-pattern combo whose weights don't agree.  I don't like doubling yarn because it invariably makes for uneven stitches.  When two strands lie side-by-side, the resulting compound yarn is twice as wide as it is high (or vice-versa).  Here's a visual:

Can't get 'em any closer together than that.

In my experience, the wide, flat compound yarn effect isn't my favorite, but of course ymmv - if there's a pattern in which you'd find a flat tape-style yarn appealing, I say try it out.  Swatching never hurt anyone.

I'd sort of forgotten about the possibility of tripling yarn until this project came along.  I'd had a screaming pink, variegated skein of Wollmeise 100% Merino Superwash in Roter Himbeermund set aside for awhile to knit a baby girl sweater for the niece (to coordinate with this silliness), but wasn't crazy about the idea of a fingering weight baby sweater.  I mean fine, it's been done, but for something that'll only fit for one winter... I just didn't really want to suck it up.  I was messing around the other night and stumbled on about a third of a skein of Merlot in the same base... and a few short hours later I had a new baby cardigan.  Here's why I'm happy with the triple-stranded results:

Doesn't that look so much happier?

When you knit with a three-strand "compound" yarn, the strands want to snuggle up next to each other, like those pencils are doing above.  This doesn't make for precisely round result, but it's much closer to round than the two-stranded scenario.  Looking closely at the finished project, two strands are   visible in most of the stitches.  But the third strand is there behind them, evening out the fabric, making it all dense and springy and squishy.  Oh yes.

FO

I just finished a Baby Sophisticate cardigan for my wee niece.  I made a few mods to the larger size, because knitting straight from the pattern is no fun.

Drying in this photo - it's cuter with the collar folded down.

• Slightly smaller gauge - triple stranded sock yarn on US 7/4.5mm needles ~ 17 sts/4".  Next post shall wax poetic about the joys of triple-stranding
• More raglan increases (3 or 4)
• Body and arms shorter by a couple inches
• Picked up more stitches per row on for the button band (3 for every 4 rows, i.e. 3 for every 2 slipped selvedge edge stitches).  To pick up and knit 2 stitches into every other slipped edge stitch, I picked the first one up through both legs, and the second one through the back leg only. 
• Eyeballed the collar shaping and buttonhole rows, since I was starting with a different number of collar/buttonband stitches.

Love a leather-looking button on a shawl collared cardigan.

Yarn: Wollmeise 100% Superwash Merino, colorways Roter Himbeermund and Merlot (2 strands Himbeer/ 1 strand Merlot in body; 3 strands Himbeer for buttonband and collar)

Project page here.

oddly

My odd Audrey's all finished, just in time for the temp to hit 30C (and humid) in Munich.  It's okay though - we'll take it while we can get it.  If last summer was any indication, there will be ample opportunity for sweater sporting long before September rolls around.

Anyway, as promised in my last post, here's what I did in a little more detail:

1. Failed to achieve gauge.  Mine was a little tighter than specified, but I just went with it.  I definitely wanted to use this particular yarn for this particular project and didn't want the fabric to be any more open than I was getting on 4s/3.5mm needles, so I went one size up in the pattern and crossed my fingers.

2. Lengthened a bit.  Specifically, knit an extra 4 rows before starting the waist decreases.  I would have added additional extra length, but I was worried about yardage...not to mention the bottom ribbing fitting around me any lower on the hips.

3. Eschewed the eponymous lace pattern at the bib altogether.  Instead, I used BW's False Flame Stitch over four colors for a 16 row repeat...times 3 repeats makes 48 rows.  I started it on the first row after completing the second to last bust increase - working all the way around on back and fronts before dividing for armholes.  To avoid millions of ends, I carried the yarn from stripe to stripe, trapping the vertical "floats" as I went and being mindful of their tension.  All together, I squeezed about a hundred extra yards out of the stripes.  The slipped stitches ate a little bit of that, of course, but my gauge across the pattern stitch wasn't much different from St st in the end.

4. Worked button bands and neckband before sleeves, because I was concerned about yardage.  (Added bonus: less finishing left at the end!)

5. Shortened the sleeves a bunch. Weighed remaining yarn before starting sleeves and kept track just to be safe.  Started ribbing 2 rows after second set of sleeve decreases; kept ribbing much shorter than called for - made it about as long as the button bands are wide.  Could have made the sleeves a bit longer actually, but decided I liked them at an unambiguous short sleeve length.

That's about it.  I blocked it probably less aggressively than I could have, but there's always next time...because even cardigans have to be washed occasionally, right?

creative solution

My modded version of the wildly popular Audrey in Unst cardi is done drying, and will be getting its buttons shortly.  I knit it in rescued Chickadee from Quince & Co that was originally purchased for a colorwork project...which means that I really didn't have enough of any one color to knit the whole thing.  So instead of a lace bib, I stuck in a few repeats of False Flame Stitch (a slipped stitch stripe pattern) from Barbara Walker's Second Treasury.  Three repeats of the pattern in four colors on the front and back stretched my main color enough to get the button- and neckbands done, as well as some short sleeves.

Here it is, pre-blocking:

Why yes, that is a crochet hook in my pocket.

Notice that it is goofily short here.  It is still a little shrunken-sweatergirl-sweater looking in its post-blocking state, but in a less ridiculous way.

Further deets and FO photos to follow.

Button it up

My Featherweight Cardi has been bugging me ever since I finished it.  I don't blame the pattern...I decided I was smarter than the pattern, something I'm frequently guilty of, and knit it in a heavier weight yarn than called for (Wollmeise 100% Merino, a sturdy fingering weight).  I had to go way down in needle size to get anywhere near gauge.  These factors in combination meant that my finished cardi was more welterweight than featherweight.  Also I decided to work the shawl collar in 1x1 rib so that it would lay flat, which I think exacerbated the problem described below.

When it was finally done (all that stockinette!  And nothing but 1x1 ribbing for relief!), I actually liked the extra heft; it was nice and warm and substantial.  What I didn't like was the way it wanted to hang WAY open - not open in an effortless, comfortable way, but open in a way that I couldn't keep the shoulders from sliding off without pinning my elbows at my sides.  Add this to the somewhat saggy armhole situation (described on the project page linked above, if you're interested), and things were looking pretty unhappy.  I thought a little bit about solutions, but was too demoralized to tinker further with it.  I jammed it in a dark corner for a few months to think about what it had done.

I unearthed it the other day on my way to walk the dog, and when it threatened to fall off before I'd even left the house I stuffed a short cable needle into it in lieu of a proper closure.  Whilst walking around in public sporting my ersatz accessory, two things occurred to me: first and most importantly, that I might lose one of the few worthwhile cable needles I've ever used (usually just skip 'em altogether) and second, that this might be pushing "eccentric knitting lady" territory.  (Which I guess I technically am, but I'd rather earn my title by knitting socks on the U-Bahn.)

Clearly, it was time for a better solution.

Here it is:

I tried on the sweater, and marked the place where I wanted it to close.

Then I cast 3 stitches onto a skinny DPN for i-cord application.  I applied said i-cord up one side of the knit column of one rib, picking up one half of each knit stitch "v"...

...and knitting it together with the first stitch of each mini-i-cord-row.

Here's what it looked like after doing that for awhile:

Once I got to the edge, I continued with some free-agent i-cord, then turned around and came back down the other side of the same rib, and sewed the ends down in a moderately neat fashion.

Then I had fun digging through my button jar till I found one I liked (yes, if I was a better planner I would have chosen a button first and THEN made my button loop, but I what can I say...I'm not).  I went ahead and attached that, then admired my handiwork.

Jury's out on whether this will be a permanent fix, but it's a serious improvement at least.

Getting felted up

I stumbled onto this super-sweet star ornament tutorial the other day, which seemed like a perfect use of some odds and ends of saffron yellow wool yarn left over from making these:

(from my Etsy store)

I decided to make a few modifications of my own...first, by using my worsted weight yarn scraps and US 7/4.5mm needles.  To make it even bigger, I started with ten additional stitches - i.e. an extra one stitch before and after the first and last decreases, and two extra stitches between the rest.  Then I simply picked up with the existing instructions.

Once this was done, I added a crochet trim in a contrasting 100% wool yarn in the same weight, using a 4.5mm hook.  This entailed one single crochet into each edge stitch all the way around except for the stitch at each point, which each got 3 SCs, and the one stitch at each "valley" between points, which was skipped.

With a chained loop, a slip-stitch to secure and the end woven in, that was done.

Finally, since I needed practice hand-fulling things anyway for a certain Christmas gift I'm finishing up, I decided to felt it.  TECHknitter has a great little tutorial on the topic here, which I more or less followed. Once I was satisfied with the amount of felted-ness, I squeezed out as much water as possible and shaped it to my liking, then just hung it on the tree to dry.

So easy and so cute!  I think I'll be making more...

Finishing School

About six months after I started "really" knitting, I began working on Melissa Wehrle's Emerald Isle Cardigan*.  It was well after my one year knitaversary and the weather had warmed back up by the time I finished, but I was really proud of myself.  It fit like a glove, the buttons buttoned, and the seams were smooth.  I'd even managed some minor modifications without incident.  It wasn't until the end of the summer rolled around and I started wearing it again that the gaping button band really started to bother me.

The cardigan fits pretty snugly - I knit it with zero ease - but the major contributor to the gaping was the fabric itself.  For the first and only time thus far in my knitting career, I had used the yarn recommended in the pattern.  In this case that meant a 100% alpaca yarn: Classic Elite Inca Marl.  It's incredibly soft and warm, but has very little structure on its own.  The button band couldn't support the weight of the buttons without deforming, and the button holes were getting stretched all out of shape.  I chalked it up to a learning experience, but still wanted to save the sweater - I liked everything else about it so well.

So I decided to adapt a trick I had seen used in some commercial knits, and heard about on the Knitmore Girls podcast - lining the button bands.  The Knitmores' tutorial involves grosgrain ribbon, but being the cheapskate - ahem - resourceful person that I am, I repurposed some fabric from one of the Hubbo's ratty old button down shirts.  After removing the buttons from the cardigan, I cut two strips of fabric just longer and narrower than its button bands.  Then I pinned and hand-sewed (whipstitch, I think?) the backing fabric on, being careful to first get the sweater fronts into their original, unstretched shapes.  Buttons were reattached, this time with backing buttons to support them and thread shanks.  Finally I opened up buttonholes in the backing fabric and stitched around those to secure them.  The whole shebang took a couple of hours - time well spent, if you ask me.

I didn't think to take action shots, or sad before photos for that matter, but here are the results:

A little wrinkly here,
but you get the idea.

Final verdict: this has become my favorite sweater, especially now that it's getting cold here in Germany.  It still has a few alpaca-related issues (pilling, shedding), but nothing that I can't deal with.  If I were to knit it again I would probably use merino or a blend - something still soft enough to wear with a short-sleeve shirt, but with a little more integral oomph.  And I really would consider knitting it again - it's a great pattern.