Monday, March 21, 2005
Savanna is finished with her brand-new super skinny arms!
Pattern: Sweater with Cable Patterns #18 from Rebecca 28.
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Merino Chunky, 15 skeins
Gauge: 14 sts and 19 rows to 10 cm, size 10/6mm needles
Gone are the loose and flappy wings. I'm really glad I stuck this out and reconstructed the sleeves because I wouldn't have worn this sweater otherwise. But I wasn't about to let all that yarn and time go to waste. I worked out the math and ended up reducing the number of stitches by 8 (about 2 inches), increased one stitch on each side 10 times instead of 11, bound off the same amount, and ended with 10 stitches for the cap instead of 14. This did not prove to be huge difference when attaching the sleeve to the body, a task WHICH by the way, no longer makes me cry. Even though re-doing the sleeves set me back a week, I now actually understand the whole sleeve shaping voodoo magic. Woot.
Other changes I made: didn't knit the cable pattern for the back; knit only 5 rows of ribbing for the sleeves; did SSK in place of s1, k1, psso as ssk looks more symmetrical with k2tog; knit shorter turtleneck as original pattern would have turtleneck up to eyelids.
So this is the last sweater of the season. In all I completed 3 sweaters in the last 3 months. Not bad, considering I just graduated from scarves in January. I love knitting.
Bring on the Bunny Wrap!!
(yet another name for the Eyelet Cardi)
Filed Under: Completed Projects | Rebecca 28 | Savanna
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Savanna sweater: had a love fest with tape measure and calculator to come up with new measurements for slimmer sleeves.
Unseamed one of the gigantic sleeves and wept in bitterness as nearly 3 hours of seaming work unraveled.
Eyelet Cardi: returned the ghastly Soft Kid for 4 hanks of Classic Elite Lush, an angora/wool blend, in pink. Girly bunny softness! Have knitted 11 cm of pattern and am in love with Lush.
 New! Apricot Jacket: Been dying to make this
ubiquitous cardigan forever, from Rebecca 27. Finally received English
copy. At same time ordered Jo Sharp Soho Summer as yarn material, in
color that would rename cardigan to Lemon Chiffon Jacket, or Citronade
Jacket. Must have fallen on head prior to order as yarn is 1) wrong
gauge 2) not at all Lemon Chiffon but more Kryptonian Puke in color 3)
stiff as a board 4) splitty as hell. Ducked into yarn shops to feel out
substitutes: Rowan All Seasons Cotton (no), Debbie Bliss Angora Cotton
(no), and discovered all were too inelastic and hard. Returned Soho
Summer. Then ordered Lion Brand Cotton Ease online, in banana cream.
Filed Under: Projects | Rebecca 28 | Rebecca 29
Sunday, March 13, 2005
...I'm amputating the arms and throwing them back in the water.
Why? Because they are so large and disporportionate that I look like Twiggy with gorilla arms. Veebs and his enormous cat bottom could hide inside undetected. I could jump off a cliff arms extended and maintain altitude. But you won't see me modeling it, oh no.
The arms look totally goofy.
Don't see what the big hoo ha's all about? Let's compare the sleeve width with that of my last completed Rebecca sweater:
Savanna cast on more stitches than the previous sweater, which was in a 2x2 rib. So I don't get why the pattern called for a larger width, in stockinette. Puzzled. Befuddled. Frustrated. I want to decrease the width by as much as 12 stitches, but I'd still have to increase enough towards the underarms to maintain 28 cm circumference there. Which means more increases...In order to maintain the sleeve narrowness AND account for the 28 cm at the underarms, can I increase over a shorter number of rows? Increase every 2 rows instead of 8? Will that make the sleeve all flarey towards the top?
I knew my beginner's luck would run out. Anyway, good learning experience. It's all good. Spring's only a week away but luckily (or not), this is New England. There's still plenty of time to wear thick chunky wool sweaters. Just give it to me without the thick chunky wool sleeves, thanks.
Oh I also stopped by at Spark after work on Friday. It was...aight. Yarn selection was minimal. Paper selection was minial. Then again being Costco of crafts is not their M.O. However, creative inspiration is, so it would have been nice to have seen some examples of fine yarn work on display, some examples of hand-stamped invitations on display, something you could admire and touch and say, I want to make THAT. Show me how to make THAT. But aside from some really lovely jewelry pieces, there was very little. It was all just kind of, sparse, rather than spark.
Tall glass of sidecar full of soothing alcohol is a-callin'. Later.
Filed Under: Rebecca 28 | Savanna
Sunday, March 06, 2005
Damnit. I am short one whole sleeve. I say this with much anger and surprise when I should be flogging myself for my lapse in basic arithmetic.
Going into this I already knew I was short 3 skeins, and thought no problem, I'll get that yardage back by not cabling the back. 3 skeins did not sound like a lot to my little brain, but do the math and 3 skeins of merino chunky equals....(calculating)...164 yards which equals nearly 500 feet of yarn I don't have, and therefore I was clearly stupid to think I could get that back by simply not cabling a panel.
Not wanting to order online and wait wait wait, I called every yarn store nearby to see if they had any merino chunky dyelot #18 in stock and only one store did, but being busy with a customer she didn't actually check it in person. Tomorrow I'll break from work to walk to Newbury Yarns and hope she's not a dirty liar. I'm so close to finishing!
3-needle bind-off, so beautiful in the sun.
The good news is: I left the shoulder stitches live so I could try the 3-needle bind-off. A little clunky with such large needles, but it turned out brilliant. Now the front and back panels are joined at the shoulders. Anything to cut seaming down.
But there's enough yarn for the turtleneck.
If you look to the left, you will see a ghastly PSSO gone horribly awry.
The pass-over stitch is way loose. Meant to do an SSK but forgot.
(Now that I've told you to look closely, try not to next time.)
In the meantime I'm going to finish up the turtleneck.
Speaking of. The instructions for this pattern is in really garbly English. For example, the instructions for the neck says:
Pick up around neck edge with circular needles the 23 sts. off each holder = 76 sts.
Er...There are 12 sts on front holder and 18 on back holder, not 23. The 23 they're referring to is the number to pick up on each neck edge.
23+23+12+18 = 76.
Just thinking now, I could have just gone and cabled the back afterall. Not cabling it really only saved me at most half a skein of yardage. And maybe it wouldn't have looked too busy...Ah, always second-guessing. Next time.
Filed Under: Rebecca 28 | Savanna
Saturday, March 05, 2005
Front and back in the pre-blocked state
Before I forget how I did this, some notes on knitting the back. I did not follow the pattern (I don't think I ever have followed any pattern once 100%...), replacing the cable pattern for straight stockinette stitch. As a result, I had to reduce the number of total stitches in order to get the same gauge as the cabled front. I reduced the number to cast on from 66 to 56, in order to get total width of about 40 cm.
So to make sure this number would all add up with the amount of decreases necessary, I started calculated backwards, beginning with the initial estimation of 56 stitches to obtain gauge.
I skipped the part where you bind off at the neck edge to give a slight slope ("At neck edge bind off on every 2nd row 4 sts once and 2 sts once"). Doing that would throw the width off, as you would need more stitches to account for the decrease. I don't think it would be horrible if omitted, so I planned on knitting the final row straight through.
When all the decreases were completed for the armhole, it was important that I still came out with a final number of stitches that would add up to:
12 stitches for left shoulder
18 center stitches for neck
12 stitches for right shoulder
= 42 final stitches
The number of shoulder stitches had to match the front, so that couldn't change.
The number of decreases for the armhole totaled 16 stitches (3x2 bind-off + 5x2 decrease = 16).
But 56 - 16 = 40. I need to end up with 42.
So cast on 58 instead.
Now the babies are blocking and I'll be starting on the sleeves. No math invovled thankfully.
Filed Under: Rebecca 28
Saturday, March 05, 2005
I really need to get out more. Or at least join a REAL knitting circle.
Even though it's been a crazy week at work, I've been able to make huge progress on the 2nd Rebecca sweater - "Sweater with Cable Patterns". It is such a fast knit. Oh yeah I'm calling it "Savanna." The front and back of Savanna are all knitted up. I ditched the cable pattern for the back in order to save yarn, and also because the cabling is rather intricate and it would look too busy and "irish" if the back were cabled as well. So the back is just plain ole stockinette stitch.
Now will cast on the sleeves tonight during one of this week's Netflix pix: A Streetcar Named Desire, The Godfather, and Elf. It will be the first time watching The Godfather. Tragic.
If all goes well I will have another sweater by this weekend. I say this knowing full well that seaming ends up taking 100x's more time than I think it will. I'm feeling optimistic, again.
Filed Under: Rebecca 28 | Savanna
Thursday, March 03, 2005
I sent D yesterday to the Woolcott & Co. yarn store that is a mere courtyard away from his office in Harvard Square. Lucky that I don't work there or else I'd be taking mini-lunch breaks every 10 minutes. They're the only store in Boston that I know of to stock Rebecca magazines, so the mission for D: ask for and buy Rebecca 29 and Rebecca 27. What D came home with: Rebecca Home. Thanks baby, but. Argh!
Rebecca Home blows! Zero interest in knitting pillow covers, sham covers, oversized blankets that will end up victims of the cats' amorous advances. Zero interest in knitting a "sweater" for my water bottle, or fuzzy ornaments for my Christmas tree.
29 and 27 were not in stock anyway, so I've ordered them online (through another Mass. store, theknittinggarden.com). After my initial reaction of "...meh" to the wraparound cardigan in Rebecca 29, I've decided that I must have it and have will now join my first knit-along. That photo from the mag has been posted in every other knitting site out there and it just grew on me slowly.
Wearing SWDC in the office. Sweating like a pig.
Filed Under: Rebecca 28
Sunday, February 27, 2005
 
Pattern: Rebecca 28, #41 Sweater with Diagonal Ribs and Cables
Yarn: Lion's Brand Kool Wool, 12 skeins x 60 yds = 720 yds total
Gauge: 14 sts to 10cm over 2x2 rib, size 10 needles
Hey they're different colors! Actual color most resembles the photo on the left. The photo on the right showcases the main reason why I picked this pattern to knit - those dainty yarn overs in between the ribs, coming together in such a pretty V. How clever to use yarn overs in lieu of a simple increase. I really love that detail. Here's another photo to show the side.
Me 'n my cozy winter sweater with the lovely side detail
lounging on the couch with an [empty] mug of coffee
This sweater was a fast and easy knit if you remove the whole seaming bit. It took me all of yesterday afternoon and most of the night to just seam and oh god I was so miserable. Pulling at my hair, cursing, crying, turning purple. D was all, "Girl I'm confused. I thought knitting was supposed to be relaxing?" I hate hate hate seaming the sleeves on.
None of my reference books had anything useful to say, except: "Pin center of sleeve to shoulder seam, ease into shape, and sew." ...And? AND??! So many pages devoted to how designing and charting sleeves and neckholes and this and that, but nothing on putting it together.
The cap sleeve seaming fiasco. I used white yarn first to see what I was doing. A very ad hoc process.
I started seaming from the top center of the sleeve down to the armhole, and then did it again for the other side. The Vogue Knitting book did mention using backstitch, but I couldn't make sense of how to do that when starting from the center of a piece? Instead I used a version of mattress stitch to attach the top of the sleeve to the shoulder, picking up about 2 shoulder stitches to 1 sleeve stitch. It seemed to work out ok mathematically, but the end result is sloppy. I look like I'm wearing shoulder pads. The bulkiness of the yarn could be to blame for that. D thinks it looks fine and maybe it does, but my eyes can't help but zero in on the awkward shoulder seaming.
Someone needs to show me how to do this properly. Otherwise from now on I'm sticking with raglan sleeves. So send any tips my way!
Also still having issues with neckshaping. There's a small hole boo boo in the back. If you don't look really hard you won't see it. But I know it's there and that's all that matters. Strangely enough even though the knowledge of the hole's existence will haunt me at night, I never considered stopping to rip out rows in order to fix it. Laziness always wins in the end.
The verdict is still out on the Kool Wool. It's a really heavy drape, and it looks like it's starting to pill already. On the other hand it's super soft and cozy. And cheap! Relatively speaking. I would definitely knit this sweater again.
And can I just say what a pleasure it is to follow a graphical pattern than it is to follow pure text of endless "row1: k1, p3, *[yo, k1, p3] repeat from * 14 times, k1, p3 blah blah blah"? American and English pattern books need to step it up and draw me a picture.
Another sweater, with cables, with turtleneck, in neutral.
This one's going to be HOT.
Next up in the queue - that other chunky cable sweater from Rebecca 28. From this point on I'm calling it Savanna, rather than "Sweater with Cables." I've already started it, using DB chunky merino, in yet another neutral color. I love her yarns - they all have this certain sheen, even for wool.
I've already made a mistake with this one though. Not enough yarn. After knitting up that first skein and seeing how little it produced, I knew my stash was not going to be enough. My mistake: calculating the amount of yarn I needed using weight instead of yardage. I was substituting GGH Savanna with the DB, both are 50grams, but GGH has more yardage. Thus I am short 3 skeins. However I have a workaround that does not involve buying more, so fingers, paws, eyes crossed.
Filed Under: Completed Projects | Rebecca 28 | Savanna | SWDR
Friday, February 25, 2005
In between work and sleep I managed to finish a sleeve, and thus the SWDR is finally all knitted up, blocked and ready for seaming. I think I enjoy the seaming least out of the whole process, especially now that ratios will have to be calculated before seaming in the cap sleeves. I'm saving that for the weekend. In the meantime after casting off the last sleeve I immediately casted on the Ribby Cardi, without swatching. Look at me, renegade knitter. This morning however as I clomped in my snow boots on the way to work, bitter wind howling and snow drifts swirling, I decided to start the other Rebecca chunky merino wool instead, while we're still enjoying this 20 degree weather.
Filed Under: Rebecca 28 | SWDR
Monday, February 21, 2005
The other day I was poking around the garden picking up random litter that had blown in our yard and had my first sign of Spring: tips of daffodils and tulips pushing their way just past the surface. Huzzah! Spring is coming...Or is it? Snowing cats and dogs now, again.
sweater front all soft and dreamy in the sun
I'm still working on the SWDR. It's dragging because after a few rows, my hands turn to concrete on fire. I finished the front. The neckshaping scares me. I never quite understand the directions. For this pattern I think they gave right-side directions for knitting from the edge to the neck edge/center, even though the right side should have been from the neck edge/center to edge. So I flipped the pattern directions mirrorwise and it seemed to turn out ok. No holes, purls and knits where they should be. The next thing that I'm not looking forward to is seaming the sleeves. Ooo. Spooky.
Filed Under: Rebecca 28 | SWDR
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
I haven't knitted in the past couple of days. Busy at work, trying to get to bed sooner in order to conquer the whole 'early to bed, early to rise' battle. Anyway this past weekend I started the SWDG (sweater with diagonal ribs) from Rebecca 28, using Lion Brand Kool Wool and finished the back.
 Back of SWDG. The color is actually more moss than camel.
Love the diag ribbing, and the yarn-overs near the edge. I changed the placement of the double decreases, during mid-knitting, by just a stitch on each side. Plus I think that's how it looks in the photo. The pattern was knitting up something differerent. Also with such chunky yarn like the Kool Wool, and with the previous two rows also containing decreases right below, the original placement of the double dec looked really messy, all big and bumpy .
The Kool Wool is knitting up soft, spongy, and very springy. Boing boing.
Filed Under: Rebecca 28 | SWDR
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