Documenting a Process

 I know it has been some time since I have posted to this blog. It is not because I have stopped knitting! Mostly, it is because life interfered. I am picking this blog back up to document a process I have recently started. (I will link any podcasts I mention in the body of the blog post.)

A few weeks ago, I watched a podcast in which the podcaster showed all the sweaters she had knit in 2020. This is not someone I normally follow, but it popped up in my suggestions feed. One of these sweaters was a vintage pullover. She mentioned how hard it was to either source vintage yarn or to find a modern equivalent.

I then watched a live video of an unboxing of yarn and material kits. The kits contained a pattern, enough yarn to knit the pattern, and enough wool material to make a skirt. Evidently, these kits were popular during the 60's, but are no longer available today, unless someone has one sitting around in their house and they decide to sell it. The idea set my mind to working. I looked for one of these kits online, but struck out.

Blue Plaid Skirt

My mind continued to work. I really liked the idea, but how could I follow through if I could not buy the kits. Then the idea struck and the crazy began.

I have wool material in the house that I had bought to make a skirt. I bought two lengths, one in blue and one in pink. The blue one is already made up into a skirt. The pink is sitting in my stash waiting for me to sew it. 

As for the yarn, when it was mentioned that vintage yarn was thinner than most modern fingering weight yarns and was also knit at a very fine gauge, I immediately thought of Holst Garn. Many of their yarns are a light fingering weight, a characteristic which would make them perfect for vintage knitting. 

Pink Plaid Material

Then the crazy kicked in, I could make my own kit! I have the material and I can acquire a yarn that would work for my purposes!

I pulled out the material and my Holst Garn shade cards in Supersoft and Titicaca. I also pulled out any of their yarns that I have used over the years. I have yarn in:

• Supersoft, a 100% wool blend of Shetland and Merino wools, 
• Titicaca, a 100% alpaca yarn

  

  All of my swatches so far

• Noble, a geelong and cashmere yarn
• Tides, a wool and silk yarn

Then the swatching began. I am using US2 needles or 2.75mm needles. I ordered the shade cards in the other yarns they sell that would work for my project. I also ordered the Coast yarn. Coast is a cotton and wool blend.

This is as far as I have gotten so far. I will keep you posted on the progress as I knit and learn!

Challenge Accepted!

So the Winter Olympics took place in February. As any of you who are on Ravelry know the Ravellenics take place at the same time. This year, I wanted to really challenge myself, so I set my goal at one WIP (work in progress), one baby hat, and one sweater for myself. I won a 'medal' for the WIP and for the baby hat, but failed miserably at the sweater. I talk about what went wrong on the project page, but for right now it is in 'time out' thinking about what it did wrong!

I was able to finish all of the projects I mentioned in my last post. I loved making the Max sweater and the recipient loves wearing it. The recipient of the socks has worn them almost every night since I gave them to him! Following are some pictures of the finished items.

                   

I am also participating the the Striped Socks KAL hosted by the Knit Girllls. I finished the pair for January with some time to spare, but February's socks are going right to the wire! The red striped pair are for January and the purple striped pair are for February.

                   

Future projects include a Comfort Fade Cardigan I am trying to finish by the end of March. Another KAL! The sweater brings together some smaller lots of yarn in green and grey. I have been having so much fun planning and knitting this sweater. I think it will be a beloved addition to my wardrobe.

Knit and Learn
A couple of things I have learned over the past few weeks. When modifying your sweater, make sure to include all the increases needed. Also make sure you count your stitches before moving on to the next section of knitting. Both of these will save you lots of time and heartache! Until next time, keep on knitting and learning!

Hello all!

I have finally finished my master's degree so maybe now I will have more time to blog. Challenge for this year: Blog once a month!

To start off the year I would like to share what I am working on.

Baby sweaters!

I am working on two baby projects. One for my sister who is pregnant with number 5! She is getting an Antler Cardigan by Tin Can Knits as well as an already finished Antler Hat. I am inverting the colors of the hat and the sweater.

The second is for a couple in my church. It is their first baby and the baby shower was unexpectedly moved up by 2 weeks! AHH! She is getting a Barley Light Hat (again by Tin Can Knits. If you have never heard of them, check them out! They have a lot of classic patterns in sizes ranging from baby to very big ;). She is also getting a Beyond Puerperium sweater in 0-3 month size.

Octopus from the Octo Project for Preemie babies

Both are also going to get an Octopus made from the OctoProject pattern.
The project in Portugal is called Polvo de Amor (Octopus of Love). I have been trying to promote this project in the two schools where I teach. (Also one of my goals for 2018.) These octopus are designed to help premature babies survive. The tentacles, by imitating the umbilical cord, give them a sense of security and help to prevent removal of the various tubes attached to them. The project here in Portugal gives them to babies in the Neo-Natal units in 10 different hospitals.

Birthday Presents

My coworker's middle child, Lib, has a birthday in January. She asked for a sweater. As she is an avid reader, I asked her what her favorite book was. She replied with a few, but one of them was the Book Thief. I had recently seen the movie of the same title and so was familiar with the story line. I went looking for some patterns and found nothing. Bummer! Then I searched for photos of the characters looking for a sweater style that would fit Lib's style. I came up with a photo of Max in a shawl collared grey sweater. Since she had asked for either grey or blue, this fit. I showed her some different pics of shawl collared sweaters and she picked the style she liked. Then away I went and designed the Max Sweater! We will see how it turns out. I had to put that aside for the baby sweater due in 10 days!

About half of Max's Sweater

The other birthday present I am working on is for a young man in our youth group. He asked for a pair of wool socks. I think that he will appreciate them so I said, "Maybe." After some thought, I cast on a pair of Blueberry Waffles socks in a black tonal yarn. Good thing these are easy to do by feel! I have noticed lately that black yarn and I are having problems. Namely, my eyes "ain't as good as they used to be!"

Goals

Some of my knitting goals for this year:

• Knit Sweaters for my sister's children (It has been a while since they received sweaters from me)
• Knit/Crochet at least one blanket for the Mount of Olives Camp
• Participate in the Ravelenics in February - I want to knit a sweater for myself, but that may change
• Knit up some of the sweater quantities I have in my stash (I recently purged my closet of many of my commercial pullovers, I would like to replace them with handknit pullovers. Not my normal mode as I prefer to knit cardigans).

Knitting and Learning

In the last couple of years, I have learned that some things have to give when you have too much on your plate! Hopefully, I can pick them up again now that I have less on my plate. Until next time!

The importance of GOOD notes!

First an update on my goals for this year. I finished the sweater for my coworker's daughter. She loved it and it prompted her sister to ask for one, too!

Emerald Lilies-of-the-Valley of May shawl has been frogged and restarted. I am making a half-pi shawl utilizing the charted patterns from Swallowtail Shawl by Evelyn Clark as the lace sections of this half-pi. So far so good.

Not the best photo and before blocking!

I have also completed two projects from my bag of stash. A couple from my church has been very helpful to me over the last couple of years. I recently realized that I had never made anything for them. Soooo ... I made a pair of socks from Patons Kroy Sock in the Gentry Grey colorway for the husband and made a cowl and mitts set for the wife out of Knit Picks Palette in the Whirlpool colorway. Both turned out well.

Now for what I learned in the last week. Make good notes! It makes it so much easier to pick up a project that has been hiding for awhile if you do. This example is actually a positive example this week.

Following my goals for this year, I picked up the Fire and Ice cardigan out of my WIP's (Works In Progress) pile and started to work on it. Because I had kept good notes, I was able to just pick it up, see where I was and start to knit. Really good feeling!

Since picking it back up, I have finished the yoke and divided for the sleeves. I will be steeking this sweater to make a cardigan. I love the colors I chose at the beginning of the project. I have always loved bold color choices with neutrals or contrasts. My dad used to tease me that my clothes were battery operated.

The knitting on this sweater should go easily now that I have most of the colorwork out of the way. We will see!

In the mean time, keep on knitting and learning!

I'm Back!

It has been a long time since I updated this blog. One of my goals this year is to update it at least once a month. We will see how this goes.

This year I thought I would share some of my goals for knitting and use this space as a way to keep myself accountable. Along the way, I would also include what I have been learning as I knit my way through the year.

First, 2016 goals!

• Blog once a month
• Knit from stash as much as possible
• Complete several projects that have been languishing on the needles *The ones with links have photos
• Fire and Ice Sweater
• Emerald Lilies of the Valley
• Wraiths on Wings
•  Alma Mater Flare Legwarmers
• Spiral Shawl
• Knit a Christmas present for each member of my sister's family
• Birthday presents for my coworker's children
• I also filled a big bag with yarn for future projects (all from stash)

Because I want to go to a fiber related event later this summer I am trying to only buy what I need to complete Christmas and Birthday presents.

Now on to something I learned

I am making the Parcel pullover by Carol Feller as a birthday present for one of my coworker's children. I have made it before in a smaller size yarn as a cardigan for myself. This time I am using a yarn I have worked with before from Lanas Stop, Extra Merino. It is a wool and acrylic blend that allows for machine washing. What I learned this time was that even machine made yarns do have dye lots. This is something I know from working with hand dyed yarns and sort of knew was true of some pure wool yarns. However, I learned this lesson, always buy enough to finish your project in the same dye lot and you can´t always use your leftovers from a former project even if they are the same yarn and same color. I have it all straightened out now. I am just happy that they had extra skeins in the same color. Next time ...!

That is all for this time but I will try to keep you up to date on the projects in my bag and on my WIP list. Until next time, keep knitting and learning!

Cables? Again?

As much as I hate knitting cables due to the pain they cause my hands, I seem drawn to patterns that envolve them. Witness my latest project, theBlackberry Cabled Cardigan.The yarn I chose for this sweater doesn't help either. It is a cotton blend from Lanas Stop. Cotton hurts my hands when I knit it (not so much when I crochet with it, oddly enough.) Add in cables and I am just asking for a knitting injury.

In spite of the drawbacks, this has been an enjoyable knit. The cables look great and the sweater fits well. On top of that, it is machine washable! This sweater was modified from its original design. I removed the Blackberry stitch from the front and back of the cardigan. I did this to make it easier to add in the shaping I wanted. Using principles from Amy Herzog’s Craftsy class, Knit toFlatter, I added waist shaping toward the center of the garment instead of on the side as the pattern is written. I used vertical bust darts instead of horizontal bust darts. Having used both types of bust darts, I much prefer the vertical kind. They can be added into almost any design and look better on the wearer. Other than making sure that the cables on the sleeves were straight out of the ribbing, I knit it as written. Setting up the sweater involved a lot of math, but once I got to knitting, all the setup paid off.

I learned a new technique from the most unlikely place, the KnitPrincess cartoon. The technique is knitting cables without a cable needle. This technique from the outside looks daunting, but is actually fairly easy once you get the hang of it. The technique requires the dropping of some stitches and then picking them back up in a different order. For example, crossing a cable with four stitches would look like this:

Insert needle into back of stitches 3 & 4 on the left needle. Slide stitches 1-4 off the left needle. Stitches 3&4 should be on the right needle and 1&2 should be hanging from work. Use left needle to pick up 1&2 and then slide 3&4 back onto left needle from the right. Sounds complicated, right? It is much easier when you have pictures in front of you. So here is a video showing you how. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6DB6WhAKvY
 
Next time on Knit and Learn, I will be talking about my other project, Elijah. Stay tuned and keep on knitting and learning.

Edited to include link for the Knit Princess cartoon.

Where have you been?!?

Wow, it has been some time since my last post. In that time, I have been to the States and back. My trip went well and I am now settling back into my routine here in Portugal. Since my return, I have been thinking about how I want to structure my blog. I have decided to change a few things in my format. Instead of telling you about all the projects I have on my needles, I have decided to choose one or two to follow. This way I can go into more detail about the projects and hopefully be more regular about posting. We will see.

For now, I have chosen two projects with which to start. First is my yearly birthday project. Three years ago, I finished a project in time for my birthday and it sparked an idea for a birthday project every year. Last year's was the Argonath stole by Susan Pandorf. Remember when I walked into my LYS and saw that gorgeous yarn that screamed at me until I bought it? The stole turned out beautifully. 

This year I chose to knit the Blackberry Cabled Cardigan for my birthday. I also entered it into the kal for the Must Stash Podcast May/June Sweater Kal. I chose a Jade green yarn from Lanas Stop. It is a cotton/acrylic blend. When I first picked the yarn up, I thought it would be murder to knit with. Especially since the sweater I chose has cables. (I am sensing a birthday theme here, cables last year and cables this year. Hmmm!) My experience with cotton has never been good. However, the acrylic keeps the yarn from killing my hands. I am happy with the results. Because the yarn is a cable plied yarn, the stitch definition on the cables is amazing. 

The second project I chose to follow is actually a Christmas present for my youngest niece. I am making the Elijah Elephant by Ysolda Teague. The yarn I will be using is one I have worked with a lot I the past, Baby from BGM affinitas, ltd. Every time I knit something for a baby I usually use this yarn. It is a sport weight acrylic that is machine washable and soft to the touch. The color is a light gray, of course. I have not started it yet but it is next up for casting on. 

As we follow these two projects, I hope you can learn along with me. Until next time, keep knitting and learning.