Yarn Rambles

The many faces of my Hurry Up Sweater

Before I joined the sleeves to the body of my Hurry Up Sweater, I tried on the body. My little knitting voice kept telling me that the sweater would look better if it hit me at my hips. So I knit a bit more length to the body and then joined the sleeves. Elizabeth Zimmermann's brilliant yoke shaping was a pleasure to knit and I love the way it looks.

My little voice has always been right when I don't listen to it. The one time I did listen, it was wrong. Not wrong in terms of having the sweater hit me at the hip, but wrong in terms of my needing to add more length to the body. Neither one of us took into account the weight of the fabric from the bulky yarn.

After my sweater finally dried, thanks to the heated mattress pad, I tried on the sweater and it was LONG! The sleeves and yoke area were perfect but the body went way past my hips. I decided to wear it to the office on Monday out of pure Irish stubborness. My plan was to cut the body of the sweater, pull out several inches of knitting and then weave (Kitchener Stitch) the two sections back together. I did this with some sleeves on one of Bob's sweaters that were too long and it worked beautifully.

What I hadn't expected was that everyone loved the sweater! They loved it over my slacks. The loved it as a short dress with the leggings I had brought along just to get an opinion. The more I wore it, the more I loved! So, here are the three faces of my Hurry Up Tunic/Dress

Winter Knitting

The promised snow arrived Saturday night! We have had a ridiculous amount of snow this year but it is still so pretty. Particularly when all I have to do is sit around and knit all day!

I was determined to wear my Hurry Up Sweater on Monday but it was drying slowly. After I stripped our bed to wash the sheets, I had a true knitter's epiphany! Turn up our new heated mattress pad and put the sweater on it! By Sunday night, my sweater was all dry. Fashion photos to follow.

Choose Your Battles

A simple phrase that has so many applications. It advises personal relationships, business dealings and knitting projects. Yes, knitting projects. In this case, it has helped me to decide to give up on the Extreme Knitting Socks.

I spent Craft Night figuring out how to join the two cast ons into two circles. Then I went on to struggle with managing a K2 P2 ribbing. One step forward, two steps back. With all of this distraction, time flew even though I made very little progress.

Now I love knitting challenges but socks hold a special place in my knitting heart. They are meant to be steadfast friends who ask little of me. If a new technique does not assist me in this relationship than it serves no purpose. The Magic Loop has definitely eased my sock knitting so I am going to start my colorful socks from Kristin Knits over again with a long circular needle. I will keep my challenges, or battles, confined to larger projects like sweaters.

Xena was not upset with frustration on Craft Night. She chose a convenient quilt and napped until it was time to go home.

Got Yarn?

What a lovely day! Planning new yarns for Fall 2008!

Xena must approve every selection!

An intense but very happy, creative group!

We all have notes from customers suggesting new yarn lines and color improvements. We really do listen which explains the piles of purple on the table, among other things.

I am thrilled with the new color selections and yarn blends! The only drawback to yarn planning is that we all start imagining projects we want to knit. But, just like you, we have to wait for a few months.                  

Baby and Blanket finally get together

George meet Blanket. Blanket meet George. By the looks of things, Blanket is going to have many years of love before you outgrow it! That's what happens when a relaxed knitter makes something for you.

My focus for the weekend is going to be my cable sweater. We are still having cold weather so knitting by the fireplace is appealing.

Lots of heavy knitting

This weekend was all about knitting the Hurry Up Sweater. I can see how it "could" be done in just a few days if I actually put in the time. The only downside I can see to this sweater is that it isn't very portable. I would to take it out to dinner tonight but I'm not sure there will be room at the table for it.

That means my Hurry Up Sweater knitting is pretty much confined to home. I finished the sleeves using the Magic Loop Method. You can see that it got a little tight after all the sleeve increases were finished.

After I ran some scrap yarn through the body stitches, I tried it on. I decided that I preferred to have the bottom hit me about mid-hip. That meant I needed to knit about five more inches.

After the body was the length I wanted, I joined the sleeves to the body. That always feels like such an accomplishment! Now all I have is some very aggressive deccreasing up to the neck.

I am so in love with this sweater!

Organizing an Aran Sweater

I am so happy with the color of this sweater! The funny thing is that Kim pointed the color out to me. I have two traditional Arans already – one pullover and one cardigan. So I wanted to use a color but I was completely at a loss. I have autumn coloring so that set the parameters. But, I already have plenty of green, chocolate brown and orange sweaters and jackets. I knew that I needed to choose a relatively light color so that the cables would look good. I took my Wool of the Andes color card to the Knit Picks department seeking advice. That’s when Kim pointed out Wheat. It doesn’t look that impressive on the card but you see that it is working up nicely. This sweater is going to look good with everything. You should see it next to my turquoise turtleneck!

I think I need to explain the Excel spreadsheet a bit more. Before we get started, let me tell you that the whole thing did not take very long. Particularly when you think about how much time you save not having to keep finding your place among a bunch of different instructions or fixing mistakes because you got confused.

The reason I did the Excel spreadsheet was that I was using three different books for my cable instructions. If I were following someone else’s instructions everything would be coordinated in advance. Ok, Excel spreadsheets are made of vertical columns and horizontal rows (or in my case I like to think of them as rounds).

I started with the columns. One column for every single section of the sweater.

1^st Column – Steek (5) *number in paraenthesis represents the number of stitches used.

2^nd Column – Rice Stitch (8) This is one of the spacer sections between the cables

3^rd Column – Right Front Weave (26)

4^th Column – Rice Stitch (8)

5^th Column – Underarm Stitches (6) These are different because I want to keep them in stockinette stitch to make it easy to cut for the sleeves later

6^th Column – Rice Stitch (4)

7^th Column – Right Back Weave (16)

8^th Column – Rice Stitch (4)

9^th Column – Center Back Weave (34)

10^th Column – Rice Stitch (4)

11^th Column – Left Back Weave (16)

12^th Column – Rice Stitch (4)

13^th Column – Underarm Stitches (6)

14^th Column – Rice Stitch (8)

15^th Column – Left Front Weave (26)

16^th Column – Rice Stitch (8) After these stitches I am back to my steek stitches and I start the next round (row)

Remember that when you choose cables, it makes life a lot easier if the have a common denominator in terms of the row repeats. My smallest cable is 16 rounds and the large cable on the back is 32 rounds. That means one complete repeat of the entire group of cables is 32 rounds. So I marked 32 rows as Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, etc.

Now I had a excel box (or cell) for every section of my sweater and for every round. I dealt with one column at a time. In other words, one set of instructions. The Right Front Weave, for example. Type in the 1^st row instructions in the appropriate box. The Front Weave takes 16 rows so once I type in the 16 row instructions, I can copy them for the second 16 row instructions. Then I can copy the entire 32 cells and paste then into the section for the Left Front Weave. You can do this for all the Rice Stitch areas as well. You can see how setting up this spreadsheet doesn’t take very long.

I went on to add color for alternating rows to make them easier to read. You can see where I noted a couple of changes with pen but it still is very easy to follow. This weekend, I’ll be continuing my Aran adventure.

Cable Addiction - Can't say, "No!"

Oh, baby! I started my cable Aran cardigan this weekend and it was wonderful! Thank goodness for the Excel spreadsheet! I did make a couple of changes in pen but the spreadsheet was a Godsend! It was easy to keep track of where I was and I loved having everything broken up into small sections. After every round, I couldn't resist knitting another and another and another. This weekend will be a fisherman knit extravaganza!

Here's what the spreadsheet looks like on paper. The red vertical column sets off the underarm stitches.

 

Here are a couple of nice close ups so you can understand what I did. I have a feeling that my verbal explanation on my podcast last week probably left a lot to be desired!

Happy New Year!

A friend of ours from Australia sent us a bottle of wine that actually has flakes of gold floating in it! We had planned on serving it for New Year's but it was so pretty we couldn't open it up.

We had the Ontkean's over for New Year's Eve. Their son, Chris, brought a friend and the two of them disappeared downstairs with their electric guitars. They did surface for dinner which was prime rib, cheesy cauliflower, mustard/maple syrup green beans and baked apple for dessert.

The routine in our house is that Bob cleans up the kitchen after dinner. If we have guests, the men clean up while the ladies relax. Mike and Bob in the kitchen was a little scary but nothing was broken so I was grateful!

While the guys cleaned, I showed off the finished baby blanket.

 

Cindy has a very busy life and I think it caught up to her after dinner. Once Xena curled up with her, they both fell sound asleep.

Mexico Collage

   

From Xena's point of view, the fact that the weather never really got very hot was a good thing. When she did get warm, I draped an iced towel over her.

And, she is always happy to help me with my knitting!

Wandering around Puerto Villarta, I discovered this absolutely fantastic ice cream called Dippin' Dots. When we got home, I realized that Dippin' Dots aren't new, I'm just slow catching on to trends. Given that ice cream is one of my favorite foods, you would think I would have been on top of this!

Anyway, in case you don't know, Dippin' Dots are tiny pebbles of ice cream. The way they melt in your mouth is quite a thrill! My flavor of choice - Chocolate Mint!

After a hard day of golf (for Bob) and knitting (for me) we unwound with a leisurely dinner. Time to be together with no business issues, deadlines or big decisions. Just holding hands and enjoying each other's company.

Time for bed on Mom's shawls.