Yarn Rambles

Collection of steeking videos

My apologies! I thought that I had posted all of my Aran Cardigan steeking videos as I went along. Here are all of my little steeking videos from YouTube. Remember, I used Wool of the Andes for my sweater so the steeks are easy to manage. Natural fiber yarns like wool tend to felt up a bit on the cut ends. Traditionally, Fair Isle knitters don't even secure their steeks before they cut because the fine wool felts almost as soon as it is cut!

I hope these videos help you understand the process of steeking. And, that it really isn't scary at all!

Aran Cardigan Steeking Video

I finally finished editing the videos I made while Bob and I were in Ireland. The only technical glitch I hit was that one section was recorded on a landing of our hotel. That segment is quieter than the rest so you may have to turn up the sound.

Nearly finished!

Oh, I am so close to finishing my Aran Sweater from The Knitter's Almanac. I made a lot of progress this week thanks to Craft Night and a staff meeting. After the weekend I needed to change to just one sleeve at a time. You can see that one sleeve is longer than the other! One more repeat of the cable pattern and then I will move to the second sleeve.

You can see that I am so close to being finished! Steek for the sleeve openings and the front. Add a buttonband and all finished! Well I stlll have to buy buttons. I may buy buttons in Ireland as special souvenirs.

My other Canadian knitting companion

Yes, my Aran cardigan! The sleeves are finally coming along after a rocky start involving three froggings!! I won't be able to work on this in the car but the weather report is forecasting rain so I may have lots of time in the clubhouse while Bob doggedly walks the course cheering on Luke and Ben.

I am determined to have this sweater ready to wear when we travel to Ireland on August 1st. Not the traditional cream color but it will certainly come in handy with all the weather changes I anticipate over the two weeks I plan on walking around the Emerald Isle.

Getting along with my own knitting

After several weeks of work projects, I am very happy to be able to return to my own knitting. I set aside a Sunday to re-start the sleeves of my Aran Cardigan. I had initally started them forgetting to use one size smaller needle than the one I would be using on the rest of the sleeves. I stubbornly continued for about two inches beyond the ribbing trying to convince myself that there wouldn't be that much difference. But, I kept stretching the sleeve ribbing and then the body ribbing and I finally had to admit that even if no one else noticed, it would always bother me. I ripped out my work and tossed the knitting bag into my closet. I knew I would get back to it soon because I am still absolutely in love with this cardigan.

With an entire day to focus on not getting caught by little errors, I was able to remember to use the correct size needle for the ribbing, remember to switch to a larger needle after the ribbing and even managed to place the braid on the outside of the sleeves rather than running up the underarm!! I was quite impressed with myself!

I copied the instructions into my handy Moleskine notebook so that I will be able to easily carry around my sleeves. The cable pattern is from Janet Szabo's book Cables, Volume 1. 

I also succumbed to the temptation of one of the sock yarns I hand-dyed in January! These are going to be for me since the colors are among my favorites. I am thrilled with the way the colors are working up in the knit fabric. Little bits that remind me of a tidepool.

Neck Shaping on my Aran Sweater

In order to have a nice, slightly rounded neckline after I cut the front steek of my cardigan, I need to stop knitting about four inches short of the shoulder and set up a new steek.

The first step is to put the steek stitches and some stitches on each side of the steek to equal about three inches. Second, I use a backward loop cast-on to re-establish the steek stitches. As I knit around the sweater, I work matched decrease every other round for a few rounds. My plan was to eat up the seed stitch panel on each side of the steek and then let the braids continue on up to the shoulder.

Can you see how the seed stitches have disappeared? Once the neck shaping steek is cut, the neckline will open up beautifully. It always helps to think of steeks as space holders or, even better, not really being there at all. They don't influence any of the neck shaping.

I hope to get started on the sleeves this weekend because we are off to Sunriver, Oregon for a four-day vacation.

A tangle of cables

Having had a lovely spinning day on Saturday, I woke up on Sunday all ready to focus on my neglected Aran cardigan.

 

The first step was to find a cardigan I already like to use as a guide for the length of my new cable sweater. The length from the bottom of the ribbing to the shoulder seam is twenty inches.

It took a few minutes to get everything arranged. My little bag of knitting tools, a mug of strong tea and a few cookies. I haven't been able to enjoy this sweater while I was doing my secret knitting so it was pleasant to become reacquainted. I knit for awhile and then laid it out flat to admire my work. What? A mistake! Right there in the front right cable panel. Ok, take a breath. I can just drop down the stitches and work it all back up correctly. It was quite a long way down but not too much of a problem.

    

But, wait! Another one in the back left cable panel!!

And, another in the front left cable panel!! Good grief!! I clearly had been distracted during the few times I've been able to knit on my treasured cardigan. I decided that I needed to walk away for the rest of the day so I packed up my cardigan and relaxed with my current pair of Big Black Socks.

 

I brought the cardigan into the office on Monday in order to collect sympathy. After I took my blog photos, I started on the right front panel. I learned that when you are working with a complicated cable, you have to drop down the stitches from the entire repeat (26 stitches). All of the stitches travel around so much that they are rather tangled.

I used a second set of circular needles to work my correction knitting. After each "row" it was easy to slide the stitches to the other end of the cable in order to start all over again.

It took awhile for me to get the hang of keeping a good tension on each single strand so that I had enough yarn to finish the last couple of stitches at the end. I used a crochet hook to adjust the stitches after every row.

The right front panel is the one that goes down the farthest so once I finish it I will be finished with the worst. My sister is visiting this weekend but will head back home Sunday morning. So, again, I will find myself settled into my knitting spot to work on my cardigan. Hopefully I will be able to finish all the repair work and start up with the regular knitting on Monday.   

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!