As I’m sure you’ve all noticed, I tend to use handpainted yarns more often than not. Most of the time when you’re knitting a project that will use more than one ball of handpainted yarn, the look of your finished project can greatly benefit from alternating skeins. This is nothing new — I’m pretty sure you’re all familiar with the concept of working from 2 skeins at a time, working a couple of rows with one, then switching to the other and carrying the yarn up the side. Right?
Well, if you’ve done it even half as much as I have, you also know what a giant PITA it is to do it! The strands tangle, the edge can pucker (or just as bad, spread out!), and if you travel and knit like I do, carrying two balls is more than twice as annoying as carrying just the one. Which is where this simple-yet-awesome tip comes in, and it’s so amazing that I thought it deserved its own post!
See how drastically different the size of these two balls of yarn is? This is my laceweight Leila shawl (now finished, thankyouverymuch!), which is knit out of Malabrigo Laceweight. The two skeins were pretty close to begin with, but one definitely had slightly longer color patches than the other and I was sure I’d be able to see it in the finished product if I didn’t blend the two balls together. But I really didn’t want to have to carry both balls around, so I went with the compromise:
Start with just one ball and knit to about the half-way point of that ball (it doesn’t need to be exact, just eyeball it). Then join the second ball and do 2 rows from one, 2 rows from the other, until ball #1 is done. Then just continue on with ball #2!
The beauty of this simple trick is that it saves about 50% of the 2-ball knitting, but it blends the two colors so thoroughly that you can’t tell the difference! I wouldn’t use this “cheat” if the two skeins were drastically different (well, unless the visible blending effect would add to the finished project, which it totally could!), but if they’re pretty close this trick will save you tons of frustration and untangling.
I like this so much, I’m using it on my next project already . . . but more on that next time! I can tell you it’s Koigu, though . . .
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It’s been a week of sweater surgeries both at work and at home. I had to cut the sleeve off a customer’s sweater, shorten sleeves on another customer’s finished sweater, and repair a hole in a 3rd customer’s sweater (aside: Please cut knots out of your yarn as you get to them! You don’t even want to know what this woman’s sweater looked like and what it was like fixing it).
My own personal sweater surgery was done on Adam’s Cobblestone, which turned out to be 2″ too short. There was no way I was ripping out the yoke to lengthen the body, so I decided to cut off the bottom garter stitch and knit 2″ onto it, then graft it all back together. I photographed it all and made a tutorial, which I’ve added the Chiagu Resources page (meager though it is so far).
Hope you find it useful, although I sincerely hope you’ll never need it!
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So here’s the teddy bear:
Isn’t it adorable? One of String’s customers makes bears completely by hand, sewing and embroidering and everything. She comes to String to buy Koigu to make sweaters for some of the bears! It’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. Every time she comes I look through the bears she brought and this one spoke to me, so I just had to have it. Now, I won’t be starting a bear collection anytime soon, so don’t worry. This little guy sits on top of the TV and won’t be joined by any others!
The bear company is called Minikins and if you want to get in touch with her, comment or email me and I will give you her contact info. Unfortunately she doesn’t have a website so I can’t link to her (I keep telling her she needs a website!).
And now for what you came her for:
Sorry this is so overexposed, I couldn’t get any texture to show without turning on the flash. The sweater’s still black, not grey!
That’s the finished back and the start of the right front of Katherine Hepburn. I used almost exactly 6 balls finishing the sleeve and back, so that means I am about on track to need 12 balls total (because two fronts and a sleeve will use the same amount as a back and a sleeve). I might end up needing another ball to do the buttonbands since they are pretty wide, but I don’t mind buying another one.
What’s weird about this yarn breakdown is that the back used about twice the amount of yarn for the sleeve, even though it’s a 3/4 length sleeve. The “standard” breakdown is that the back is 1/3, the front(s) are 1/3, and the sleeves together are 1/3 of yarn usage. So logically you would expect a 3/4 length sleeve to eat LESS than 1/6 the total yarn, but somehow I ended up with the same proportion.
This is one of those knitting mysteries that I try not to think about too much or I end up with a headache and an unbearable need to rip the project out to stare at it trying to figure it out . . .
Anyway, onto things I do understand. You can only kind of see it in the picture, but I added waist shaping to the body of KH. I decided to take 4 sts from each side, which means 8 sts total, or just over 1″ of fabric, away from the waist to give it a little more shape. I knew I would decrease 4 times and increase 4 times, so that means 8 shaping rows (with decreases/increases at each end of the row).
To figure out how often they should occur, I divided the body length (13.5″ to armhole) by 9, is 1.5″. Why 9, you ask? Because you need to have space above the last shaping row, otherwise it would fall on the armhole shaping row, so you’d be increasing and binding off the same stitches which isn’t possible OR pretty. So I knew I had to work a shaping row every 1.5″, so I multiplied 1.5 by my row gauge, which is 8.5 rows per inch. The final vedirct: I had to work a shaping row every 12th row.
Enough math for one day, I’m going back to knitting. I bought more yarn yesterday, maybe I’ll show you tomorrow. That, or the finished Kersti sweater . . . happy Monday everyone!
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I finished the first sleeve on the Katherine Hepburn cardigan, and it turns out my stitch and row gauge are spot on. How often does that happen? I’m so happy to just blindly knit the pattern without thinking of adjustments all the time, it’s a nice rest from my usual self-designed knitting.
The other nice change is being able to talk about the process as it’s happening and more in depth. This pattern, like many commercial ones, tells you to increase at both sides of a RS row but leaves it up to you to decide what increase to do. Normally I would always champion the M1 lifted increase. But since it’s so hard to see the stitches and rows on black (thin!) yarn, and since the sweater is highly patterned anyway, I decided to do a knit into the front & back increase, worked 1 stitch in from the edge, instead. I don’t like this increase in stockinette because it results in a purl bump, but in this highly textured pattern it melts right in. And it’s much easier because you don’t really have to see what you’re doing!
The other pattern instruction that gave me pause was to work the seam stitch in garter stitch. I normally do edge stitches in stockinette, having tried other methods and found that stockinette is the easiest to seam, doesn’t leave holes (like slipping the stitch does) and doesn’t cause the fabric to buckle at the edge (like garter stitch can). So when I first read that part of the instructions, I thought for sure I would change it. But I decided to try it, figuring that if it would work on any sweater, this would be the one, given the dark color and the super-textured fabric.
I found out that I was half right and half wrong in my assumptions. The edge is fine for most of the sleeve, but when it got to the sleeve cap there is definitely some buckling of the edges. Which is what I had feared, since garter stitch has a very tight row gauge it tends to pull in more than the surrounding stitch. No biggie, though, since this yarn is so stretchy I will just block that tendency right out with a steamer. But it’s nice to have tried it and found it works sometimes. If this sweater were stockinette I definitely wouldn’t have done it, but in this instance it’s pretty much OK.
In other news, this sweater is eating up yarn like CRAZY. I used almost 2 full skeins for this 3/4 length sleeve! I bought 12 and I may end up having to get a few more. I’ll know for sure once I finish the back, which I’ve already cast on for but haven’t even gotten out of the ribbing yet.
Oh, and the Kersti sweater is really close to done. The 2nd sleeve is a few inches from completion and I already sewed the first one in. I hope to get a picture up before the week is over.
OH, and I’m this close to done with the pattern for Laura. I decided to offer a wider range of sizes than I usually do because this cardigan would work on various sized people, unlike many of my other designs. So it’s taking a little more work to size and edit, I have to go over it more than usual to make sure all the sizes are right. Maybe I’ll put it up for sale next week!
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My weekend in Boston was great, very low key with lots of hanging out with the family. We managed to see the lunar eclipse from a rest stop parking lot, so that was also cool. And I got a lot of knitting done on my Kersti sweater, I finished the back and front and most of the first sleeve.
And then I started something new . . .
Instead of starting the project I thought I would start from Lace Style, I started the Katherine Hepburn cardigan. And even weirder, I’m making it in Zara, which is what I thought I would use for the other project . . . but this isn’t the same Zara, I went and bought enough black Zara for the KH, keeping the forest green bag for the other sweater. Very logical of me, don’t you think? Don’t answer that. I have no explanation.
What you see up there is a sleeve, which is what I like to start with when I’m not entirely sure of my gauge. On size 6′s my gauge was too big and on size 5′s it seemed pretty close but still a tiny bit loose. So I decided to play it safe and start with a sleeve, which is much less painful to tear out if it turned out pretty close isn’t close enough. I have about 5″ knit and the stitch gauge is good but my row gauge is a little tight, so I’ll be adjusting the shaping a tiny bit to make up for that.
Speaking of adjusting, I’m making the 36.5″ size and I’m actually really happy with the pattern’s proportions. Usually I have to readjust commercial patterns but this one is pretty close to perfect. The only thing I’m changing is adding slight waist shaping, because I think it’s more flattering on a close-fitting cardigan.
I’m really enjoying this cable and lace pattern, it’s easy to memorize and has a good rhythm. The only thing that’s a challenge is that smart me decided to make this sweater in black yarn . . . so it’s hard to see what row I’m on for shaping purposes. Which is why you see that green marker on the upper right, it’s marking the row where I last increased. This is a trick I picked up somewhere along the way that I rarely see explained, so here goes:
Many patterns have wrong side rows that are what I like to call “resting rows,” meaning you knit the stitches as they lay (knit the knits and purl the purls). Plus, most patterns tell you to do the shaping on right side rows. When these 2 factors are true, there is no reason to think about your WS rows at all for tracking purposes. So there are only RS rows to worry about.
In this pattern, there is a cable that crosses every 4th row. Obviously, half of those rows are WS rows, so we don’t have to worry about them. So that means that the cross is every other right side row. This is key, because it means that if you’re on a RS row, there are only 2 choices: Cross or No Cross. And it’s really easy to tell which you’re on, because the row right below it tells you (think about how you do seed stitch, it’s the same idea).
SO, where am I going with this? The sleeve calls for increasing every 8th row. I did my first increase on a No Cross row. So I know that I have to increase on every other No Cross row. So all I did was stick a locking stitch marker in the No Cross row where I last increased, and when I have 2 cable crosses above that marker, I know I will have to increase on the next No Cross row. Then I will move the marker to that row and repeat the process.
I just read over this explanation and I’m not sure it’s very clear . . . let me know if it doesn’t make sense!
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It should come as no shock to anyone that I keep creeping closer and closer to knitting all Koigu, all the time! The Koigu Cashmere pullover is almost done, I have to sew the second puff sleeve in and weave in the ends and then I can wear it.
The puff sleeve came out cute, didn’t it? This was my first time knitting and sewing a puff sleeve so I took my time and really thought about it and planned it out. I looked for info about them online and there really wasn’t anything geared to knitting, so I ended up looking at sewing resources about puff sleeves, which were also scarce. I finally found something about how to alter a paper pattern for a set-in sleeve to a puff sleeve, and used that concept for the knitting. I first printed out graph paper in the correct proportion, then drew in my sleeve cap using my pattern. Then I cut it out and altered it to have a wider top, glued that onto the graph paper and traced it again, translating the new edge into stitch counts.
Then when it came time to sew in the sleeve, I again tried to look up information in my references, namely the big Vogue Knitting book, which had no specific information about how to sew the gathered edge onto the smooth edge. So I ended up winging it and found a good ratio: 3 sleeve stitches to one body stitch gave it a nice gathered puff. I’m really happy with how it came out and I can’t wait to wear this cutie!
The peach blob on top of the cashmere pullover is my newest Koigu project, which is actually a commercial pattern! I know, shock of shocks. I just got the new Vogue Knitting and it has this cute shrug pattern in it:
The gauge is exactly right for KPPPM so I jumped right in and already finished the back and picked up stitches for the body. The instructions have you knit the body even for several inches, which seems really strange to me (I think it would make more sense to have some increases), so I picked up and started a sleeve instead of continuing the body. My plan is to finish the first sleeve and try it on to see whether the pattern might work as written or if I have to alter it. I don’t have that much faith in Vogue patterns since they tend to always have some problems, and I’d rather do it right the first time than blindly follow a pattern that seems wrong only to have to rip and re-write it later anyway.
Oh, and in health news I went to the doctor for my knee and he says I damaged one of the disks of cartilage between the leg bones, behind my knee cap, and that is what’s causing my varying degrees of pain. I’m on prescription anti-inflammatory, taking Glucosamine to encourage the cartilage to grow back, and doing exercises to tighten the joint. It definitely could have been worse and I’m happy I went to get it checked out so I don’t have to worry about it.
Back to the couch to finish my pullover and give my knee a rest!
Happy New Year to everyone! See you in 2007!
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So my toe seems to have healed, it is no longer bruised or slightly crooked. I guess I just sprained it. The fire in Brooklyn is over and they’ve labeled it suspicious and are investigating. The Giotto sweater lies in a heap, waiting it’s turn to be ripped out and reknit. I haven’t had much knitting time this week due to work knitting, but I did manage to get past the halfway point on Halfobi2. Here’s a sneak peek:
This is the first front, which is as much as I can show you at one time without loosing any semblance of stitch detail. When layed out flat this thing is rather huge and the resulting photo has to be gigantic to show anything worth seeing. But you get the idea, you’ve seen it before. Want a closeup of the stitches? Ok!
I think I succeeded in picking a spring-like color combo, huh? I love it. The colors go together so perfectly that it doesn’t even look like there are two strands held together. The best way to combine Koigu with a solid is to pick a color that only complements and doesn’t compete with the Koigu. You want a color that fades into the background, letting Koigu do its thing. The only way to find out if it’s going to work is to swatch it, I tried out 3 colors before settling on this pairing. It’s worth trying a few combos before you pick one, because it really is hard to tell if it’s going to work unless you knit it up.
I should have this finished this weekend. . . although with MDSW on Sunday, my knitting time will be cut in half this week. It’s worth it though! I hope to meet some of you fellow bloggers there!
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Just in time for winter to really hit us, I’ve finished my first winter accessory of the season! We got this yarn in the store yesterday and it was just so amazing, I had to splurge. I decided to buy just one skein and make a hat, and this is what I came up with after many tries that all pooled. The yarn is Prism Cashmere 3 1/2 oz, it’s 100% cashmere that’s so warm and soft, it should be a controlled substance. This is the Tahoe colorway, which I’d never seen before in this yarn and is just stunning in person. The box of yarn had been in the store less than an hour before I’d picked out my skein and wound it to start the hat on my commute home!
It took me several false starts to end up with this crocheted hat, it seemed that no matter what I did the colors still pooled (my mathematical mind just can’t wrap itself around the concept that no matter how many stitches there are in a project, some yarn ALWAYS pools. How is that possible? The color repeats are a set length, aren’t they? How can they pool no matter the stitch pattern or stitch count?!?!? HOW?).
Knitting the hat flat would probably have broken some of the patterning, but I hate how you can see a seam in handpainted yarns because the color changes stop abruptly, so I knew that doing the hat flat was out of the question. So I proceeded to try all my handpainted yarn tricks, which I will now share with you all:
1. Texture is good — the 3-dimensional nature breaks up the pattern, and raised stitches that are part one color and part another always look more interesting. Seed & moss stitch are usually good choices.
2. Slip stitch patterns — since they layer different parts of the yarn over eachother, you get a different effect than with other stitches. Linen stitch is a great choice, as are stitches that use a reverse stockinette border with slipped stockinette stitches for dimension.
3. Bobbles — because bobbles are worked every few rows and eat a LOT of yarn, they’re good choices for handpainted yarns as they change the amount of yarn used in each row, which shifts the color repeat. They also look interesting because the booble ends up being a different color than the background stitches right around it.
4. Tuck stitch patterns — since you’re working into the row below, you can get a dimensional look and break up the pooling. Variations on fisherman’s rib work especially well (but they eat yarn like crazy and take forever to knit)
5. Double stranding — if you knit with two strands held together, positioned so that they are at different points in the repeat, you can get a really beautiful fabric that hopefully doesn’t pattern. Unfortunately, the colors in this yarn overlapped too much so I got blobs of green no matter where I started the pattern.
6. 2 row jog — works well if you have multiple skeins to work with. Since I didn’t, I used the inside and outside tails of the skein, which didn’t work AT ALL as it just meant every other row had the colors reversed, so they still pooled but in the other direction.
7. Lace — an option I didn’t try for this hat because it’s not what I consider a good winter option, lace is a great idea especially if you pick a pattern that changes stitch count throughout the repeat.
8. CROCHET — when nothing works, I change from needle to hook. Since in crochet it’s possible to work into the row below with no pre-planning, it’s ideal when you’re pulling your hair out after tons of failed attempts.
What I ended up with is a sort of slipped stich version of single crochet fabric done in the round. Every so often I sc’d into the row below, and did that for two rows, then did a row or two of sc. This way I ensured that rows used different lengths of yarn, so that the color repeat started and ended in different places. AND when I saw colors pooling too much, I threw another sc into the row below to break it up.
What’s neat about this is that those stitches into the row below create a layered look that adds dimension to the fabric. And since any color can be over any other color, it makes the whole thing look more organic, more like it did in the skein.
And the flower? That’s the easy part! You can make it with any yarn:
CO 7 stitches (can be fewer or more, doesn’t matter)
Row 1: Purl
Row 2: (K1, YO) to last st, K1
Rep these two rows for as many rows as you want, until the flower is the size you want (I did 4 repeats on size 9 needles in this aran weight yarn).
Bind off row: K1, (YO, bind off 1 stitch, K1, bind off 1 stitch) across
Squish the “petals” together and sew the center to the hat, shaping the petals around and over your sewing. Easy!
Project specs:
Pattern: Made it up as I went along
Yarn: 1 skein Prism Cashmere 3 1/2 oz in colorway Tahoe
Needles: Size G crochet hook and size US9 needles for flower
Started: November 2, 2005
Finished: November 3, 2005
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