Here's the first part of my sweater!
We're waiting for the "widget" that generates our pattern to be updated with the next portion. Since Sandi Wiseheart is having it programmed from scratch, it takes a bit of time. That's just fine. I have plenty of other Christmas knitting to work on and I'm sure that would find itself on the back burner if I had the temptation of more of this sweater to finish!
I really love the yarn, but I'm concerned I'll run short. I don't really want to cut the sleeves shorter than they have to be, but so far that is the obvious "fix" to not having enough yarn. Buying more may be problematic, since I bought the last ball from WEBS a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully they'll get the color back in if I need more. Hopefully the dyelots will be close enough it won't drive me crazy.
But most hopefully, I'll have just enough yarn to finish everything exactly the way I want.
Showing posts with label KAL. Show all posts
Showing posts with label KAL. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
Northfield Swatches
I swatched again.
I'm really loving this KAL with Sandi Wiseheart. It's making me think a lot more about my knitting than I usually do.
Because the handspun is really quite so special, and because I don't really understand where Sandi is going, and because she wanted something "with drape", I opted to knit new swatches using WEBS's Northfield yarn. It is a Merino/silk/alpaca blend and should drape a bit more than my handspun will.
I also thought my handspun was a bit thick, but after swatching Northfield my gauge came out almost exactly the same as with the hand-spun yarn.
I'm still going to knit this sweater with the Northfield yarn.
Then I'm going to design my own for the handspun. :)
I'm really loving this KAL with Sandi Wiseheart. It's making me think a lot more about my knitting than I usually do.
Because the handspun is really quite so special, and because I don't really understand where Sandi is going, and because she wanted something "with drape", I opted to knit new swatches using WEBS's Northfield yarn. It is a Merino/silk/alpaca blend and should drape a bit more than my handspun will.
I also thought my handspun was a bit thick, but after swatching Northfield my gauge came out almost exactly the same as with the hand-spun yarn.
I'm still going to knit this sweater with the Northfield yarn.
Then I'm going to design my own for the handspun. :)
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Good swatch, bad swatch
Did you know there are good ways to swatch, and bad ways to swatch? I did, but ignored most of the finer points of this advice just as I ignored swatching for the most part.
I'm "frugal". I don't like to spend too much money and I don't like having "waste" at the end of the project. I'm finding this is directly in opposition to sweater-knitting which, quite frankly, takes a whole lot more yarn than you'd think at first glance. Especially if you're somewhat tall. Or busty. Or both.
Above is one bad way to swatch, which is a shocking thing to say because, hey.. it's swatching, and I don't swatch. But then again, a swatch that doesn't tell you the truth is probably worse than no swatch at all.
The point of the ever-dreaded swatch is to make sure, when you knit something as large (and expensive) as a sweater, it actually fits. The problem with the swatch above is that it involves three different needle sizes in the same swatch. It turns out that the knitting coming before, and after, actually affects the gauge of your swatch. Go figure! So doing multiple needle-sizes in one is a "no-no". I suppose you could knit it long enough to overcome the fabric's desire to conform to the area around it, but that would then negate the yarn-savings of doing it all together, and you might as well just do three separate swatches.
Which is what I finally did.
Here are three "proper" swatches. In general, I know I'm going to try and get between five and six stitches-per-inch with this yarn (assuming I properly spun the yarn to somewhere between DK and Worsted weights). Typically this is knit on needles between the US sizes 4 and 6 (which range from 3.5 to 4.0mm in diameter). It doesn't seem like a big difference, but it's amazing what those little quarter-millimeter changes can do.
The bumps you see in the lower right-hand corner of the knitting are my "Key". Four bumps for size 4 needles, five bumps for size 5 needles, and so on. This means if I want to re-measure things later, I don't have to guess which swatch is which.
Also, knowing that I was headed for 5-6 sts/in I cast on accordingly. I want to measure over four inches, so 4in x 6sts/in = 24 stitches. But I don't want to go right to the edge in my measuring, so I add a couple more. Let's say 3 stitches of stockinette on each side. And because rolling edges are a pain, another 2 in garter stitch. That gives me 34 stitches. I knit them until they were "long enough". I'd planned to make them all the same number of rows, too. But honestly I mis-counted and it wasn't worth the effort to go back and add two more rows.
The character of the cloth changes with your gauge. On size 4 needles, this cloth is dense. I'm getting 5.75-6 stitches per inch on those needles and while "bulletproof" isn't quite what I'm going to call the fabric, it's getting close.
My swatch knit on 5s is deceptive. At first glance it has 5.5 sts/inch and a lovely, drapey character. But on closer inspection, the yarn doesn't look quite as round and fluffy as my other two swatches. Likely this is owed to the fact that I'm working with handspun, and this swatch came from a very slightly different batch of yarn. If you finger this swatch, and the next one knit on 6s, the 5s swatch actually feels thinner.
The swatch on 6s does seem slightly thicker than that on 5s, but it still has very nice character. It is opaque, and not too holey. The stitches have a very nice definition, but don't feel crammed together. And it was easy to knit. I was surprised but even with the loosest tension, knitting on 4s felt like work. On 6s, the yarn flew over the needles happily.
I do have a little more yarn left and I may attempt to get a swatch on 7s. It may be slightly smaller than the others, but who knows. It still could tell me something useful.
I'm "frugal". I don't like to spend too much money and I don't like having "waste" at the end of the project. I'm finding this is directly in opposition to sweater-knitting which, quite frankly, takes a whole lot more yarn than you'd think at first glance. Especially if you're somewhat tall. Or busty. Or both.
Above is one bad way to swatch, which is a shocking thing to say because, hey.. it's swatching, and I don't swatch. But then again, a swatch that doesn't tell you the truth is probably worse than no swatch at all.
The point of the ever-dreaded swatch is to make sure, when you knit something as large (and expensive) as a sweater, it actually fits. The problem with the swatch above is that it involves three different needle sizes in the same swatch. It turns out that the knitting coming before, and after, actually affects the gauge of your swatch. Go figure! So doing multiple needle-sizes in one is a "no-no". I suppose you could knit it long enough to overcome the fabric's desire to conform to the area around it, but that would then negate the yarn-savings of doing it all together, and you might as well just do three separate swatches.
Which is what I finally did.
The bumps you see in the lower right-hand corner of the knitting are my "Key". Four bumps for size 4 needles, five bumps for size 5 needles, and so on. This means if I want to re-measure things later, I don't have to guess which swatch is which.
Also, knowing that I was headed for 5-6 sts/in I cast on accordingly. I want to measure over four inches, so 4in x 6sts/in = 24 stitches. But I don't want to go right to the edge in my measuring, so I add a couple more. Let's say 3 stitches of stockinette on each side. And because rolling edges are a pain, another 2 in garter stitch. That gives me 34 stitches. I knit them until they were "long enough". I'd planned to make them all the same number of rows, too. But honestly I mis-counted and it wasn't worth the effort to go back and add two more rows.
The character of the cloth changes with your gauge. On size 4 needles, this cloth is dense. I'm getting 5.75-6 stitches per inch on those needles and while "bulletproof" isn't quite what I'm going to call the fabric, it's getting close.
My swatch knit on 5s is deceptive. At first glance it has 5.5 sts/inch and a lovely, drapey character. But on closer inspection, the yarn doesn't look quite as round and fluffy as my other two swatches. Likely this is owed to the fact that I'm working with handspun, and this swatch came from a very slightly different batch of yarn. If you finger this swatch, and the next one knit on 6s, the 5s swatch actually feels thinner.
The swatch on 6s does seem slightly thicker than that on 5s, but it still has very nice character. It is opaque, and not too holey. The stitches have a very nice definition, but don't feel crammed together. And it was easy to knit. I was surprised but even with the loosest tension, knitting on 4s felt like work. On 6s, the yarn flew over the needles happily.
I do have a little more yarn left and I may attempt to get a swatch on 7s. It may be slightly smaller than the others, but who knows. It still could tell me something useful.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Winter Midnight Mitts
Here's another November leftover! This skein of yarn was spun from a lovely batt of blue fiber made by C. J. Kopec. I separated out the dark, medium and light portions and spun them in sequence and then did a great technique called "Navajo plying" which turns one strand of yarn into chains of three where the color order is preserved. This means my skein of yarn turns slowly from white to dark blue over its entire length.
Here's two of the three batts spun up and wound in preparation for knitting. This project was a SAL/KAL, which meant that everyone bought the same fiber and then knit along with each other on the same project (or rather two projects in this case, so you had a choice). I planned on making Winter Twilight Mitts (You may need a login to follow this link, I'm not certain). Rather than spin contrasting colors from these batts, I went and purchased some black mill-spun yarn (Malabrigo Sock in "Negro") to use as my second color. There's some small risk in this since the weight and twist may not match up perfectly. But I really don't like spinning black, and I wasn't sure the dark blue would contrast enough with the other two blues from this batt to make spinning both colors worth it.
The mitts are great fun to knit! It helps that I was able to take a class from my LYS on multi-color knitting. We learned about both Fair Isle knitting (stranded) and intarsia (blocks of color). In this case, the Fair Isle techniques were really handy. One great trick when knitting in the round is to turn your work inside out and knit across the back (inside) of the item, rather than the front (outside). This stretches your "floats" (the spare yarn you're not currently knitting) around a larger circumference and keeps them loose so they won't cause your knitting to pucker in odd ways.
Here's the finished mitts! I've added very long cuffs to the top. They are quite squishy and delectably soft, but the best part is that I can roll them up over my fingers so that they are more like full mittens in the cold morning weather. It makes holding onto the steering wheel of the care much more enjoyable. And then as the day warms, I just roll them right back and can operate my phone properly (which requires a bare fingertip to dial).
Finally, we have the last batt spun up. This one I did not separate and I plied with three singles together (not chain). I have around 120 yards, plus another 80 or so left over from the mitts in mini-skeins of white and dark blue. I think I will be knitting a small cowl or necklet of some sort to coordinate with the mitts and my fabulous red jacket I got for Christmas!
 |  |
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Oh, no!
Some days, things just don't work out. Despite much reading, estimating and calculating, taking into account other people's gauge and sizing.. I thought I had plenty of yarn. I should have had plenty of yarn. Almost everyone I looked into used 2.5 skeins or less to finish this sweater.
Not me! I started into the second sleeve and looked into my knitting bag and blanched at the floppy rings of yarn remaining. I pulled all that yarn out and re-wound it into smaller balls and weighed it. I knit a few rows and weighed again. I calculated in my head, and weighed it again. I knit a few more rows and... yes.. weighed it again.
I was so close. So very, very close. And yet, I knew it. I was short. Short! I was going to run out of this lovely yarn, dangit and now i had to decide... tear out some of the sleeve, or tear out some of the body... or beg online for more yarn.
I could, of course, buy another skein. I have alternated skeins through the entire project so one more new one wouldn't be the end of the world. Unfortunately, it would be another $22.50 for a very small amount of yarn to finish this dang project. Not really where I wanted to go.
I pulled out the sweater again and argued with my little remaining balls of yarn. Can you make it to the end? The yarn didn't think so. I weighed it all again, gnashed my teeth and said... sure you can! It replied, "Did you remember you have to do the garter-stitch cuff, too?" I cursed (quietly, internally, for it doesn't do for little ears to pick up on such things) and put on my best face so that certain small parties wouldn't decide that why mommy was upset was extremely interesting and start asking pointed questions. There's nothing quite like being peeved and having a four-year-old grill you as to why you're not happy.
Then I hit Ravelry. I found five people that have used this yarn in projects already (I love that feature!). I figured out that three of them have actually been active in the last couple of months. And I sent out desperate pleas for help... and I was promptly answered by all three! I love the internet community and people willing to send you their little leftovers to help you finish a project! I love that one of these three is willing to send me an entire project that never got gifted to a friend, so I might frog it and use the yarn. It's amazing and it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.
I need to go find some little warm-fuzzy things to send back as "thank you" for such wonderful generosity! I'm thinking.. chocolate.
Not me! I started into the second sleeve and looked into my knitting bag and blanched at the floppy rings of yarn remaining. I pulled all that yarn out and re-wound it into smaller balls and weighed it. I knit a few rows and weighed again. I calculated in my head, and weighed it again. I knit a few more rows and... yes.. weighed it again.
I was so close. So very, very close. And yet, I knew it. I was short. Short! I was going to run out of this lovely yarn, dangit and now i had to decide... tear out some of the sleeve, or tear out some of the body... or beg online for more yarn.
I could, of course, buy another skein. I have alternated skeins through the entire project so one more new one wouldn't be the end of the world. Unfortunately, it would be another $22.50 for a very small amount of yarn to finish this dang project. Not really where I wanted to go.
I pulled out the sweater again and argued with my little remaining balls of yarn. Can you make it to the end? The yarn didn't think so. I weighed it all again, gnashed my teeth and said... sure you can! It replied, "Did you remember you have to do the garter-stitch cuff, too?" I cursed (quietly, internally, for it doesn't do for little ears to pick up on such things) and put on my best face so that certain small parties wouldn't decide that why mommy was upset was extremely interesting and start asking pointed questions. There's nothing quite like being peeved and having a four-year-old grill you as to why you're not happy.
Then I hit Ravelry. I found five people that have used this yarn in projects already (I love that feature!). I figured out that three of them have actually been active in the last couple of months. And I sent out desperate pleas for help... and I was promptly answered by all three! I love the internet community and people willing to send you their little leftovers to help you finish a project! I love that one of these three is willing to send me an entire project that never got gifted to a friend, so I might frog it and use the yarn. It's amazing and it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.
I need to go find some little warm-fuzzy things to send back as "thank you" for such wonderful generosity! I'm thinking.. chocolate.
Friday, April 10, 2009
February Lady Sweater
Works in progress are so much fun. I found I have all sorts of great pictures, but have been too much of a slacker to blog them. So, here they are, a bit late and after the fact, but happily put together so you, kind reader, can see what I've been frantically knitting over the past couple of weeks!
My friend Andrea lit a fire under me (figuratively and I'm sure unintentionally) by making more progress than I did on her gorgeous FLS over the course of last week. I decided I was going to catch up, although probably not surpass her. I was hoping we'd both be able to wear our sweaters next Monday and get a paired picture. Wouldn't that be fun? So I set to knitting with a vengeance, and bumped up my goal of one lace repeat per day, to two repeats.
One of the things I found really interesting was the variations in color between skeins. I assumed that BMFA did they're dying in larger lots, but what most of us in this KAL have found out (because we were kind enough to share the information around) is that BMFA generally dyes two skeins at a time. That means with a three-skein project, you're sure to get one that was dyed a bit differently. In some projects, this has been painfully obvious. I opted to start striping back and forth between two skeins once I got to the lace portion of my FLS. It's a bit more work (okay, it's a LOT more work) but in the end the outcome is worth it. Pooling is much reduced and so is the obvious "argyle" pattern you can get from shaded yarns.
Because this is a cardigan knit in one piece, I didn't want to switch my skeins at the edge of my work. This would make for some obvious "floating" bits of yarn every time I switched skeins, right on the front edge of the sweater. Instead, I opted to switch at the edge of the garter-stitch border, right where it transitioned into lace. I started by twisting the two skeins together, but this didn't provide a strong enough link between the two skeins. Instead, I ended up knitting the first stitch after the switch with both strands held together. Because it was a transition from garter to lace, you can't even see the slightly thicker part where every-other-row there is one stitch held doubled. It made the join even and almost un-detectable. In fact, I dare anyone to find it without a magnifying glass.
I also did this again on the sleeves at the beginning of each round. There's a little jog there anyway, so it hides the irregularity of the stitch-weight. I'm really happy with how the sweater is turning out! It has beautiful colors that will look lovely with my wardrobe, and I have high hopes to finish in time to wear it for Easter.
My friend Andrea lit a fire under me (figuratively and I'm sure unintentionally) by making more progress than I did on her gorgeous FLS over the course of last week. I decided I was going to catch up, although probably not surpass her. I was hoping we'd both be able to wear our sweaters next Monday and get a paired picture. Wouldn't that be fun? So I set to knitting with a vengeance, and bumped up my goal of one lace repeat per day, to two repeats.
One of the things I found really interesting was the variations in color between skeins. I assumed that BMFA did they're dying in larger lots, but what most of us in this KAL have found out (because we were kind enough to share the information around) is that BMFA generally dyes two skeins at a time. That means with a three-skein project, you're sure to get one that was dyed a bit differently. In some projects, this has been painfully obvious. I opted to start striping back and forth between two skeins once I got to the lace portion of my FLS. It's a bit more work (okay, it's a LOT more work) but in the end the outcome is worth it. Pooling is much reduced and so is the obvious "argyle" pattern you can get from shaded yarns.
Monday, March 23, 2009
When you can't leave well enough alone...
The Blue Moon Fiber Arts group on Ravelry (called "Socks that Rawk", after BMFA's "Socks That Rock" yarn) has started organizing a quarterly Knit-A-Long. The idea is to take one of Ravelry's less-well-known patterns (so, no Monkeys, no Jaywalkers, nothing with 1000+ projects already done). In fact, we're trying to pick patterns that have less than 100 completed projects and give them a big old KAL boost.
Leyburns were on the high end of this (I think they already had around 400-450 projects) but that's still pretty low and they won the popular vote. Now Leyburns have 624 projects, and over 200 people signed up.
It's an interesting pattern and I've done one other sock by this designer before (both Leyburn socks and Anastasia socks can be found at pepperknit.com). I like that they are toe-up patterns, but don't like the provisional-cast-on toe (Judy Becker's "Magic Cast On" from Knitty is just as easy and much faster in my opinion). The stretched-float pattern is also fascinating and does a lot to break up the pooling that can happen with a hand-painted yarn. The Yarn Harlot did a stunning pair that was a lot of fun to read about. But I just couldn't leave the pattern alone. I tried to knit it as-written, but the toe was only the first thing to go.
After getting up to my heel, I tried working a short-row heel, but didn't like it. I tried reinforcing the short-row heel. No-go. I tried to figure out how to turn the heel with a flap and just couldn't get there in the same space as a short-row heel.. so I frogged both socks back half-way and started a gusset using Cat Bordhi's "Riverbed" architecture. This keeps all the increases down on the bottom of the foot and gives you plenty of space to keep your stitch pattern going. It also hugs your arches really nicely. But because I had knit so far on both socks already, and because my pattern had something going on every-other-row, I didn't want to deal with increases every third row as is called for by Cat. So I did them every-other row. It makes for a funny bump when the sock is laying flat, but on my foot they fit wonderfully! It also gave me plenty of stitches for a very nice reinforced heel.
After that, I looked at what everyone had already done, counted my stitches and figured I either needed to add three, or loose two stitches to make counts work out, and the pattern is purported to not have a whole lot of give in it. Because I really like socks that cling to my leg, I decided at the very least I wanted a little bit of ribbing right at the heel to keep it pulled in tight. After that, I decided to just keep the ribbing going the whole way. This gives you an interesting little problem.
The float is created when you knit one stitch, and then slip five with the yarn in front. This happens every four rows. So on the instep, you knit six rows, but on the sole you knit eight. Since things are knit in the round, this difference is evened out a bit more than it might be otherwise, but there is still obviously more fabric on the bottom of my foot than the top (this seems to make it fit even BETTER). Now that I opted to not continue the pattern all the way around the leg, suddenly the back of my leg was longer than the front! But, the ribbing is also much "stretchier" than the stretched-float pattern across the front. This distributes more of the strain to the back and effectively shortens that stretch of knitting.
These socks look bizarre when laid out flat on the floor. But once on my foot they look lovely! To finish them off I opted for a picot edge created by knitting a stretch of stockinette with one row of yo-k2tog in the middle. Fold this in half and graft and you have a lovely, sturdy picot edge that grows invisibly from the rest of the sock.
Leyburns were on the high end of this (I think they already had around 400-450 projects) but that's still pretty low and they won the popular vote. Now Leyburns have 624 projects, and over 200 people signed up.
It's an interesting pattern and I've done one other sock by this designer before (both Leyburn socks and Anastasia socks can be found at pepperknit.com). I like that they are toe-up patterns, but don't like the provisional-cast-on toe (Judy Becker's "Magic Cast On" from Knitty is just as easy and much faster in my opinion). The stretched-float pattern is also fascinating and does a lot to break up the pooling that can happen with a hand-painted yarn. The Yarn Harlot did a stunning pair that was a lot of fun to read about. But I just couldn't leave the pattern alone. I tried to knit it as-written, but the toe was only the first thing to go.
After that, I looked at what everyone had already done, counted my stitches and figured I either needed to add three, or loose two stitches to make counts work out, and the pattern is purported to not have a whole lot of give in it. Because I really like socks that cling to my leg, I decided at the very least I wanted a little bit of ribbing right at the heel to keep it pulled in tight. After that, I decided to just keep the ribbing going the whole way. This gives you an interesting little problem.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
February Lady Sweater Swatch
In between large amounts of spinning, I sat down and attempted to swatch for my February Lady Sweater.
Technically I am running a KAL that started on February 1st. I had intended to knit the entire sweater in the month of February. That is, before my marathon knitting to finish the Celtic Cardigan left my fingers exhausted, hands rubbery and arms sore. Ah, well. Even the best plans don't always work out.
Part way through the swatch I started to feel a bit rubbery again, but I pushed through to the end so that I could wash it and at least have my gauge. Half the swatch is knit on the suggested size-8 needles, and the other half is on size-9s. The 9s hit gauge spot-on, both before and after washing, so provided I don't start knitting even tighter as my hands heal up, that's what I'll be using.
The yarn is Blue Moon Fiber Arts' Socks that Rock, Heavyweight. It's billed as sock yarn, but listed on their site as worsted, rather than fingering. In garter stitch it knits up as a super-smooshy fabric with lots of bounce. I adore this colorway and think it is going to be an absolutely fantastic February Lady Sweater.
Technically I am running a KAL that started on February 1st. I had intended to knit the entire sweater in the month of February. That is, before my marathon knitting to finish the Celtic Cardigan left my fingers exhausted, hands rubbery and arms sore. Ah, well. Even the best plans don't always work out.
Part way through the swatch I started to feel a bit rubbery again, but I pushed through to the end so that I could wash it and at least have my gauge. Half the swatch is knit on the suggested size-8 needles, and the other half is on size-9s. The 9s hit gauge spot-on, both before and after washing, so provided I don't start knitting even tighter as my hands heal up, that's what I'll be using.
The yarn is Blue Moon Fiber Arts' Socks that Rock, Heavyweight. It's billed as sock yarn, but listed on their site as worsted, rather than fingering. In garter stitch it knits up as a super-smooshy fabric with lots of bounce. I adore this colorway and think it is going to be an absolutely fantastic February Lady Sweater.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)