LK Knits

I absolutely adore Brooklyn Tweed. Jared has a wonderful eye for color and composition, and he and I share tastes in yarn and in cables and arans (although he's willing to work at a smaller gauge than I am!).

Earlier this week he wrote an enormously informative and useful tutorial on swatching an aran sweater, including picking stitch patterns that go together. His swatch is stunning, and the stitch patterns are beautiful. This one goes over in the knitting technique column!

Now that I've finished my lopi, it's on to the next non-sock project: Fife, from the Rowan book A Season's Tale.

For once I'm even using the yarn called for in the pattern, Rowanspun DK. I bought this book in 2001 or 2002, shortly after it was published, and I've wanted to make this sweater from the get-go. I bought the yarn on a trip to London, probably in 2002, and it's been sitting in the stash, waiting patiently. In part it's had to wait for me to get patient enough to do a 21 st./4 in. pattern!

We are about to embark on a drive to and from the Boundary Waters, a 12-hour drive each way, so this is the perfect car project for me. Cables and raglan, my favorite!

The long drive to and from Minnesota created opportunities to work on Fife:

The horseshoe cable down the front is really fun, and the branching diagonal ribs are also great. I love the algorithm of this pattern; it's so intuitive that I don't even have to read the pattern.

I am going to make some modifications that I'll discuss as I do them; in particular, I'm going to do the back, front, and sleeves flat and then joint them to do the raglan yoke in the round. But for now, it's just increases up to the armholes on the back ...

So I've finished the back of Fife up to the armholes, put it on a holder, and started the front. As I mentioned previously, I'm going to knit everything up to the armholes and then do the yoke in the round. Much better than seaming pieces together!

But I do have one technical thing to figure out: the neck shaping. Do I do short-row neck shaping? If so, how? Otherwise, I can do the neck decreases as if I were knitting it flat. But this will require some thought and planning.

Of course, I've still got most of a front and two sleeves to go before I have to worry about that, so it'll be a while ...

Making progress on the front of Fife:

Even so, it's at the point where it's still drudge knitting. I'll be glad when I get to work on the yoke!

Made some progress on Fife on the drive to and from Christmas:

I'm ready for it to be done, though. Sadly, that sentiment seems to apply to most of the projects in my life right now -- house renovation, book, sweater ... but at least on this one the join at the armhole to do the yoke is in sight!

I've returned to my CPH this week, and just finished the right sleeve:

One sleeve, one hood, one border with buttonholes left! I look forward to wearing it as the weather cools in October.

My Brooks Farm Solana that I bought at Maryland Sheep and Wool has decided what it wants to be: Wisteria, by Kate Gilbert, in the first issue of Twist Collective. It's a lovely, organic, top-down cable yoke turtleneck, just the thing that I crave. I've got about 16 more rows to finish in the cable yoke pattern:

Love, love, love the pattern and the yarn. I am a little nervous that I won't have enough yarn, but so far, so good.