LK Knits

So I just said that I don't do knit-alongs, which is why it's taken me two years to get around to knitting a Rogue hoodie. I am a texture knitter more than a color knitter, so I love Celtic motifs, cables, arans, ganseys, ... and this sweater was a slam-dunk-you-better-believe-I'm-making-this sweater. Problem is, between my backlogged pipeline and my stash, it took me two years to get to it!

I am making it in the discontinued Rowan Silken Tweed, in the color Plum. I bought this yarn back in 1999, and I was going to make a boxy pullover from a Rowan Tweed book. I got about 3 balls into it and frogged it, because I figured it would swallow me. Then the yarn sat in the stash for five years until I found Rogue, and that is what the Silken Tweed wanted to be.

I am up to having to sew the shoulder seams and start on the hood, which I know is the tricky part of this pattern. Up to now it's been a fun knit; just enough interest with the Celtic knots to be engaging, but enough stockinette to be compatible with relaxation and tv watching. But now I'm at the attention to detail point.

I hope to finish this by early January, because it's the perfect sweater for my winter and early spring 2007. I have a sabbatical and a book contract, so I am going to want clothing to make me cozy and to make me want to write! It also won't hurt if Rogue also makes me feel creative.

Today is the start of Arcadia's Ariann knit-along, but I was at a good resting point on the Rogue and so I started about five days ago:

Berroco Ultra Alpaca is a soothing, fun yarn to work with, and it has an elegant drape that will make this sweater look very polished. The eyelet pattern is easy to remember and fun to work. The pattern calls for two repeats of the two-row eyelet pattern after the ribbing and before beginning the waist shaping, but I did three repeats because I am long-waisted. Right now I'm halfway through the waist decreases, so haven't gotten to the buttonhole yet.

Since New Year's it's been little things to counter the intense focus required to finish the Rogue hoodie on time. As it happens, two of my dearest friends are having babies; one has already done so, in Scotland, and another is about to do so in Baltimore. This means baby hats!

Sadly, I forgot to take a picture of the hat for Master Robert before I sent it off to Scotland; it's a little ribbed watch cap with dark slate blue Rowan All Seasons Cotton edging and GGH Samoa in pale green for the rest. It's the cutest little hat I've ever made.

This is the hat for the other new baby, a soon-to-arrive girl:

The yarn is K1C2 Fleece, and I really like the tangerine color. I have two big balls of this, so I will make more baby gear with it.

I also succumbed to the lure of lobster-pot-dyed cashmere; I am such a sucker for green, and cashmere to boot! I blame Nancy for it; she is the Textbook Enabler.

[cross-posted from Knowledge Problem]

There's this really great outfit called Blue Moon Fiber Arts that makes some of the most gorgeous hand-dyed yarn for knitting that you can imagine; gorgeous yarn born out of the vision of one woman. I bought my first Blue Moon yarn, a variegated rayon in amazing shades of olive, a year and a half ago at Knit Purl in Portland, Oregon (a very nice and friendly store). Over the past year, lots of knitters around the world have fallen under the power of Socks that Rock, variegated sock yarn from Blue Moon. Indeed, I myself have a large skein of Socks that Rock, in the Cobblestone Country colorway. As soon as I'm done with the bamboo socks I'm making for the KP Spouse, I'll be making these for myself.

Blue Moon runs a Rockin' Sock Club in which you can sign up to receive a bi-monthly fix of Socks that Rock yarn for a year, among other goodies. Like so many other hobbies that appeal to fetishists, things like this sock club for this coveted yarn produced a frenzy, so much so that ... Blue Moon's bank closed its accounts and refunded all of the money to sock club members because they were convinced that Blue Moon was running a scam!

Is this the Patriot Act and the Bank Secrecy Act run amok, or just incompetent bank implementation of said regulation? It is certainly poor customer service!

For the Reader's Digest condensed version check out this Yarn Harlot post and this post at January One. Just to give you a sense of how big a frenzy this yarn/club have produced, note the almost 200 comments on the Yarn Harlot post about the "scam".

Note also Mr. Dubner's notes on this event at Freakonomics. His wife's been bitten by the bug too; will we soon be reading Freakonomics posts about how comfortable his homemade socks are? And he does comment that

Levitt’s sister runs Yarnzilla, an online and brick-and-mortar knitting emporium; and my wife has recently become a knitting zealot enthusiast. (I am always intrigued that so many people have embraced menial tasks — knitting, cooking, gardening, e.g. — as high-end hobbies, but that is a whole ‘nother story.)

I'd like to read that post, please, because it intrigues me too.

I am such a sucker for a big, thick turtleneck, especially when the weather is as cold as it has been lately. I would wear a big, cozy turtleneck every day of my life if I could, and I have been wearing all of my handmade and store-bought ones during this cold snap. So the timing of my order of Beaverslide 100% Montana wool in Mountain Mahogany was propitious! It's an aran weight yarn, and very thick and lanolin-y; the gauge is 4 st/inch but I am getting 3.5 st/inch on size 10.5 needles and it looks great and knits up fast. It's a delightful yarn, and on sale I got 5 skeins for under $34. Leanne provides great customer service, and the story of the ranch and sheep that she and her husband have is great.

I'm using it to make a top-down funnelneck raglan 4x4 rib; the pattern is my own, but is loosely based on the Patons Upside-Downers top-down pattern book; I am using it to check my math.

Here's the progress I've made in the week since the yarn arrived:

It just needs about another 9" of body and a couple of sleeves, and then it's done. I hope to have this sweater done in another week, so that I'll get some wear out of it before the weather warms up!

I finished Ariann over President's Day weekend:

I love how it looks, I love the shaping, I love the yarn. I love that I taught myself how to crochet a chain for the belt! Baby steps on the crochet front ...

It's honestly not as flattering a fit on me as I would like, although I think it's flattering enough, and it's certainly comfortable:

If I did it over I would make the armholes one inch shallower. Although I have a long back-waist length for someone who's 5'3", I am short from chest to shoulder. Shirts routinely fit better if I have an inch removed; I only ever bother to do it with strappy dresses. But that's the big lesson I am taking from this pattern: pay attention to armhole length, and consider shortening it.

But I love it!

I actually finished this sweater before I finished Ariann, but haven't had time to take photos:

This is the top-down 4x4 ribbed funnelneck that I wrote about in early February. The Beaverslide wool is deliciously wooly and lanoliny. I've been wearing this sweater quite a bit in the past two weeks, particularly on days that it's cold and I don't want to leave the house! It certainly keeps the chill out.

I'm also happy with the fit. My husband is forever teasing me about my sleeves being too short, my sweater length being too short, and my turtleneck being too long. This sweater has none of those problems (I like my sleeves a little short!).

The only thing I'd change in these top-down funnelnecks is that I'd like some way to do front neck shaping. Intellectually I know there's a way to do it with short rows, but I haven't thought through how one would do short rows in a top-down sweater in the round. Or perhaps neck-centered decreases every other row for about 4 repeats? Just enough to take out that little buckle of fabric that sits against the clavicle.

By contrast, here's a more mindless but still engaging WIP:

It's the reversible cable scarf from the aforementioned Cables Untangled by Melissa Leapman. Great, straightforward pattern. The yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted in the colorway Mother Lode. Just look at the sheen and stitch definition!

I am about to sit on a plane to Las Vegas for 3 hours and I intend to work on this almost the whole time. Might be done when I get home from my trip ...

Finished the reversible cable scarf (and a hat with the leftover yarn), so now the only WIPs are a pair of Jaywalker socks in Socks That Rock and this sweater:

Pattern: Poker, from Jaeger JM05
Yarn: Karabella Magrite, in a delicious off-black.

The pattern is great; the look is very Audrey/Jackie retro, and should go well with the light grey wide-leg trousers I just bought for spring! I love the standup turtleneck, and I hope I can replicate that look here. The textured zig-zag is almost rhythmic once you do a few repeats, and it's easy to catch errors in progress. The rolled hems keep it from being too stuffy, but it's still dressy enough (especially in a merino/cashmere blend!) for a variety of settings. The 3/4 sleeve is, of course, perfect.

This yarn is decadent, and I've been wanting to make this sweater for years. It took making a yarn inventory spreadsheet and spending a morning going through my pattern books with the spreadsheet open to see that I had a perfect yarn in my stash for the project! The benefits of organization ...

Of course, as is my wont, I've modified the pattern in several ways:

1. Body knit in the round

I like knitting in the round, both bottom-up and top-down. Notwithstanding how Bonne Marie rhapsodizes about mattress stitching, I don't enjoy it. It is fast and easy, but I'd rather just knit and incorporate shaping etc. with decreases and short rows.

2. Sleeves knit flat, but then attached to body at arm decreases

In making the Ariann I was uncomfortable with how stressed the sleeve stitches were when I attached the knit-in-the-round sleeves to the body to knit the yoke. The first few rows really bothered me, although of course they turned out fine. But I thought on this one that I would knit the sleeves flat (which also enabled me to knit them in parallel, since I only have one set of size 8 dpns!). That will mean some mattress stitching on the sleeves in addition to sewing up the underarm armholes, but I think it's worth it to avoid the stress I felt like I was putting on the stitches.

3. Knit yoke in the round

I really like this technique; I like raglan shaping, and I like knitting in the round, so this works well for me.

4. Shortening the armholes

As I mentioned with the Ariann, I am about an inch shorter than average from chest to shoulder. This means with raglan shaping that I have to redo the math for the decreases. Thus far I did a couple of rows of double decreases right under the arm (after doing the 5-stitch bind off on each side that the pattern required), then about 10 rows of single decreases on each row, and now I'm doing single decreases every other row. I figure that I have about 14-16 more rows on the yoke to get to the right measurement, and I should just about hit the decreases correctly.

Should be finished soon ...

I've had some questions from knitting friends, and Carson was kind enough to leave a comment on my post about my Beaverslide top-down funnelneck asking about how it feels against the skin.

The particular Beaverslide yarn I used is the 100% wool aran weight (16 st/4") yarn. Honestly, it's a bit scratchy, but I love that. I love the feel of scratchy-but-not-too scratchy yarn against my skin, and this yarn is a little scratchy but not too scratchy. I tend to wear a short-sleeved t-shirt under the sweater. My husband, however, can't even touch the stuff because he's a fragile flower...

I have not washed it yet in Eucalan, which may soften it some.

In the same order I bought 90% merino/10% mohair in Huckleberry Heather, which is worsted weight and a gorgeous blue color! It's also considerably softer than the 100% wool.

But I love them both.

OK, is this Berroco Keltic a new yarn? Because if it's been around I would have noticed it before!

This stuff is gorgeous. May have to break the stash moratorium ...

On a recent transatlantic plane flight I made substantial progress on the Branching Out lace scarf:

Interestingly, I find that it's easier for me to knit this pattern from instructions instead of from a chart; usually I'm a visual person, but for some reason the chart slows me down. I wonder if it'll be that way for me for lace in general.

The yarn, Rowan Kidsilk Haze, is of course a joy to work. In fact, when I was in London I almost bought more to make more scarves like this one and Ene's shawl from Shawl Style, because Liberty had the yarn in more colors than I've ever seen before. But the exchange rate is so appalling that I couldn't justify it.

When I was at The Yarn Lounge last weekend, I bought some O-Wool Balance, an organic yarn that's half merino wool, half cotton. All organic, for what that's worth.

It's got a nice hand, and the colors are very rich. The texture is a bit tweedy. Should make a nice, versatile garment.

I bought enough to make a Ribby Cardi, green body and orange sleeves. I'm tempted to stripe the cuffs and the bottom ribbing, but I haven't decided yet.

What else would a knitter get as a souvenir of a trip to Iceland?

We arrived Thursday morning, checked in to the hotel, and proceeded to walk around Reykjavik. Most shops and cafés don't open until 10, so we were kind of strolling slowly until we could get a coffee. I knew at some point in the trip that I would have to get yarn, and I knew where to go, but imagine my surprise when we strolled right up to the Handknitting Association of Iceland and its main store. And it was open!

The yarn was gorgeous, and unlike everything else in Iceland, it was a bargain relative to its price in the U.S. I think that for the yarn and the pattern book in the picture I paid $65 tax free. I can't wait to get started on the sweater! The blue is obviously the main color; the cream will be the cream in the picture, and the aqua, gray, and burgundy are the contrast colors in the yoke. The green and purple yarn off to the right is going to mix in with the leftovers from the sweater to make mittens, hats, whatever I have enough yarn to do. I'm so excited to have an actual Icelandic project, actually from Iceland!

OK, I must really like this yarn and pattern to dive in this quickly:

That is the body and most of the first sleeve of the lopi sweater using the yarn and pattern I bought in Iceland. And I've only been home a week!

This progress is due to two things: I was a bachelorette during the week last week, so I spent more evening time by myself watching movies than usual. But more significantly, and less healthily, I absolutely use knitting as workcrastination. The bigger the task, the more I workcrastinate; thus having a book manuscript deadline of August 31 means I have knit a LOT since January! This is why I loaned my copy of Melissa Leapman's Cables Untangled to a girlfriend back in February: no cables for me until I finish the book! But then this lopi thing happened ...

I'm just whining a little to get it off my chest and alleviate the guilt. The writing will get done; indeed, it was mostly done even before I "officially" started writing in January. But it's the knitting it all together (pun intended) that is the hard, and intellectually rewarding, stage I'm at now.

But the knitting gratification comes more quickly ...

Mid-July saw a knitting hiatus on the lopi sweater because it was just too dang humid, but about a week and a half ago I finished it:

And a closeup of the yoke:

I loved working on this sweater; two-color stranding is fun, the yarn is wonderfully woolly and lofty, and the yoke decrease technique is particularly gratifying. The other detail of this pattern that I particularly like is the picot edge on the neckband. I have a tendency to bind off too tightly on neck edges, so the picot edge mitigates some of that.

I still have to weave in all of those ends ... but it's about 85 degrees here, so there's no rush, because I won't be able to wear it for a couple of months!

And I have lots of yarn left over for mittens and hats!

I love this Socks That Rock colorway, Cobblestone Country, which I bought about two years ago. Initially I made one Jaywalker sock, but the challenge I found with STR and the Jaywalker pattern is that STR has no nylon, and Jaywalker has no ribbing, so I had to fight to get it on my foot.

So I frogged it, and am in the middle of Retro Rib socks from the Favorite Socks book:

This is a very nice sock pattern; can't wait to wear them!

There's even a Favorite Socks knitalong and blog, that perhaps I should join; I think there are more patterns in here in my future!

One sock down, one to go:

The pattern is Retro Rib Socks from the book Favorite Socks (sock patterns from Interweave Knits). It's an easy pattern, but it is not entirely brainless.

The yarn is Socks That Rock from Blue Moon Fiber Arts, in the now-discontinued Cobblestone Country colorway. I love the colors, and I love working with the yarn. These socks will be pure joy. Now all I have to do is finish the second one ...

Last week my friend Nancy was in from out of town, and we went on our annual yarn crawl. This time we went to Chix With Stix in Forest Park. I love it there, and don't make it there as often as I'd like since Forest Park is kind of out of the way for me. Sadly, though, Howie the dog was taking the day off and was not there ...

They were unpacking a big box of Colinette Jitterbug, which I bought in a very yummy color called "Velvet Leaf". It's shades of subtly variegated olive green, and the sheen of the yarn was just amazing.

I've never bought Jitterbug before, but I am really looking forward to a nifty pair of socks out of this. Perhaps a pair of Monkey Socks?

I should knit down my WIPs before I start thinking about another pair of socks, though, no matter how tempting the yarn is!

Another finished object:

For my friend Amy, using the pattern from Kim at Yarn Abuse. The yarn is Malabrigo merino in yummy sea-themed shades. Perfect for this chilly weather.

Haven't touched either Fife or Cece since November.

Have made some progress on the sleeves and yoke of the Sitcom Chic cardi:

Have frogged my old Lobster Pot cashmere beanie and am in the middle of turning it into a neckwarmer:

And, have finally cast on for a Central Park hoodie, for a knitalong with Knitress:

The yarn is Beaverslide 90% merino 10% mohair in Huckleberry Heather. This yarn choice is a shameless copy of Cara at January one. Like Cara, I'll knit fronts and back all at once, but I'm leaving in the seam stitches and knitting the smallest size, because the second smallest size is a little big for me. Interestingly, she got gauge on size 9 needles and I got it on size 10 needles, which just shows how tight a knitter I am (and I don't pull on my stitches or anything!). Unlike Cara, I didn't necessarily plan out how the ribbing will flow into the cables at the end of the ribbing band, so I may have some futzing to do in a couple of inches ...

I also think that I will not bother to put on buttonholes and buttons; I never bother to button cardigans anyway, generally, and this is meant to be a kicky casual hoodie. So why bother?

Knit on!

Coming along, coming along ...

I wish I could get my no-flash-to-highlight-cables pictures to be less blurry ... In any case, I am loving this Beaverslide yarn! The texture is wonderful, the color is gorgeous, and it just smells so wonderfully woolly!

The CPH pattern is straightforward, and I am enjoying the symmetry of the cables. I have about another inch or two before I separate for the armholes.

I won't be working on the sweater much in the next couple of weeks, between travel and moving back into our renovated house (yay!), but it will get my serious attention in April!

My Retro Rib socks in Socks That Rock (Cobblestone Country colorway) have been getting a little loving lately too:

I am to the point where I am ready to start the heel flap. I know lots of folks don't like the heel flap and ankle part of socks, but I love it! I particularly love doing the decreases to get the curve of the ankle. Just beautiful.

I have not kept up with Knitress in the CPH knit along; she is almost done, and I'm just at the beginning of the first sleeve. Oh well! But I like how it's coming along, even if the progress is slow.

I love turning heels and knitting the gusset decreases. This is my favorite part of knitting a sock, especially on the second sock, where I just want it DONE!

Last weekend I went to Maryland Sheep & Wool for the first time, and it's just as overwhelming as everyone says. I was very disciplined and only bought yarn for three projects:

1. Peace Fleece worsted in Samantha-Katya Pink to make a Norah Gaughan Swirled Pentagon Pullover

2. Brooks Farm Solana in a yummy variegated green, to make an as-yet-undetermined aran, cable, Celtic sweater of some sort

3. Brooks Farm Willow, a fabulous wool/bamboo blend, to make a French Girl Fifi pullover.

I went into complete ecstatic oblivion at Brooks Farm. I made a beeline for the green Solana; it grabbed me by the throat and thrust itself into my arms. How could I resist? Seriously, this stuff is amazing, both in color and texture:

The first thing I did when we got back to Knitress' house was to wind it and swatch it with different needle sizes. This stuff is fabulous, absolutely the bee's knees!

As soon as I got off the plane from Maryland Sheep & Wool I wound the Brooks Farm Willow and cast on for Fifi:

It's a cabled yarn, wool/bamboo blend, in variegated gray-blue and lilac. The bamboo and the cable construction give the yarn good structure, and I am really enjoying working with it. It's also going to make for a lighter feeling garment that breathes, which is good for this project because it's a short-sleeved summery sweater.

And then there's the pattern ... I'm such a sucker for the combination of top-down construction and cables. This is my second French Girl pattern; I liked the Fantine (which I strangely forgot to blog about ... will have to remedy that!), which also has that top-down construction. Fifi, though, is in a smaller gauge (worsted) and has cables.

So far, so good; it's going pretty quickly, so I hope to be able to wear it before long!

Fifi is coming along at a nice pace:

I'm beyond the cable section at the top, and about one-fourth of the way through the bodice ribbing section. It's a nice 8-row repeat. I think I'll make it longer than the pattern calls for; I have a long torso, and I don't want it to be as cropped as in the pattern.

The Brooks Farm Willow yarn continues to be a joy to work, and the colors are gorgeous!

Should be ready for summer wear soon!

And she's going to the Bay Area with me this weekend!

Great pattern, great yarn, great sweater. The colors are doing a strange pooling in the torso, but it doesn't really bother me. The top-down construction meant that I had only four ends to weave in, so it's ready to wear!

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.

I started Nikol Lohr's Woodland Shawl on the plane on the way home from England last week:

I'm using Malabrigo Lace, in Azul Profundo, and it's gorgeous. The pattern is easy to remember, which I appreciate, because I am not enough of a lace aficionado to be interested in a deeply intricate pattern. I think this pattern will show the beautiful yarn off to perfection!