Claudia’s Cardy

Finally I have something to blog about. I’ve finished my friend’s cardigan after having re-knit the front panels and finishing the sleeves. Mark this date down in your books folks, because something amazing happened. Not only did the rest of the knitting go well, but sewing up the side seams and the setting the sleeves in was a breeze. Yes, you heard me correctly, a breeze. It all went just like it was supposed to. The seams are all even with little to no stretching/adjustments to make them fit, the sleeves fit more or less perfectly and sewed in well with no puckering, the buttons went on smoothly and fit like they are supposed to and the overall effect is really nice. I’m really happy with the finished product. Yay!

Now for the bonus, it actually fits the recipient. Not just sort of, but really perfectly. Like it was made for her. OK, it was made for her, but she sent me her measurements by e-mail and never tried any of it on while I was knitting. I had been quite uncertain since the size was given as just a little bigger than her measurements with the next size being a whole lot bigger, thus leaving it out of the question. I tried for a little more ease in the gauge, which usually goes horribly wrong (see my cardi), but this time it all actually came together as it should. Amazing. Maybe I can knit sweaters after all! This would be good as I’m about to venture into knitting the Byzantine Bazic, but I’ll get to that later. Anyway, my friend was thrilled with it and wore it to her latest job interview because it looks so good on her. The only negative, if you can call it that, is that the whole sweater only took half the yarn I had planned on which means I have 13 skeins of this yarn left and it’s not a colour many people like. Ah well, I’ll figure something out.

In the meantime, I test knit a new pattern for the lovely Yarnerinas and it too, turned out well. It’s called the 55 Hugs and Kisses hat. I used the same yarn I used for my own cardigan, the Drops Paris Cotton, which means it’s lovely and soft and comfortable and good for a child in California (one Christmas pressie down!). The pattern was well written and I can recommend it for anyone, but especially those knitting earflaps for the first time. Keep checking the Yarnerinas for release. I’ll try and let you know when they publish it.

Finally, I’m making another attempt at starting my Byzantine Bazic. I really would have liked to have this sweater for this winter, but the needs of said friend were higher what with her unforeseen job loss, unforeseen major back surgery and unforeseen major brain surgery, she really needed a pick me up. So, I started looking at the pattern again and realized part of the problem the first time around is that the charts are just too small. I’d be kind of ticked if I were the designer (Kathy Zimmerman) because if I weren’t determined to do this sweater, the difficulty in deciphering the symbols would have put me off. Even with my glasses I couldn’t decipher it and zooming in with the copier or digital methods didn’t help since it just became grainy and the symbols are all too closely related to tell them apart. Fortunately, I had the time to re-create the graph in Excel myself, so I can now print it out and read it without eye strain and guesswork. I need to proof the graphs now and then I can get started, with luck at the weekend. I may, or mayn’t, skip the gauge swatch on this one and just start. The given gauge is for the cable panels which basically take up the whole sweater; ergo knitting the whole thing is really the only way to get an accurate gauge. I’d wish she had knit a plain swatch with the same needles and same yarn to give us an idea if we’re on the right path or not without having to knit half the sweater first. However, she didn’t, so I may just guess and go for it.

In the meantime, I’m tiding myself over with the Winterbourne Scarf done in a 60% cotton 40% microfiber mix (dark blue because I’m boring). It’s nice and soft and will hopefully provide me with a good alternative to my Falling Water Scarf which is getting a bit tatty. I do still love my Scarf of Non-Doom, but it’s too thick for the coming spring, so I’ll need the Winterbourne to tide me over.

The Cardy Saga

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged, but I kept thinking, “oh, I’ll wait until I get the next bit done and I have something more interesting to say”. I think this is called procrastination with a tinge of denial. Although I did book blog in the meantime, so I’m not that bad.

I’ve been working on my Drops Knitted Cardy. All in all, it should have been fairly straight forward, and really it was. After agonizing about the size and gauge, as per usual, I finally picked one, ordered my yarn and started knitting. The back went well, the sleeves went well, the first front went well, then things went down hill. I have to admit not all of it had to do with gauge, knitting ability etc. Unfortunately my older Dane, T, was diagnosed with bone cancer last week. Being upset, I thought I’d go home and knit to calm me down, only I should have chosen to knit a plain sock and not the cardigan. I think I must have knit the same 20 rows about 4 times. It was a complicated bit with decreases in two places, a double knit row at the edge a button hole and cables and I’d either forget one or the other, or then think I forgot one or the other and rip out only to notice I’d done it right the first time. It was a bit of a mess. Never knit complicated stuff when you’re upset. I should have known this. Now I just wonder if I’ve learned my lesson. Maybe I should just knit garter stitch scarves for the next few months and save myself the bother.

Anyway, after finally getting through the second front bit and wondering why all was going so swimmingly, I notice that I forgot to make the stitch before the edge stitches on the other front piece garter stitch. Fortunately I was able to just open up the cast off, frog one row, drop the stitch down to where I should have started the garter and pick them up properly. This went surprisingly well. I still can’t get over not having to frog the whole bit. After that, I sewed the pieces together – again this went deceptively well – only to find that despite having gone that extra mile with my swatch and having chosen a size that should have just barely fit me because I knew the cotton yarn would get wider, it was still too big. Much too big. In the immortal words of a co-worker,

“You could be 35 months pregnant and still fit into this sweater”.

For some reason, my gauge had gotten much tighter as I knit, leaving the bottom quite wide. The middle part of the sweater was roomy, but acceptably so. It looked a bit like a bell bottomed sweater. I’m sure a model would have pulled it off as a fashion statement, but it just made me look like a pregnant hippo with a conical baby.

Funnily enough, I wasn’t devastated (my devastation has all gone into the dog). I just looked for a way to fix it. We discussed this at work - with my boss looking on and shaking his head as four women stared at a sweater and hemmed and hawed for about half an hour - and finally decided I should just try pulling the sides apart and hemming them in a bit (since I can’t do steeks). Sooooo, I went home that night, pulled the sides out – for all of my fear that my ends will come out and the sweater will unravel, it took me three times as long to pull the seams apart as it did to sew them up. I re-sewed them, gradually increasing the intake and thus making the sweater narrower and straighter. The hem looks great outside although a bit wonky inside. However, I’m betting very few people will be asking me to take it off so they can inspect the inside seam. I will probably whip stitch that bit down too, so it doesn’t roll inside the sweater and make it even bulkier, so even if they did, it will at least look tidy.


It’s still quite roomy, but I can live with that. I actually wanted it that way. It was generally agreed by my co-workers and moi-même that it’s really pretty and nice and soft and lovely and now I can’t wait for it to get colder so I can wear it. I love this sweater, despite its roominess. Love it. The only down side is that if I ever manage to loose any weight, I might still have to look for that pregnant hippo to pass it along to.

For those wondering about the dog, T is still fine at the moment. He doesn’t seem to be in any pain at all, he just has a tumour on his leg. I will eventually have to start giving him pain killers, but at the moment, he’s still fine without them. Well enough even to pilfer and devour a half a kilo of dried tripe while I was at work one day this week. The sympathy factor served him well that day. Any other time I would have throttled him.

Quickie

Just so you know I'm not dead and that knitting goes on, I'm still working on my Drops Jacket and am loving it. It's so fun to knit the cables and the yarn (Drops Paris) is nice and lovely and soft and I like to just sit and stroke it ocassionally. That doesn't help my knitting speed of course, but it's still a nice fabric. I can't wait to be able to wear it *insert prayer that it fits when finished here*.

I won't bore you with pictures of the stockinet back and sleeves. These are just the interesting bits:

I'm also still working on the Shallow Sharks, which are nice and lovely, but will be a Christmas pressie (Grandma is cleaning up this year) so they still have time.

My next project (also for Grandma) will be the Every Way Wrap. I don't know what colour it will be, but I'll be using the Drops Paris again. It's a good yarn and I need cotton for California whether or she'll not be able to use it more than once a year. I'm looking forward to knitting this one too. So many cool things to knit, so little time...

New Project

Having finished Grandma's Funky socks and then the really ugly cat blanket, which the cat adores (this is her literally 20 seconds after cast off), I had to decide what to do next, so I came up with this: Drops Knitted Cabled Cardigan Ravelry. It's a simple sweater, but has cables, which is why I like it. It's perfect for me and I'm looking forward to wearing it. I have, however, as per usual, changed things a bit. I'm using Drops Paris 100% cotton wool in colour #48 instead of the Karisma and have changed the hem to a plain hem instead of the ribbing - since cotton doesn't really do well in ribbing - and took out the shaping. It's turning into a fairly boring knit for the moment as I'm working on the nearly all stockinette stitch back, but it's coming along quickly and I like the fabric that's coming out of the knitting. It's soft and purty and that's just what I wanted.

I'm also working on the next pair of socks for Grandma (she's getting 4 pair for Christmas). It's the Shark Infested Waters (Rav Link) pattern done in Spruce KP Essentials Kettle Dyed. I'm quite pleased with the way these look, so hopefully grandma will be too.

Finally, I'd like to apologize for not commenting much lately. Not only have I been busy, but they've now blocked all blogging and forum sites at work, so I can no longer read blogs during my breaks. I'm also not always motivated to turn the computer on at home again after having been on it for 10 hours at work already, thus, fewer posts and fewer comments. Sorry. I do try and get them all read though. Still like reading a lot.

Hope you're all having a nice summer!