4 posts tagged “sweater”
I feel in love with the Wicked Sweater a while ago. According to the pattern, the short sleeved version in my size could be made with three skeins of Malabrigo. Spring before last, thats right, Spring of 2008, when my LYS first really started carrying Malabrigo, I bought three skeins of the beautiful Azul Profundo colorway to make the sweater.
The Malabrigo laid idle in my stash while I spent the rest of 2008 knitting Christmas gifts and then spent the first part of 2009 catching up on the other projects in my queue while at the same time getting distracted by new exciting projects. A few weeks ago I found these great striped long-sleeved shirts at Old Navy that I thought would look fantastic under the Wicked. I bought 4 different colors of the shirts and finally busted out the yarn and pattern for the Wicked. The first thing that I do now when I start a new project is go to Ravelry and see if anyone has made the pattern in the same yarn to get an idea on how gauge ran with that yarn and how the fit was and that sort of thing. I immediately started getting nervous when I discovered that many of the people who made the sweater in the two sizes I was contemplating used more than 3 skeins of Malabrigo. Many of these folks had skipped the kangaroo pocket, but had made the sweater longer, so I was holding out hope that I would be ok.
I had a hard time deciding what size to make this sweater. My bust size hit right at the break between the medium and the large. Several folks noted that this sweater was a good fit with zero or negative ease and since I was worried about the amount of yarn I had, I went with the medium. I knit this on size 8 needles although I think now that I probably should have gone up to 9's as I was a little small on gauge. The sweater is definitely fitted. I was a little worried that it was a bit too fitted, but several friends have assured me that it looks good.
As you can see, I also skipped the kangaroo pocket. I was worried about the amount of yarn I had and I thought it was going to hit me in an awkward and unflattering spot. I wish I would have made it a little longer and even though I was tight on yarn, I would have had enough to make it a tad longer. Unfortunately at the point that I made the length decision, I still had to finish up the arms and didn't know how much yarn that would take.
In the original pattern the bottom band of the sweater is supposed to be knit in seed stitch to mirror the seed stitch border around the kangaroo pocket, but since I skipped the kangaroo pocket, I just did the bottom in the same rib as the neckline. I of course managed to screw this rib up. You are supposed to alternate the set of knit stitches that you do the crossover stitch on, so that you have a 4 row repeat in the rib, but I misread the pattern and did the crossover on the same set of knit stitches every time so that I have alternating knit stitches with the crossover and straight knit stitches in the rib. I didn't discover the error until the neckline was almost done and someone at my LYS said she thought it gave the sweater more visual interest anyway, so I just kept on knitting! I just made sure to repeat the same mistake on the rib around the bottom of the sweater and arms.
I'm not as excited about the finished product here as I was about the pattern before I knit it, but I think it will be a warm little sweater for casual weekend wear. I'm just worried that I won't ever be able to get over the fear that it's too fitted and won't be comfortable wearing it out in public.
The summer school session has left me pretty short on knitting time over the last six weeks, but I did manage to finish up a couple of projects in the last week. The first was the Shay Cap Sleeve Pullover from Valley Yarns.
This is knitted on size 6 and 8 needles using Knit Picks Comfy yarn in the Blackberry colorway. I chose the comfy yarn for it's cotton content and washability. Plus I just really love how that yarn knits up. For a nice easy sweater, I sure had a hard time with this pattern. For starters, I just did not get along with the cable in the pattern. I kept messing it up and leaving big holes in it. Plus I wanted something easily memorizable and mindless. I ripped it out and replaced it with a modified version of the diamond cable pattern from the Rose Tyler Wristwarmers. I'm really happy with how the substituted cable came out. Then I had a heck of a time getting the appropriate number of stitches picked up and the short rows done correctly on the sleeves. I had to rip each sleeve out and start over again at least three times. Finally, I couldn't quite get the ribbing around the neck right. The first time through, I left big holes around my picked up stitches and ended up with a bind-off that was so tight I could barely squeeze my head through it. I ripped it out, redid it and then used a sewn bind-off and it worked much better.
Now that it's finished, I'm not sure how I feel about this sweater. I don't wear sleeveless stuff and the little cap sleeves on this sweater are pretty close to sleeveless. A friend suggested that this would be a good sweater to wear over a long-sleeved t-shirt when the weather gets chilly. I like that idea. I might get more wear out of it that way. It's also a very snug sweater. I knit the size that would have zero ease and I was hitting pretty darn close to gauge, but it's a good thing that I lost 10 lbs between when I began knitting it and when I finished knitting it, because otherwise, I'm not sure it would have fit.
The second project that I've finished is the Broadripple Socks. These have been in the queue for a about a year, but I'm just now getting around to knitting them.
The yarn is Misty Mountain Farm Jubiliee. These aren't really my colors, but I picked this yarn up from the half price bin at my LYS last year thinking that I would use it to learn to knit socks with. Then when it was time to learn, I magically bought new yarn for my first socks, so I'm just now getting around to knitting this yarn up. I'm not sure that I love the yarn, but the pattern is great. I especially love how these are knit on size 3 needles! It makes them go so fast. I'll definitely make this pattern again, just with a yarn that I'm more in love with.
The only thing that I think I'll change next time I knit these socks will be the number of rows of the "garter ripple" stitch that make up the cuff. With as short as I make my socks, the number of rows called for in the pattern just seems like too much.
I turned in my final grades for summer school tonight, so hopefully I'll get some more knitting time in over the next few weeks. I certainly have plenty of projects on the needles to keep me busy and I was thinking about casting on for another simple sweater soon. Although there is a lot of traveling in my future, so we'll see. M. and I are headed out tomorrow for our annual summer trip to Missouri. I'm not looking forward to the 90 degree weather there. It might put a damper on my desire to knit.
My grandmother moved in with my parents this winter and is always cold at their house. My mom mentioned to me on the phone, Saturday before last that grandma had been wanting a new, springy looking sweater vest to wear, but that mom had not been able to find one for her. I immediately cast aside the boring sock yarn scarf, horrible to knit hokie socks, and tilted duster that I stalled out on 2/3's the way up the sleeves and hatched a plan to knit my grandmother a sweater vest. I headed down to the yarn shop that afternoon to buy the pattern and the yarn.
I decided on the Knitting Pure and Simple Basic Cardigan Vest for Women (pattern #995) because I thought it would be a quick knit. I chose Claudia Hand Painted Yarns Felt Me in the Strawberry Latte colorway. Grandma's favorite color is pink and this yarn just screamed Grandma S. to me. (On a side note, I asked D. if he thought the yarn screamed Grandma S., and he claimed that yarn does not speak to him the way it does to me. I think he's just in denial... or crazy. I then proceded to follow him around the house translating what the yarn was saying to me in a cartoony voice, but perhaps I'm oversharing now.) The colorway also struck me as a very Valentine-y colorway, so I got the crazy idea that I would try to knit this thing in a week and mail to grandma for Valentine's Day. I guess this is a heavy worsted weight, so I knitted the vest on size 10's. I think technically I should have used 9's, but my 9's were in the tilted duster, and I was too lazy to change them out. Plus I was already knitting the extra large and grandma likes her vests big and loose, so I figured having a larger gauge couldn't hurt. Since I didn't have her here to measure for fit, I didn't even bother doing a gauge swatch. I know, I'm terrible!
I made two basic modifications to the pattern. The original pattern had you knit up to about the top of your breastbone and then start the v-neck by decreasing one stitch every row. I don't think grandma would like that high of a neckline, so I did a little math and figured out that if I started decreasing on the same row as the bottom of the armhole and only decreased one stitch every four rows, I would hit the end of the decreases a row or two before the shoulder. That's what I did and I think it turned out very well and will be a more comfortable neckline for grandma.
The second modification was in the button band. First the pattern had you do the band around the neck first and then do a band up each side. I hate picking up stitches and just wanted to get it over with all at once, so I just picked up stitches from one hem all the way up one front, around the neck, and back down the other front to the other hem and knit one continous band. I think it looks fine since I made the neckline more gradual anyway. I also only put one button on the vest. Mom said grandma wears her vests open most of the time, and I hate sewing on buttons. I thought about not putting any buttons on it, but I thought one button would give her the ability to just fasten it loosely if she wanted. Plus I found a really beautiful button at my yarn store that was just perfect with the colors in the yarn.
The vest is packed up and ready to mail. I just have to get the box addressed and take it to the post office tomrrow. It'll be cutting it close to get there by Valentine's Day, but it's fine if it's a couple of days late. Now I have to get back to my other old, boring projects. I still need to cast back on for the jaywalker socks, but I haven't been able to bring myself to do it yet. Maybe I'll do it tomorow night.
Whew! I made it. Barely. I finished the last of my Christmas knitting before Christmas.
This project isn't actually a christmas gift, but rather a baby gift. My brother and sister-in-law are expecting their first child in January. They had a baby shower for her last fall, but I was unable to be there, you know since I live 900 miles away, so my plan was to wrap it up in baby shower wrapping paper and give it to them to open on Christmas morning. Then last Wednesday I was informed that there would be a suprise family baby shower for her after the big Christmas dinner on Sunday. I knitted as fast as I could, but I ended up having to give it to her at the shower unfinished along with a note that I would finish it up.
I was only a few rows away from being done, but I was able to finish it up on Monday morning. This is the feather and fan afghan, which I made smaller to make it baby blanket size. I was shooting for a 36" x 36" blanket, and while I forgot to measure the completed blanket, I think I got pretty close. I was a little concerned by how small it looked once it was done, but my seven year old was able to curl up small enough that it covered her, so hopefully, they will be able to get a fews years of use out of it.
This was knitted on size 8 needles with 9 skeins of Knit Picks Comfy: 3 Pomegranate, 2 Creme Brulee, 2 Planetarium, and 2 Honey Dew. The colors aren't traditional baby pastels, but R. and M. aren't finding out the sex of the baby before the birth and neither of them strike me as being big into the baby pastels. This was the first time I've knitted with the Comfy yarn, and I loved it. It's a cotton/acrylic blend and it's sooo soft. Perfect for a baby blanket. Plus, it's machine washable, which I believe is a must have when it comes to baby things.
This sweater for my daughter was my final holiday knitting project. I finished it up about midnight on the 23rd. This is the Knitting Pure and Simple child's top down ragland sweater. The original pattern had a rolled neck and no ribbing at the the end of the sleeves or the bottom of the sweater. The pattern also seemed to be sized to be a pretty baggy sweater. M. tends to prefer her clothes to be a bit fitted and I thought she would like a ribbed neckline better, so I made a size smaller on the sweater and modified the pattern to have ribbing around the neck, sleeves, hem. This was knitted on size 7 and 9 needles out of Araucania Azapa. Azapa is a merino, alpaca, silk, donegal blend, which makes for a very soft yarn, and of course, I chose her, most recent, favorite color, pink!
I am a little bit unhappy with how the sizing on this sweater came out. M. is very willowy, so while I knitted the size 2-4 to get a sweater that was nicely fitted around, she is actually longer than the dimensions for the size 6-8 sweater. I measured 5-6 of her shirts to determine how long to make the body and arms of the sweater. When I bound off the hem, I realized that I'd mis-measured and the sweater was an inch shorter than I thought. I was really worried that I had just made my 7 year old daughter a belly shirt. Thankfully, that length turned out all right. Where I ran into trouble is on the sleeves. I made them exactly to the length that I'd measured her other shirts and yet they ended up just a little too short. As I was thinking about it later, it struck me that I don't think that M. has a shirt that the sleeves aren't too short, so when I measured her current shirts, I was actually measuring a too short sleeve. I guess she inherited my dad and grandmother's extra long and arms. Anyway, hopefully she can get at least one winter of good out of it and then we can pass it down to our neice. One final picture of M. in her new sweater along with her Hokie scarf and hat that I also knitted her for Christmas.
I hope everyone had a fun and relaxing Christmas!
