Tag Archives: romney

FO: garter yoke cardigan.

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At long last, I sewed the buttons onto my garter yoke cardigan. I tried it on after the first four, just to make sure I liked the look of these buttons (which may or may not have cost me more than the Cascade 220 part of the sweater). I decided to do this late last night, so the pictures are less than awesome, thanks to the overhead lights in my apartment, but I think you’ll still get the idea.

I love this, and I’m especially glad that I knit this alongside Mick and Laura! I decided not to block my GYC, at least not yet, mostly because I am anxious that it will grow, and I don’t want it to get wider or longer. (Also, I’m lazy.) I’ll block it eventually… I’m still working on sizing sweaters, and I think I need to trust the idea of negative ease just a bit more, as I tend to knit my sweaters a little too big. That said, I’m very happy with this sweater, and I expect it will get quite a bit of wear!

Details:

Garter Yoke Cardigan, size 38, with a handspun yoke (out of 144 yards of Hello Yarn romney in Alpine) and a Cascade 220 body (814 yards).

I knit the yoke and sleeves on size 6 needles and knit the body on 7s, and I shortened the sleeves to 3/4 length.

Here’s an outtake — despite the blurriness and awkward angle, I like this one:

Hooray!

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sweet sweater ISO right buttons to share…

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…early morning cups of coffee,  stretches of reading and writing, long walks in the woods. Must be cute and functional, should be comfortable with handspun and commercial yarn, and available for the life of the sweater. Casual closures need not apply.

I’m heading to one of the local knitting shops today to pick up some test-knitting (I’ll ask if I can blog about it), so I really wanted to finish the second sleeve on my garter yoke cardigan in order to look for buttons! (Serious inquiries only, of course.) I do have more of the matte grey buttons that I used for my bracken vest, and I think those might be a good option, but I want to see what else is out there before I commit.

In tidying up my yarn corner (also known as the explosion of knitting projects near the base of the couch), I realized that I have more than 3 skeins of cascade 220 leftover from knitting this project, which means this was a super affordable sweater: just over 3.5 skeins of cascade 220, plus part of a skein of handspun for the yoke! I bet I have enough to make another. (Whoa there, rooster.)

in which cute snoring trumps knitting.

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[Lots of Boh pictures today, folks, and minimal knitting. Oops.]

ready for waist shaping

I managed to knit a few more inches to the next buttonhole yesterday, which means it is time to begin the waist shaping. I do think I’m feeling even healthier today, which means I can no longer justify the knitting to reading and writing ratio I’ve been employing over the last few days. (On the whole, a good thing!)

Now, onward to that ridiculous dog.

adorabledog1

adorabledog2

(Note that my 28-thirty features prominently in this particular photo. I intend to wear it today as well, as it really does add just the right amount of warmth on these overcast, windy days.)

adorable dog3

The snoring was particularly loud, due, I think, to the fact that Boh’s face and feet are propped up against the back of the couch.

adorabledog4

Are you taking my picture again? Really? Come on.

adorable dog6

Well, fine. Take all the pictures you want. I’m ignoring you. See? My eyes are closed and I’m making my silly snoring sound again. (Note that back ear.)

We hope you’ve enjoyed this Boh interlude. We’re back to our regularly scheduled Wednesday — which will require a second cup of coffee.

you gotta keep ’em separated.

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gyc sleeves divided

My sense of humor is returning, which makes me hopeful that I’ll be back to my usual (healthy) self today. A few weekends ago, I was having a conversation with my officemate about The Offspring. (He LOVED them, and even seemed a bit nostalgic for the days when they were on the radio all the time.) Thus, the title of today’s post. I sat down to think of a way to indicate that I had finished the raglan increases and divided the sleeves from the body on my garter yoke cardigan, and The Offspring came to mind.

gyc sleeves divided2

I know you can’t tell from the photo, but I’m thrilled with the fit so far. I was too lazy to put this on scrap yarn, so it is still on a slightly too small circular.

gyc sleeves divided3

gyc sleeves divided4

When I joined the Cascade 220 and began working the raglan increases, I have to tell you that I had some doubts about my color choices — I just wasn’t sure that this brown was the right match for this handspun. I think I just needed to see more of the brown to get a sense for what it will look like, because I absolutely love this. Also, I think this is the first sweater I’m making with Cascade 220, and I am thoroughly enjoying knitting with it. I might need to acquire a bunch more the next time Webs has that incredible anniversary sale…

cmf bfl skein1 prewash

Here’s the first skein of my Crown Mountain Farms brown bfl before washing and setting the twist.

cmf bfl skein 1 fo2

And here it is, all finished and ready to wait patiently for the other skeins. This is 150 yards of 3-ply worsted weight. If I can maintain this yardage per each 3 oz, I should be able to get 8 skeins, or about 1200 yards, to work with.

cmf bfl skein 1 fo3

More gorgeous fiber came in yesterday’s mail, which certainly improved my mood. (I am not a very good sick person — too impatient and pouty.) I’m planning to head to campus for a little while today, but don’t worry, I’m going to take it easy to ensure that I’m over this little weekend flu bug. (Which means I’ll probably do some more knitting. And annotating.)

GYC.

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gyc startofbody

Despite the fact that I haven’t actively listened to any Michael Jackson since the summer, every time I go to abbreviate the garter yoke cardigan as GYC (you know, when I label photos and such), I hear the chorus of PYT in my head.

gyc startofbody2

I’m just over halfway through the raglan increases now, and I’m hoping to separate the sleeves from the body before the end of the weekend.

one oz of cmfbfl

I started spinning my CMF bfl yesterday as well. I’m going to work through this an ounce at a time, with the idea that if I keep 4 bobbins in rotation, I can spin 3 ounces and then ply them together, and then start on the next skein. In a perfect world, I’d spin all the singles first and ply the earlier bobbins with later ones to help increase my chances of uniformity, but since I only have 6 bobbins, and no storage bobbins, I’m thinking that working through this a skein of yarn at a time is the way to go, both for my storage options and my momentum. Speaking of momentum, today I should probably aim for more reading/writing and less knitting and spinning. The pace of the semester is really picking up, which means the book piles are growing.

sauerkraut saute

I’m not even going to try for a smooth transition. I snapped this photograph of my lunch sauteing yesterday: fresh farm onions, bok choy, carrots, and homemade sauerkraut.

Time to hit the books. (Well, after I pour another cup of coffee and knit a row or two.)

sampling/yoking.

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bohbedbone

Boh laid like this, stretched out on the bed, for a few hours yesterday, totally contented after some much needed time spent frolicking amidst the falling leaves. After I crossed the last item off of my long around-the-house to do list (I’m not ashamed to admit that it was “take a shower”), I got out the scale and divided the first 4 oz. of CMF bfl into ounces, and then divided one of those ounces into thirds.

I was intending to spin the whole ounce, if necessary, to figure out how to approach my sweater spinning project, but at the end of the first third of an ounce, it seemed like there was enough to make a mini sample skein of 3-ply. I very unscientifically wrapped part of what I’d just spun onto two toilet paper rolls (counting to 100 each time!), and rigged them up on my lazy kate so that I could quickly ply 3 strands together.

samplingonknee

I soaked the skein, set the twist, and measured the wpi.

bfl wpi

Finished, my sample skein looks to be 12 or 13 wpi: a 3-ply worsted weight.

mini skein bfl 3ply

I’m not going to swatch yet, as I don’t have a specific sweater pattern in mind yet, but I am going to keep my mini-skein and some of my sample singles nearby as I start spinning. Hopefully I’ll end up with a whole sweater’s worth of fairly consistent worsted weight bfl!

yokingdone

In other news, last night I finished the handspun garter yoke of my garter yoke cardigan. It sort of snuck up on me, so I didn’t switch my needles up from 6s before the transition to the Cascade 220 as I had originally planned. I started with the 7s on my first non-handspun row. I have plenty of the Alpine romney left, so I’m thinking I may use it for the cuffs of the sweater, and maybe even to finish up the waistband. We’ll see!

autumnal equinox.

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Fall is arriving softly today, accompanied by a gentle rain. The sound of rain on aging leaves is calming. This kind of quiet — full of motion and whispers, rather than silence — is what I need this morning.

garteryoke1

The autumnal equinox is also significant for a knitterly reason: today marks the start of the garter yoke cardigan KAL that Mick, Laura, and I have been planning. I’ve cast on for the yoke with my Hello Yarn romney handspun in the Alpine colorway, and I’m hoping to get in a few more rows before I head off to class.

garteryoke2

Happy first day of Fall!

high.

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You know, like alpine.

alpinemacro1

alpinemacro2

alpinefo1

I absolutely love the way the browns and golds interact with the blues in this skein. So pretty.

alpinemacro3

alpinemacro4

alpinefullskein

203 yards of 2-ply romney, from Hello Yarn, in the Alpine colorway. Romney is not as soft as the other fibers I’ve been spinning lately, but oh, that sheen. I wonder if this should become something sturdy, like mittens.

quiche

Yesterday’s quiche, and legwarmers:

legwarmers

Believe it or not, it was chilly enough to warrant wearing these around the house as I made coffee and rolled out pie crust yesterday morning. People routinely find their way to my corner of the internet by googling “legwarmers” and related terms, so I figured I’d announce that, yes, the mornings are cool enough that legwarmer season is officially open, at least for around-the-house wearing.

More soon, as I desperately need to make more progress on the wedding shawl…

singles and shawl progress.

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alpinebob1

Bobbin 1 of the Hello Yarn romney in Alpine.

bob2alpineprog

alpinebob2

Bobbin 2, first in progress, because I thought I was going to stop, and then, in the second picture, finished. This stuff spins itself. I may cheat a little bit and ply later tonight instead of letting the singles rest a full day, We’ll see.

heathershawledge

The wedding is next Saturday, a week from today. I decided on two leaf pattern repeats (I think the last time I blogged about this, I was thinking about doing three), and this morning I began the edging. I’m 8 rows into 34, and I absolutely love how this is turning out. If I work steadily on this over the next few days,  I won’t have to stay up late and risk making stupid, bleary-eyed mistakes. My goal is to block this on Wednesday night, so that it has ample time to dry before I deliver it to the bride on Friday.

While I was working on the romney and the shawl, Boh was standing guard at the window:

longdogwindow

He really is a surprisingly long dog — I marvel at his length whenever I find him at the window like this, paws up on the radiator.

morepouting

Apparently surveying the backyard is pretty exhausting work. (There is loud snoring drifting towards my desk from the bedroom.) May your Saturday be as productive and restful as Boh’s!

romney.

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In all of the start-of-the-semester hubbub, my wheel has been empty for most of the week. I returned home from campus (where my office is growing ever cozier with each bag of belongings I move from here to there) today and decided to at least start something so that I can try to spin a little each day.

air1

air2

Sigh. So beautiful. These colors just make me yearn for handspun legwarmers. This is Hello Yarn fiber — Romney wool top in the Alpine colorway — and I love it.

forlorn1

forlorn2

Boh is looking particularly forlorn this afternoon, perhaps because he knows that the new semester means a bit more reading (me) and resting (Boh), and a little less frolicking (both of us).