Tag Archives: sweater

FO: magic chip.

Posted on by
7

121 yards (from 3 oz) of navajo-plyed worsted weight superwash bfl in the magic chip colorway from the AVFKW Woolly Wonders Fiber Club. So, navajo plying a whole skein’s worth of yarn isn’t as scary as I thought it would be! Despite the occasional wrestling I did with this bfl and my not-always-consistent singles, I’m really happy with how this yarn turned out. Now, what should I do with it? (Do we think 120 yards is enough for toddler legwarmers? I know a 4-yr old who would love some.)

Also, last night I did this:

And I decided that I liked it so much that I shouldn’t risk it, so I ordered 2 more skeins of Cascade 220 in Caribbean. Fingers crossed that they match what I’ve got, or are at least close enough. I’m doing this sort of by the seat of my pants, after reading through lots of notes on ravelry. I’m using worsted, instead of heavy worsted weight yarn, but I’m not really changing the stitch count. I figure I’ll try this on once I’m through the yoke, and if it isn’t long enough or big enough, I’ll add another repeat of the pattern before binding off (or separating — I haven’t decided) the sleeve stitches and continuing on with the body. I want this to be snug, and I’m adding a few more buttons (3? 4?) than the original.

I realize that I have a gazillion things on the needles right now — but all of my sweater projects are in muted colors, and spring break demands something bright (and instantly gratifying).

I did manage to get through a fair amount of grading today, and Boh and I romped through muddy fields and meadows with our friends D. and Coltrane (the greyhound) this afternoon. There’s an apple crisp in the oven, and a pile of knitting awaiting me on the couch (next to a loudly snoring dog). These are the makings of a good, quiet evening.

brought to you by Theraflu.

Posted on by
14

Yup, that mug is full of Theraflu — and if I haven’t sung its praises here in blogland, I am now. I’ve gotten sick more in the last two years than in the several years before (I blame the undergrads and their germs). Also, I hate cold medicine — or rather, that foggy haze that seems to accompany the good parts of cold medicine. Theraflu, on the other hand, works quickly, forces the sick person to drink more liquids, and for me, anyway, does not create the kind of fog that can impair drivers or slow down traffic. Really, they should sponsor me or something. (Thus concludes the advertising portion of today’s post.)

For lunch, I made this rutabega chipotle soup, only I made it with a goldball turnip, a potato, and a chipotle in adobo sauce that was languishing in the fridge. It was so delicious, with just enough spice to clear out my sinuses, that I ate a second bowl. And then scraped the saucepan.

I cast on for Snowbird, in Queensland Kathmandu DK (after getting gauge on size 5 needles), and made some progress on the collar and yoke.

Boh made some progress on destroying his current tennis ball, and put in some quality time organizing his scraps of fleece.

Good work, Boh.

I had dinner with friends (pork and sweet potato fritters are definitely good for whatever ails you), and took along my fourth handspun seaman’s cap — the one for my brother. Amidst conversation and decadent bites of chocolate treats, I managed to make it all the way to the decreases, which means my brother should receive his Christmas gift before February. (Win.)

Today’s plan? Knit, read, cook, emotionally prepare for the start of the spring semester, and most importantly, convince this sore throat/head cold to hit the road. (Thanks for all of your happy, healthy thoughts. I’m feeling so much better today, and am aiming to be fully recovered by tomorrow.)

FO: garter yoke cardigan.

Posted on by
13

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!

before winter?

Posted on by
11

That’s the goal for my Garter Yoke Cardigan, and it looks like I might make it!

I’m leaning towards a bracelet sleeve length — longer than three quarter, but not so long that the cuff will get in the way of knitting and working. Also, there’s something about a slightly shorter sleeve on me that at least makes me feel like I’m a bit more put together (even if it is only in my head.)

When I tried on the sweater before starting the sleeves, I was concerned that the sleeves were going to be a bit baggy. The pattern calls for knitting the sleeves straight to the cuff — no shaping — so I decided that instead of playing with decreases, I’d just go down a size and use size 6 dpns. (It didn’t hurt that I could actually reach these needles from where I was curled up on the couch at the time…)

I’m really happy with how the first sleeve is fitting, and I think it is time to start digging around for buttons!

I might not post again before heading home for Thanksgiving, so I hope your holiday is filled with people you love and food you enjoy! (And maybe some time to rest and knit.)

tomatoes, 28thirty, three-ply.

Posted on by
6

roasted tomatoes

Yesterday started out well. I blogged, put some tomatoes in the oven to roast, put on a handknit sweater, did some reading, and went out to brunch.

wearing 28thirty

While I did all of this, my head became rather congested, and by the time I got home after brunch, I was starting to feel achy. Blah. I decided to go to the grocery store because if I was getting sick, I wanted to do so with a replenished refrigerator, and while I was packing my eggs (yummy, local eggs that you can pack yourself at my local coop), I dropped one of them, which seemed to confirm that I was not really at 100% yesterday.

So rather than annotated a less than fully formed bibliography, I did the things I absolutely needed to do, watched guilty tv online, drank a lot of tea, and late at night, forced myself to eat something. (Somehow I forgot to eat dinner. When I am not hungry, something is not quite right.) Oh, and I plyed my first skein of my CMF bfl sweater spinning project.

first skein cmf bfl 3ply

LOVE. This morning, as I wait to see if this was just a 24-hour bug or if I am going to feel lousy again (I always feel good in the early mornings, even when I’m sick, so I’ve learned to delay all decision-making about the day to mid-morning), I’m going to set the twist and hang my pretty yarn to dry.

Fingers crossed that today I’ll feel better. That bibliography is not going to annotate itself!

plain and simple progress.

Posted on by
7

pureandsimple 7 inc

I am now seven inches into the body of my plain and simple pullover, a test-knit for veera over at 100% rain. I reach for this sweater whenever I need mindless knitting, and while I normally prefer my knitpicks harmony needles, I am really loving the slipperiness and the soft clicking sounds of these hot pink metal needles (courtesy of the Yarn Pirate, from when I was in the sock club).

Happy weekend! (Classes start next week, so these are my final days of summer.)

Classes

ribbing.

Posted on by
3

mara rib1

Lest you were beginning to think that I had crossed entirely over to the dark side of the spinning wheel, I present some serious progress on Mara. After reading lots of posts over at the Mara KAL in the backwards loop group on ravelry, I decided to modify the ribbing slightly, opting for a k3p2 rib instead of a k2p2.

mara rib2

The pattern calls for 4 inches of ribbing after the inch of transitional rib to finish off the shawl. I don’t have enough of this luscious beaverslide to do that, so I’m pretty much ribbing until I run out. I’ll be happy if I can get 2 inches or so, and I’m hoping to finish this tonight at a new knit night (say that five times fast) I’ve been attending!

The urge to finish this despite warmer temps that are not so conducive to the wearing of squishy wool shawls comes in part from even more new projects on (or soon to be on) the needles.

swatch alpaca

Veera, of 100% rain, put out the call for test- knitters for her plain and simple pullover, and since her sweater is already in my ravelry favorites, I couldn’t help but volunteer. The sweater is knit in fingering weight yarn on smaller needles, and when I looked at the specs/yarn requirements, I realized that this is the perfect sweater for 2 fat skeins of local alpaca in my stash that have long been searching for a pattern to partner with.

local alpaca skeins

I think this is a perfect match — the drapeyness of the alpaca will complement the pattern’s minimal shaping, the foldover collar will hang beautifully, and I will get a short-sleeved, super-soft alpaca sweater that won’t be so warm that I can’t wear it indoors! More on this soon,

Silk update:

shinytussah

I spun most of the orange section of my sunburst tussah silk. It shines like this picture, but at this point, the color is more orangey than red:

orange tussah

I’m really enjoying the process of spinning this — a totally different feeling than wool. I’m hoping my singles will be strong and even enough to stand on their own in a brightly colored shawl for fall.

Alright, time to get to work!

spinning/stirfry.

Posted on by
4

(The strawberries are just implied. I don’t have any pictures of them today, but don’t let that fool you; I’m on my 5th quart this week.)

stirfry1

stirfry2

Last night’s dinner — a stifry loosely based on a recipe in Heidi Swanson’s Supernatural Cooking. (I highly recommend flipping through it the next time you’re in a bookstore!) This is a basic sesame oil stirfry, and while my ingredients were the green things overflowing my refrigerator (garlic scapes, broccoli, komatsuna, chard, cabbage, radishes, scallions, ginger), I followed Heidi’s lead and added lime juice and chopped basil and mint just before eating — yum!

After dinner, I sat down at the wheel to work on that delicious melon-y targhee. After another hour or so today, I’m almost done with the second bobbin — I can’t wait to ply this!

targheebobbin3

targhee bobbin2

Also, I finally took stripes! off the kitchen table today. It was sooo close to dry when I put it on before breakfast:

stripesagain

Even though there was terrible light this morning (raining all day today), I think the vibrant colors of the Noro stripes really stand out in this photo. I know it is only June, but there is a part of me that will not be sad for cooler fall weather to arrive because it means I’ll get to wear my stripey sweater…

from yolk to yoke.

Posted on by
5

I wish I had taken a picture of my most recent quiche — it would be perfect for my cheesy blog post title. Stripes! is the first bottom-up, yoked sweater I’ve ever knitted, and thus I rarely type “yoke.” “Yolk,” however, is a word that gets a lot of play here at chez rooster. Aside from the obvious rooster-chicken train of thought, eggs are a staple in my kitchen. (In fact, fried eggs, homemade toast, and some avocado slices comprise one of my favorite pre-seminar lunches.) Therefore it should come as no surprise to you that every time I sit down to label photos or type about my stripey sweater, my fingers seem to want to refer to the upper portion of this sweater as a yolk, rather than a yoke.

No more. Why, you ask? Because I have actually gone and knitted a YOKE. See?

yoke middecrease

[Boh still can’t work the camera; forgive the dirty mirror and awkward self-photography above and below.] Here is the yoke mid-decrease, and here are several photos of the yoke as it exists at this very moment:

yokehandonhip

yokebackview

yokehandinpocket

One more:

yokehandinfront

I love love love this sweater. (You will too.)

I knit this with an inch and a half of ease, which seems to be the right fit for something I intend to be worn over a layer or two. I knit the sleeves to be a bit long for pulling down over my wrists — in these photos, they look a little baggy, but I think once I graft the underarm seams that won’t be a problem, as I was happy with the fit on my arms before I joined the sleeves to the body.

I have been knitting on this nonstop: several hours when I got home from a barbecue last night, and then for about 3 more hours this morning. I just couldn’t put down the yoke. I’m hoping to bind off, graft the underarms, weave in the ends, and get this baby blocking by the end of tomorrow! I’ll do a real FO post with measurements/specs/details once it is ready to wear.

On a note entirely unrelated to sweater yokes or egg yolks, except maybe that the activity I’m about to describe occurred in the general proximity of chickens, here’s a photo of today’s haul:

3quartsstrawberries

My CSA does a bunch of u-pick produce, and with all the rain we’ve seen this week, the farmers sent out an email saying that the season picking quota thus far had been upped to 5 quarts! I picked up the owners of that lovely greyhound pictured earlier in the week (they are also members of my csa), and we spent an hour or so in the strawberry patch, picking and eating, the sun shining and a slight breeze blowing. All those strawberries had us thinking about ice cream, and we headed up along the lake a few extra miles to a local creamery for a treat. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon…

more greens.

Posted on by
3

csaweek2

Radishes, crunchy salad turnips, red head lettuce, spinach, endive, chard, broccoli raab, arugula, basil, mint… life is pretty good. My trip to see my parents threw off my farm pick-up schedule, so yesterday I went and gathered about half the week’s offerings (in quantity) so that Tuesday I’ll be ready for more.

The (enormous) head of endive and what was left of last week’s kale went into a gratin with red potatoes and sweet potatoes, cheddar, and a sauce made of milk, flour, onions and garlic. Here’s a close up:

gratin

Yum. I barely made a dent in this 9×9 pan of deliciousness, which means I have plenty of leftovers to enjoy.

Also, greens are starting to show up in my second stripey sleeve:

secondstripesleeve

I am so excited to join the body and sleeves together and begin work on the yoke. Maybe I’ll get that far today…

Unrelated, but thought you might enjoy seeing Boh and his dear friend Coltrane resting on my floor after some d-o-g-p-a-r-k playtime:

tireddogs

What are you up to today? Over here, no-knead bread is rising, my knitting is calling, and Boh and I have plans for a long stroll along a creek near our house. My WWKIP day activities are being delayed until Tuesday night– an inaugural meeting of what may become my summer knitting group.

Happy weekend!