I finished the knitting last night, so today was all about weaving in ends – and with a multi-striped sweater, there were a lot of them. Working in the round and twisting the colors created a tidy RS, but a bit of work to do on the private side. After a soak and block, I’ll see how the final result looks. And I’ll just mention that with the coming of spring (finally!), my mind is totally on sorbet; blueberry, raspberry, strawberry, pistachio . . .
At my house, we have a word we like to use when someone is lazily, casually moving towards an objective: Slaunter. As in, “I saw you slauntering around by the coffee shop this morning,” or “Could you please pick up the pace from a slaunter to a stride; we’re late.” It’s meant to suggest relaxed and unconcerned action; maybe a little bit indolent, but typically in a good way. Weekend mornings are perfect for slauntering; we’re achieving things, but in a relaxed and non-stressful way. Slaunter is a little bit saunter, mixed in with a dose of slouch. It’s imperfect, comfortable and forgiving. The concept of slauntering is all over my next bit of knitwear, from a mistake-rib beginning, to an easy, relaxed result. I’m loving the concept so much that I’m exploring some accessories, like a split-brim hat: (Some color, huh? That’s tosh dk in Iris; I popped into the LYS near my daughter’s orthodontist the other day just to pass some time, and they had three cubbies’ worth of colors and bases. Can . . .
Those are two words a knitter doesn’t ever want to hear – ripping lace. And yet I was not only hearing it, but doing it. This is the summer of lace for me, specifically lace sweaters; the last of which is almost ready for release. But getting there involved a nerve-wracking interlude of ripping back the lace pattern. I kept trying on this tee shirt (with the shoulders pinned together, since they were to be finished later), and thinking, hmmm, it’s not long enough, just another 8 row repeat before the ribbing. Somehow I got off track; it was originally meant to be cropped and boxy, over a wide ribbed hem, but then with the short sleeves I thought that would be too square shaped. Then I thought about those generic length end-at-the-bottom-of-the-pants-waistband tops which are kind of boring, so I just kept adding on and adding on. And you know when you suspect you’ve done something that’s not really working out, but you think, oh, it’ll be fine, and keep going? Yeah, me too. . . .
For whatever reason, I’m working on two projects with two giant skeins of yarn. The silver is a 620 yard skein of sportweight BMFA Woobu, which I picked up during the NJ Yarn Crawl at Knit Knack during my trunk show. The elecrtic blue is all of 1120 yards (!) of fingering weight, from the Sliver Moon booth at Rhinebeck this fall. Together they practically obscure my desktop keyboard. They seemed like a good idea at the time; top down summer cardigans, no joins, no ends to weave – and I’ve no doubt they will be good. The blue was a bit of a challenge to wind, though; not only did it exceed the capacity of my ballwinder (even with the metal arm pulled as far away as it could go without bending), but it also swallowed the beginning tail of yarn when I pulled it off. So of course I thought I’d just yank it back out again, and somehow it came out the bottom end in a tangle that refused to pull free . . .
Deadlines really motivate me; I suspect I might achieve close to zero if I didn’t utilize them. The current challenge is to finish my second contiguous cardigan by saturday midnight. It’s worsted, yes – but still a whole garment. I think there’s a good chance; I had to rip the first sleeve because it was too small, and I updated the sizing while knitting the second. Happily, sleeve in a day was achieved. Next challenge is the front edging; last night I ripped the 2″ I had because I decided some short-rowing would be just the thing. So less than 48 hours for around 25 long 200+ stitch rows. I hope it comes out well.
My first cardi using the Contiguous method is finished, and I love some things about it, while I need to revise a few others. I love: 1) the single, gently-ruffled cuff and front edge – just swishy enough; 2) the length – longish but not dragging, and because it’s open front, the fronts dip and drape nicely; 3) the yarn – Rowan RYC Cashsoft 4-ply – with merino/microfiber and cashmere, knit at a loose gauge; and 4) the way Contiguous lets you make a more refined dressmaker look, with the sleeve fit and easy construction of a raglan. But there’s the thing; my fit in the upper body area needs some tweaking, since this sweater method grows a little bit differently than a raglan or a set-in sleeve. The shoulder is quite sloped due to the rapid increases, and the back neck is high. A very square-shouldered person might find a problem with that slope, but I think that making a point to knit the shoulder increases loosely, and block diligently, resulted in a good . . .
My contiguous sweater is moving right along, unfortunately to the point where it appears highly likely I will run short on yarn. I’ve already reduced the front ruffle to a single layer, mostly because two layers was bulky, and one will match the one sleeve cuff ruffle. As you can see, the amount of yarn remaining is small (and frogged from the swatch), and meant to make 3-4 more 600-ish stitch rows. Not looking hopeful. The cuff ruffle really came out nicely, so I’m committed to duplicating that on the front edge. Off to stalk other people’s Ravelry stash for RYC Cashsoft 4-ply in Weather.
I’ve been a bit obsessed with the honeycomb brioche stitch pattern lately. It’s great for variegateds, helping to break up weird pooling and striping, and it makes a thick, fluffy fabric. I like it best in an accessory, or as an accent – as on the shoulder detail of my new sideways cardigan Blue Honey. The picture above shows lovely but challenging Malabrigo Rios in Azules, as stockinette, garter, and the honeycomb pattern. When I say challenging, I mean the variegated nature of the color, particularly for garments. When Rios was first released, for some reason I bought a sweater quantity in this color. Why? I have no idea. It’s beautiful, and I love blue, but I dont make multi-colored sweaters, or wear them. Anyway, I finally decide this would be the right yarn for this sideways idea I’ve had for a while, and it’s really working out. The Rios is springy and lovely, and the little bit of patterning is just enough. Incarnation #1 is finished but the thing is still a WIP, because . . .
The Contiguous cardigan continues, although beset by various little problems. Of course it’s been knit flat, back and forth to the underarm and for the body. And of course I KNOW that my flat gauge is typically larger than my gauge in the round.. Well this sweater proved to be typical; after knitting what should have been almost to the cuff on the first sleeve, with my carefully calculated rate of decrease, I tried it on and found that it was about 3″ too short. No good fix available, except to rip and redo. I decided first to do the other sleeve, using a larger needle and consciously looser tension – no pulling tight in a stranglehold around the Magic Loop! No excessive worrying about ladders! It came out much better, and true to desired gauge; see the difference: Â Â Â I was fairly immobilized on the couch with three separate balls of yarn attached, but happily managed to eliminate one by finishing the left cuff. It’s going to need a steam to stop . . .
I’ve always liked different construction methods, for garments, accessories, or whatever. It’s interesting to find better ways to make things, and sometimes the better way differs depending upon what’s being made. In terms of sweaters, I favor seamless construction whenever possible, to avoid excessive casting on, binding off and picking up. It’s not that I mind seaming, and sometimes I can see the advantage of the structure gained in a seamed piece; I chose to keep the seams when I knit my Plummi, because it was such a long, heavy sweatercoat. I also think nothing can beat a picked-up button band, where you can control the tension of the band versus the body, despite the anguish of getting the right number and interval of stitches. But in general, I like seamless construction from the top down, so you can try it on as you go and make adjustments along the way. Recently, the innovative SusieM developed a new seamless top down construction method she christened Contiguous, and she shared it on Ravelry in the Contiguous . . .