purlsandmurmers

Cardigan Back Done and first up on the UFO pile

I finished the back of the cardigan Saturday night.  I didn't manage to get any knitting done on Sunday, except for the cast on row for the left front.  Tonight is supposed to be movie night if I get my act together and get a few things done and dinner on the table early enough.

I love knitting this cardigan.  I want to plow on ahead and finish as soon as possible.  However, since the pile of unfinished projects is ginormous, and I also want to be able to wear all of those sweaters, I need to do some finishing. 

Now that I have finished the back of this sweater I also have to finish one of the sweaters in the  UFO piles.  The idea is that I will do the finishing before I finish the next piece of this sweater, using the  cardigan as a kind of carrot to encourage me to get something actually finished.

After I finish both of the front pieces, I will once again force myself to finish something else before moving on to the sleeves.  I am not going to be absolutely strict.  I can start knitting the front of Lilac Serenade before  I finish the UFO, for example (did I say tonight was movie night?!?) but I have to finish the UFO before I finish knitting the left front.

It is all about motivation.

The first finishing project will be this pullover I started in February.  I called it dreaming of spring, although at the time it was in anticipation of spring-to-come and now it is in memory of spring-past.  The yarns are colinette and, for those who did not read the sewing blog, I will update all the details when I finish the sweater, which I intend to get started on tonight.

Artful Yarns meets Filatura di Crosa

Although my last project may have been exercise in frustration, I am certainly back on track now.  My current sweater is one of the items I really wanted to be starting when I started working with the Shanghai yarn, and now that I am actually knitting, I am loving this project more and more.

It all started with some Arftul Yarns Serenade in color 6003, Sunrise, Sunset.  I just fell in love with the color of this yarn and bought up all they had at my LYS.  Then I had to find a pattern.  I had an idea in my head, and for once I knew exactly where to look:

Obviously I had the right idea, and I have no idea how I did it because I usually am terrible at remembering where I saw a particular pattern. 

But I was enamored of this cardigan:

Was it the similarity in the colors?  Yes, it does look that way, but as soon as I saw the yarn, I knew I wanted a fitted cardigan with 3/4 sleeves.  This just happened to be the right cardigan. And when I knitted the swatch and got perfect gauge, I knew it was meant to be.

I love, love, love knitting with this yarn.  And I think I will love the sweater as well.  The angora keeps the cotton light and drapey and it just looks beautiful knitted up, light and spongy.

Since I started knitting I have checked Ravelry and have found that quite a few people complain of shedding and piling and I hope that is not the case.  I am getting a bit of fuzz while I knit, but no more than any other wool/alpaca/ blend yarn that is not really tightly spun.  I have other angora sweaters that shed only lightly although I know it is a common complaint.  Well I will see.  Perhaps it doesn't wear well, I won't know until I actually wear it, and just looking at my swatch and the sweater I am knitting I have trouble seeing it.

But then again, I like angora.

I am about half way through the back of the sweater:

If this works out well, and I don't see why it shouldn't, I am already thinking ahead to future versions of this sweater in other yarns/fibers/colors.  The pattern itself is such a classically lovely, simple, elegant shape.  How could I not want a few of them?  But then again,  I may once again be counting my sweaters before they are knit.

I am not one of these knitters that knits something only once.  That would be truly difficult because I am the kind of person who, when I find something I really love, wears it over and over and over and wants it in all available colors.

Call It a Learning Experience

Well, Shanghai is a bust. 

I finished the body, and it fit beautifully, but I somehow did not like it on.  I like the knitted fabric and I knew the colors weren't my best but thought I could make it work, but somehow, when I put it on it was worse than blah, it was just plain old "yuck". 

Not the shape, mind you.  If I could just look at the sweater without the added bonus of the complexion of the person wearing it, the sweater was quite nice.  And no, I am not going to show it to you.  It is destined for ripping. 

I kind of fudged the armhole shaping, decreasing more in front and less in back, then increasing a bit back out to the shoulder at the neckline.  I also added vertical bust darts and some bust shaping using short rows and the fit was really really nice.  Luckily I did make notes.  So I can think about this sweater much like I would think of a muslin if I were sewing something.  But a knitted muslin takes longer.  Bummer.

My first reaction was to ditch the whole thing, but I do still like the yarn.  Tonight, while I was working on my new project (which I love by the way) I had another idea, which might actually work quite nicely.  It will be a little further down the queue.  Shanghai and I need to take a little break from each other's company for a while.

Finally, increases ahaead!

Well, I am done with the mindlessly boring section above the decreases.  Even though it was only a few inches, it seemed like endless rounds of k3 p2.  No distraction was enough to end the tedium.

Truthfully I hid in a corner and read over the weekend, when I could find a spare minute that is.  Nothing like escaping into a little historical fiction to avoid the stresses of life and calm the overactive brain.  I have been reading World Without End by Ken Follet and it has been easy enough to lose myself in it.  The book is far more gripping escapism than Shanghai has been of late.  But although I have a weakness for historical fiction, especially if it is set in the British Isles prior to 1800, and although I am loving this, it is not as dear to my heart as Pillars of the Earth was.

But back to Shanghai.  It is looking good.  And I have finally measured and calculated the increases, so we are getting back into fun knitting territory again.  From the photo, 6 more inches to the armhole shaping, with increases...fun.

No More Knitting

I have reopened my knitting blog, PurlsandMurmurs.  This combination of knitting and sewing just isn't working for me.  Somehow I feel like I can't babble on as much as I would like with everything in one place. 

Despite the fact that I have just been reading in the new Atlantic Monthly about how the Internet has shortened our attention span so that no one will read more than a couple of paragraphs, I still feel the need to go on an on.  I read a lot.  I love reading long thoughtful blog posts when other people, who actually write well, post them.  I still enjoy throwing out bucket loads full of mindless twaddle.  And so I shall.  Like my library and my books are an extension of my memory, and external hard drive of sorts, so too are these blogs. And I need them to make some sense of the jumble of my thoughts; they accomplish that best when they are separate.

Tee Progress

The Shaghai tee is progressing nicely.  I am making this a good 25 inches long or so, so I am not quite at the waist (it looks longer and narrower here than it does on me).  So far I have gotten the decreases just right.  I need to decrease another 12 stitches in the next 3 inches (18 rows) and then run evenly a little bit before beginning to increase again.  I'll do another try-on before I get to that point just to make sure everything is going smoothly.

Otherwise I like the color combinations that I have chosen as they are appearing in the knitted fabric.  Once again, I don't have a plan here, I am just knitting.  So everything is looking good.

Given the amount of yarn I have used so far, and how much is left, I am thinking that this sweater is going to have sleeves, probably 3/4 length, but I could be wrong.  The sleeves will be another experiment. I've never just winged sleeves without a plan before. But then again I am going to wing the armhole shaping too, just trying the sweater on and knitting to fit. 

I am considering knitting the sleeves from the sleeve cap down.  This is something else I haven't done before, although I have read about it.  This might make it easier to make sure any striping across the shoulders matches perfectly at the sleeve. I am about to end the striping on the body, at least until I get above the bust and into the shoulder area, and the sleeves will also be mostly plain.   If yarn quantity is an issue, knitting the sleeves from the top down will also give me a much better idea of  how much sleeve I can get from the available yarn.

Tee Progress

The Shaghai tee is progressing nicely.  I am making this a good 25 inches long or so, so I am not quite at the waist (it looks longer and narrower here than it does on me).  So far I have gotten the decreases just right.  I need to decrease another 12 stitches in the next 3 inches (18 rows) and then run evenly a little bit before beginning to increase again.  I'll do another try-on before I get to that point just to make sure everything is going smoothly.

Otherwise I like the color combinations that I have chosen as they are appearing in the knitted fabric.  Once again, I don't have a plan here, I am just knitting.  So everything is looking good.

Given the amount of yarn I have used so far, and how much is left, I am thinking that this sweater is going to have sleeves, probably 3/4 length, but I could be wrong.  The sleeves will be another experiment. I've never just winged sleeves without a plan before. But then again I am going to wing the armhole shaping too, just trying the sweater on and knitting to fit. 

I am considering knitting the sleeves from the sleeve cap down.  This is something else I haven't done before, although I have read about it.  This might make it easier to make sure any striping across the shoulders matches perfectly at the sleeve. I am about to end the striping on the body, at least until I get above the bust and into the shoulder area, and the sleeves will also be mostly plain.   If yarn quantity is an issue, knitting the sleeves from the top down will also give me a much better idea of  how much sleeve I can get from the available yarn.

Update

Progress has been slow on the Shanghai tee because I just haven't been knitting all that much. 

I didn't go to knitting group Thursday night because I was just a little frazzled and felt like there were too many things at home I would rather be working on.  None of these things involved knitting.

Friday night we went into NYC for a concert at Avery Fisher Hall.  Usually I would get a lot of knitting done on the train but not this time.  G wanted to try listening to a book on tape so I lent him my Ipod on the trip down and while I did knit a little bit, I spent more time reading the papers (NY Times and Wall Street Journal) and Eat, Pray, Love.  I got a Kindle from Amazon for G for his birthday, thinking that the ability to use a larger typeface would make it easier for him to read, since he so often complains about how tired and painful his eyes are after about an hour of reading.  The Opthamologist says there are no changes in his vision and not much they can do so I thought the large type would help, but he has trouble managing the device.  Oh well.  I however found that it was great when we were traveling, or at waiting rooms and the like because it is small enough to easily drop in my purse and I can have several books or newspapers on it.  As G watches me use it, he is thinking that he might give it another chance.

G really liked the book on tape though and ended up using the Ipod on the way home as well.  I read for a while, but at midnight to 1 AM on an uncomfortable train, my concentration was a little lacking for knitting without the aide of a book or music.

Despite the knitting progress, I did want to show you some of the knew books that have been piling up.  Several relatively new books arrived while I was away earlier in the month, and I am just getting around to looking at them now.

  I ordered Tweed by Nancy Thomas because I am increasingly drawn to tweedy yarns.  I have, as I have gotten older developed more of an appreciation for traditional patterns and tweedy yarns and I just love my Rogue that was knit in Tahki Donegal Tweed.  I enjoyed reading the information at the beginning of the book about tweed yarns and there doesn't seem to be a pattern in the book that I can't imagine knitting for either myself or someone in my family.  The sweaters are all comfy country sweaters that I could wear almost anywhere around my home area all fall and winter as well as through the wet muddy cool days of early spring (which lasted a little longer than usual this year).


The sweaters in Lisa Lloyd's A Fine Fleece fit the same need for stylish, comfortable, "country" sweaters which can work for raking leaves, walking in the woods, browsing the shops in Rhinebeck or even going out to dinner in the local restaurants which are becoming increasingly sophisticated culinarily, but still maintain a country "casual" atmosphere.  I had admired a few of Ms. Lloyd's patterns before buying the book, and I love the idea that it has information about handspun yarns, types of wool, and spinning one's own yarn.  I also find it very interesting and instructive that the patterns are shown in a handspun version and in a version using commercially available wool, convenient for those of us who aren't yet spinning, while also reminding me that I do really want to pick up that spindle again and perhaps learn to spin.