Joyce Makes Art

A Slow Sleeve

This week has been a family week for me, with a long overdue trip to DC with my second son. I really enjoyed the old photos of Presidents' wives knitting in the early 1900s at the Newseum. And all of the beautiful views in the city.

Not much knitting happened although I did get far enough along with the Two Track sweater to experience it's interesting construction, adding in the front left and front back simultaneously with an exposed side seam and knitting the ribbed lower edge of the sleeve.

The directions were confusing to me so I followed them literally and it seemed to work out. I've started the second sleeve so I can repeat the process for the right side before I forget how I did it the first time.

After this, it's just me and miles of stockinette for a long time so this should be a great counterpoint to my fairisle sweater.

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The Best Knitting Retreat

I'm on the way home from The Plucky Knitter's "Glamping with Plucky" retreat. It was great fun and I've got lots to share with you.

On the way home I'll be working on this complicated looking, but simple to knit hat from Feralknitter on Ravelry. It was a great class!

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Postscript: Shortly after taking the picture, above, I realized I had been knitting for three rounds with the wrong background colors (so much for knitting fairisle while chitchatting on the ferry with everyone leaving the retreat).  After lots of wasted time tinking back, I've reknit to where I was before, introducing the correct change in background color.  It's rather hard to see in the photo at the moment, but this is a traditional fairisle piece, knit in only two colors per row, with the background color changing to create a three dimensional effect.

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That Wonderful Feeling When You Finish Knitting

I finished Vitsippa.  It now goes into the category of memory-knits, because it will forever be the project I was knitting when I was here. (Glacier Park, Montana)

It is also one of those knits that is infinitely enjoyable -- the pattern is well written and easy to follow for a project that looks rather complicated.  At the end, you're left with a feeling of great satisfaction.  And, it was a skill builder for me as I'm trying to improve my fairisle skills to get ready for knitting this sweater.  I enjoy stranded knitting, but I'm still working on the evenness of my stitches and on feeling completely awkward with the whole knitting with the yarn held in two different hands thing.  Vitsippa helped a lot with both of those issues.

As soon as I finished, I immediately wove in the ends and put Vitsippa on my head.  And didn't want to take it off, even though it's over 90` here.  I had no trouble finding a model for it.  In fact, before I was done, everyone in the house had it on their head.  The ribbing is deep and stretchy (I hate it when there isn't enough ribbing on a hat).  I used a long tail cast on, and it worked perfectly.  The finished hat is comfortable, beautiful and not too tight -- pretty much the hat you're going to reach for every time you hit the trails all winter.

Inspiration & Knitting

After an unexpected few days of early summer rain, our garden is beautiful. We have a small urban lot, full of shade from trees in the back, so our garden is a small strip of border in the front yard that I cut in by hand when we bought our house, almost 18 years ago.  Yearly work on the clay soil has made it rich enough to support my plants.  When we bought the house, there were some scraggy bushes and a very sad tree growing.  Now, it brings me inspiration for knitting and dyeing, and a lot of smiles when I discover its secrets.  I thought I would share some of it, beautified by the rain, this morning.

This surprise growth zucchini vine is causing me a lot of amusement and also, providing dinner for tonight.

Sweet woodruff, with it's tender whorls, is my favorite ground cover.  I've been nursing some tiny cuttings I planted under our cherry tree, in hopes I'll end up with a big swath of it. 

And because this is apparently the year of the ant in Alabama, I have Tansy, two large stands of it, growing on the path that leads to our front door.  Not sure it deters the ants, but it's certainly pretty.

Every garden needs a lion-guardian.  Harry is mine.  And because Maine Coon Cats are curious critters, he's always very engaged in my knitting.

The rest of the week I'll be knitting on Drachenfels, my forever project (on the left).  I'd like to finish it in the next few weeks, but since it's all garter stitch and I'm in the long stockinette portion of my Mithril sweater, I may have to cast on something a little bit more fancy -- some brioche or some lace -- for those times when you need to be all wrapped up in the knitting.  I've just wound the yarn for Mithril's sleeves (on the right), but I'm enjoying the silk & linen yarn so much, that I think it will give Sleeve Island a good name for a change.

Friday Eye Candy

Happy Friday!  I don't know about you, but it has been a long week for me!  I've been away from home and sick at the same time, which is never fun!  I can't remember the last time I felt too sick to knit, but that was me.  Coming home to my family seems to have been a wonder drug and I'm feeling much better.

© coco581

Since I don't have knitting of my own to show you this week, I thought I would share a project I've been undertaking with a cohort of amazing knitters.  The old Elliebelly website had a page called "What Can I Knit With It" that helped you match patterns with yarns.  When I moved my website hosting, there were a couple of glitches, and all of that data was lost.  It was time to freshen up those recommendations in any event, so I spent several weeks dyeing yarn in some of my favorite bases, and for the last few months, a group of talented knitters have been knitting with it.  Their projects are amazing!  

We are on track to have a photo shoot with them at the end of this month, so I can have a new and improved page that helps you match your yarn with projects.  Until then, you can take a look at all of the projects on Ravelry by clicking here. Judi's Waiting with Rain, the photo above, is knit with Elliebelly's BFL Sock and illustrates one of those elusive principles of yarn selection.  

You can typically make a good substitution of a yarn in your stash for a pattern yarn by focusing on the weight of the yarn, in other words, substituting a dk pattern yarn for a dk yarn in your stash.  But this isn't the exclusive consideration.  You also need to think about drape.  100% wool yarns are "sprongy."  They hold their shape.  They are more likely to cling -- in a nice way. Yarns with silk, bamboo, cotton, linen, etc., may be more drapey if the content of the not-wool fiber is high enough.  Think a drapey shawl.  A summer tank top knit out of linen will be loose and drapey but the same pattern, at the same weight, knit in wool, will have a different, more fitted, shape.  Of course, it's not an exact science and sometimes, you just have to knit with a yarn to see what it does.  The 100% Blue Faced Leicester (sheep's wool) content of Elliebelly BFL sock turns out to be really perfect for shawls.  It blocks out to show off the lace patterning perfectly.  And, it's warm enough for a little comfort on a cool day without being too heavy.  The new "What Can I Knit With It" page, when it's ready, will help knitters make these kinds of selections.

As long as we're on this topic, I'll note that one final factor to consider when substituting yarns is that not all yarns categorized as fingering (or sport, or dk, or worsted, or aran, or bulky) will be the same.  Example: a quick perusal of Ravelry shows commercially produced dk weight yarns can run anywhere from 214 to 260 yards for a 100 gram skein.  It's important to be aware of differences like this when substituting a yarn for the one recommended in the pattern.

© coco581

Of course, once you understand these concepts, your ability to substitute yarns in endless. You may deliberately choose to knit a wool cardigan in linen for a looser summer look.  A good example is Ishbel, pictured above. If you click on the link to the pattern, you'll see it was written for a 100% wool fingering yarn, although the pattern page also shows a 50 wool/50 Silk blend as an option.  The wool version has a lovely drawn in look that emphasizes the lace. The Ishbel shown above is knit in Elliebelly Panda, a 50% silk, 50% Bamboo blend.  You might not have thought it would be a good fit for this pattern based on the yarns the designer used, but knowing that her beautiful, complex lace would be shown off to perfection by a drapey, non-wool blend, I chose Panda for this project.  Understanding the way the yarn base will work is a key to making a yarn substitution that is quite different from the recommended yarn, but still a success.

Thinking about the results a yarn will give you with the pattern you select is a key to ending up with finished projects you will love and wear over an over again.  And as with the time spent on swatching, it's well worth engaging in this exercise before you invest your precious knitting time in a project.  I hope that when the new "What Can I Knit With It" page is ready, it will be a really helpful resource for everyone.

Big Cabled Afghan in Gray

Judi (Coco581 on Ravelry) emailed me this morning to let me know she had finished her version of Big Cabled Afghan, my first pattern.  She is the first to complete an afghan project since I posted the pattern, although I know of a number of others in progress and there is also this fantastic pillow version. Judi has knit it up in a soft, lovely gray yarn, Berroco's Vintage Chunky.

Judi was nice enough to let me share her photos with you, and I really couldn't choose just one, so you get to see multiples that show off her beautiful stitchwork, along with the color of the yarn.  The pictures make me want to knit Big Cabled Afghan all over again!  If they do the same for you, it's a free pattern and you can download it here, straight into your Ravelry library.

 

 

New Yarn: The Plucky Knitter's Cachet

Cachet is The Plucky Knitter's brand new 100% cashmere yarn.  Although it's listed at an aran weight, it knits up in the worsted range for me, with 18 stitches/26 rows to four inches on size 6 needles.

It knits up like a dream: a soft cloud of stockinette.  And, the gauge is perfect for some of the patterns in my queue I'm longing to knit the most, including Carol Feller's Portulaca, Thea Coleman's new sweater, Rye, and Mailin and Monte Rosa, both by Isabel Kraemer .  Decisions, decisions.

I'm also going to swatch this yarn a couple of needle sizes down to see what the fabric looks like.  Originally, I planned to knit Alana Dakos Cabled Leaf Pullover in this yarn.  Since its gauge is 20 stitches/26 rows, it seems like that might be doable.

I know it's obvious, after years and years of being a polyamorous knitter who carried a torch for a lot of  different brands of yarn, when I discovered Plucky last year, I fell deeply in love with the wonderful custom spun, hand-dyed yarns they produce.  All of the yarns I've used so far, from Snug Bulky, to Bello Worsted, to Cashmere Sport, to Primo Aran, to Crew, to Scholar, have made me really happy.  Each new project makes me think I've found my favorite yarn of all time.  And truly, they are all my favorites.  I adore this yarn, and the new heavy weight Cachet cashmere is like knitting with a dream.  If you haven't discovered Plucky yet, it's worth the effort.  Although the yarn is sold in an unusual fashion, there is lots of advice for newbies here and a very nice group of helpful knitters on the Ravelry group.  You'll be glad you took the time to figure it out!

 

Aster

 

© Quince & Co.

Knitting with linen is always tricky.  Swatching isn't as exact, because your fabric with ease up significantly with repeat washings and lengthen if the garment has any weight at all to it.  And, because I have a very loose gauge from the get go, swatching is even riskier business for me on linen.

My first swatch for Aster was on size 8 needles.  The pattern recommends 9.  And it was huge.  Very pretty but huge.  I would have knit a monster size garment.

I went down to size 6 needles and after washing, blocking and stretching the swatch (to imitate normal wear), I had gauge.  Or at least, I had stitch gauge.  My row gauge is off for the garter stitch piece. Interestingly, the pattern suggests going down a size when you hit the garter stitch block at the top, and that gives me row gauge.  But not stitch gauge.  So I'll do some math-fu on that part.

 

After swatching, I was distracted by two sweet little stray kittens who came to live with us this week. Aren't they cute?  They ADORE knitting.  This is not a good thing.

This pattern calls for negative ease, and I'm knitting it for my daughter, so I chose the 31.5" size.  The next size up, at 34" would have been far too large.  The start is stockinette stitch, and you can see that it rolls.  The roll up at the bottom concerned me, but looking at the pattern photos I saw a slight roll. I'm hopeful that as the garment grows in size, its weight will work on that.

I'm not sure that hope is going to work out, because I'm past the first set of decreases, but I still have a roll of linen.  And on the gauge front, as I thought might happen, even with my best efforts to knit tightly, I'm still getting enough fewer stitches over time that I'm please with the choice of the 31.5" size. It's too early to tell if that will hold up, but as of right now, even with the stretching that is inevitable as the garment grows, I think I should get a good fit.

Finally, a word about the yarn.  This is Quince and Co's linen tape yarn, Kestrel.  I love their sport weight linen, Sparrow, which is a typically spun yarn, and which I used for Lida last summer.

The verdict is still out on Kestrel.  I had a knot in the first skein after knitting three rows, which did not get us off to a friendly start together.  But this is a good project to test it out on and see how it performs.

April Catch Up: Knitting and Vacationing

As most of you know, we spent two weeks in April on a study trip (cleverly disguised as a vacation) to Israel and Jordan.  It was a wonderful trip and we learned a lot.  And, because of lots of travel time and some wickedly long layovers, I got a lot of knitting done.

This is me during our five hour layover in Charlotte, after completing the first of three flights it took us to get to Tel Aviv.  At the time I was not amused, but when I realized the husband had brilliantly snagged seats that reclined into flatbeds for the overnight segment of the trip, I felt better.  

In my bag: Antarktis (the blue), Vodka Lemonade sweater (the green), my Frostline shawl (you can see a bit of red peeking out in the back), and a couple of squares for my quilt from hell that will never be finished  Barn Raising Quilt, which you can't quite see in the photo.  Although the full bag of knitting may seem like overkill, I finished two of the four (Antarktis and the quilt squares), worked on Frostline until I ran out of yarn, and got in a few inches on Vodka Lemonade.  More on all of that progress after I catch up on the time change, but I did want to share two photos with you before I get some sleep.

This is me, happily knitting on our balcony in Jerusalem in sight of the walls of the Old City.  This became my early morning routine every day, and I was grateful to have a project I could work on while looking around and drinking in the beauty of my surroundings, without needing to pay lots of attention to the knitting.  It was amazing and moving, as was the entire trip.  

This photo captured an unexpected moment of knitting poignancy, that would have taken my breath away if I had any left at all while visiting Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial.  It was an extraordinary and emotional experience. We came upon this exhibit, which told the stories of those who had survived in the camps, only to be forced into a death march as Hitler's forces realized they were losing the war.  One of the exhibits showed a beautifully knit, stranded glove, among pictures of some of the people whose stories were told.  It noted that the knitter made items like this to trade for food and took it along with her on the beginning of the death march.  I can't capture my feelings in words, but wanted to share this photo with my knitting friends.  On so many different levels, it's both heartbreaking and hopeful.

 

 

Update: Knitting On Spring Break

My first spring break knitting goal is accomplished, my Tipperary Shawl, knit from The Plucky Knitter's Snug Bulky yarn, is finished.

It is, of course, love. There are three reasons for that: Cashmere and Alpaca in a bulky lace pattern, a Warm and pretty finished object, and, an easy but never boring to knit pattern.

This is another pattern I can't recommend highly enough.

Next up for me is casting on my Antarktis Scarf in the morning when the Adventurous April KAL starts.