New Cotton Project

When I knit for babies, I just love to make sweaters. I have used both washable wool and cotton many times. I have found that mom's don't mind laying a sweater out to dry instead of throwing it in the dryer, so I don't worry about it much. My SIL, with the 18 month old, is not usually very careful with laundry. However, she loves the things that I knit so they are well taken care of. I made a little hoodie for her son E last spring and she puts it on him all the time. I used Tuulia Salmela's Tailored Sweater Pattern, which is lovely. A person does need to know exactly which measurements to use, but I have found that with a little research, I can make a pretty good guess.
Over the weekend I was in my favorite LYS, Village Yarn and Tea. They were having a 40% off sale on many of their summer yarns and Tahki's Cotton Classic was on the list. Available for sale, they had a deep chocolate brown, a bright orange and a cornflower blue. I purchased two skeins of blue and one of each of the other colors and figure that it should be easy to get a sweater out of it for him for less than $15. I plan on using the orange and brown for accent stripes.

FYI I finished the stealth project, so I should have more stuff that I can actually blog about, now! :)

New Sweater On The Needles

Last week, I opened my email to find the latest version of Tuulia Salmela's Tailored Sweater Pattern. My friend K & I took a class from her on this method of knitting sweaters from the shoulder to the hem early last spring. Since then, I found an error and she wanted to make some improvements. I was so happy to see the new file come out. I own the book "Custom Knits" by Wendy Bernard. Preferring Tuulia's method and yet loving the "Slinky Ribs" pattern in the book, I merged the two patterns together, but am using the recommended yarn, Silky Wool. I took my own measurements and a some from the finished garment diagram and created a new pattern with Tuulia's spreadsheet. So far, it is working quite well. The biggest problem I am having is that I want to keep knitting on this one, instead of finishing a stealth project that I am working on that has a deadline! I started this one last Thursday evening and only managed to get the back about halfway to the point where I needed to start the front shoulders. However, I worked on it all day Saturday, too. By the end of that day, I had the underarm increases about one third finished. I am looking forward to finishing to the point where I can knit in the round instead of knitting rows. There are also no increases or decreases to worry about at that point, but rather when and how to go from the 2x2 ribs to stockinette.

Two FO Disappointments

I have recently finished 2 sleeveless sweaters that have not worked out quite like I had imagined. Both are knit top down and have issues that will make me rip them back to near the beginning of the project.
The first is the yarn from June's Malabrigo Club shipment, 100% Organic Cotton. I love this yarn. I knit a swatch, washed and dried it. Having done this, I decided that I liked it better knit on the larger of the 2 needles that I used, rather than the smaller. Before the blocking process, the larger needle made a fabric that was too open, but the yarn shrinks, some. So, using a pattern from Interweave and my swatch information, I redesigned the pattern to be exactly what I wanted. Much to my surprise, the sweater is too short and far too wide after washing! I am trying to decide exactly what to do. I will probably pull it out, back to before joining at the underarms, and reknit the armhole shaping and then the body. I have been hesitating to do this as I don't particularly like knitting stockinette stitch in the round and all of the interesting stitches are in the part that does not need to be reknitted. I am also unsure of which needle size I should use to reknit it. However, I do have to keep working on a project with a deadline, so I don't expect to get to it anytime soon.
Then, I began another top as I wanted something rather mindless for when I was at the Women of Faith conference. (I like to have my hands busy when I am listening to a speaker, but it needs to be something that I don't have to look down at.) I designed a simple top using Tuulia Salmela's Tailored Sweater pattern. It is mostly stockinette stitch with a simple eyelet pattern at the front neck edge. I left off the sleeves, and made the top part a crossover design instead of a basic v-neck. I wore it last Sunday and really love it. However, after a day of wear, the top has stretch to where it is not fitting well. This top is knitted with Tahki's Sierra, so it may be the fault of the yarn, as I am not familiar with this one. However, I am surprised as I slipped all of the stitches that I was supposed to have slipped. I am now debating whether to do the same to this top as to the first one listed here. Again, though, am not entirely sure whether to use the same needles or smaller ones.

Tailored Sweater Update

I have been making quite a bit of progress on my Summer Pullover, since finishing up my Malabrigo projects from ESK's Malabrigo Projects Club. (More on those later...) I have at least 4 inches of the side seams done, but am getting rather bored with all this stockinette stitch. It does, however, make for great meeting knitting as I rarely need to look down at it. I am really looking forward to the next ESK shipment so that I will have another project to begin. That is, if I don't start something sooner. I have been thinking about the Queensland Cotton that I purchased a while back from Elann. I would like to have a sweater knit out of it, but am really not sure what I want. I guess that I could knit some swatches and see what looks good. If I found a lace pattern that I particularly loved, I might even be able to put the gauge into the Tailored Sweater Pattern and work it out for a great fitting, lacy, summer top. I have been have been sewing myself some summer skirts, lately and it would go perfectly!

Knitting During Work Hours!

Thursday was an awesome day! I woke with a migraine (alright not so great) and took a full dose of Excedrin Migraine to ease the pain so that I could work. The caffeine always gives me a bit of an adrenaline high for the day, so I was rushing through everything that I was doing. I sped through many of my tasks at work and then had a meeting from 10-11:30. I always love meetings at work, as long as I’m not presenting, as I can knit! I worked on Whisper and nearly finished the second sleeve. Forgetting that I had another meeting in the afternoon, I spent my lunch working to finish the sleeve and did! As I was binding off the last stitch, the coworker I was eating with said, “It’s a good thing that you went to lunch early. Remember we have a meeting this afternoon.” At first, I thought that I might not have anything else simple to work on, but found my teal, cotton pullover in the bottom of my bag! Whew…Disaster averted! (I get very bored in most meetings and have difficult time concentrating and not fidgeting when my hands aren’t busy.) So, that afternoon, I had another 2 hours to spend knitting. I finished half of the last few armhole decreases and am only an hour or two away from splitting the sleeves from the body of the sweater. I reached this point a little over a week ago, but then realized that I had knit the armhole too long and ripped it back so that it would fit better. I usually find it difficult to regain momentum on a project after a problem like this and the meeting was perfect for this.
After arriving home from work, I picked up Whisper, again. I pulled out my circular needle and wound the 2nd ball of yarn. Then, I sat down to pick up stitches. I didn’t count how many, but it is a ton! Luckily, I had this week’s episodes of NCIS and CSI: NY to watch, so the time went rather quickly. I even knit a couple of rows!

Tailored Sweater for Me

It may not look like much, since it is all wadded up on the needles, but this is my progress made on a sweater for me made from Tuulia's Tailored Sweater Pattern. This picture was taken on Tuesday night, so I do have a little more progress made on it. Its really coming together quickly and I am working on the sleeves, now. Then I will move on to the body! The yarn is a wonderful cotton: Elann's Lara in Algiers Teal. This will be one more that will get much wear, I expect!

Next

Next up is the results of my class knitting, last Saturday. I took a class with Tuulia at Barb's house. She taught us her Tailored Sweater Pattern which is a top down, set in sleeve sweater pattern that is simply wonderful! We had a wonderful day chatting and knitting while learning this technique which seems quite a mess when hearing about it. Once you get in and try it, its not too difficult and looks wonderful!