Women's cable chart, originally a raglan 1992(?)

Here goes my standard patter:
Like all my charts, if you're interested in trying them out, they're all pretty much written for light worsted to worsted weight yarn - you could use anything from a wool blend to plain acrylic, I'm not sure 100% cotton would hold it's shape well against the weight of all the cables, but there's no reason not to try it - and I really like charts. But this one lacks full directions - it's just the chart (or about 2/3 of the chart) for the front and back - only I did this one as a raglan. I started with a crew neck with a cable ribbing, added 1/5th of the total number of stitches to increase for the body, and set the pattern at a 2/1/2/1 division of all the stitches. I then increased on each side of the raglans every other round until it was big enough, took off the sleeves, joined the body worked to desired length, then picked up the sleeves and did standard decreasing to the cuffs. Anyway, if anyone wants to take a stab, I can write up better directions that that.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
(If you make any interesting versions, I'd love to hear about them.)

Norwegian Roses part 4

It's getting there . . .
So I'm just free handing the sleeves, I think it will all come together once it gets assembled. It's just not as bright as it looks here.

And here is a detail of the picot edging - where I cut off the original garter stitch part which just wasn't working.
I really like it - I think it works well even on worsted to heavy worsted gauge yarn.

A nice, solid finished sweater

So, as it turns out Encore Worsted works pretty well for Lopi Lite patterns. The only adjustment seems to be that while the width gauge is okay, the row gauge is short, so you need to make some adjustments, but that's not that big of a deal.
Anyway, it came out pretty nicely, just needs to be washed.
In a machine! (clapping hands with glee).

Something to try . . .

I want to use up all those bins and bins of stuff I have in the closet and today the Yarn Harlot had a link to these cool glove things - Dashing.
Must do some!
Not interesting, no pictures, sorry, lame me.

Knit Versus Crochet (ala _Mad Magazine_) in which I natter on and on and on . . ..

Remember the two birds who were always blowing each other up? Yeah, I never really got Mad Magazine when I was a kid . . .
So this, is nothing like that. Actually, it's all about getting along.

The Mad Crocheter and I have been talking about knitting and crocheting for a few years now. In fact, I think I can lay blame at that door for even getting around to starting this blog at all. Some of the first conversations we had were about what's up with the knitting snobbery? How come crochet seems to get a bad rap? We kicked around various theories: knitting is more utilitarian because one uses it to make clothes; crocheting is more of purely decorative art (edgings on hankies, doilies, etc.); knitting is more of a Northern/industrialized/puritanical pursuit (images of those stern faced ladies in mill towns making socks by candle light as it got dark at 4pm in the winter) while a more Southern pursuit (refined ladies doing fine work while socializing out on verandas); the socio-economic factor (your granny making afghans out of $1.99/in. skeins of acrylic versus Julia Roberts bringing her knitting on the set, all those designers writing patterns for knitting, working with tony yarn producers culminating in the knitting revival of the 80's and 90's).
They were some mighty interesting conversations, but the more we talked, the more I became convinced that one of the main things bringing down the potential good name of crochet was that crocheters tended to use crappy materials.
You see, T.M.C. would talk about going to Michael's for some Lion Brand for an afghan, and while there's certainly nothing wrong with that, I wondered what might result if they field of play were broadened for T.M.C.? I talked about the concept of hand and T.M.C. sort of gave me these funny looks, and confessed discomfort with "yarn snobbery". No, no, I tried to play it as a larger interaction of tool and use and lo and behold . . .
So now I've seen T.M.C. make clothes, crocheted sweaters and hats and they ROCK, they really do, but man, they ain't made of acrylic.
So today, I sent the shot across the bow about we should try to design patterns that have to use both - like a book of piano duets, it could be two person patterns - go find a knitter or crocheter and make these things, because you'll need someone who can do both. Strength through unity. Kind of a cool idea, I thought.

Then, a snag . . . .

Hand again. T.M.C.'s stuff is really lovely, and the clothing is mainly cotton or cotton blend. But I find that stuff really hard to knit with; it hangs wrong, it stretches out, the necks look lousy, but for crochet, cotton and blends looks great.
My theory: knit works best on wool blends because of the kind of fabric it makes, more drape-y,while crochet, which is basically made of knots, works better with plant fibers which create a softer, more supple fabric.
Not a nail in the coffin lid of my "fiber-ists without borders pattern collection" idea, but something to keep in mind perhaps . . .

Norwegian Roses part 3

Okay, the body is almost done - and I'm running out of the Sunburst Gold! Grrrrrr - I stink at math and I can't find Brown Sheep LBW in this color anywhere. So much for timing things to be ready for Christmas. The colors really show up better on this second picture, but I really love the piece as a whole. It's completely out of my usual comfort range of colors. I think I want to do this one in blues again - blue and green maybe? Or, do something with blues and this sunburst gold again, that would be really nice.
Anyway, the sleeves won't take long once they get done and I should be all done with the body tonight.

I've got my next Aran project waiting, the blue teal huge cable thingie, but we saw some of the second Bourne movie and I really like Joan Allen's sweater - it's a charcoal grey Aran - I think I want to make one of those.
Basically, I think I need to convince my family to move to Finland so I can knit every piece of clothing we own.
(Hrrrm, I was playing with the comments and seem to have dissappeared them from this post, sorry, perhaps this will fix this? NEXT NIGHT Whatever I did really messed up comments, so I just copied and pasted the dumb post and now, presto, comments are back and better than ever.)

Simple man's aran from 1995(?)

Still working on Norwegian Roses (in fact, we stayed up WAY too late last night to see the Patriots win, and yes, I really dislike Tony Kornheiser and Ron Jaworski, who'd have thought someone could have made Dennis Miller look good?) but I wasn't real happy about how the bottom edge looked, so I cut off the garter stitch edge and picked up the stitches - worked 2 rows in the chocolate brown and did the picot edging, now I'm making a band to sew down. I think it will be better. Of course, taking scissors to my knitting tends to make my husband question my sanity/knitting skills. :)
Anyhow, here's another chart for a man's sweater - this one's rather old - I originally did it in garnet heather Bartlett.
As always,

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
(If you make any interesting versions, I'd love to hear about them.)

Man's aran pattern 1995

Another sweater pattern - from 2 years back

So, here's a not-very-good-snap of one of my favorite patterns; I think it's handsome, if a bit dull. I did this one in 2004 and came up with the initial rough sketch while attending a meeting on the USA Patriot Act - that's why it's named for it, anyway. I really love the double Aran diamond pattern and tend to overuse it, but here I put in the time to set up the coordinated detailed ribbing and I think it worked out pretty well. I did this in Green Mountain Spinnery's Cotton Comfort in weathered green and it has really worn nicely.

Like all my charts, if you're interested in trying them out, they're all pretty much written for light worsted to worsted weight yarn - you could use anything from a wool blend to plain acrylic, I'm not sure 100% cotton would hold it's shape well against the weight of all the cables, but there's no reason not to try it - and I really like charts. But this one lacks full directions - it's just the chart (or about 2/3 of the chart) for the front and back, add whatever neck you like. You'd start with the center 1/3 plus for the sleeves and increase up to about 6/7's of the total width for the top of the sleeve. And that ribbing is supposed to be much longer than that, that's just to set the pattern. Anyway, if anyone wants to take a stab, I can write up better directions that that.
(My mom said that her mother, whom I never met, was a great cook, but never wrote anything down and did it all from her head. Apparently a cookbook was just "a good excuse for an arguement." I guess that's me with knitting patterns; I'm always flying by the seat of my pants.)


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
(If you make any interesting versions, I'd love to hear about them.)

Northern lights sweater

Dang, thought I'd had this written down somewhere but I can't find it at the moment - this was 2 skeins of Malabrigo plus 8 skeins of Lamb's Pride Worsted - the picot edging was a new thing I was playing with at the time - I got the idea from a lace shawl I started and have since shoved back in the closet - and it really looks great.

Anyway, I'll dig out the pattern from wherever I misplaced it and I'll post it. It's easy, fast, fun and an awesome sweater for cooler weather.

Making some progress on that quilt

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable holiday and got some time off. We had a very nice, very quiet long weekend.
The older I get, the more I learn to listen to my own "outages". When I just stall out on a project, I've learned it's because I'm not where I need to be to work on it, if I try to force it, whatever I do will stink and I'll just end up hating it, ripping it out, or just messing the whole thing up royally.
So, the little one's quilt has been malingering on the couch for a while, but I finally figured out what it needed - which is less. So I finished with the satin stitch work I was planning on doing on it, and now it's getting assembled in the dining room. The final plan is to quilt it using images from the headings of the chapters of the H.P. books - kids on brooms, snitches, owls and the like. I'll post some images as I get some of the work done.
I have to say at this point that I hate assembly of quilts. I can never get the damn thing flat, or straight and I end up spending hours on it, cursing as quietly as possible. Love the sewing and the quilting, but maybe I can find an outsource for the assembly of the layers . . . .

Two nights of hunched over scribbling

Here it is - one side anyway.
It took a couple of tries to get the main cable done, because there are some stitches that are completely added in process - i.e., the panel begins with 49, but increases up to 53 at it's widest point.
Steph says she's never done a cable piece before and has started working on swatches.
First of all, good for you! I've been knitting since I was 4 and it really, no joke, took me into my 36th year on the planet to learn that "no, it's not different because I'm me, you can't be a free spirit when it comes to gauge, haste makes waste and if you don't like it RIP IT OUT". And I am such a happier person and better knitter for finally getting that through my dumb head.
When it comes to working with cables, I love Charted Knitting Designs: A Third Treasury of Knitting Patterns by Barbara Walker. I like visualizing things like this, so I'll get some 10 sq./in. graph paper, pick cables and lay out the front/back/sleeves. Of course, you can buy software that does this nowadays, but I think it helps me to troubleshoot my cables doing it by hand.

Some charting to do for the next project

Though I'm officially cut off until I finish something from starting anything else that's new.

That quilt on the couch that's been keeping us company, for instance. Yeah, finishing that bad boy would be a good idea.

(Gales of laughter . . .)

So anyway, here's my latest redo. More Encore Worsted, this is number 670, blue teal. I want to do the sweater on the left in the picture (yes, it's for a man, but I'll do the medium and make the sleeves shorter and the body longer). It's an old Annabel Fox patterm - the Rowan issue it comes from is from 1988 (actual title is Rowan Knitting Book Number Four: Rowan Rural Traditions, it's listed as OOP in Amazon, but perhaps you could find it somewhere -- this is a very cool issue, some early works by Kaffe Fassett, Erika Knight and Kim Hargraves) written for Rowan Magpie. I made it once a long time ago, but the pattern is not charted - although the sweater on the right side is (which is also quite lovely and I've made that one as well). Anyway, this was before charting things was the standard it's become, so rather than curse a written pattern, I'm going to invest a couple of nights and chart this one out.

That center cable is wicked complicated, as I recall. Should be fun.

Dang, when I checked this post and opened that snap of the pattern up large, it nearly breaks copyright law. Double dang, once I get the bad boy charted, I'd love to post it, but I'd need to do a ton of research with Rowan in order to do that.

(Hi cat who just jumped on me.)

Perhaps Annabel Fox has it in another publication, or charted elsewhere? Sheesh, you'd think I'd do more research, being a librarian and all . . .

Not very exciting, but a nice, solid discovery

So, you have nieces/nephews you'd like to make Christmas presents for, but don't want to make delicate-wash things that might get shrunk?

Mmm, me too.

This is for one of our nephews, and mys sister knits and knows how to take proper care of wool, but I thought maybe (I hoped) synthetics have come a long way since the stretch bell bottom pants I used to wear as a child in the 70's.
Come to find out, they have. This is Encore Worsted and it feels pretty nice, not squeeky and yucky like I was worried about, and it knits up evenly and looks like wool and isn't shiny looking either. Makes a very nice fabric, here knit on 7's. I liked it so much I got some of the blue teal to make another Aran sweater. Supposedly for myself, but I tend to get all excited about these things and want to give them away, thinking "Oh, I'll tweak it by doing x,y, z next time and making it in burgundy . . . ."
I make photocopies of all patterns I use so I can take them anywhere with me, write all over them, and now that the young one has discovered astronomy, have diagrams of the solar system all over the back of them. "Ooooh, mom, can I draw on that?" as we ride somewhere to go hiking . . . .

Norwegian Roses part 2

It's getting longer . . .
Almost up to the armpit now. This is out on the porch. The light is better, more realistic, but it still looks much brighter in these pictures than it does in real life.

The second picture does more justice to the lovely gold color. I seem to have quite the romance with yellow and gold going on lately.

I think I'd like to try this, maybe in Knitpicks Suri Dream, either natural, stone, black forest and chili pepper (way too dramatic for me, but it sounds nice on someone striking) or

maybe atlantic, blueberry, twilight and aprico.

Halloween costume

He had to pick someone from the Middle Ages for school.
We picked Richard the Lionheart.

Norwegian Roses

Again, the colors are more subtle than this, but you kind of need to see it in daylight and that's getting hard to come by after dinner these days...

It actually has the feel of walking in a beech stand in October in New England - and it's nice and warm. Just the thing to have in your lap as you knit after getting your flu shot today . . . .

Gryffindor Sweater is done, NEXT!

Well, here it is. Fits beautifully. Which means that I'll be coming up with larger sizes quite soon, no doubt. Pattern is in the 9/26/07 post - please use it if you want! Valley Yarns washes and dries like a dream.
(On a side note, I haven't blogged much lately because things have been busy - like snaking out the dryer vent on our house which had 14 years of fossilized lint and crap in it. It took over 4 hours and involved filling a 10 quart bucket with unspeakable muck, but it was really fun in a way. I think being a plumber would be much more fulfilling than what I really do for money ...)

In case you don't recognize her, that's Hedwig on the bed . . . She'll being going trick-or-treating with us this year.
For my next trick, I'm doing the Green Mountain Spinnery Norwegian Roses pattern for my mom. Here's the start. Mom picked out the colors, and you might have heard about as people age the balance of their color receptors in their eyes changes and some people begin to really gravitate towards orange and yellow as those (cones? rods? I used to know) receptors burn out. I've insisted this is what's up with my mom for a while now. And I have to admit when I started to knit this I thought "oh golly, mom, this looks like Burger King" - but it doesn't. It's quite nice and understated. The colors in this picture are far brighter than real life.

We have a neck and sleeves (again)

I had gotten the entire neck finished, ends sewn in and everything, when I started on the sleeves and realized I'd messed up on the left side.
Yup. Had to cut off the neck, rip out the left shoulder sleeve, pull down the front left side, reknit it, resew, repick up, reknit and refinish the neck.
And you know what? It looks SO MUCH BETTER. Can't thank my husband enough -- after a 5 second look as I expressed my worry he said: "Yeah, they aren't the same, it's always going to be a little shorter on that side and pull - he'll notice."
It was a two stitch mistake, but he was right. So, here it is. Having to do the sleeves on 4 needles, as I don't have a small circular 4 (how did that happen, but I have a zillion size 3's of every length imaginable?).

Everything's coming up scarlett and gold

I have apparently surrendered to my fate of moving into Gryffindor house myself. Here's the sweater and the quilt, which are coming together in tandem. The flora on top of the shield on the quilt is kind of hard to make out in this picture, but it looks pretty good in real life.
I think the sweater looks good so far (I'm adding to the pattern as I go in a previous post) but it's hard to tell if you're designing something for the first time. My stuff tends to have fat bodies and skinny sleeves with droopy shoulders, I'm trying to get away from that here with the set in sleeves.
I must confess, though, I'm kind of excited to move on to a broader color palette ...