Ice Gnomes Marching

When J saw my Knubbelchen, she commented on how well it would look as a tomten. Then the Knit Picks catalog arrived and I saw this kit, which seemed like the perfect addition, and my Christmas plans were set.

Tomten

Yarn: Fingering weight leftovers, probably KnitPicks Stroll
Needles: 2.5 mm dpns
Pattern: pezi888’s delightful Knubbelchen
Mods: none

Tomten Pillow

Yarn: Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Worsted in Coal, Cranberry, White, and Oyster Heather
Needles: US 6 (4.00 mm)
Pattern: Kathy Lewinski's Santa Pillow
Mods: I followed the advice to carry the Coal and Oyster Heather up the side instead of cutting and restarting, and finished with this much Oyster Heather remaining:

9 yards left

I had my doubts about it fitting a 20" square pillow, but it was no problem after blocking.

I used the whole project as an exercise in Color Dominance and was really pleased with the results.

Week 12 Progress Report, Sweater 2

This is nice. There's only one problem. One being the operative word.

The Six Swans comes to mind, although my version is found in Andrew Lang's Yellow Fairy Book.

Week 11 Progress Report, Sweater 2

Shoulders:

And collar:

Onward to sleeves!

Week 11, Progress Report, Sweater 1

С криком ура!

Once I find the right buttons, I will have to pry it off her to attach them. Otherwise, it is complete.

Needles: US 3 (3.25 mm), US 4 (3.50 mm), US 6 (4.00 mm)

Yarn: Cascade Yarns 220 Superwash Sport in Picante, Army Green, Westpoint Blue Heather, and Colonial Blue Heather

Pattern: alfa knits' 3 in 1 -- I cannot say enough about how well this fairly complicated pattern is written. Everything is broken down into manageable steps, the illustrations are clear, the sizing is color-coded.

Mods:

• the recipient preferred a solid blue yoke instead of continuing the stripes.

• I got stitch gauge right off, but got 28 rows instead of 35 rows to 4". I also needed to shorten it quite a bit for the recipient. I dropped rows 3-12 in the front placket, and another 10 rows at the end of the yoke. That meant I had to adjust the buttonholes, but I had planned to do that anyway because I didn't like the two so close together at the top.

I learned several new techniques -- or brushed up on old ones -- to make the details as nice as possible:

• jogless stripes
• binding off in the middle of a fabric, beginning and end
• a better SSK
• a better p2tog
• better shoulder shaping

Pretty much whenever I wanted a better way of doing something, I checked Techknitter to see if there was one, and was never disappointed.

Week 10 Progress Report, Sweater 2

The back is done to the beginning of the armhole. I've begun to think about sleeve decreases.

Week 10 Progress Report, Sweater 1 - All Over But the Shouting

Or the "collars," as the case may be.

Week 9 Progress Report, Sweater 2

I have made a good start on the back. There is no shaping at all to contend with, just steady row-counting, so I hope to be ready for shoulders next week!

Week 9 Progress Report, Sweater 1

With both sleeves finished, everything finally wound up on one needle. Now the yoke-work begins!

Week 8 Progress Report, Sweater 2

Front, done! On to the back!

Week 8 Progress Report, Sweater 1

Time to think deep math-y thoughts to adjust the pattern to the row gauge I’m getting.

Week 7 Progress Report, Sweater 2

Spinning my wheels...

Re-jiggered my measurements and numbers, which made all the math fall neatly into place. Decided I wanted a wider placket. Then decided I wanted a more finished edge to the placket. But I now have forward momentum again.

Week 7 Progress Report, Sweater 1

A sleeve, an overabundance of sleeve!

I am getting stitch gauge but not row gauge, which means my knitting runs long but not wide. Since it's a long sweater, it didn't much matter on the body, and it's pretty easy to shorten the sleeves. But I can tell that I will have to fiddle with the yoke so that it is not too long. While still working in all the decreases and buttonholes. Hmmm.

Week 6 Progress Report, Sweater 2

Placket! And neck decreases, done carefully inside the placket edge, mathematically spaced, and using a neat new-to-me trick to tighten up the SSKs to look as nice as the K2TOGs. So much jargon, But seriously, if there's ever a detail in your knitting that makes you wish there was a better way, check out techknitter's index and learn something new!

I'm pleased with the placket and look forward to finishing the front so I can get cracking on the back.

Week 6 Progress Report, Sweater 1

What's that? Is that - yes! We have a sleeve!

The second sleeve will go much more quickly, since I am done dithering over whether to make jogless stripes. (Yes. Yes, you should.)

I swear that these photos are in focus when I take them, because I check. Something awful happens in the process of getting them onto the blog. I've pretty much given up trying to figure it out.

Week 5 Progress Report, Sweater 2

The elusive 15" has been reached at last (and my row gauge is spot on). Time to divide for the front placket!

Week 5 Progress Report, Sweater 1

Stop! The instructions announce firmly. Put down the sweater. Go make the sleeves. Huzzah!

Week 4 Progress Report, Sweater 2

A little backwards progress this week. It had become obvious that the flashing and pooling was a real issue. Like most knitting issues, if I had accepted reality a little earlier, it would have been a quicker fix. There are several ways to deal with flashing and pooling, and the best way here was to back up to the start of the new skein and alternate two skeins.

All of the skeins are the same dye lot. For reasons that remain mysterious, the first skein did not pool. I tried a randomized sample of the other skeins, and they all pooled. So alternating skeins was the answer.

I'm not sure it's completely clear in these close ups, but in the first picture above, the original fabric, when viewed from a distance, created large blue blobs all over the sweater. Breaking up that pooling with the other skein gave me the more randomized result in the second picture, which is much more what I was going for.

And I bet you anything I will have to continue doing this up the sleeves and on either side of the front. Because while the other way to deal with pooling is to change the number of stitches, I don't believe for a moment that the number of stitches I drop down to will stripe in a nice, randomized manner.

Week 4 Progress Report, Sweater 1

This week's exciting discovery was that the increases occur almost four times as rapidly as I thought they did, which means that I am already halfway done with them. And when they're done - next week - I get to start the sleeves!

I realize it looks about the same as last time. And I keep having to move further away to get it all in the frame. But it really is growing!

Week 3 Progress Report, Sweater 2

I have nearly achieved the elusive 15 inches. I am knitting exactly to gauge, and could just count rows, but I'm taking a belt-and-suspenders approach, and measuring as well. I am also using up the yarn at about the rate I expected to, which is nice.

New yarn has been arriving, which makes sticking to projects that are in the boring stage a bit difficult. Onward!

Week 3 Progress Report, Sweater 1

First waist increase done. This is definitely the boring part.

Meanwhile, I made some facecloths. I'm really sorry that Bernat Gloucester has been discontinued. It was a nice soft cotton with no excess plant matter in it at all.

The pattern is nalhcib's Pearl Brioche Dishcloth #12, which was easily memorized and produced a lovely squishy fabric. I chose to work it on US 8 (5.00 mm) because I find a more openwork cotton cloth dries more thoroughly.

Week 2 Progress Report, Sweater 2

Coming along, slowly but surely. I'm almost through the second skein. It's maddening that identical dye lots knit up differently on the same number of stitches, same needles, and despite countless efforts to start at the same place in the color scheme.

Week 2 Progress Report, Sweater 1

Waist decreases done, now working on the main body of the sweater. Stripes and the occasional increase are the only things happening until I reach the bottom of the neck opening. But it's going fast.

And when it's time to start the sleeves, I get to start over with the rust and green again!

Week 1 Progress Report, Sweater 2

Moving right along, but smaller gauge and flat pieces means it will take a little longer than the other. I do love the color changes in the yarn.

I moved it off onto a circular needle right after I took the picture; it clearly needed more room to breathe. I'm getting gauge, though. No surprise, after actually making a swatch.

The stitch markers are serving as hemming pins - I was going to sew the hem, then decided to sew the side seams first. I have no idea why. Not having a pattern means I can do what I want.

Week 1 Progress Report, Sweater 1

I have completed stage 1:

and stage 2:

It looks a little bit like a whale, I think.  It's a fantastic pattern, very clearly written and illustrated. When I misread an instruction as "with both right sides facing" instead of reading ahead to the next line, which added "you," it was my own fault. And no harm done, since at no time did I think it really wanted me to do the former.

I also discover that this poor designer has had her pattern hijacked and cheap knock-offs of the sweater are advertised on FB scam ads which - adding insult to injury - use one of the photos from someone on Ravelry who has made the sweater. Intellectual property theft from two different knitters.

New Beginnings

How long does it take to knit a sweater? How about two? Requests for sweaters in hand, with no expectation on anyone's part that I will finish before Christmas, we begin.

Yarn purchased:

Yarn wound:

Let the wild rumpus commence! (I'm not taking sides in the "start vs. begin" quote war brought on by different editions of a children's classic. Life is too short.)

And you're quite right, that lovely rust is not enough for the first sweater. Other colors will appear in due course.

It's Been a Hot Minute

This poor sweater has been languishing for decades. There were two sweaters that I wanted to make in the Spring/Summer 1991 issue of Vogue Knitting. I never finished the other one, either. We moved, and then we moved again, and then life happened, and... I recently dug it out and discovered that all it needed was the other sleeve attached, the collar knit, buttons sewn on, and the matching hat made.

The hat is a hoot. It's such an odd shape lying flat, but it looks great on the kid in the pattern picture, so I think I just need to find a four-year-old model. The instructions said to knit the hem, purl a row for the fold, knit the outside, and sew it down later. Twenty years on, I know a better trick then that - when it was time, I just knit the first and last rows together.

I'm somewhat astonished that in all these years I never lost the project, the yarn, the instructions, or even the buttons! Tiny German sailboats:

The yarn has yellowed with age and sunlight along the exposed edge, and I don't think it will wash out; maybe the rest of the sweater will age to match. Or maybe it will just assure some young mother that sweaters, even white ones, are for playing in and getting dirty.

Needles: US 8 (5.00 mm)
Yarn: Bernat's Gloucester Cotton in Natural (discontinued)
Pattern: Carey Nicholson's #16 Child Cardigan and Beret
Mods: None that I remember, other than the aforementioned hemming hack

Slouch Hat

Most of the Flower Garden leftovers went into a bag for a future project, but I had enough of the pink to try a pattern I've had my eye on for quite some time. It was, as I suspected, fun to make, and I'm pleased with the result. My yarn was Aran weight instead of Worsted weight, but the hat fits, and is just a little slouchier than planned.

Needles: US 8 (5.00 mm)
 - it did not fit easily on dpns, so as soon as it was 2" in length I switched to a circular
 - the circular was too long to just start the hat on; I don't understand why knitted material stretches better once it's a couple of inches long, but I'm glad it does

Yarn: I Love This Yarn! in Hyacinth and Soft Pink
- I had the total yardage called for, but a little less of the Soft Pink than required, so I wound up switching to just the other color at the end

Pattern: Amanda Muscha's Mint Chocolate Beanie

Flower Garden

My enthusiasm for hexagons wound down just as I finished the second blanket - good timing! There's yet a third layout I want to try, but I'm okay with taking a hexagon break for a while. This layout is called Grandmother's Flower Garden, and I'm reliably informed that it's an old quilting pattern.

Needles: US 8 (5.00 mm)
Yarn: partial skeins of I Love This Yarn! in Navy, Dark Country Blue, Soft Blue, Dark Raspberry, Hyacinth, Soft Pink, Forest Green, Light Sage, and Orchid
Pattern: Vicki Mikulak's Knitted Hexagon Blankie

Into the Light

I finally got around to blocking this shawl. I had forgotten that it was Icelandic wool until I was pinning it out and marveling at the change in texture of the yarn - right! Ístex! (Do Icelandic sheep fluff up in the rain?) It blocked out beautifully, and I am really pleased with it.

I was a little nervous about the blocking, since the spiral shaping convinced me that blocking wires were going to be no help at all. I had read someone else's advice not to be concerned if there was overlap. I didn't understand until I began to pin it out. I quickly realized that the lacy edge was what mattered - I didn't really need to pin out the inner edge at all. I also decided to pin out the petals, not the crochet chain edging, having seen lots of versions where pinned-out loops became sharp zig-zags.  Three-quarters of the way around I realized I was going to wind up on top of the beginning. Overlap. No problem.

Needles: US 4 (3.5mm)
Yarn: Ístex Einband: 6 g Black Heather, 3 g Dunkelgrau, 27.5 g Grey Heather, 52 g Hellgrau, 50 g White
Pattern: Carfield Ma's Begonia Swirl
Mods: Other than the color changes, none.

NKD saw it folded up and commented that it would be really cool to have a skirt like that. So I took a picture and filed the inspiration away for another day.

Time to Restart the Carousel

I feel as though no projects are getting finished. Of course not, you say, you've done nothing but knit hexagons for a month, what did you expect? I'm thinking of setting up the project carousel knitting bag again, because so many things are close to being finished, but the hexagons beckon constantly.

This will go in it: two months later, and only grown by an inch: