Want to know what I’ve been working on for the past several weeks? A scarf which is supposed to be simple, easy! You all know the pattern: Old Shale, also known as Feather and Fan…. Simple right?
Except, I’m a perfectionist. Except, I wanted to make it just perfect, exactly what I was seeing in my head. For instance, this is the classic, basic pattern for Feather and Fan:
- R1: Knit edge stitches [K2tog 3 times, (YO, K1) 6 times, K2tog 3 times] repeat, knit edge stitches
- R2: Knit
- R3: Knit
- R4: Knit edge stitches, Purl, Knit edge stitches
Except, I decided I didn’t want the waves to be so deep or so wide because I was using this crinkly yarn with a lot of elastic, which I had been having trouble finding a suitable pattern for (I had been dying to make Veronik Avery’s Lace Ribbon Scarf from Knitty: Spring 2008, but it simply did not work with the amount of elasticity in this partly nylon yarn). So I decided to make the pattern be a repeat of 12 stitches instead of the usual 18.
But that wasn’t enough. I had seen somewhere a pattern where the purl rows didn’t continue all the way across. Laurie Osborne calls it Waves & Shells and it’s really pretty, she got a lot of compliments on it.
And here is my version, modified with the 12 stitch repeat:
But something didn’t seem right. I had a hunch that the shells would look better if they were wider, as in the original 18 stitch repeat pattern. So I tried the original Feather and Fan with 12 stitches:
Go ahead and click on the pics to see the pattern up close.
Again, I thought it would look better with the original 18 stitch repeat (which I tried, but then frogged before photographing – didn’t like it at all for this particular project). One last experiment. I found this really pretty pattern on Ravelry, by Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer
Well, unfortunately, i just didn’t think this pretty pattern was suitable for the scarf I envisioned. It’s a neat pattern because the edges are all included in the pattern and the project does not require finishing. But it really looks better as a blanket with many, many repeats.
So in the end, after all that, I am back to this!
Except….I can’t even use the many inches that I’ve already knitted because I’ve decided I want a scalloped edge as in the Feather and Fan version above. Well, I’ve cast-on again and it’s going along fine. It certainly won’t be done in time for Christmas though, which was the original plan! Why was I born this way? Please tell me I’m not the only knitter who is this neurotic!
After an evening at home with my dog while my husband was on call, I decided to catch up on all my blogging.
I couldn’t resist posting another, better, picture of the most pleasurable knitting I’ve done in months:
I’ll make it brighter so that you can see the details I am so proud of!
And, darn, it’s hard to get the color from turning out too wonky, as in Figure B above. The green is pretty bright, but not quite that bright.
As a result of all this swatch knitting, as I mentioned before, I really, really improved in my knitting. Because I’ve become more fearless, I tackled a sweater in the Stephanie Japel mini-sweater/Julia Allen anthropologie-inspired tradition, incorporating patterns and elements that I really love. Following is a sneak peak.
And photographing this made me wonder, Am I the only one who can take 50 pictures of the same sweater in the blink of an eye and then spend 45 minutes trying to choose photos for her blog? My perfectionism really comes out here. It would be grand if I could just snap a couple of photos and be done with it. But no, you see, I love the two photos above because the light shines through the pattern on the back so prettily, and you can still see the stitch patterns very well.
Check out the following photos. Which one is the true color? GRRRR!
Anyway, I can’t wait to model the finished product for you, but the finishing is taking a little while because I’m terrified of running out of yarn and have been unraveling swatches in an attempt to get enough to finish. I haven’t yet checked to see if I can get this same yarn, but in the end, I might have to.
Here is a picture of the swatches I’ve been knitting up with all the old acrylic yarn I have laying around.
As I mentioned before, my husband and I are broke, broke, broke, so I’ve been knitting up anything I can get my hands on now that my summer knitting break is over. But the truth is, this is the best thing that’s ever happened to my knitting.
Knitting patterned swatches is the most fun girl can have with cheap yarn. I grabbed stacks of pattern books from the library and I’ve learned SO much about the way knitting works! Bobbles and cables and lace. Increases, decreases. It is amazing what a person can do with two sticks and a string.
Because of all this swatch knitting and leaps and bounds of improvement in my knitting, I decided to design my very first little sweater. I mapped it out on graph paper and everything.
I know you’re waiting on pins and needles, but things like the computer and the digital camera work very slowly around my house at the moment, so I’ll get back to you on a detailed description and photo album of the sweater.
As my favorite uncle used to say: “Over and out.”
Hey! Yeah, I know I’ve been away for quite a while. My husband and I started the summer by moving from one side of Denver to the other and then spent the entire month of August on a Navajo reservation in Arizona. Unfortunately, my camera wasn’t working while we were there, so I have no photos of the red rocks and dirt, huge blue skies, fluffy white clouds, sage brush, Navajo tea and other unidentified yellow and purple flowers, or the giant tumble weed in our back yard. I have no photo of the cliff where I though my husband and I had gone to die on a hike (which, he had only warned me, was a little steep). Nor to I have photos of Windo Rock, the Canyon de Chelly, or any of the old Anasazi ruins.
I’ll try to make some links to some of the photos of these places which are already on the Internet – pending copywright permission.
But now we’re back home, settling back in. Most important, my camera has decided to start working properly again, so I’m able to take some pics of my current knitting projects.
What have I been knitting?
Right now I have several projects to finish:
My mom’s lace scarf (how many years have I been knitting this?!?!?!)
My husband’s gray sweater.
My new fall “Wavy” scarf.
Other than those, which I’m having trouble picking up, I’ve recently been knitting up a storm of swatches from any pattern book I can get a hand on, using all the old acrylic yarn I can find in my stash (because I’m too broke to buy yarn this month).
Two center-pull balls of yarn from unfinished and frogged sweater. Beautiful, no?
So, what am I going to do with those balls of yarn, you ask? I’ve been searching on Ravelry to figure out what I can make out of these two skeins of Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece yarn. The best I can com up with is a small shrug. I’m just trying to decide if I want to use a stitch pattern besides stockingette stitch, for once. Here is my “Norwegian Fur” swatch:
Okay, I’m gonna get back to swatching. I’ll publish a pic of all my swatches and perhaps my mini-sweater plans, tomorrow.
I’m sure my four readers have been getting bored looking at the same old posts every time they check in. I assure you I am knitting! And here is some proof:
I am almost finished with my husband’s Seamless Hybrid sweater, which is my first real sweater project. The second picture is intended to show you that I’ve completed the cuff of one sleeve. I’m experimenting with ribbing on the other sleeve to see which he likes better. I tell you what, I will never save the hems until the end again. Of course all you seasoned web-log knitters out there know about Jared of Brooklyntweed’s ingenious and beautiful contrasting color hems which started the Seamless Hybrid knitting trend this past year. Well, I wasn’t ready to figure out how to do it when I hastily casted on for this sweater in mid-January. So I read through EZ’s book Knitting Without Tears and in which she states in her section on hems that one of her favorite ways to do them is to leave them until the end. That was just what I wanted to hear! I happily casted on the body and sleeve stitches, knowing that I could and would finish the hems at the end.
But what a pain! In fact, the whole project since joining the sleeves to the body has been a huge pain in my rear end. I must have frogged a good three times after the joining, several rows at a time, until I finally finished the saddles. (My one and only success of this sweater is that I managed to my first graft of the stitches in the saddles thanks to this video. I was not able to graft the stitches in my first project that called for it, the Quinn Cabled Bag, and to Yvonne- who graciously commented on my early blog when I started her pattern – I promise someday I’ll post a nice picture of the finished product along with a story about the process of knitting your pattern.)
Then, it was time to add the hems. ARGH! Not fun. First I did a K1 P1 rib neckline, using the the same size knitting needles, which I’m not entirely happy with and will probably redo with at least one size smaller. Next I tried knitting the hem on one sleeve using the same size needles and 10% fewer stitches as Elizabeth Zimmermann suggests in her book. I tried picking up the inside stitches to leave a nice edge, didn’t like it, ripped it back. Then I tried using smaller needles and a purl row. At this point I don’t think I decreased 10%. This worked pretty well, but my sewing isn’t perfect and it looks a bit twisted on part of the sleeve – I really wish my camera were good enough to show you. However, I don’t know if my husband will think it’s too tight now, because it was already snug to begin with. So I’m knitting ribbing on the other side to see which he likes better.
Next problem: Using a smaller needle worked a lot better but I don’t have a size three needle long enough to knit the body hem. So I try it with the same size needles, decreasing 10%, with a purled hem. Hate the way it looks – FROG. I finally found a fairly long size 4 needle, pulled up stitches through the inner loop instead of using a purl turn, and decreased 5%. I think this might work. I have one more round to do then I will try to sew it in.
Steps left until finished:
(1) Finish body hem and sew in.
(2) Re-knit neckline.
(3) Find out which cuff hubby likes better, rib out other cuff and re-knit.
(4) Sew in all yarn tails.
I think I can do this! Of course, at that point I must block, another first for me. I must say, I thought this would be easier. Maybe it’s not that hard. Maybe it’s just me. Anyway, I might try knitting a top-down sweater next to see if it’s just more my cup of tea. Although, that’s not to say I won’t knit EZ’s pattern again. I know there is another Seamless Hybrid Sweater in my future, and at next time I will be armed with experience.
