As soon as my yarn order comes in, I'll be knitting away on these lovely projects.

The first is the Salina sweater, from Rowan Vintage style, to be knit in Rowan Felted Tweed. I am under the impression that Felted Tweed is a lovely yarn, based on the rave reviews it gets around the blogs. The color I chose was "ginger", 155. This is a departure for me, because lately I am attracted soley to green. (Thus the blog color) I am looking forward to knitting with such a warm shade.

Hanging out with the felted tweed in the box that may or may not currently be in my lobby are 9 skeins of Rowan 4ply cotton. They are for the Lucky Clover Sweater from Stitch and Bitch Nation. I like the idea of it being in this true gren color, because then it can be a good luck charm. I was motivated to knit it by the Lucky Clover Knit Along. If only the yarn would arrive I could start!

I saw this sweater in Vogue Knitting Winter 2005, and thought: "This is cool. I could wear that." There was an Elann.com Gift Certificate from Christmas burning a hole in my pocket, and they were about to put up some Jo Sharp DK wool. 23 skeins later, it was on.

I swatched. I got gauge. I even checked gauge on the sweater-in-progress. It was all good. I made the smallest size, 35.5 inches. The yarn color was a little iffy, but I went with it. I had just ordered a heck of a lot of it, and wanted to see how it would come out. This was my first DK-weight sweater, and it went fast. It was done in about a month.

About halfway through I knew it was going to be too big. But I didn't like the yarn enough to fix that. I just wanted to be done with it and send it on its way. So Monday night, fueled by caffinated tea, I stayed up late and put on the finishing touches - green ribbon for the zipper lining and a faux-tag. I steam blocked it and packed it all up and sent it off to my mom. Who is sure to give it a fine home.

The Hourglass sweater, day 5, sleeve 2.

This is one fast-knitting sweater. I estimate that if I do nothing but knit between now and Saturday afternoon, it will be ready to wear out Saturday night*. Oh wait, forgot to include blocking. oh. Hmmmm.

The original recipe, from , calls for Noro's cash iroha. This is a fab yarn, but I am not using it.

Instead, I am knitting with coned Harrisville Highland yarn, in a discountinued color called "black forest". Its black with little brown and white flecks. Now, Harrisville is one of my favorite yarns. I love that you find little pieces of hay in it while knitting. However, *coned* Harrisville is a bit like twine. It is compressed and coated with something. It also makes my fingers black. which is not so cool. Never fear, I will knit on. We'll see about Saturday.

*Note: I live in NYC, and handknit sweaters are generally not up to spec for going out purposes, but I think this one can work. Its pretty tight-fitting, with a low neckline.

This was the scene Sunday morning.

This winter, my weekend tradition has been to sleep in, then bring coffee back to bed with whatever knitting project is in progress. Today, I really wanted to finish something. Enter size 17 needles.

Earlier this week, I purchased 3 skeins of Dale Freestyle to make this hat. Its called Alpha, from the Rowan Ribbon Twist Collection, but my inspiration came from seeing the version at Action Hero. I substituted 3 strands of aran-weight yarn in place of the ribbon twist. The Dale Freestyle worked perfectly to gauge. The pattern is actually really well done. You knit flat, starting from the top, increasing each row. At the bottom are a few rows of garter stitch, with the earflap stitches placed on holders during the cast-off row.

Its a good hat, I think I like it. I wasn't thrilled at first, but its growing on me. sometimes favorite things are ones that aren't love at first sight.

The Hourglass today looks nearly the same as it did on Friday. Except now it has two attached sleeves, and is entirely unsuited to subway knitting.

Its house-bound until completion.

The above photo, ten seconds later..

Today at lunch, without even really meaning to, I bought 5 skiens of Kid Soft to make the Rebecca Wrap Cardigan. The weather in NYC was a welcome teaser of spring. The sun shone. Temperatures reached 60 degrees. I felt like a spring project was in order.

My color choice here will shock noone who knows me: slate grey/blue. its one of my favorites, very calm feeling.

Here's the first sleeve for the Rebecca Wrap Cardigan. I made a sleeve instead of a swatch.. right now it seems a bit small, but might grow when washed/blocked.

I had my doubts about this sweater. I like the yarn, the design is interesting, and knitting it is challenging (all good things). But lots of people in blogland are knitting it, and its not really my style to jump on the bandwagon. But, the sweater is cute and has a different look. so, onward.

I learned how to do a nice edge on this sleeve. Leila from the suggested slipping purlwise the first+last stitches on the WS. It looks so nice! Here's a close-up:

This photo is of the WS. See how the edge stitches kinda float away from the side? They actually turn about 90 degrees from the RS. This should make seaming very smooth.

So despite the fact that I have absolutely no need whatsoever to add another knitting project to the queue, I have stumbled upon this. Its a shrug pattern from Debbie Bliss' pattern book for her new Cathay yarn. I happen to have an extra 8.5 skeins of DK-weight yarn leftover from the Vogue Zippered Jacket. Could be a strikingly good substitution. and I could use it all up. just love doing that.

Why do knitters end up with way too many projects and not enough time to knit them? For me, it's because I've begun shopping in knitting patterns rather than actual stores. I judge things by whether or not I'd wear it, instead of if there is time to do it. and I can shop+stash way faster than I knit.

The Hourglass Sweater is done!

I really love this sweater. I can't say enough good things about it. The fit is perfect, the best of the three sweaters I've made thus far. The wide neckline is *just* small enough that it doesn't fall off my shoulders. The pattern is super fast to knit up; it took less than 2 weeks. Super introduction to knitting a sweater in the round from the bottom up.

Yarn: Harrisville Highland in Black Forest Tweed (coned)
Gauge: 18sts to 4" on size 6 needles.
Finished Size: 34" bust, 31" waist
Pattern Modifications: Followed pattern as written for size small, knit the sleeves to 20" to accomodate my long arms.

Other Technical Notes:

1. Hems. The bottom hem flared out prior to blocking. I thought this was because I sewed it too soon and did not take care to keep the fabric flat. So, at the end, I took the hem out and redid it. It still flared. When washed and blocked, however, it relaxed and was fine.

2. Dye. This yarn made my hands black while knitting it. I've heard similar things happen when working with dark colors of Denim yarn. When I washed the sweater, the excess dye released and the whole sink of water turned dark brown.

3. Coned Yarn. I knit this straight off the cones, but measured my gauge from washed swatches. The gauge turned out fine, though next time I might wash the yarn first. It would be more pleasant to knit with fluffy, clean yarn (rather than compressed, twiney cone yarn). ALTHOUGH one benefit is that there were barely any joins, because the cones were 500yds each. I think I made one yarn join in the body of the sweater. and that was it.

4. 12-inch circular. I used the recommended 12-inch circular needle for the sleeves. At first, I thought DPNs would work just as well, but the circ made all the difference in terms of speed. I got mine on ebay from Wolf Creek Street.

The Rebecca wrap cardi is moving along at a very fast pace. This weekend, I finished all the pieces, blocked and seamed them.

Here's the Left Front:

After completing the back and midway through this piece, I realized I was following the chart wrong. There's supposed to be more stockinette between the eyelets. Ooops. So there are more eyelets than there's supposed to be. Its all good, I like it this way.

A more pressing issue came to my attention while trying it on last night. Its way short. I don't know if I can wear this over tank tops and such as intended. Its very comfortable, but I just feel silly.

Tomorrow: the tricky practice of adding length to a sweater. Luckily, I make things the wrong size all the time. Here's hoping that 3 inches of 2x2 ribbing does the trick..

A rather cropped sweater is nearing completion:

For those of you unfamiliar with this pattern, it *is* supposed to be this short. This length was pretty much intentional, and correct for the smaller pattern size. But does it work? Is it really wearable?

At first, I thought it was too short. I strongly considered adding some 2x2 ribbing to the bottom. But after wearing it around the house for a little while, I like it. Its different, and that's ideal. Plus, if longer, it wouldn't be so wearable in the summer.

So onward to the finishing - wrap ties, crochet edges and neck edging.

As many others are doing, I've picked up stitches from the front edges to knit the wrap ties. Since I slipped the WS edge stitches, these stitches are picked up along a chain selvedge. I was able to use a repeat of *pick up 3, skip 1*, ending with pick up 3, to get the required 18 stitches for the tie.

View a close-up

Its done! I do hope I still find this sweater comfortable and wearable once warmer weather hits. Yes, this picture is strikingly similar to the one from a few days ago.. but check out the side ties!

Side view

Yarn: GGH Soft Kid in this slate blue color. I used nearly all of 4 skeins for the smaller size.
Gauge: 18sts/4", on size 7 needles.
Pattern Modifications: No neck finishing (yet), relocated side seam opening.

Some Technical Notes:

1. Neck Edging. I didn't end up doing the neck edging. I tried it, picking up stitches around the neck and binding them off per the pattern. It looked very nice, but instantly made the sweater uncomfortable. I even tried binding off with size 10 needles. still too tight. Maybe will try a crochet edging at some point. but for now, I am down with how the neck edge looks.

2. Side Seams. I used embroidery floss to sew the seams. I imagine this is much smoother than the mohair. The pattern says to leave an opening 15cm up for the longer side tie to thread through. This was waaay too high. Maybe it was a typo and they meant 5cm?? I ended up with the opening about 3 inches from the hem.

That's it! This was a pretty straightforward knit, finished in about a week and a half. Working with mohair was interesting. Its very delicate and airy.

The Lucky Clover wrap was really next in the line of knitting projects. But, there are only so many eyelet-patterned wrap sweaters a person can knit in a row. Believe it or not, It did not occur to me how very similar the Rebecca wrap and the Lucky clover are until I was already midway through the former. The mohair must have thrown me off.

Traveling with me this weekend are the materials to begin a Ribby Cardi.

Peruvian Wool from Elann.com in Mesa Teal, Size 6 and 7 circular needles, and a pre-highlighted pattern.

Two 3-hour train rides await.

I planned to knit an allover-ribbed version. The pattern calls for a combination of k2,p2 and k3,p1 ribbing. But why two different ribbings? This doesn't make sense to me. Is it so the 3x1 area will lie flatter? I want it to look the same, so I am going to try an allover 2x2 rib. According to my calculations, the pattern decreases *should* still work.

The Ribby Cardi got a good start this weekend.

The back is done. It looks pretty strange. Apparently, it will improve with blocking.

Now, does it qualify as a true ribby if the pattern is altered? I am doing an overall 2x2 rib, lengthening the body to 13" and the sleeves to 21".

Changing the pattern is one way to keep things interesting. I've heard experienced knitters say they can't follow a pattern without changing something. I understand that. You get to a certain level, and need additional challenges to overcome, to feel like you're still moving forward. plus, with experience, you start to figure out what you like best, and its easy enough to include it.

My changes here are relatively minor, but motivational. I keep going because I want to see how it turns out. (also, it stresses me out to have multiple projects going at once, so if I ever want to knit anything else, I will need to finish this one!)

The fronts are in progress, working simultaneously.

To work two matching pieces at the same time, you have to use two balls of yarn. You knit a row on one, then the same row on the other. This ensures that they turn out basically identical.

Its an okay technique. The yarn didn't get as tangled as I expected. But I may not ever use it again. The whole switching back and forth from one piece to the other slows me down, breaks the rhythm of knitting. I am not really down with it. *however,* if they turn out perfect and zipper installation is a breeze, I could be swayed..

Grumperina interviewed me!

1. You and I have many similar knitting habits. I also have a hard time working on more than two projects at the same time. Why does it stress you out? Do you not have any UFOs as a result? What do you do if you start a project and it just doesn’t work for you?

I like starting things with a clean slate, without thinking about other, unfinished projects. If something isn't working out, I generally undo it, and re-stash the yarn. I am okay with having yarn stored, but not half-finished projects.

My one UFO is this rebecca shawl/wrap thing that I started last summer. I actually made a fair amount of progress on it, which is amazing because it was like knitting into a black hole. I'd work on it for hours, without any visible progress! Its basically a long rectangular fisherman's ribbed thing with armholes, so maybe I can turn it into a pillow or something.

2. Despite the popularity of the Rebecca Wrap Cardigan in blogland, you went against your “style” (and mine) and jumped on the bandwagon. Your wrap came out gorgeous, by the way; I’m glad to have found your blog, I dig your knits. Anyway, there’s supposed to be a question. What do you think about massive numbers of knitters working on the same project? Is it helpful, frustrating, distracting? Related: what do you think about knit-alongs?

I think Knit-Alongs are essentially good. They're like a community of people working on the same project who you'd never otherwise meet. I am definitely more motivated to knit something if there's a knit-along. However, I am also more likely to knit something that I wouldn't otherwise consider. Not sure if this is a good or bad thing...

3. You mention some totally enviable yarn brands on your blog: Dale, Harrisville, Jo Sharp, GGH. If all the yarn companies, except one, were to disappear off the face of the planet, which company would you want to supply all your yarns?

Assuming money is no object in this one-yarn-company world, I'd have to say Rowan. I actually haven't used their yarn all that much, but am always drooling over their patterns and yarn selection.

4. Do you dabble in other fiber arts: crochet, spinning, weaving, etc.?

Nope. Its only knitting for me. Though I do use some crochet to finish knit items. and I am starting to understand why people enjoy spinning.

5. Do you take advantage of New York’s theater scene? Do you like to go to plays, musicals, comedy shows?

I totally do not take advantage of NYC's theatre scene. Someday I will move away and be like, "man, I should've gone to more shows!" or not. I pretty much only go when out-of-towners come to visit.

******
Hope you enjoyed this thrilling interview! Many thanks to grumperina for her fine interviewing skills.

So part of this deal was that if you'd like to be interviewed, I am here to interview you! Just comment with "interview me" and I'll do my best to come up with good questions. Then you answer on your blog, offer to interview others, and the endless interview cycle continues....

Herein lies evidence of the amazing blocking abilities of ribbing. The fronts of the Ribby Cardi, before and after blocking.

I now understand how completely possible it would be to over-block ribbing. I could easily have gone too far and ended up with non-stretchy, really wide sweater parts.

All Ribby parts are now complete and seamed. I knit the collar while watching a movie with subtitles. I read most of the subtitles and finished the collar by the end, which means I must be making progress on my ultimate goal in life: knitting without looking.

The last time I knit with coned yarn, it made my hands black and felt rough and twiney. That was fun and all, but a different fate lies in store for this batch of Harrisville Highland tweed:

Three cones of 450 yards each, for a total of 1350 yards of worsted-weight wool, easily enough for a sweater. The color is called "Raisin", and is a very warm cinnamon shade with flecks of turquoise and black. I bought them on ebay for about $25.

First, I stopped at my neighborhood yarn store and requested a "niddy-noddy". Is this not the silliest name of something? I am not sure I can go on calling it that. From here on out, let's call it the yarn-winder-thing.

The yarn-winder-thing is surprisingly easy to use. I referenced this internet tutorial, but didn't need more than a photo to figure it out. It took about 20 minutes per cone.

I tied the yarn in four places and slid it off the yarn-winder-thing. Coned yarn has some kind of oil on it that needs to be washed off to get it into optimal knitting condition. Its compressed and stringy.

From here, I washed the loose hanks of yarn. I filled the sink with warmish water and woolite and washed them in much the same way as a finished sweater. They each soaked for about a half hour or so, then were rinsed thoroughly. While rinsing, its important not to let the running water contact the yarn, because the agitation could felt it. After rinsing, I hung the three yarn hanks up in the shower to dry. It took awhile for them to dry completely, probably about 2 days. I could see an improvement even while they soaked, the yarn was visibly much fluffier. And when dry, it looked like normal wool.

The finished product:

The only downside is that they now take up a lot more room to store! Its a warm, autumnal color, so I'll probably wait until late summer until I make something from this yarn. Right now I am thinking about this sweater from Rowan Vintage Style.

How did I make it this far without attached i-cord? I just added a three-stitch attached i-cord to each side of my Ribby Cardi, and it looks so clean and professional.

My only experience with attached i-cord thus far has been in admiring the work of others, so I thought for sure the edge would be too tight or too loose, and would have to be redone. Luckily, it came out fine on the first try!

Attached i-cord
I followed the instructions in , which specifies picking up three out of every four edge stitches. I picked up the stitches with one length of yarn and a circular needle first, then went back and worked the i-cord with size 8 DPNs, one size larger than I'd been using.

The Knitters Book of Finishing Techniques is highly useful. I just got it last week, and its already become my standard reference. It has all the information I used to go through multiple books to find.

All that's left on this sweater is the zipper and its done!

The Ribby Cardi is all zipped out.

Yarn: Peruvian Highland wool from elann.com, in Mesa Teal. 10 skeins.
Gauge: 19sts to 4" in st st on size 7 needles
Pattern Modifications: Allover 2x2 ribbing, lengthened sleeves to 21" and body to 13". Used attached i-cord instead of seed stitch for the front zipper bands, and extended it up to the collar.

Other Technical Notes:

1. Zipper Installation. I ended up sewing the zipper in by hand. My sewing machine was all ready to go, but I decided that hand sewing would be easier to control. It took about 2 hours, and came out very clean.

2. Imperfection One. The zipper at the top does not match up. The collar is mostly for show, and barring a surprise snowstorm, will never be zipped up all the way. So I am trying to let this one go.

3. Imperfection Two. The second imperfection is more subtle, but troublesome. The bottom does this wavy thing. One side just wants to be longer than the other. After basting in the zipper, it was not even at the bottom, so I kinda pulled it into place and sewed it down. But it looks like the knitwear does not appreciate being treated this way. Its visible in this flat photo below:

4. Length. I lengthened the body of the sweater to 13 inches. If I were to use this pattern again, I'd make it more like 14 or 15 inches.

5. Construction. Since this is all in one color, it would have been easy enough to construct it entirely in the round. The men's ribbed cardigan in is constructed this way.

6. Peruvian Highland Wool. Its very soft and comfortable, and unbelievably economical, plus I was able to splice the joins between skeins. yet I've heard people say this yarn does not wear well. Its kinda fuzzy, so I could see that happening. If I made this again, I'd use Cascade 220.