Sewing FO: Summer Blouse

Making a summer blouse is total wishful thinking right now. It seemed to be all warm and nice here for a little while, and then it snowed a few inches over the weekend and went right back to the cold and deceptively sunny weather we’ve had all winter. But I couldn’t resist the allure of a breezy cotton blouse in cheerful colors, so I went ahead and sewed this up, to be squirrelled away for another few months.

Pattern: Summer Blouse from Heather Ross’s Weekend Sewing
Size made: Small (bust: 36″, length: 23″)
Fabric used: 2 yards Full Moon polka dot in Yellow, 1 fat quarter Tree Peony in Sand, both Amy Butler Lotus fabrics
Date started: don’t know!
Date completed: don’t know!
Mods:

• I found the blouse really gigantic, and the cotton I used isn’t very drapey, so I added darts to the back in an attempt to tighten up the silhouette. It is still pretty gigantic and billowy (but at least it’s comfy).
• I only had a 1-inch bias tape maker, so I used this instead of 3/4″. I think the 1-inch measurement is before it gets folded in half, so actually my bias tape is 1/2″, narrower than the 3/4″ bias tape called for in the book.
• Did not add a button at the neckline.
• Had to cut the button loop a lot wider than called for in the book–at the specified dimensions and seam allowance, it was so narrow I couldn’t get my loop turner through it to turn it inside out.
• Ran out of fabric, so I cut the sleeves a little short–bracelet length instead of “to the base of the thumb” as the book recommends. I would have liked the longer sleeves, but I think they still came out fine.
• Instead of hemming the lower edges of the sleeves and body, I used the extra bias binding to hem them.
  
  I think this was fine for the sleeves, but the stiffness of the bias tape adds to the excessive flare of the body. Unfortunately, the blouse was on the short side, so I didn’t feel like I could hem it without baring my midriff.
• Accidentally sewed the bias tape on wrong, because I didn’t read through the directions carefully. I was supposed to sew it on one side, then fold it over and top-stitch to secure the other side. Instead, I folded it over and sewed just one seam through both layers of tape.

Notes:

• As I mentioned, I think there’s a problem with the button loop directions as written. The loop needs to be cut wider, or the seam allowance smaller.
• I think there’s also a mistake with the yardage requirements and cutting layout shown in the book. There was no way to fit the sleeve above the fronts/backs on the 45″ fabric, so I had to move it down along the fabric, with the result that even with an “extra” 3/8 yard of fabric (I had about 2 yards) I ran a little short and cut the sleeves shorter than the pattern specified. I think the math confirms this: the 45″ fabric is 22.5 inches folded in half, and 1/2 of a front or back for a 36″ bust (without any ease taken into account, even) is about 18″. That only leaves 4.5″ for the width of the sleeve (which is cut out flat in one piece, not folded in half). So if you are planning to make this, buy extra fabric.
• If I make this again, I will see if I can figure out a way to take out a couple of inches from the body without making the shoulders too tight. It just felt too big for me. Alternatively, I might try making it in a drapier fabric. I’m a sucker for pretty quilting cotton, but it’s maybe a little too stiff for a non-fitted blouse like this.
• And I really want to make it again, and figure out a way to make it work as a somewhat fitted garment, so that I can cut it longer and make an awesome sheath dress like Heather’s.
• The body, aside from being too big, was also too short. If I make another blouse version, I will lengthen the body by probably 4 or 5 inches, and hem instead of binding with bias tape.
• Another problem I had with the fitting was the neckline (check out that awesome contrast placket, btw. I loved the construction of the placket): The problem with the neckline, which may not be readily apparent, is that it is super high and chokey. I don’t really understand the photo in the book; the blouse (as made by me) has a really high, tight neckline, not the wide bateau neck shown in the photo. It doesn’t matter much, since it looks nice with the lapels turned back, but it would be absolutely impossible to wear with the button fastened. Looking at the few other finished objects in the Weekend Sewing Flickr pool, it looks like other people have had this issue, too. So next time around, I would lower the front neckline by about 3 or 4 inches.
• I think the bust darts are slightly too low for me. Not sure if I would bother changing this.
• The pattern mentions sewing a gathering stitch between the markings on the sleeve cap. These seem to have been accidentally omitted from the pattern paper. I just fudged it by sewing along the top part of the sleeve cap. Check the errata for more information about this.
• The pattern was really simple and well-written (aside from the issues noted above). Aside from not reading the directions carefully enough, I had no particular problems with the pattern instructions. Note that all the patterns in this book are printed on giant fold-out sheets stuck into the front and back of the book. Before you can use them, you need to trace the pieces on tracing paper and cut these out, instead of cutting out the pattern pieces directly. I went on a little tracing spree last night and traced/cut the pieces for another three patterns, and sewed up one more (the Saturday Night Silk Jersey Set, which only has three pattern pieces!)–I’ll have pictures of this one soon; it came out great, but is even less suited to the weather than the Summer Blouse. I am keeping the pattern pieces for each pattern labeled and folded up in a gallon Ziploc bag. Unlike Built By Wendy’s Sew U, there is no envelope included in the book to hold pattern pieces.

New Knit on the Net is up

There’s a new Knit on the Net up and I am really impressed by the modeling/styling/photography this time around. So beautiful! I especially like Quadrato, Joan Crawford, and Ava–that last one designed by Jennie Atkinson of the Rowan Butterfly dress fame.

also, chemgrrl finished some brand new orata socks! How great is that? Pretty great, if I do say so myself. Go look at them–they’re pretty! ah, feather and fan goodness.

Yarn Harlot!

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, The Yarn Harlot, was in Madison on Saturday at the Madison Knit-In! She was great, as was the event overall–I just wish I had gotten there earlier so I could have spent some more time browsing in the marketplace. When I walked in, I immediately gravitated towards the Plucky Knitter’s piles of glowing cashmere and merino and was unable to tear myself away, so I spent about 90% of my time rubbing skeins of cashmere against my cheek and about 10% dashing through the rest of the marketplace looking at stuff.

And guess what, I won a door prize! The Yarn Stash Workbook. I walked in and as I was looking at my map, Gina, whom I’d met at the Harmony Bar knitting group, walked up to me and said “Guess what, you won a door prize!”

I made a beeline for the back of the marketplace and picked up my prize.

Wandered over to the Plucky Knitter where I met Miss Plucky Sarah herself and had a chance to ogle the Yarn Harlot’s fantastic handspun February Lady Sweater close up as she was talking to someone nearby.

Wrecked the budget I’d set for myself within the first 10 minutes of being there by picking up some semi-solid aran weight cashmere and being unable to put it back down.

Ran over to the Briar Rose Fibers booth–Mary couldn’t come, but she asked me to keep an eye out for some Briar Rose fiber, so I picked up some gorgeous huge bundles of BFL (spring green and icy blue).

Stopped to pet the angora in the Kimmet Croft stand, then grabbed a color card from Blackwater Abbey, whose yarns are sort of crunchy and rough but the colors are fantastic (and I love this free cardigan pattern, Faery Ring).

A couple of fellow knitters stopped me to ask about the Noro The Water is Wide scarf I was wearing. “Oh, and did you know you won a door prize?” they said. I had never met them before, but I guess they remembered my name and recognized it on the name tag.

It was 1 PM by then, so I rushed off to see the Harlot, completely missed out on the lunch that was included in my ticket (I did get a muffin and a Coke) and spent a happy couple of hours listening to the reasons knitters are awesome, and laughing my ass off over her story of getting locked out of a hotel room in Calgary while wearing only a pair of powder blue panties with the word “Cowgirl” written on them in lasso rope.

Here is Stephanie,

and here is a view of all the knitters behind me:

I actually didn’t have any mindless knitting on the needles, so instead I spent the time spinning on my new(ish) toy, a 1.2 oz. Jenkins Turkish spindle made of spalted tamarind wood (the fluff is some awesome Type B pygora from eXtreme Spinning):



Saw Jaala of Knitcircus on the way out (keep an eye out for their interview with the Harlot in their next issue!) “Hey, did you know you won a door prize?” she said.

I went and patiently waited in line to see the Harlot, got my copy of Knitting Rules! signed, and got a picture with Stephanie as well. See? I’m holding the sock! Yay!



Rahul had come to pick me up and he asked her if she would also sign his copy of The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, but she said she would only do it if she could sign it “Steven Pinker.” (Sadly, she didn’t follow through. Too bad. It would be even more valuable than a rare photo of Sean Connery signed by Roger Moore.)

It was a really lovely way to spend a Saturday, and that’s lucky, because the rest of the day went rapidly downhill from there–we were headed to his parents’ house in southern Missouri for his spring break, but took a wrong turn along the way and only realized it when were were nearing O’Hare, with the end result being a 3-hour detour, a bunch of toll roads we had to pay for twice, a lot of grouchiness and yelling, and what should have been a 7.5 hour trip turning into an 11-hour ordeal that landed us in Missouri at about 3 AM.

Anyway, at least we’re here and relaxing with his parents now, and it’s about 10-20 degrees warmer here than it was in Madison–crocuses are out, lawns are green, star magnolia and forsythia bushes are flowering, and we don’t have to wear massive down jackets at all times. And hopefully the trip back will go more smoothly. (We are putting some serious thought into buying a GPS before we go back). We’re spending next weekend in Chicago with some friends, should be fun!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, Erin Go Bragh, etc.

I will leave you with some Dutch commercials for a candy called Super Dickmann’s! These are really hilarious if you have the sense of humor of a 12-year-old, which apparently I do.

1, 2, 3.

New knitty! New seaming technique! New books!

I found this seaming technique via the Daily Chum: the Bickford Seam. I’d never seen this method before. Supposedly it looks flat and nearly invisible, like mattress stitch, but from both sides. I really want to try it out!

The new Knitty came out today! I love the Aeolian shawl to pieces. I think I have a lace crush on Elizabeth Freeman (she also designed Laminaria). And speaking of lace crushes, did you know Lacis is coming out with a whole book of reissued Herbert Niebling designs? It makes the heart go pitter-patter. It’s a translation of Gestrickte Spitzendecken, corrected and re-charted.

The knitting I’m doing is mostly of the secret or swatchy variety right now, so I don’t have a lot to share, unfortunately. I am working on reknitting this Arrows cowl to make it smaller, with the intention of putting it up as a free pattern:


(see? cowl too big for my taste, and it was too sunny outside. but hey, o w l s !)
It uses 2 skeins Mirasol Miski, a super-soft baby llama blend with all sorts of feel-good social justice benefits. The old one is Bluebell, the new one is Coral.

I got Heather Ross’s Weekend Sewing in the mail and I love it! Can’t wait to start on the Summer Blouse, (I even traced and cut out the pattern pieces last night. I’m not looking forward to making the bias tape, though) and I really really want to make the Obi Dress and Trapeze Dress, but don’t have suitable fabric in suitable yardage for either.

I am thinking of using my Amy Butler Lotus yellow polka dot fabric for the blouse, with facings in something else from the collection, maybe this peony fabric or blue damasky stuff. I only have a fat quarter of each, though, so I don’t know if that will work, it’s probably not enough.

And Yarnmonster is modeling in the book! Not that I know her aside from reading her blog, but I thought it was cool to recognize her.

The big knitting news in town is that the Yarn Harlot is coming to town for the Madison Knit-In. Rahul thinks this is kind of hilarious and keeps saying “ooh, the Yarn! Harlot!” in this little squeaky voice. He has no idea. I think he would be shocked at how many people will be there. I’m excited to see the Harlot, of course, but also excited to take a look at the marketplace. Among the vendors: the Plucky Knitter, Creatively Dyed, Briar Rose Fibers, Black Water Abbey,  and Kimmet Croft, makers of the angora-blend yarn for US-variety Bohus sweaters.

Happy Friday

Man, I have all kinds of interesting fibery stuff to share today.

Most important thing first: here is the best knitting photo I’ve seen all week. Enjoy!

Also–I am very excited to announce that my Savile Row vest won a prize in the Vest-uary knitalong! Very very exciting, and I have a sweater’s worth of blue Patons Merino headed my way from the Charitable Charity, aka Northernknitter.

I went to see Coraline 3D tonight and was really excited about the miniature starry sweater knitted by Bloomington micro-knitter Althea Crome.  Unfortunately, I was so engaged in watching the flying 3D (spoiler here) during the credits, I forgot to look for the knitting credits. You can download the pattern for a full-sized version here (PDF link) but ultimately perhaps Ysolda’s beautiful Coraline cardigan with the smocked yoke is more appropriate to the book/movie?–it has more buttons, after all.

As for the movie itself: the animation was wonderful, it was great seeing the movie in 3D, it was wonderfully creepy and visually stunning, but it seemed neither here nor there in terms of overall tone and mood. Too scary to truly be a kids’ movie, too simplistic and kid-oriented to truly appeal to adults (beyond the visuals).

I liked the fact that it seemed to be set in Ashland, OR! It’s a day’s drive from the Bay Area and I’ve been up there many times for the Shakespeare Festival. Despite the knitting connection, though, sadly there were no yarn shop cameos.

I got my Singer spool knitting machine in the mail yesterday. It was immensely overpackaged. I haven’t had a good case of wrap rage for a while but this had the works… clamshell packaging, boxes inside boxes, tons of sticky tape, really long twisty ties threaded through plastic washers. RRRRR! HULK SMASH! It came with a bunch of crafty extras that I didn’t really want, but would be good if you were buying this for a kid, I guess: 3 spools of plasticky yarn, a barrette, a plastic tapestry needle, pipe cleaners, more twisty ties.

Also, it was HUGE. I was expecting it to be the size of the Embellish-Knit, the only example of one of these hand-cranked i-cord machines I’d seen in person. It’s probably 3 times as big. The cord, maybe about the same size, but the whole machine setup is pretty humongous. I’ll have to take a picture to demonstrate the hugeness. I’ve only made an i-cord using the fakey plastic yarn that came with it (worked pretty well once I got it all set up right), but have plans to make a Booga bag or similar with my miles of i-cord after I’ve had a chance to play with it some more. Oh, and the Woven Cords scarf from Knitting New Scarves. If you have any great ideas for other things to do with miles of i-cord, let me know.

FO: Savile Row Vest for Vest-uary

Pattern: my own; I’m calling it Savile Row for the moment, for the obvious menswear inspiration in the herringbone pattern and vest shape
Size made: me-sized
Yarn used: Cascade Ecological Wool in 8020 Gunmetal, about 1.16 skeins (290 grams/555 yards)
Needles used: US size 9/5.5 mm Knit Picks Options
Date started: No idea, actually–sometime in early February, but I forgot to write down the day I actually cast on.
Date completed: February 25, 2009
Mods: You would think there wouldn’t be any “mods” in a self-designed pattern, but I accidentally messed up the math when I was doing the decrease rate for the v-neck. I started out with a certain number of stitches on each side and knew I had to get to a width of about 3 inches at the shoulder strap, and the math was all neatly worked out until I got to the desired number of stitches when I was still a few inches shy of my shoulder, and realized I’d forgotten to take the underarm bindoffs and decreases into account when I was calculating how many stitches to decrease. So I just worked straight from that point upwards and it’s not too noticeable.

Notes: I cast on for this as part of the Vest-uary knitalong started by PrairiePoppins on Ravelry: knitting a vest during the month of February.  Also, Jenny and Nicole talked lots about vests in the See My Vest! episode of Stash and Burn, so I was inspired! Especially by the part where you don’t have to knit sleeves.

It was a fun design challenge. I knew I wanted to use the beautiful herringbone stitch on the front of the vest for a few reasons–the look of it, of course, but also the dense, stiff, and sturdy texture, which makes it perfect for a tailored piece like this.

However, the herringbone stitch was a little challenging. It has stitches slipped over multiple consecutive rows, and the direction of the zigzags reverses every 10 rows, which was a pain in the ass because 1) I kept getting confused and going the wrong way when I wasn’t paying enough attention (the pattern reverses on a WS row), and 2) it takes a LOT of rows of herringbone to equal a single row of stockinette, so the front of the vest felt interminable.

I knit this in two pieces and seamed them, which meant I had to be pretty sure about my row gauge in order to match the shaping properly, since there was a large difference in the number of rows on the front and back. I did the waist shaping at the side seams, one stitch in from a garter st selvage, and seamed using mattress stitch. The shoulders are shaped using short rows, with the herringbone stitch maintained all the way up. This wasn’t the best idea–it was fine on the back, but got a little confusing in the front, with the combination of multiple slipped pattern stitches and wrapped stitches for the short rows.

I tried to think of a way I could knit this in the round, but due to the differing row gauge, I couldn’t think of a feasible way to do it. The best idea I had was to keep swatching on different sized needles until the row gauge in stockinette matched the row gauge in herringbone, and knit it in the round on two circulars of different sizes… but then I would have twice as much to frog if I screwed up. At least by knitting flat and seaming, I would only have to frog one half of the sweater if I totally messed up.

After seaming, I finished the neckline with applied i-cord, which took a really really long time. (I used the method with the extra YO as shown on the Purl Bee.) I went on and finished one armhole with applied i-cord. But then when I tried it on, I found that the applied i-cord around the armhole made it kind of flare out weirdly, like a retro-futuristic airship hostess uniform, so I ripped it out.

This was easier said than done. Nobody ever told me that removing applied i-cord was such a pain in the ass. It seemed like it should have been easily froggable, but somehow the process of applying the i-cord (I guess passing the stitches over) kind of welds the i-cord into the body of the work, and it probably took me just as long (about 2 hours) to remove the i-cord, with Lizbert’s patient help at knitting night, as it did to put it on in the first place.

I replaced it with a crocheted slip-stitch edging, which was faster and seemed to work much better, and crocheted around the bottom edge as well.

The yarn I used, Cascade Ecological Wool, is wonderful. Sturdy but fairly soft, with good stitch definition, and very economically priced at about $15 per skein… the skeins are 478 yards each, so this is a much better price than you might initially think.

For this project, I accidentally cannibalized the yarn I had earmarked for finishing a jacket that’s been hibernating for about two years. I guess maybe it’s a sign that I should really either frog it or finish it. There’s still a bit of yarn left, so I might be able to finish the jacket with at least 3/4 sleeves…

Or I could buy more. The thing about Cascade Eco Wool, I learned from a chatty Cascade rep when I was trying to get a dyelot match at Yarns Unlimited for the first skein of Eco Wool I’d bought, is that since it’s undyed, there aren’t really dye lots per se–according to her, the fiber is sorted into different color numbers based on its inherent natural color, if that makes sense. So rather than trying to recreate a certain color by dyeing the wool, they compare the wool they have (whatever color it is) to a color card and decide what existing Eco Wool shade it’s closest to, and throw it in that bin, so whenever you buy a skein of 8020 Gunmetal, it should always be pretty much the same shade (or as close as possible) as any other skein of 8020 Gunmetal. I have only tested this on two skeins (bought on opposite sides of the country), but they do look the same.

The only gripe I have about this yarn is that the suggested gauge on the ball band seems pretty far off. They call it a chunky yarn, but it knits best at an aran or worsted gauge. On size 10s it looks very loose indeed.

OK, ready for some pictures after all that talk? It was about 15 degrees out today so despite the sunshine, it was so cold it hurt to take off my jacket and scarf so the vest would be visible. The Selbuvotter mittens look a little ridiculous with the rest of the outfit but I couldn’t stand to take them off. Too cold! We snapped a few quick pictures in Vilas Park and then I bundled up again. The close-ups were taken inside (due, again, to the cold) so the light isn’t the greatest.

Herringbone goodness:

Thin ice and giant mitten hands!

The back is plain stockinette and scoops down a little:


A closer view of the front:

and the back:

Applied i-cord at the neck:

Crocheted armhole edging:

And more herringbone:

Cool stuff at KP and Amazon

I finished my Vest-uary vest yesterday, so this weekend I’m going to take some pictures and do a nice FO post. In the meantime, here are some exciting material goods I’ve been drooling over.

• Knit Picks has just started selling a $20 ball winder! Wow. I think the best deal on new ball winders used to be a free shipping coupon at Joann.com when they were on sale for around $25–that’s how I got mine, and it seemed like a pretty good deal at the time. They’re selling all kinds of other house-brand accessories, now, too, but the ball winder was the thing that stood out the most. I don’t see a swift (yet), but you can make one pretty easily from Tinker Toys or coat hangers. Personally, if I had to choose, I guess I’d rather have my swift than my ball winder, but in reality the pair has been pretty indispensable. I no longer fear the hank.
• I bought the Knit Picks Options needle set a while back and love love love it (the flexible cables! the shiny nickel coating!) but I have been holding off on getting rid of my other needles because of the Options set’s one fatal flaw (IMHO): its lack of 16-inch cables in the KP set. Then I discovered KnitPro, the European version of KP needles, and their superior product line. You can buy their stuff via European sites like Get Knitted or P2tog UK. I guess the needles are all made by the same manufacturer, as they’re totally interchangeable, but I’m not sure which came first; did Knit Picks invent the interchangeable sets and allow KnitPro to sell the same products in Europe? Or did Knit Picks find the KnitPro products for sale and take on the exclusive licensing rights in the US? Or are they both owned by some sort of shadowy multinational umbrella corporation that specializes in interchangeable knitting needles? I may never know. But in any case, I am now ready to let go of my Denise and Boye sets (leave me a comment if you’re interested in buying them.) Here are some accessories you can get from KnitPro retailers that you can’t get from KnitPicks:
  • the elusive hat-length cable I’ve been longing for! Yes, I could knit my hats Magic Loop with the 40-inch cables, but I really don’t like to. The regular needle tips are too long to create a 16-inch cable–you need to buy a set of shorter needle tips for a real 16-inch cable–but if you buy the short cable and use it on the regular needle tips, it comes out to about 19 inches, which is still a very good length for knitting adult-sized hats.
  • A wider range of interchangeable needle tip sizes: specifically, 3.00 mm (US 2), 3.25 mm (US 3), 7.00 mm (US 10.75, which I’ve never heard of elsewhere) and 15.00 mm (US 19). So you can make the set go down as small as the Boye needles. I didn’t get any of these since I don’t knit often in those sizes, and I already have fixed US 2 and US 3 circs I can use if I need them.
  • Cable connectors, which I guess would be useful if you were knitting a gigantic afghan or something–otherwise, the 60-inch cable seems fine for most large projects.
  • There’s more about all this stuff in the Ravelry forums here. I hope the Knit Picks folks aren’t upset by all these people running out and buying the spare parts internationally; with the addition of a few KnitPro components, the Knit Picks Options needles become the #1 set on the market, in my opinion. (There’s been positive buzz about Addi Clicks
    and KA Switch needles lately, too, but they’re substantially more expensive.)
• I have been saving up my Amazon credit card rewards gift certificates for a while, so I used them all up and placed a big order:
  • The Yarn Harlot’s Knitting Rules!, a deceptively slim little volume that I keep getting from the library for its good basic advice about hats and socks and scarves–I decided it would be good to have it on hand permanently for reference
  • In Sheep’s Clothing: A Handspinner’s Guide to Wool: a guide to the properties of various wool breeds, from a spinner’s perspective. Not sure how much I’ll end up using this one overall, but I’d like to read up on the properties of some wools I’ve been holding off on spinning, like CVM and Icelandic, and the Madison public library didn’t have this book.
  • Weekend Sewing: More Than 40 Projects and Ideas for Inspired Stitching: OK, the library does have this one, but it’s on hold for the next 6 months or so and it would be nice to be able to cut out the patterns if I decide to. This has gotten really good reviews on Amazon and the previews on Heather Ross’s blog make it look really nice–based on the line drawings, I would totally make every single bag and article of clothing in this book.
  • Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer: A Golden Treasury of Classic Treats, Jane Brocket’s latest, and also not in my local public library system. Reading kids’ books and daydreaming about the luscious foods depicted therein has always been a favorite pastime–and for some reason, especially so when it comes to tiny foods eaten by mice: the descriptions of feasts in Redwall or paintings of tiny tea parties in the Brambly Hedge books always seemed immensely appealing.
  • And last but not least, a Singer spool knitting machine/i-cord mill–you know, the little gadgets where you turn a crank and i-cord comes out like magic. Maybe like magic performed by a not very skilled magician who does his tricks really slowly and gets his sleeves caught on his props… but Techknitter recommends it as the best way to make lots of i-cord, and she seems to know just about everything about knitting.

Another reason to love porcupines

Because they are absolutely adorable when they get the hiccups! while eating bananas! with their tiny! wee! paws! Maybe I should add a link to this video to the fun porcupine facts in the Prickle pattern.

owls!

Lo, owls!

Pattern: o w l s, by Kate Davies (rav project link here)
Size made: Small
Yarn used: Beaverslide McTaggart Tweed, Big Sky Blue, about 3.25 skeins (just under 700 yards)
Needles used: US 10/6.0 mm for most of the sweater; used a US 8/5.0 mm needle for the neck ribbing because I didn’t have the appropriate length US 10 needle handy; bound off with a US 10.5/6.5 mm needle.
Date started: January 26, 2009
Date completed: January 30, 2009
Mods: I wasn’t paying attention and didn’t do the last set of increases soon enough, so the sleeves don’t slope exactly as written.

Knit to about 16 inches before starting short rows. I messed up the stitch marker placement and so the short rows might start/end in bizarre places. This weirdness carried into the yoke decreases, so I couldn’t follow the directions exactly and had to fudge it a bit, but it’s not noticeable.

Notes:

• Knit the sleeves first, two at a time, using Magic Loop. Finished sleeves in two days (it took about 1 skein for the two sleeves).
• I used some buttons and some little glass flower beads (this type) for the owl eyes. WOW, were there ever a lot of buttons to sew on for this sweater. I tried to make each owl different (at least from its immediate neighbors), picking different eye buttons or sewing the thread through the holes in different patterns.
• The Beaverslide is really soft, warm, and nice, but the surface texture is pretty uneven, so the stitch definition isn’t as good as I would have expected. It has sort of a light, spongy consistency to it, with very little drape. It works better for more structured pieces, I think; instead of skimming over lumps and bumps on the body, it tends to kind of bunch up and sit there in unflattering creases. I’m not sure what to make with the remaining 580 yards in my stash.
• The yarn also would probably do better knit at a slightly tighter gauge, though this would make it even less drapey. The stockinette looked a little loose, although it did bloom and fill out a bit on blocking.
• The shaping is interesting–you do waist shaping only in the back, along two dart lines, rather than in the front and back or on the sides. The upper back is kind of baggy on me–not sure if this is a result of putting all the curves into the back of the sweater or if it just doesn’t fit my proportions.
• The sweater was such an instant gratification project. I think people overestimate how much work a bulky-weight sweater project is–this contained far fewer stitches than a pair of socks, or possibly even a single sock, in fingering weight, and it’s about 90% stockinette stitch in the round.
• I have gotten a lot of random compliments on this sweater, mostly starting out with a cry of “oh, my God, they’re owls!” as the cable pattern comes into focus.
• Bottom line, I really love this sweater. It nicely fits a niche in my wardrobe previously filled only by store-bought sweaters: sturdy worsted weight long-sleeved pullover. I have several other handknit pullovers, but they tend to be either made of soft and delicate materials–not the kind of thing you’d wear for washing dishes or taking out the trash–or lighter or heavier weight. The short rows shape the neck nicely so it doesn’t ride up and get all chokey in the front (a big problem with my Leaf Lace pullover). And the fitted sleeves may not be as pretty as bell sleeves, but they’re much more wearable (they don’t flop around and get in the way, or let in cold air) so I prefer them to the sleeves of my Phyllo Yoked Pullover or my Hourglass Pullover.

Closeup of back o w l s where you can see their cute little eyes and the somewhat uneven yarn texture:

You can kind of see the upper back bagginess in this photo:

The Beaverslide holds a blocking beautifully. Those creases just above the front ribbing got put into the sweater during its final blocking and haven’t come out despite lots of wear. I haven’t re-blocked it to fix it yet.

I’ve been really busy with work and other random distractions like the car stuff the past couple of weeks, but I have gotten a little knitting in. I’m trying to knit a vest for the Vest-uary knitalong on Ravelry. I’m designing it myself, in a beautiful dark gray color of Cascade Eco Wool, one of my favorite yarns. The front is a very dense slip-stitch pattern, so it’s taking ages–I’m not sure I’ll finish in time. But I’m going to go and work on it a bit and watch the rest of Hell’s Kitchen. (And about that show, specifically the Feb 19 episode. Why are these supposed food lovers such utter and total babies about what they put in their mouths? Barfing because you’re asked to eat some beef liver? Really? Srsly? What kind of chef are you? That’s good stuff.)

And my beloved Bird in Hand mittens seem to be gone for good and I’m very sad about it. I think they fell out of my pocket when I was loading groceries in a parking lot and someone swiped them. I called the lost and found twice and posted on craigslist with no luck. So I have to finish this vest and make myself some new mittens to keep my hands warm. I’m wearing my Selbuvotter:

which are very beautiful, but they’re a bit too big for me.

It’s balls of ice cream covered in flour

OK, it’s 10 PM and I still have hours of work left to go, I can’t find my FAVORITE Bird in Hand mittens, and I missed my weekly knitting night at the wine store tonight because I was busy sorting through a bunch of messy files, but this fake Trader Joe’s ad totally cheered me up. Hahaha, parsnip chips.

Also, I went to see Nancy Bushat the Madison Knitters’ Guild meeting on Monday. It was very cool. She mainly talked about her new book, Knitted Lace of Estonia, showing a slideshow of photos of Tallinn and Hapsaalu, photos of shawls and lace knitters from Estonia past and present, and talking a bit about how she got into all the Estonian stuff to begin with (while researching an Estonian sock pattern for her book Folk Socks. Folk Knitting in Estonia ensued–this is really an excellent book, by the way–and now the lace book.)

She brought a bunch of sample shawls from the book, and they were beautiful. It was a little disappointing, though, because she asked us not to touch them, but some of them, like the Greta Garbo shawl, were lying in a bunched-up pile on the table so we couldn’t see the lace patterns.

(Did you know that there’s a theory that nupps are popular in Estonian lace because shawls were sold by weight? And that the hundreds of stitches for the edgings on those lace shawls were knit on straight needles, all bunched up together? As Nancy Bush mentioned in her Knitting Daily interview, the traditional way of making the shawls was to knit the whole edging in one crazy long piece, bind it off, and then sew it onto the body of the shawl, and the old Estonian ladies would look very troubled when explaining, with furrowed brow, that some people would pick up stitches to knit the edging but this was Not Proper At All.)

I also signed up to see the Yarn Harlot when she comes to Madison in March, and bought the reissue of the German stitch dictionary Omas Strickgeheimnisse from Susan’s Fiber Shop, one of the vendors at the Guild meeting. (I had been interested in this book since seeing Raveler Saccade’s Red Skies at Night scarf pattern.) All in all, a good time.

Now, back to work. At least I have some freeze-dried mangosteens from Trader Joe’s to snack on.