Swatchathon

ince I’ve been stuck on Sleeve Island for a while now, my knitting needles have been eagerly waiting to cast on for something new and exciting.  I went delving into my yarn stash and spied some lovelies begging to be made into wearable items.  This was when I began a Swatchathon.

Like most knitters, I’m not a huge fan of the gauge swatch.  However, I religiously complete this small yet extremely tedious task before knitting a pattern (especially an adult-sized garment).  Apparently, swatching is the new black!


Swatch numbers almost never lie.  If you’re in doubt, swatch again.  Trust me, I’ve learned this the hard way!

So here’s a list of things NOT to do when you’re dealing with the whole gauge swatch business:

* Measure while your knitting is still on the needles.  Been there, done that… er, the finished object that came out of that mistake was nothing like the designer intended!
* Stretch out your square and tug at those last couple stitches to make them fit the 4 inch mark.  You mean you never do that, am I the only one?
* Knit a swatch that’s smaller than 4 inches square.  Guilty…

* Measure and realize that your gauge is just a bit off (like 3 stitches off!) stick your fingers in your ears and go la-la-la.  Continue to cast on with the wrong needles!
* Look at the words row gauge and think, “Row Gauge, Shmo Gmauge” and wonder why that’s even a necessary number to take into consideration.  Apparently it’s very necessary, ask me how I know that!!
* “Forget” to wash and block your swatch the same way you would wash and block your completed knitting.  Let’s face it, you just want to get to the fun part – casting on!!!
* Figure you’re a tight/loose knitter and go up/down a needle size (or 2) than what the pattern recommends and avoid swatching altogether.

Things TO DO when you’re dealing with the whole gauge swatch business:

**** Embrace the gauge swatch.  Your knitting will thank you for it!! ****

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Blog? What Blog??

L o s t! 

That’s what’s happened to my blogging mojo over the past few months.  Sure, I’ve popped by with the occasional post to say, “Hey, look what I made!”  But, I just haven’t had anything to say without it sounding too contrived.

Howeverrrr, when I woke up this morning, I felt like I just wanted to blog even if it was just a bunch of random words.  So, here I am:)

Ever since May rolled around, my knitting queue seems to have changed.  Worsted weight sweaters don’t seem as appealing any more.  That said, my Garter Yoke Cardi is so close to being done.  Just one more sleeve to go!  I have to confess though that I’ve been really dragging my feet with getting these sleeves finished because I figure it’s going to be a while before I get to wear this sweater.  The yarn is gorgeous but it’s a true worsted weight which will be good only for Fall slash Winter wearing. 

I went “looking” on Ravelry for a sweater pattern for my Pashmina preciousss and two hours later I had almost 20 different patterns that would work great with this yarn.  Man, there’s a TON of great stuff to knit!

What to knit, what to knit???  Knitting is supposed to be relaxing, hah!!

Anyways, soon to be finished (well, kinda!) is a cute little sport-weight cardigan knit in Bugga – nom!  Kelly said that she was working on Emelie, I decided that I would dig mine out of hibernation and get knitting.  Just the sleeves and button bands to go before this little number gets a good soak and stretch. 

Skinny yarn takes ages to knit.  Even then, Bugga, how I love you!!

So, what’s on your needles??

Posted by & filed under Cardigans, Rambling. This post has 7 comments.

Metro

I cannot believe I forgot to blog about Metro!  (My Ravelry page says that this cardigan was finished on March 1!!!)  Better late than never, right?  When this pattern was published in the 2010 Fall issue of Twist Collective, I thought it was “nice” but never really got that I-Must-Knit-This-NOW type feeling.

Then, I got this yarn as part of my Madelinetosh Sweater Club shipment and it was am-A-zing!  Meet Squishy!

 Actualy, it’s tosh 80-10-10 Worsted MCN, but I prefer Squishy, the perfect yarn for Metro.

I loved knitting the cables that are knit on the wrong side of the work and show up differently on the right side – nice touch.

There are a few fiddly bits like joining the neckband to the body of the sweater and kitchenering live stitches in the cable/rib pattern at the back of the neck.

The only thing I would have liked to change are the few rows of reverse stockinette at the bottom.  I wish I had knit those in 2×2 rib to match the sleeves and the front bands.  Too late to frog now!  I’m really happy with this cardigan and I love this yarn.

Metro (ravelry project page)
Pattern: Metro by Connie Chang Chinchio
Yarn: Tosh 80-10-10 Worsted MCN in “Creme de Menthe”
Needles: Size US 7 & 8 /4.5 & 5 mm

Posted by & filed under Cardigans, Finished Knits, Yarn. This post has 13 comments.

Soay

I had the fantastic opportunity to test knit Gudrun’s latest pattern, Soay.  Soay is a cropped cardigan with a lace motif in front – just perfect for celebrating spring.  This was my first time using Quince & Co. yarn and I loved knitting with this yarn.  Great stitch definition, blocks out real soft!

My favorite part is the scooped neckline ♥ and the stockinette buttonbands and of course the lace flower motifs.

This cardigan calls for Quince & Co.’s sportweight yarn, Chickadee. The i-cord bind off along the buttonbands and neck adds the perfect finishing touch.

An adorable pattern from one of the knitting greats, Gudrun Johnston.  Check it out on her blog and on Ravelry.

Soay (ravelry project page)
Pattern: Soay by Gudrun Johnston
Yarn: Quince & Co.’s Chickadee in “Split Pea”
Needles: Size US 6/4 mm

Posted by & filed under Cardigans, Finished Knits, Lace. This post has 9 comments.

Jaali

Thank you so much for all the Alouette love, I really appreciate everyone’s comments and will be working on writing up the pattern soon.

A while ago, I was asked to test knit a shawl by Shweta of the Yarnside blog.  I hadn’t knit a shawl in ages at that point, but I’m a sucker for lace knitting and  delightedly jumped at the offer.  I knew that I wanted to use my leftover Sundara Sock Yarn from this project for this shawl that Shweta named Jaali. 

Jaali is a quick knit with many options to customize – love that in a pattern!  Due to yarn limitations, I decided that the triangular version of this shawl would be the best way to go for me. 

The mesh lace center is beautifully offset by the border repeats and the shawl is finished off with a nice edge with what most of us shawl knitters have come to know and love, the points! 

Unfortunately, the “points” along the edge of my shawl disappeared even after I redid the cast off.  The other test knitters didn’t seem to have this particular problem and so it must have been something that I was doing wrong:)

The pattern for Jaali can be found here.

Jaali (ravelry link)
Pattern: Jaali by Shweta Shankar Khatri
Yarn: Sundara Sock in “Cobalt Over Mediterranean”
Needles: Size US 10/6 mm

Posted by & filed under Finished Knits, Lace, Shawl, Stashbusting. This post has 6 comments.

Alouette

When I bought this yarn from my LYS a few weeks ago, I knew that I wanted to knit something girly with it.

What better than a little spring cardigan for my 3-year-old daughter, Kirtana.  So, I dug out my Barbara Walker Stitch Dictionary, picked out a stitch pattern I liked and began knitting.  Every time I would pick up this sweater to knit a few rows, Kiki would ask me, “Mama, are you all done?”  That alone was sheer pressure to get this finished and ready for her to wear!

I wet blocked and once, I actually saw her laying on her tummy in front of the sweater touching it every few seconds to see if it was dry! 🙂

My almost 12-year-old son named this sweater “Alouette” because one of our favorite walking paths is along the Alouette River by our house.  I knit this cardi top-down raglan style with the stitch pattern repeated just above the cuffs.

Presenting “Alouette”, a sweet little spring cardigan for the little girl in my life.

Alouette (ravelry link)

Pattern: My own 
Yarn: Tosh DK in “Ms. Taylor” 
Needles: Size US 6 & 7/ 4 & 4.5 mm 



The stitch pattern is fun to knit and gives great texture to this garment.

A bit of sleeve action

Thankfully, Tosh DK is a superwash yarn because this cardigan is going to get lots of wear this spring!

Posted by & filed under Cardigans, Design, Family, Finished Knits, Kids, Yarn. This post has 17 comments.

Spring Things

3 more days till Spring!

I’ve been a busy bee with so many things needing to be done before Spring break arrives next week and much of my time has been spent in the kitchen.  I’m getting ready with my Spring Break Arsenal ….how come kids are extra hungry when they aren’t at school?  I don’t blame them with trees to be climbed, frisbees to be thrown (almost took out our neighbor’s dog… sorry Roxy!) and general goofing off to be done.  We’ll also be going to The Island for a couple days which will be a nice break from the routine.

Let playtime begin!

There has been knitting too.  On the needles, a little Spring cardigan. 

I’ve just got one more sleeve to go and it’s going to look adorable.  My Garter Yoke Cardi is progressing albeit, much slower than the pint-sized spring cardigan.  I can’t really whizz through it since there are a million stitches on each row.  Eventually, I’ll be done 🙂

Have some green fun today everyone, Happy St. Paddy’s Day!

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Plan B

This is what we saw on one of our bike rides last week….

What a perfect day to ride horses (or bikes)!  Time to bring out the spring knitting, don’t you think?  I was contemplating what yarn to use, when I looked at these beauties from my recently frogged Dark and Stormy Cardi and thought… Plan B!

Same yarn, different pattern!

I’ve been wanting to knit the Garter Yoke Cardi for a while now and so as always, I went trolling through Ravelry looking at all the lovely GYCs for inspiration.  Wow, this is a popular pattern, no?  Madelinetosh Vintage is such a lovely, squishy yarn and it is just right for this pattern.  Garter stitch is so mindless, enjoyable and perfect and it glows in this colorway of Vintage. 

March means spring break is almsot here, I need me some mindless so we can go outside and play!

Happy March everyone:)

Posted by & filed under Cardigans, Family, Rambling, Yarn. This post has 9 comments.

The Frog Pond

When you look at something over and over and it becomes so very familiar that you miss so many details like, erm…. the huge big mistake that is staring you in the face.  Remember when I showed you my Dark and Stormy Cardi and said that I would get to working on it pretty soon?  Well, I thought things were going swell and that this week I would really get cracking on this sweater.  Yeah, scratch that because my buddy Jocelyn said that she noticed this twisted cable thing going on with my sweater and asked me if that it was a “design feature” I was adding.

Haha, no design feature, just one HUGE big mistake!  See what I mean…

I thought about letting things be and seeing if I could incorporate this “new” cable pattern through the rest of the sweater.  But, nope!  I knew that this mistake would just feel like a big X on my back, perfect for target practice!  Which is when I decided to rip until the offending row in the pattern.  Then I noticed something else looked wonky, rrrrip another few rows.  Oops, one of the mini cables looked weird, rrrrrip again.  The heck with it, I decided that having the few remaining rows that were error-free wasn’t worth it and so to the frog pond went the whole sweater. 

Once I was done ripping, I glanced at the time on my clock.  It read 1 a.m.  I slept very soundly that night!

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k2tog YO ssk YO

The knitting language is full of abbreviations… WIP, FO, YO, K2TOG and many, many more.  If you aren’t a knitter, you’d probably think that this was weird and maybe even bordering on rude.  Last week, I kept losing my place in the pattern I was working on and had my 11-year-old son, Prithvi, call out the pattern rows to me.  After some initial stumbling he really got into it and began a rap of sorts.  You see, he thought that all of the YOs (yarn overs) in the pattern were just knitting exclamations! 

k2tog, YO, ssk, YO, YO YO YO!!! 

Lots of knitting happening here, some of which I can’t talk about yet – test knits, surprise gift knitting… stuff like that.  Now, all of that’s done and I can go back to my regular scheduled cardi knitting mania.

I’m done with the body of my Metro cardigan and moved on to Sleeve Island.  The sleeves should go quickly because these are three-quarter length sleeves and the yarn is worsted weight.  Then, I have a little bit of the collar to get done before this sweater has a date with the blocking board.

My Dark and Stormy cardigan hasn’t seen much action lately, but seeing that I’m on roll with Metro, it will just have to wait on the sidelines a teeny bit longer.  This yarn too is worsted weight and so progress should be quite quick.

I really want to finish knitting these sweaters and get some wear out of them before the weather turns warm because I can see life in the garden already.  It seems like the earth is waking up from its long winter nap and we have little green shoots sprouting from the bulbs we planted in the fall.

I can’t wait to welcome spring blooms and if you’ve hung around my blog long enough you’ll know that I’m a sucker for flowers.

PS: Just my rotten luck…. just as I was typing out this blog post and was about to hit “Publish”, it began hailing.  Whaaaat???!!! ^&%%^$$#  Not golf ball type hail but rather cute little mini pebbles.  Still!!!!  I guess I can hold off on the spring knitting wishlist then!

Posted by & filed under Cardigans, Kids, Rambling. This post has 7 comments.