Sox!

The first 3 photos show the Ridged top down pattern from More Sensational Knitted Socks, knitted in Kollage Luscious. Turning the heel was a wonderful revelation of my own three dimensionality in concrete detail. However, the cotton yarn and not-so-stretchy pattern left me with a slightly slack fit around the ankle.










This last photo shows my first toe-up sock in progress. It's based on another pattern in More Sensational Knitted Socks, knitted in Cascade Fixation. The stretchy yarn and the use of Heel Stitch on the flap combine to give the heel and ankle a better fit,

Quick update

Travel has kept me away from blogging for a while but not away from knitting. Or shopping. Midcoast Maine's LYS owners are friendly and helpful!
A quick visit to Heavenly Socks Yarns in Belfast got me started on sock knitting, using Charlotte Schurch's lucidly written More Sensational Socks. My first pair used some previously purchased Kollage Luscious, variegated in purple, green, and gold. They are comfy but a bit loose in the heel. I'm not sure I'll use it for socks again, or perhaps it just needs less ease and a ribbier stitch. I've started pair number two using Cascade Fixation in purple, toe up for (I hope) a precise fit.
Circumstances kept me from getting back to Belfast for the remainder of the trip, but I did manage two visits to Camden's Unique One, where on impulse I got 3 skeins of Schaefer's Laurel in the Empress Wu Zhao colorway. I'm hoping to find a comparable yarn in a solid to add structure to the randomness. In addition, still thinking of socks, I got 2 skeins of Berrocco Comfort Sock.
Photos later.

Photos at last

Here is the comfortable and cozy Emerald Cardigan at last:



I made the collar bigger, added a second button, and skipped the eyelets (yarn overs) along the raglan shaping. The yarn (an unlabeled acrylic as far as I can tell) shaded nicely.

And here is my version of Jared Flood's Turn a Square hat:


The colors are off. The green is too yellow and the blue is too bright. I used Lion Brand Vanna's Choice Sweet Pea and Dusty Blue. Not Mr. Flood's style as to color or choice of yarn, but fun to knit and nice to wear under the hood of my similarly green parka on extra cold days.

Starting 2009

In the spirit of the little stash down contest going on with some knitting pals, I'm starting the new year on a productive note of projects completed or decisively abandoned. This will be the year of finishing things, I think.
I'm way behind on photos, but here's an update:

• My Emerald cardigan is finished! I made the collar wider with extra short rows, and I gave it 2 buttons instead of just 1.


• My turquoise hat (using Creamy) was just too frustrating, so I gave up. It's nice yarn for something--lace, perhaps--but not for a hat. Knitting with it doubled was like knitting with 2 strands of crochet cotton--no give, no loft, and ready to slip off the needles at a moment's notice. It's a nice enough pattern, but not for that yarn.


• I just finished my take on Jared Flood's Turn a Square hat, only instead of using a classic wool I used Vanna's Choice acrylic in a sort of lime-to-pea-soup green with muted blue stripes.I did it partly to learn how to do the Jogless Join when knitting stripes in the round, so as to be able to apply this approach to my striped pullover, which was not looking the way I had hoped. It worked out well! There was a difficult moment when I realized I had made the hat an inch too long, but by (gasp) cutting off 2 inches, bravely picking up and ribbing down for an inch, I rescued it. It's in the washing machine now so I can see how VC washes before I whip up a baby blanket.

Almost finished

Knitting update: I've completed the first round of short rows for the Emerald cardigan's shawl collar, as well as the button holes (I made 2 instead of just one). Yesterday I went to G Street Fabrics and found 2 nice big buttons in a compatible rusty shade. (I had put off finishing the collar until I was sure of getting buttons to fit the buttonholes.) The size has turned out well. I'm liking the shawl collar, but may make it wider than the pattern calls for.
I've also started a hat, using yarn (Kollage Creamy--milk and cotton!--in turquoise) and pattern purchased as a kit from Paradise Fibers. Except for being a bit softer, the yarn reminds me of crochet cotton. It's used double for the hat. It's a bit of a chore to knit--no elasticity, quick to slip off the needles and to unravel stitches down a row or two immediately--but makes a nice soft fabric. I'm just not sure it's going to be much of a hat. It seems too thin to be warm.

More knitting, with some math

I've been struggling with the border for the Emerald cardigan, and finally got the numbers to come out right. There are supposed to be: equal numbers of stitches picked up along the left and right fronts, and also a total number of stitches that is a multiple of 4, plus 2. Or to put it differently, an odd multiple of 2. I got way too caught up in sophisticated planning of stitches per section even though, with this boucle yarn, I can't see the stitches/rows all that well, which is a serious obstacle to counting them! Finally I settled on: 16 stitches across the neck, 15 along the bottom ribbing on each side, and 80 additional stitches spread however evenly I could manage along each front--no fancy counting of little sections. At this point I've done several rows of the border, including the buttonhole rows (I decided on 2 buttons rather than the single one called for in the pattern) and will finish the shawl collar, short rows and all, in the next day or so, I sincerely hope.

Starting the yoke

I'm plugging away on the Emerald Cardigan, having joined the body and sleeves and started my way up the yoke. The pattern calls for cables bordered by eyelet along the raglan shaping, but I am skipping the eyelet and substituting a one-stitch reverse stockinette edge to the cables, decreasing outside this stitch. Also, I am turning the cables towards the sleeves, rather than all in one direction. This is the exciting part of a bottom-up raglan: the accelerating ascent of the shoulders. I hope it all works out and fits!