Ladies Three-Quarter Sleeve Cardigan - The Beginning

The yarn has been calling to me for a year and a half. I finally had to start the project.

I inherited a stash of almost vintage yarn from a friend of my mom’s. There are plenty of yarns in the stash that were really nice and colors and weights that I want to make things (sweaters, hats, vests) with. There were a couple of yarns in the stash that I didn’t particularly like, but for some reason couldn’t get rid of them. Something about them made me want to hang on to them and use them together in a project. It’s the weirdest thing. 

I don’t really like the color of one of the yarns in this new project, but I liked it with the second color of yarn. I’m not sure they even go well when put together. But there you go, I couldn’t get rid of the yarn, so I had to come up with something that would use both yarns in a single project. 

Bernat Berella & Unger Utopia yarns.

I was clicking through our patterns one morning and came across this pattern, the 1950s Three Quarter Sleeve Cardigan Sweater - Knit pattern. The pattern called for mohair yarn, but I don’t enjoy working with mohair yarn…it’s almost impossible to rip out stitches when I mess up stitches.

1950s Three Quarter Sleeve Cardigan Sweater - Knit pattern PDF 0858

I started with a swatch to test the pattern. I hadn’t done a slip stitch pattern before and I couldn’t figure out how the stitches were going to work together to create the design. It turns out the pattern rows are easily memorized and even easier to knit.

Test swatch, using scrap yarn.

The yarns were perfect for the jacket. It’s pretty neat looking in-person. Using the darker yarn as the secondary color means that the color pops look more like shadows - they are subtle.

I have 4 skeins of the lighter/main color and 3 skeins of the darker/contrast color. I searched online and could not find any yardage information for the Bear Brand Curlicue or the Fleisher’s Curlette yarns. That isn’t too surprising. Back in the olden days, yardage wasn’t generally included on the label. The original yarns were worsted weight. Here's a link to theVintage Yarn Wikia page for info on yarn information we've run across over the years.

The pattern calls for 11 ounces of the main color and 6 ounces of the contrast color.  I have 14.10 ounces of the light and 10.5ounces of the dark yarns.  Here’s hoping I have enough to make the sweater.

Slip stitch pattern.

The project details:

• Yarn 1: Unger Utopia, Color: 171, 100% Courtelle Acrylic, 240 yards/skein.
• Yarn 2: Color: Bernat Berella, Color: 8815/Antq Rose, 100% Acrylic, 200+ yards/skein.
• Needles: 8 US. Chaiogoo Stainless Steel.
• Gauge: 5 sts = 1 inch (per the pattern).

I should have pics of the started project shortly. Fall baseball has started and we have some Saturday games where I will have to be knitting to calm my nerves.

Happy Knitting!

 

The Thoroughbred Swing Coat - Sleeves and Fronts

I decided to try something I hadn’t tried before, for the sleeves and fronts with this sweater: I knit the sleeves and fronts two-at-a-time (TAAT) on a long circular needle. The sleeves were knit on the same cable, bottom to top. The fronts were knit two-at-a-time to the point that the raglan decreases started. I then moved one of the front pieces to a second circular needle and finished each front piece on their own. I couldn't wrap my head around decreasing the sleeve stitches while knitting the TAAT. Since the majority of the fronts were already finished, the knitting of the separate pieces went really fast.

Back, Sleeves, Fronts

I thought the TAAT method would work for me because I would finish both pieces at the same time, and not be left with one front or one sleeve with one of each still to go. [No second sock syndrome. You can look it up, it's a real thing in knitting]. It’s a bit daunting for me to see half of the project completed and know I still another sleeve or front to knit. I had to make sure that I completed both pieces on the circulars when I was knitting. I worked across both pieces across the circulars so that I never put down the needles with only one of the two pieces knit.  It was difficult to return to the sweater with one side knitted, and the other one waiting to be knit, as I discovered. I ended up working on one side two times in a row while leaving the other side dangling waiting to be knit.

Start of Two-at-a-Time Fronts

Fronts completed to beginning of decreases.

Because I was having problems remembering and tracking where I was in the pattern I decided to create little reminders that I attached to the front and back of each piece to remind me of the stitch pattern for that side. I used my word processing program to make the slips of pattern, cut out the pattern snippets, and laminated each of them. I then punched a hole in the corner of the laminated piece and used a locking stitch marker to attach it to the pieces. It saved my behind more than a couple of times – especially when I had to put the sweater down for an extended period of time. It was easy to come back and see what row I had completed. 

Front with my pattern info attached.

Those little laminated tags are my new favorite thing about knitting. I will always have my pattern with me, and I know what I am supposed to be working on, even after setting down my projects for long lengths of time. It's a little goofy. But it sure works.

Happy knitting!

The Start of a 1950s Sweater

While we have taken some time off from the blog - hello again! - that doesn't mean we haven't been working on projects.

I received a bunch of yarn from a family friend. In it was a slew of RHSS (Red Heart Super Saver) yarn in a cream fleck colorway. There was enough for a sweater, but since it was a fairly old batch of yarn, it didn't have yardage listed. I had been thinking about using it for quite some time. I'd look for a pattern, but there wasn't a pattern that screamed it was the right pattern for the yarn. Then, one of my co-workers was wearing a cream swing sweater, and I realized that I had the perfect pattern in our collection. Voila! There was my inspiration.

I started the Basic Coat of Any Length back in December 2016. This is a raglan sleeve sweater. The kids were on vacation, we were on a hiatus from sports. It was magical. I zipped through the back. It took me less than three weeks to get the back completed, working on it sporadically.

The pattern calls for Spinnerin Marvel Twist (4 ounce skeins) . It turns out we had the yarn listed on our Wiki page. It's a worsted weight yarn. With some swatches in hand with different needle sizes, I swatched then washed the swatches. The washing of the swatch is almost necessary when working with the Super Saver. It's so stiff when it is being knit, but softens beautifully once washed.  I achieved gauge with a US5 (3.75mm) needle.

Sweater back along with all of the yarn for the sweater.

Cast-on: 
I used this cast on.
This cast on needs to begin with a knit stitch; and it is a cast on in even numbers. Because I like using this cast on method, I cast on one less stitch than the pattern called for – an even number of stitches. I then cast on one single stitch with a knitted cast on. I began working the pieces by knit, knit, K1tbl and continued in the pattern.

Measurements: 

Measured from directly under needle cable to bottom of back
Laid flat – not stretched: 13.75”
Laid flat –stretched: 15”

Gauge: 

6 stitches = 1 inch without stretching.

Happy Knitting!

And the Swatch Continues - Black Evening Blouse

We are continuing on with the growing swatch for the Black Evening Blouse. The original post can be found here. I should have included a pic of the blouse in the original post, but it didn't even occur to me until after the post  went live on the blog.

This is what the sweater looks like:

I am finding that making the swatch is helping with my tension. My tension was all over the place when I made the first, little swatch. I am used to working on heavier weight yarn.. I usually work with worsted weight yarn, so everything knits up fast. My first original swatches were small - I cast on 30 stitches on size 3US needles. The swatch was about 2.5 to 3 inches wide. 

The info that we could find on the Botany Saxatones yarn is for the 1 ounce size skeins. The 1-ounce skeins contained about 170 yards. The yarn is 100% wool. The pattern calls for 4 or 5 of the 2 ounce skeins of yarn.

The pattern can be found here.

Happy knitting!

A Big Swatch - Black Evening Blouse

I found a lace weight yarn I wanted to try, but I didn't have a pattern to use it on, until Alison sent the Black Evening Blouse pattern to me.

The yarn I wanted to use is an acyrlic/nylon blend, and not very expensive, but is so soft. I had to go buy a pair of metal needles size 1US at a local yarn store that sells the needles I like to use. The owner suggested that before putting in the work with this tiny yarn, that I knit up a large swatch and run it through the washer ten times to see how well it holds up.

I definitely don't want to do all of that knitting only to have the sweater pill on the first few washings and wearings. I really really dislike swatching. But I could see the sense in creating the large swatch. As I made peace with the idea of swatching and washing, I realized this could be the perfect opportunity to show the stitch patterns that are used in the pattern. The patterns aren't completely visible in the picture of the sweater. This first pic of the swatch shows the Hive Pattern from the pattern.

 


I have to use a lifeline (the peach colored cotton thread running through the swatch). I forgot to add it when I switched from stockinette to the pattern and ended up having to rip out about 10 rows of the hive pattern (unknit is the new term for ripping out stitches, I think). I decided that I was tired of unknitting and that a lifeline would save me time in the future. We were camping and I was so excited to be knitting by headlamp light that I wasn't paying as close of attention to the pattern as I should have been. I guess that makes me a nerd knitter.

I found that placing a stitch marker on row 1 of the pattern repeat made it easier to figure out where I am in the pattern when I pick up after setting it down for any length of time.

I will be posting more pics as I get further along in the swatch (or cowl).

Happy knitting!

It's Moving Pretty Quickly (for me) - Jiffy Knit Sweater

I just started working on a new project: the 1940s Jiffy Raglan Sleeve Sweater from our shop. I was really happy to find that I could use yarn already in my stash: a wool/acrylic blend. I purchased the yarn about 15 years ago, back when we still had a Ben Franklin craft store in town. I bought the yarn and started a sweater vest for my husband. I thought he would look cute. He thought I was nuts! So the partially completed vest has been in storage since then. I purchased so much yarn that I can probably make two of these sweaters.

The sweater is knit from the top down. Once you hit the bottom of the sweater, the vast majority of your work is already completed and your project is almost ready to wear. That seems pretty fantastic to me. In the first pic, I have the sweater waiting on my circular needle cable while I work on the sleeve.

I used a modified traveling loop that I first found a few year ago on YouTube to work the sleeves of the sweater. Liat Gat has fantastic knitting videos that are really well done. This is the video that I used to get me going on the sleeves. I might break down and buy a 16" circular needle if I make the sweater again. I think it might go faster if I didn't have to fiddle with the cable on every single round.

I will be posting my progress on the sweater. It should go fairly quickly since it is the Jiffy Raglan Sweater.

Happy knitting!