I finished knitting my Ravi cardigan a week ago, but haven’t been able to post it before now. This is due to (1) not being able to find my bottle of wool wash, even though it was right where it was supposed to be and I looked there twenty times, and (2) not being able to take any photos because it is cold, grey, wet and drizzly. Did you know Ravi means “sun”? Regardless of it’s name, my Ravi has no power over the weather. Today, in total frustration, we ran out during a short break in the rain to take a few photos. Doug kindly stood out in the cold and damp, even though he was feverish.
I reported previously that I was having issues with the back hem of this pullover. It has a curve which is formed with short rows. On my un-blocked piece, there was an unattractive bulge produced by the shaping. I hoped that this would block out. I was also debating about whether or not to put in buttons, and pointed out that on many of the Ravi sweaters I had seen, the buttons gaped. I published that post late in the evening and when I woke up in the morning I had a note from Carol Feller (Ravi’s designer) in my Ravelry mailbox. I thought I would repeat it here in it’s entirety because she made some very good points.
Ravi
Sent at 10:04 PM October 14, 2012
“Saw your blog post but was having trouble sending comment, so thought I’d do it here!
I’ve got a suggestion for you on the hem, put the sts on waste yarn and give the short row hem a good steam or spray blocking. If you like it then leave it in. Take care to work the I cord bind off loosely (possibly even bigger needles) to ensure it doesn’t pull the edge in.
Buttonband wise, you are in control of button spacing and the weight of the buttons. Gaping is usually due to knitters using negative ease in their cardigan.”
Isn’t that cool? What a great idea for the back hem. Basically, it allows you to partially block your sweater and then make crucial design decisions before doing the finishing. I don’t know why this never occurred to me. In the end, however, I didn’t try it. I decided that all of the knitters who had finished their Ravis couldn’t be wrong, and that it would block flat. They were right, by the way:
As to the buttons, Carol is absolutely right: each knitter has control of the weight of the buttons and also the spacing, but there were some mitifying factors at play here. First, the buttons had to be big enough that the I-cord could loop around them (the I-cord acts as the button loop); since the I-cord is rather thick this leaves out really small buttons. Second, the placement of the buttons is affected by the lace panel in the yoke. Both of these issues could easily be solved. However, in my case, the third is the killer: As you can see from the photos, I knit this sweater with a good deal of negative ease.
(Note to Emma: yes, I did run out and take these photos without stying my hair and doing my makeup. Furthermore, I am not even smiling. Trust me, I looked worse in the other photos.) See the rather wide gap between the two sides of the front? This is what is meant by negative ease – the width of the cardigan is less than the width of my body. In a pullover, if the fabric is sufficiently stretchy, this gives you shapeliness and va-va-voom. In a cardigan, it gives you buttons that gape. Why so much negative ease? Well, partly it is because I knew that garter stitch knit at this gauge would have a tendency to stretch. Mostly, however, it is because I gained ten pounds over the summer and I decided to be optimistic in planning this sweater. Easy on, easy off, no?
Now, that we’ve noted the negative ease, look back at the above photo. Can you see how absolutely gorgeous the finishing is on the front edges of the cardigan? The attached I-cord is so elegant, the line so beautiful…..this is the real reason to forego the buttons. I think the edge looks perfect just as it is. I don’t want any buttons cluttering it up.
Now that I’ve finished knitting two great Carol Feller sweaters in a row (both of them for me!), I can heartily recommend her designs. They are intelligently written, witty, architecturally interesting and fun to knit. Next up – a sweater for Leah based on a medieval jewelry design.
I have been doing a fair bit of knitting lately which has not yet made its way onto the pages of this blog. (Perhaps this is due to my photographer and blog collaborator/instigator having moved half way around the globe to attend university?) I have finished knitting Ravi, and think it will work out just fine. It still needs to be blocked, however, so it will be another week before I manage to post it as I can only take photos on the weekends now that the days are shorter. Don’t worry: I will post a complete report. I have also made not one, not two or three, but four small projects in the past weeks which I hope to tell you about soon. Since I am not going to report on my knitting progress here, I will instead tell you about a great designer in an interesting niche market.
Let me start by noting, I have cold hands. As soon as the weather starts to turn chilly, my hands become icicles and stay that way until June comes around. One would think, given that my hands are perpetually cold and that I am perpetually knitting, that I would have dozens of pairs of hand knitted gloves, mittens and mitts. You would think wrong. I have always been too addicted to sweater knitting, and despite my best intentions, I never get around to knitting things like hats, scarves, mitts, and socks. This year, however, I am determined. I will knit mitts! I will have warm hands!!
I have spent the past few weeks trying to narrow down my search for the perfect hand knit accessories for the hand. I have primarily focused on fingerless knits for two reasons. First, because my hands are always cold at work, where I spend most of the day at the keyboard typing away. So I need mitts that will look classy and suitable for the office but that will leave my fingers free for typing. Second, the thought of knitting gloves has always put me off. All of those fingers! Imagine actually knitting five fingers for each glove, all of those tiny stitches on tiny DPNs, all of those threads to weave in!
However, one look at the designs of Julia Mueller of Laris Designs may turn any knitter into a glove fanatic. (Or cause any glove fanatic to take up knitting!) Julia pretty much exclusively designs gloves. She has a few patterns for mitts or mittens, or other items, but she is primarily a knit designer of gloves. And her gloves are wonderful. I should note that her webpage is fairly outdated and she doesn’t seem to have published any new designs this year. She does, however, have an active Ravelry group (Laris Designs) and enough glove patterns to keep you busy knitting for a good while.
Given the glove fixation with five (for obvious reasons), I have picked five of her glove designs to show you here. It was very difficult to pick my five favorites; in fact this list changes daily. But here are five absolutely fabulous designs from Julia Mueller. First off, Three Oaks:
I think this is just beautiful. I have a lovely brown dress coat for the winter, and these would be perfect with it in this exact colour and yarn. Or, if you are into more avant-garde designs, how about the cooky, crazy Blue Hands:
If you have access to Ravelry (and if you don’t, you should), check out the lovely examples of Blue Hands that are there. People have knit them in many different colour combinations and they are seriously cool. I particularly like the more organic combinations, using deep rusts and browns and blues.
This next design is called Arkema, and combines knitting and beading with some beautiful cabling:
Doug says this design looks very architectural and art deco. It would be a great design for learning new techniques; there are so many great knitted features here for a knitter trying to expand their skills.
The design called Morgan incorporates a lace up ribbon:
Isn’t it beautiful? And, of course, you could have ribbons in many different colours, allowing you to instantly change the look of the glove. And you could have velvet ribbons, sparkly ribbons, lacy ribbons….. there are endless possibilities here. Plus, the patterning on the glove is cool. I love how the cable goes right up the middle finger.
I saved my favorite for last. This is the pattern called Eve:
It is one of Julia’s earlier patterns. I have had it in my queue on Ravelry since 2010. I love everything about this design. (And I love it in green! This green! Isn’t it great?) I have always intended to start with this one, if I ever manage to get over my glove knitting phobia. But now, I don’t know – it’s so hard to choose.
I really love the way that Julia has taken a very small and very restricted canvas – the hand – and really pushed it. In her hands (get it?) the glove is imbued with creativity, technical skill and engineering.
Some of you may be wondering what happened to Ravi. I was knitting away on it fairly steadily throughout August, and since then it has done a disappearing act. The truth is that Ravi and I have had a number of disagreements. I need to solve them before I can finish. These disagreements revolve around three design features.
First, I had major issues with the sleeves. I think I’ve worked them out now, as you can see from the above photo, but it was touch and go for awhile. First, Ravi is designed with three-quarter length sleeves and I couldn’t decide whether to keep them that length or do full sleeves. I finally decided on the full sleeves and I think it was a pretty good decision. I like them. I think the I-cord edging and the fact that they do not come down to a ribbed cuff as many sweaters do, gives my Ravi the appearance of a jacket. Kind of chic. That was only one isse I had with the sleeves, however, and not the primary one.
I hated knitting these sleeves in the round. I always hate knitting sleeves in the round, even though it is all the rage these days. I don’t see what the problem is with seams. Knitting the sleeves in the round when the body of the cardigan is knit back and forth leads to its own set of problems, since the gauge doesn’t match. In addition, knitting garter stitch in the round is not fun (since you have to alternate knit and purl rows even while turning out garter). And I found that I could not knit it, no matter how I tried or what method I used, without creating “ladders” or “ridges” running down the sleeves. You can clearly see one in the above photo, running from the elbow to the cuff on my left sleeve. I am hoping that with a little luck I can block these out.
By the way, once I had almost finished the second sleeve, I decided to check the archives of the Ravi KAL on Ravelry to see what other knitters had to say about the sleeves. I mentioned in a previous post that I didn’t really follow the KAL, in part because there was so much posted, in part probably pure obstinance. I was dismayed to discover that many knitters, frustrated with knitting the sleeves in the round, ripped back and knit them flat and seamed them. Argh! Why didn’t I do that? It would have taken me a third of the time and saved tons of aggravation. Maybe I should have followed the KAL more diligently. You think?
Annoying design feature number two has to do with the short row shaped back hem. Here is how it looks on the pattern, as designed and modelled by Carol Feller (taken from her blog, Stolen Stitches):
Here is how it looks at the moment on my Ravi:
See that horrible bulge? (Some of this bulge is just from the stitches still sitting “live” on the needle at the bottom, which pulls them in a bit. But some of the bulge is caused by the short row shaping, and it looks terrible.) Now, once again I searched the Ravi KAL posts, and according to them, many knitters had this problem and they all claim that it blocks out with a good wet block and steam. Carol Feller agrees, and there are photos to prove it. Many of them. Still, I find myself torn between doing all of the finishing on the cardigan and then discovering that the bulge won’t block out and having to rip it all out, or just biting the bullet and ripping it out now and leaving out this feature all together. In the latter scenario, I would just have a straight hem at the bottom. The photo below shows both how great the sleeves look at this bracelet length, and how awful the bulge at the back hem looks.
I go back and forth every day about whether to rip this or not. I think I have probably decided to trust my fellow knitters and block it out. It certainly looks great in Carol’s Ravi, and she didn’t steer me wrong with Killybegs, which was an excellent design.
This leads to the third issue and the one that really has me stumped: the buttons, buttonholes, and I-cord edging. The design calls for an attached I-cord edge that goes all the way down the fronts and around the bottom. The I-cord looks supremely elegant and gives a very tailored edge to the cardigan. The buttonholes are knit into the I-cord as loops. I have looked at all the Ravi photos and have found that I really am not happy with the buttons. On some sweaters they gape, which really detracts from what should be an elegant edge. On others, the spacing is wrong (and this is hard to fix, because of the lace panel, which leads you to make certain judgements about placement). On many, the buttons are too heavy and pull down the fabric of the cardigan on one side, making the whole sweater lop-sided. Some Ravis exhibit all three of these problems.
I have at least five options: (1) Stop fretting, and just follow the pattern. (2) Knit a button band. This would entail picking up stitches down both fronts and along the bottom, and knitting a band in garter, complete with button holes. (3) Put in a zipper. This may be a good option but a slightly scary one as I have never done this before. (4) Use hooks and eyes to make an invisible closure. (5) Don’t make any closure. Knit the I-cord edging and then wear it open or use a pin to close it. Not a day goes by when I don’t change my mind about which option to use. Today I’ve changed it twice….
I have been thinking a lot about Kidsilk Haze. I love this yarn; so pretty, so soft, so light, so warm. I was in London this weekend, and stopped by Loop (a great yarn shop in Islington). They have Kidsilk displayed on a rod on the wall, one ball of each colour threaded through the rod. Such beautiful shades; I love their pastels, but I am wild about the deep jewel tones. I have also been wishing to knit myself a new pullover in Kidsilk Haze. To properly set up this discussion, I must show you a really unflattering photo of me. In 2007, I knit myself a pullover from Kidsilk Haze in a deep, vibrant purple. The sweater, called Rosa, was designed by Lois Daykin, and published in Rowan 40.
Though the photo is terrible, you can see that the sweater itself is lovely. I wore this sweater everywhere for a few years. I love that it can be very dressy, but can also be worn with jeans. I especially love that it is light as a feather, but surprisingly warm.
The problem with this sweater is that I knit it too big. I measured carefully and followed Rowan’s size guide exactly and knit to gauge. I have noticed over the years that Rowan patterns run big; there is an enormous amount of positive ease built into their patterns. And actually, when you look at the photos in their pattern books, the sweaters are always enormous on the models, so this isn’t exactly a case of false advertising. These young, attractive Rowan models lounging around the countryside and country manor houses in sweaters three sizes too big for them always look like beautiful, tousled, artistic waifs lost in their big, snuggly sweaters. On everyone else, they just look like sweaters that don’t fit. I have come to the conclusion that, when knitting a Rowan pattern, you should always go down a size. Or two. Or three.
So my Rosa sweater, while deeply loved, was clearly too big, and once I lost a bit of weight, was way too big. I have been thinking for some time now of knitting another one in a size 10 instead of a 14 (really, a 14; what was I thinking?)
Since knitting Rosa, I have made four other projects with Kidsilk Haze, each of which I love to bits. First, also in 2007, I made the River Lacy Wrap, designed by Sharon Miller and published in Rowan 38. It was my first piece of lacework.
Then I knit the absolutely fabulous Reversible Cable-Ribbed Shawl, by Lily Chin, published in Vogue Knitting Winter 1999/2000. I think this may be my all-time favorite of all my knits, and will be the subject of a future Wearability Wednesday post. But here is a teaser photo, so you can begin to see it’s greatness. (Don’t you love this green? Regular readers of this blog will know that I have a thing for green.)
I then made the Smoulder pullover for Emma, which I blogged about here. Smoulder was designed by Kim Hargreaves and published in her collection, Whisper. The yarn is held double in this pattern, making it much warmer, thicker and cushier, but still light as air. This sweater was sort of a pain to knit, because it was knit on two different sized needles, but you cannot argue with the results. It looks great.
Using the leftovers from the Smoulder sweater, I knit a cowl for my sister-in-law, Vivian, which I blogged about here.
Clearly, it is time to knit myself a pullover in Kidsilk Haze. I have been torn for a while between knitting another Rosa, perhaps in a deep red, or finding another pattern to make with this yarn. Recently, I came across this:
This pullover combines Kidsilk Haze with beads. I think it is beautiful. It is designed by Martin Story and published in Parisian Nights (by Rowan). I am thinking maybe this is what I need for my next Kidsilk Haze fix. I love this colour – sort of a cross between grey and taupe – but I can imagine this in a dark red, or a soft pearl grey, a rich golden yellow or a very pale pink, or maybe in a classic black. Kidsilk comes in so many colours. Beads come in endless varieties; imagine the possibilities. What do you think?
A year ago today, my first post on this blog went live. So today is my first blogiversary. Looking back over the year of posts, I found my eye drawn to a photo of me, sitting in my back garden, knitting the sleeves on a pullover I was making for my husband, Doug. The post was whimsically called “Do you love your husband enough to knit the sleeves?”; you can find it here. The pullover I was knitting is Brick, a design by Hanne Falkenberg. Looking over the photos, I realized that the jacket I was wearing while sitting out in my garden knitting Hanne Falkenberg, is itself a Hanne Falkenberg design, called Decapo. I think these photos really pick up one of the things I love about her designs – the interplay of colours, the beautiful quality of the wool, the intriguing designs. It is a feast for the eyes. For me, however, these two projects represent distinct stages in a knitting life. Allow me to reminisce.
I learned to knit as a child. Both my mother and my grandmother were knitters. (I wrote a series of posts in which I showed some of the vintage garments my mother and grandmother knit in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s; you can find those posts here.) I don’t remember which of them first put the needles in my hand, but I remember knitting a cabled afghan when I was 6 or 7 years old. It was knit in strips, each about 6 feet long, with a cable running up through a reverse stockinette background, and moss stitch edging.
I continued to knit, as well as doing embroidery, needlepoint, macrame (everyone did macrame in the 70s!), and other crafty things, but knitting did not reach out and grab me until the summer I turned 15. I went to visit my grandmother in California that summer for a month. At the time, she was working in a yarn shop. She took me to work with her the first day, and I immediately picked out the yarn and a pattern to knit a sweater. It was bright orange mohair (this was, after all, the 70s) and I knit a cowl neck sweater with 6 inches of ribbing on the waist and sleeves, and a huge ribbed cowl. I became obsessed. I knit all day at the shop and then went back to my grandmother’s house and knit through the night while sitting in her LazyBoy recliner, watching really awful late night television shows and eating potato chip cookies (don’t ask – we ate things like that in the 70s).
It took me three days to finish that sweater and then I started another right away. It was in a soft rose colour and knit side to side in a jacquard pattern with dolman sleeves. By the time I left my grandmother’s house, I had three finished sweaters in my suitcase and another on the needles. I was really obsessed and stayed that way for years. When I was a college student, I became quite ill at one point and spent most of seven weeks in bed. This was before the days of internet ordering and it was not easy to obtain yarn while stuck in bed. This is what I did for those 7 weeks: I knit a sweater. Then, when I was done, I frogged it (for you non-knitters, this means I ripped it all out) and re-used the yarn to knit another. Repeat. Repeat many times. As you might gather, I was a process knitter at heart. Having a finished sweater was nice but not necessary; the process of knitting soothed something in my soul.
In graduate school I always had my knitting with me. I was at MIT, the hub of all things engineering, and knitting was seen as rather frivolous and girly. The men I think just found it odd, and the women accused me of perpetuating female stereotypes. (Knitting was seen as an antifeminist manifesto, but that is the subject for another post.) During my final year, I would sit at my computer for hours at a time writing my dissertation, and then, to relax, I would knit. I ruined my hands. Two months after I submitted the dissertation, I developed such terrible hand and wrist pain that I could not knit at all. (I also could not cook, or type, or write, or much of anything else involving one’s hands.) It was diagnosed as DeQuervaine’s tenosynovitis, caused by repetitive stress.
I was convinced to undergo surgery. I have heard that this surgery is usually very successful, but in my case it was not. I could not knit. For the next 15 years, I could not knit more than a few rows without feeling pain. In that 15 years, I think I knit four sweaters: a small blue cabled toddler’s pullover (which took three years – it was intended for my nephew Mitchell but ended up for my daughter Emma), the red jacket for Leah at age three, a cute pullover for Emma, and a gansey fisherman’s pullover for Doug. That was it. Each of them progressed painfully slowly. If I got caught up in the knitting and tried to knit more than a few minutes, I would pay for it with a few weeks of pain. I mourned my knitting. Not for the things I could have knit, but because I missed the knitting itself.
For Christmas 2004 Doug bought me a Hanne Falkenberg knitting kit, for the Decapo jacket, in two shades of green and a completely gorgeous shade of rusty-orange with green tweedy undertones. I was flabbergasted. First, by the wonderfully thoughtful and beautiful gift, which was a complete and total surprise. Second, by my sudden drive to knit this beautiful sweater and become a knitter again. I was determined not to let my repetitive stress injuries take my knitting away from me. I don’t know what it was about this particular jacket that inspired me; I think perhaps it was that Doug gave me the right knitting project at just the right time. I also don’t remember everything that I did to get past the pain. What I do know is that I had to change the way that I knit and analyze the knitting process.
I started doing exercises to try to strengthen my hands and wrists. I would soak my hands in hot water before knitting and do gentle stretches. I would stop every 20 minutes and shake out my hands, massage my fingers, and give my hands a break before starting again. I thought a lot about the process – how I held the needles, how I moved my hands, how I placed my shoulders. Before the injury I had been a speed queen. I knit really fast, and I would knit for hours, literally, without a break. Now, I found that I had to slow down; I purposely slowed down each stitch. I think that before I had enjoyed the speed, getting into a zen state where my fingers would fly; now, I had to use the rhythm more than the speed to get to that state.
It took me 15 months to knit that Decapo jacket. But I was once again hooked. My whole relationship with knitting had to change. I was never again going to be able to knit for hours a day. My maximum, even today, is about 10 hours a week. I try to knit an hour every weekday and two on Saturdays and Sundays. As a result of this, I became more of a product knitter. I began to produce finished garments again, and to resist startitis (constantly casting on new items as the allure of the new outstrips the appeal of finishing the piece in hand). Last year I knit 11 items – a skirt, a cowl, a hat, a shawl, a dress, and six sweaters.
The Brick pullover, my second Hanne Falkenberg pattern, was knit this year at a time when I can feel that my relationship with knitting is changing again. For a while, after Decapo, I was all about the finished product; making beautifully fitted sweaters for myself and my daughters. But it wasn’t about pushing myself. Now I find that I long for some challenge. I want to tackle some new techniques, stretch my skills, become a more accomplished knitter. I feel that I want to settle somewhere back in the middle of the spectrum between process knitter and product knitter – I want to produce beautiful finished garments, but I also want the joy that just fooling around with knitting for the sake of the process itself brings. I find myself thinking about designing; something I haven’t done for decades. Brick was the first sweater that I cast on since beginning this blog, and I find that the very act of blogging about knitting is changing my relationship with knitting. It is more of an intellectual process. I want to bring my intellect, my creativity and my skill equally to bear on the projects I make.
While thinking about this post and these two sweaters, I was fortunate enough to get Emma to take some photos of Doug and me wearing them. These photos were taken on August 26th, which just happened to be Doug’s 60th birthday. We took them in the beautiful garden of our friends, Mark and Teresa, in Washington state. As always, the blog has benefited from Emma’s great way with a camera.
So, this has been the tale of two Falkenbergs. The story of two knitted garments and how they fit into a knitting life. And this is one of the things I like best about knitting – each item you knit holds a whole range of memories within them, a piece of your life written in wool.
It’s been a while since I wrote a Wearability Wednesday Post. This is a series in which I revisit a knit garment and look at its wearability, style and durability. Let’s face it, sometimes you knit something that seems just wonderful at the time, and then it never gets worn. Maybe it’s the wrong colour, or the wrong length, or just doesn’t fit in with your style. Sometimes, on the other hand, you knit something that hits all of the right buttons and you wear it to death.
This sweater is Ingenue, from a pattern by Wendy Bernard. I knit it for my daughter Leah in January 2010. It took three weeks from start to finish. The above photos show Leah wearing it when I first knit it. I used Malabrigo Merino Worsted in the colour Buscando Azul. This was the first time I had ever knit with Malabrigo, which has a huge following. (Did you know that yarns have Fan Girls?)
Mostly I knit it exactly as written in the pattern, making just a few modifications. Below, are the comments on my Ravelry entry for this project, describing the mods (if you aren’t interested in the knitting knitty gritty, you may skip this part):
“As usual, my row gauge was off, so I had to adjust the math. I made the sweater two inches longer, added extra waist increases, and switched to a size 10 (US) for the bottom. For the sleeves, I added 6 stitches evenly around the sleeve just before starting the ridge pattern. This kept the cuff from pulling in. I did 5 pattern repeats on the bottom and cuffs but left off the purl row at the end, instead binding off in knit. I didn’t like the way they curled out, so I hemmed them, folding them back at the purl row of the 4th pattern ridge; this gave a much neater finish. If I were to knit this again, I would do fewer sleeve increases during the raglan shaping because the sleeves have a little too much bulk.”
Leah has worn this sweater countless times. This is a sweater that sees serious wear. We took some more photos of it last month in Vancouver. (It is a very sad fact about this last summer in Vancouver that this wool sweater got lots of wear in August.)
The pattern for Ingenue can be found in Wendy Bernard’s book, Custom Knits. I knit another of the patterns from that book, my Flash of Purple, incidentally also for Leah. I documented the latter on the blog here, but here’s a photo:
Wendy is a great designer, who understands that every body is different; she incorporates tailoring tips into her patterns to help you get just the right fit. I would highly recommend this book to any sweater knitter. Wendy has a new book out, Custom Knits 2, which I haven’t had a chance to look at yet, but I would bet it’s also great.
To go back to the Ingenue, what is it about this sweater that makes it a keeper? From Leah’s perspective, it is incredibly soft, cozy, easy to wear, goes with lots of things, can be dressed up or down, gets noticed, and is an absolutely gorgeous colour. From a knitting perspective, it is easy as pie to knit, but still manages to not be too boring. There are nearly one thousand Ingenues up on Ravelry. This makes it a very popular knit. It manages to look good on most people. I have seen some seriously big, curvy women rocking their Ingenues; you don’t have to be young and gorgeous like Leah to carry this off. It has some panache.
The absolutely best thing about this sweater (which is also the worst thing) is the Malabrigo. The colour is Fantastic. The photos can’t do it justice. It is an amazing, rich, beautiful, textured, deep blue that is absolutely mesmerizing. It does not look like any sweater that you could buy in a store. When we were in Vancouver, Leah got stopped in a parking lot of a Chinese restaurant on Commercial Drive by a father accompanied by his kids. He wanted to know where she got it (and was really blown away by the fact that someone actually knit it for her).
It is also unbelievably soft. Malabrigo has to be felt to be believed; it really is that soft. And this, I’m afraid, is also it’s downfall. Malabrigo is so soft, that it pills almost instantly. The first time you pull it on, it will start to pill. The photo below shows how beautiful and lovely the sweater is, but if you look closely, you can see that it is definitely pilling (this despite having just been washed and de-pilled). After a couple of washes, the whole fabric takes on a fuzzy patina.
In the future I would think carefully about what kinds of projects I used Malabrigo in. I wouldn’t choose to use it in a pattern that requires crisp stitch definition. Malabrigo isn’t crisp. But it is soft as butter, and luxurious to wear. The next time I knit up an Ingenue, I would probably use Malabrigo, and I would definitely knit it for me.
Yesterday, I needed a 16″ circular size 8 knitting needle to start a new project, and I couldn’t find one! “That can’t be,” said Doug. “You have every size knitting needle known to man.” (This, of course, is a slight exaggeration.) I ran around the house searching through various knitting bags, looking for the right needle. I found lots of size 8 needles, all of them too long. I found lots of 16″ circulars, all of them too big or too small. I grabbed a big blue canvas bag which was sitting downstairs next to Doug’s electric guitar. For months I have been dumping into it any yarn or knitting related things which end up in the living room. Thus, it had bits and pieces of lots of projects, including lots of yarn.
I upended the bag on the floor, searched through it for the right needle (which I couldn’t find), threw all of the yarn and assorted paraphernalia back in the bag, and then looked down in horror to discover a critter that had obviously dropped out of the bag. A very, very small critter, of the larval variety, and obviously alive. After a moment to let the shock diminish, I jumped up, ran outside to the freezer in the garage and threw the entire bag in, which involved some judicial reshuffling of freezer contents. Did you know that freezing for 48 hours will kill moths and their eggs? But that is just one bag of yarn….I have many, many bags of yarn.
Then, I ran to the store and bought plastic containers, with tightly sealed lids; some for storing yarn and some for storing sweaters. Then, I bought moth spray, and cedar sachets and lavendar sachets. Now, I will systematically wash and store everything wool in the entire house, and then move each piece into it’s own protective container with moth repellant herbs. I will empty all of the closets and drawers and spray with moth spray. I will air everything out. And I will carefully look at every skein and ball of wool in the house, and if it is suspect, will throw it in the freezer for 48 hours, and then carefully pick through it and air dry and store it. This may take months! Am I overreacting? I don’t think so. You know what this means, pesky critters? This means war!
This is the last in a three part series featuring garments that my mother and grandmother knit in the 1950s through the 1970s. You can find Part 1 here and Part 2 here. In April of this year we took an Easter holiday to Arizona to visit my mother and step-father. My mom pulled out piles of vintage hand knits to show us, and we all went a little crazy and had a trying-on and photo-taking party in the desert. These posts are the result.
One of the very early garments my mom made was this lilac dress. This probably dates to about 1963 or ’64, and is modelled here by my daughter Leah.
I am guessing the date based on Mom’s recollection of it being one of the first dresses she knit, but also by the length – the dresses she knit later in the 60s were quite a bit shorter. This dress is wool and a very simple shift with minimal shaping. The lace panels are knit separately and then sewn onto the finished dress. Thus, you can’t see through the lace, although it gives an interesting embossed character and beautiful feminine detailing.
I really like this dress and am thinking about making something similar, but this time with the lace panels knit in, so that it would be a combination of a very classic and conservative shape with a bit of flirty added to to the mix.
My mom, Mary Lou, tells me that she made quite a few similar dresses in the ’60s and ’70s; some of these were given away over the years or otherwise lost to posterity. All of the knit garments she held on to are still in wonderful condition and very wearable, though they might be considered a bit itchy by today’s standards. As I’ve mentioned before, I think these two things are related – these slightly more itchy wools were more durable than many of the super soft wools being produced today, and are therefore more likely to look like new decades down the road. After having been seduced by the softness of some unplied super soft artisan wools lately, I find that I am being drawn back to the real thing; there is something very satisfying about a wool that is still ‘sheepy’, if you know what I mean. It breathes better, it lasts longer (and it steeks better too).
Here, Leah is modelling the dress along with a lace shawl that Mom knit, also in the 60s. It is a simple lace repeat, knit in a rectangle, in mohair. (In contrast to what I said above, I find mohair yarns being produced now to be far, far nicer than most of those from the 60s, 70s and 80s. Imagine how much more soft and lovely this shawl would be knit in Rowan Kidsilk Haze, for example).
Shawls like this are very popular today. This is certainly an item that won’t go out of fashion. Here is a close-up of the stitch pattern:
When I was in the eighth grade, my mom knit a very cool white coat out of super bulky wool. This was a time when big silhouettes were starting to be all the rage. Having an enormous, long sweater pulled over slinky pants was extremely fashionable.
That’s my mom, Mary Lou, modelling it this spring, 40 years after knitting it. She looks great, as does the coat.
Look, no buttonholes! Having a coat that didn’t button – to me this was the height of fashion. How completely impractical! How could you not love a coat that didn’t button! And, look! It was white! How even more supremely impractical! Who would wear a white coat?
Yes, my teenaged self adored this coat. I coveted it! I borrowed it frequently! I secretly wished mom would knit one for me. It probably was this coat that got me thinking about knitting garments for myself. I had knit from an early age, but it was this coat that made me first think “Hey, I could knit that!” Even through my crush, I could see that it was a very simple knit. Most of the things mom knit were way above my skill level, but this was in the realms of accessibility even then.
I added the above photo for sentimental reasons. That is Harlei, who thought this whole photo shoot thing was immensely fascinating and couldn’t resist getting into the shoot. Harlie was a rescue dog and my mom and Stuart had her for less than a year. She died a few months after these shots were taken, from liver damage.
Though these posts focus on hand knitted garments, I couldn’t resist throwing in the following shots of a beautiful handmade lace centerpiece. This piece, which has a fine cotton central portion, surrounded by very delicate white lace, was made by my mother’s grandmother, Theresa, probably around the early 1900s. Theresa was born in 1988, and married in 1904. I remember visiting her as a child.
I am fairly certain that it is crocheted, though my mother remembers watching her grandmother make bobbin lace (that is an art we don’t see much of anymore). We washed it and pressed it for this shot, and it looks like new; crisp, and white and fresh. The stitchwork is so lovely and even. (And Emma’s photos are so pretty.)
In the previous posts in this series, I showed photos of some of my collection of vintage knitting magazines, mostly from the 60s and 70s. While I was living in Germany, my mother sent me a huge box filled with old knitting magazines. Also around this time, I received a box from my grandmother. Edna had arthritis, and as she got older, she was less and less able to knit. At some point, she gave up completely. When she was in her mid 80s, she insisted that her son, my Uncle Dick, box up her knitting bag and send it to me. Dick apparently thought this was crazy, and that no sane person would want an old case of old knitting supplies, but Edna prevailed.
The case was obviously placed in a box and mailed to me just as it was, without any cleaning or sorting of its contents, for which I am very grateful. It is a wonderful carpet case, the leather old and cracked and the fabric faded. I love it. Here is the clasp:
On the inside, two hand made quilted needle cases for crochet hooks and DPNs:
She had crochet hooks in every size, many of them made from bone:
Circular needles, all in their original packaging:
These Susan Bates and Boye needles were made from Nylon, and were likely the newest thing when she bought them. Interestingly, I have tried to search for Circlon Nylon needles, as is clearly marked on the Susan Bates package, but my internet search only produces ‘Circulon’. I don’t know if the packaging had a typo, or if the name changed, or if my search was inadequate; I will have to do some more digging.
The case also contained straight needles:
Lots and lots of beautiful straight needles:
I especially like the bent needles on the left below, and the luminescent green plastic ones (plastic isn’t so pretty these days):
And I loved her notions container; all of her safety pins and stitch markers kept in an old glass prescription bottle, dated 1959:
So, you see, my knitting legacy from Edna and Mary Lou is threefold. First, in the beautiful garments that they knit. Second in the tools of they trade which they passed on to me. And third, in the love of craft and skill which I inherited.
I am going to end this series with a truly remarkable knit dress and way too many photos. This series has showcased knitted garments made by my mother, Mary Lou, and also some that were made by my paternal grandmother, Edna. This last is a dress that unites the two of them. It is a dress that Edna knit for my mother in 1959, shortly after my mom and dad married. This is my daughter, Emma, modelling it in April this year at a friend’s house just outside of Tucson.
The detailing on this dress is fabulous. It is knit in a very light mohair in a pale apricot colour (a much finer mohair than in the pink shawl). Note the breast darts and the full fashioning, the set in sleeves, the brass buttons, the full circle skirt (amazing in a hand knit dress). To me, this just shouts 1950s. It is elegant and sexy. It makes me think of movie stars.
Mom says that Edna took her measurements, and then knit the dress perfectly to fit, without any extra fittings or fuss. Remember my grandmother was an expert seamstress and corsetière; if anyone could make a dress perfectly to fit, it was Edna. My mom believes that she knit this without a pattern, and that it took about a month or so, even though Edna was working full time. That is some speedy knitting.
I love the photo below done in black & white. This just seems to emphasize the glamour of this dress; talk about movie stars or pin-up girls. And though I can just imagine shooting this dress in a stylish restaurant, with a Cary Grant type in a tuxedo, and a fabulous cocktail in a fabulous glass, and a stole draped over the back of the chair, somehow this desert background really does something for it too. Oh, don’t you wish we lived in the days when you could stroll out of the house in this dress, with a matching handbag and heels, and others would be dressed in similar fashion (though certainly not as fabulous).
In 1965, we flew back to California from Michigan during Christmas break. My mother’s grandfather, Jesse, was dying and she wanted to spend time with him. In the six years since Edna had knit the dress, styles had changed; hemlines were creeping up. Edna decided to shorten the dress. She took her scissors and cut close to 2″ off the bottom of the dress, picked up the stitches, knit the edging and bound off. Let’s put this in perspective: There were over 1000 stitches around the hem of that dress. In mohair. With a US size 1 needle. Here is some more perspective: See the photo below? Emma is holding the piece that Edna cut off. That is what a full circle skirt means.
When Emma was sorting through photos for this post, she started playing around with the photo below, putting it into sepia tones, to look like an old photograph. Doug was walking past the monitor and said “Hey, where did you get that photo of my mom? I don’t think I’ve seen that one before!” Doug’s mom, Ethel, died before I even met him. We have always thought that Emma took after Doug’s father’s side of the family (the Lebanese side). It’s funny; we’ve never before noticed a resemblance between Emma and Ethel. But in this photo, with it’s astonishing 1950s vibe, Doug mistook Emma for his mother.
I love this dress. With its 22″ waist, there is no way I will ever be able to wear it. Not only is it stylish and sexy and elegant, it is a knitting work of art. As a knitter, I get intense satisfaction out of this dress, and out of all of these beautiful pieces, knit with skill and flair, and preserved so carefully through the decades.
Writing this series has been a wonderful experience for me. It tied together more than four generations of women through something created using simply two needles and a length of yarn. Seeing the clothes brought back so many memories and writing these posts reminds me of the fascinating stories in my family.
I hope that you have enjoyed reading this series as much as Emma, Leah, Mary Lou and I enjoyed making it.
I finished my Killybegs sweater over a week ago, but I haven’t been able to get it posted until now. The four of us have been staying with various friends and family members while on holiday. This means crowded houses filled with people having fun, cooking and eating too much, children and pets running around, and general mayhem. This does not lend itself to sweater blocking.
A few days ago, we arrived at our friends Mark and Teresa’s house, which is very spacious and lacking in the kids and pets department, and I had a 48 hour window before the place was filled with guests for Doug’s birthday party. I walked in the door, and the first words out of my mouth (after the obligatory “Hi”) were “Can I block my sweater, like right this minute?” Luckily, Teresa understands obsessions and the sweater was duly blocked, and spent 48 hours drying.
The Killybegs sweater is designed by Carol Feller and can be found in her book, Contemporary Irish Knits. It is knit is Donegal Aran Tweed in a spectacular green with flecks in purple and orange. I completely adore this colour. Carol says in the book that the texture of the Donegal Tweed changes considerably upon washing and she is right. It blooms and softens, and becomes completely cozy and warm and fabulous. Killybegs is supposed to be finished with hook and eye closures along the front edge, but as I forgot to bring those along, I will sew them on later. I love the way it looks open in any case, so I am not in a hurry to add them.
I made this sweater without any modifications (except for going up a size needle). I knit it in a size 36, and blocked it to 37″, thus giving me 2″ of negative ease. It is extremely rare that I knit a sweater exactly to pattern. I can rarely resist the impulse to tinker, and frankly, most sweater patterns could use a bit of tweaking here and there. This one just worked out perfect in every way.
One of the especially clever things about this sweater is the way in which Carol has incorporated decreases into the coin cable on the yoke. The whole time that I was knitting the yoke, I was muttering “Genius! This is sheer genius!” It really is a remarkable feat, both intellectual and architectural, and was a pure delight to knit.
I can tell that this will be one of those sweaters that gets worn all the time. It feels good on, it looks good on, it makes my inner knitter happy.
I wrote a post recently showing the great pile of knitting that I was taking with me on my holiday to Vancouver. I noted that Vancouver and surrounds has a large number of yarn stores, but I was fairly determined not to visit any of them. A reader, kiwiyarns, commented that I was bound to yarn shop. Shortly after we arrived here, I was perusing patterns on Ravelry and came across this cute little cardigan:
It is designed by Jennette Cross for Hill Country Weavers. I have been following this group with interest for a while, because I like their patterns and their southwestern sensibility and colour schemes. This one caught my eye because it is pretty and feminine and lacey, but mostly because of the unusual combination of colours. It is made with The Fibre Company Acadia, which is a merino, silk and alpaca blend. I have never used this yarn before, but was taken enough with the pattern to notice that it was knit with the colours strawberry and amber.
Earlier this week, Leah and I were having a celebratory lunch at Granville Island in Vancouver (celebrating Leah’s AS grades). After lunch, we wandered around all of the little shops and galleries and just happened across a great shop for artists called Maiwa, which has supplies for dying, and beautiful fabrics, textile books, and dare I say, yarn. As it is a shop which carries many different things, they do not have a great quantity of yarn (but what they have is fab). The yarn is kept in baskets on a table, and the first basket I saw when I walked in the door was filled with The Fibre Company Acadia. So, of course, I was obligated to root through it, and lo and behold, they had both strawberry and amber in stock.
Well, dear reader, this was serendipity. I was not out on a yarn aquisition expedition, but this sort of fell into my lap. I asked the lovely shopkeeper if I could access the internet to look up Ravelry, to determine how many skeins I would need. They were very helpful. And then I couldn’t help but notice that the pattern called for buttons, and that Maiwa had a large chest of drawers filled with hand carved wooden buttons. So Leah and I spent a fun twenty minutes running our fingers through mountainous piles of buttons and searching out the perfect set.
So, despite the best intentions, I ended up buying yarn on this holiday. It was serendipity.
