Could you use a virtual hug today? Then watch this!
The link leads to an article in the Guardian about a beautiful piece of “sheep art”; “A sheep farmer stuck in lockdown in New South Wales who was unable to attend his aunt’s funeral has honoured her memory with the ultimate tribute: a love heart made from sheep.” Make sure to watch the video. This made me smile.
I have made some progress on my summery Myrtle tee. It is knitted entirely in lace, on US2/2.75mm needles, so the progress has been a bit meandering. Nonetheless, I have finished the body of the top, having shaped the armscyes and neckline, and then used a 3-needle bind-off to knit the front and back together at the shoulders. I think it looks rather pretty.
The yarn is Madelinetosh Merino Light in Pink Clay, Sugar Coat, Librarian’s Dreams, Joshua Tree, and Rocinante. I didn’t buy this yarn for this pattern, but rather am re-purposing the yarn from a kit I purchased to make a shawl (the Scout Shawl – which I blogged about here). The kit contains two full and three partial skeins of yarn (enough of each to knit the shawl) and this means that I have had to struggle with how I utilise the colours in the Myrtle. I ran out of the Joshua Tree (dark green) colour after knitting 4 pattern repeats; thus, you can see that the top repeat and a half utilise only four colours instead of five. I am very shortly to run out of the Rocinante (the terracotta-rose colour) as well; I am hoping that I have enough Rocinante left for one pattern stripe on each sleeve. The only colour I have an abundance of at this point is the Pink Clay, although I do have enough of the Sugar Coat (white) to finish all of the ribbing.
The top is a bit shorter than I would have wished – if I wasn’t worried about running out of yarn I would have added another stripe or two before binding off for the armscyes. And it is a bit on the clingy side as well – having decreased both the stitch count and the needle size after an earlier attempt was turning out too big. However, I am fairly confident that the magic of blocking is going to fix both of these issues. I am still pondering what to do about the sleeve shapings. I plan to knit short sleeves, with two or three bands of horseshoe lace pattern and then some ribbing. However, if you look at the original pattern (by Kate Davies), you will see that the shoulder is dropped, and so the sleeves are formed by picking up around the armscye and then knitting directly in pattern, without any short row shaping to form a sleeve cap. I am afraid that that won’t work here as the shoulders are definitely not dropped. So maybe I will need to angle the first pattern stripe or two with some short rows, to bring down the shoulders? I’m not sure yet how to solve this. But such is the fun of knitting. I like these creative fiddlings one must make to bring it all together, especially when one’s gauge is off, as mine is here.
Below you can see the back. I completely love these colours together, and note that they are outside of my usual palette, which is kind of fun.
I had an email from Loop this week (the lovely London yarn shop from which I bought this yarn kit). It contained the following workshop announcement: “Liz Baltesz will teach you to knit the Scout Shawl on 3 October. If you can knit and purl you can make this!” I had a good giggle over this. I gather I am not the only one that purchased the kit at first glance, having fallen hard for the shawl, and then had the daunting prospect of knitting it sink in. If I hadn’t already re-purposed the kit, I would likely take this course. Not because I couldn’t have figured it out myself (I know that I could) but because sometimes it is nice to have companionship on the journey and someone to pat you on the shoulder and say “there, there”. If any of you London-adjacent readers take the workshop, do let me know how it turns out.
Happy knitting, everyone!
The past few weeks have had some ups and downs, in all aspects of life. Let’s talk here about those of the knitterly variety. You may remember that I took the yarn kit which had been destined as a Scout Shawl, and decided instead to make a summerly riff on Myrtle (blogged here). However, due to some inspired lying by the gauge swatch, I ended up with something big enough for me and a close friend to wear together.
I had knitted this with a US2.5 needle, which is pretty darned small, in a size 3. I decided to go down both by a needle, and by a size, so cast on for a size 2 with a US2 needle. This was problematic because my only US2 needle tips had previously suffered an accident, and hadn’t been replaced. (Note to self: If you leave your needles on the floor, they are bound to be stepped on eventually.)
I knitted all of the ribbing and the first six stripes with a bent needle before my new tips arrived in the post. I had fretted about changing both the needle size and the garment size, without swatching again. But since the swatch was pretty useless the first time, I decided just to take a chance on my gut. You can see that it paid off, as the fit is now much more reasonable:
Myrtle is designed by Kate Davies; here is a Ravelry link to the pattern, and here is a link to Kate’s website.) Below is a close-up to showcase the horseshoe lace stitch:
This second attempt was addictive and I was happily knitting along while re-listening to Shards of Honor, the first in the Vorkosigan books by Lois McMaster Bujold. Despite knowing how it ends, I got caught up in the story and kept knitting – this is a definite no-no for someone who suffers from repetitive stress problems to the wrists and hands. I finally stopped when I noticed the swelling in my left wrist. Much too late. I then had to spend the next 4 or 5 days resting my hands.
Yesterday, my hands had recovered slightly, and keen to start listening to Barrayar, I decided to knit a swatch for Caravay (Ravelry link). The pattern suggested a US size 4 needle, and I knew that I would need to go up a size, so I started out with a US5, and then knitted a second swatch with a US6.
The yarn knitted up so nicely, and then really bloomed in the bath. It also dries so quickly. The yarn is Tinde, a DK pelt wool from Hillesvåg Ullvarefabrikk, in the colour Burgundy. Stunning, isn’t it? (The yarn was provided by the company as part of a prize I won from the sweater’s designer, Linda Marveng.)
I wrote a post a number of years ago about the difficulties of recording information on the swatch – how do you remember after the fact which size needle you knitted it with? I came up with a solution there, which involved writing down all of the information and storing it together with the swatch in a see-through plastic binder pocket; however, I must admit that I don’t often follow through with this system. This morning, I “invented” a new technique for encoding which size needle I knitted each swatch with. (I use the quotes because it’s totally unlikely that others haven’t thought of it, although I don’t think I’ve read of it previously.) See the knots in the yarn at the bottom of the swatches? I put 5 knots in the one knitted with a US5, and 6 knots in the one with a US6. This worked out well. (At least with whole numbers; this could be more problematic with metric sizes.)
I hope your Sunday has more ups than downs.
We have just returned from a short trip to Wales, where it was cool enough for me to wear my newest finished project.
This is the Dyemonds Sweater, designed by Josée Paquin (the link is to Ravelry). It is a very clever design, especially in how the increases on both sides of the raglan shaping are incorporated into the pattern.
I knitted this with Spincycle Dyed in the Wool yarn, in Devilish Grin, purchased from A Yarn Story. I bought five skeins, but only needed four. The background yarn is Quince & Co Chickadee in Crow (black), which I was very happy to use up from stash, having purchased it from Loop in 2017. I had five skeins of the Chickadee as well, and broke into the fifth skein only for the last 6 rows of ribbing on the waist.
I have developed a complicated relationship with the Spincycle yarn. It has produced a striking garment, and it washes and blocks really well. I did have some issues with it, however. First, there is an unsettling degree of difference between skeins (you can see an illustrative photo in this previous post.) Second, Spincycle consists of two different coloured strands plied together, which means that the knitted fabric has sections where two quite distinct colours are plied together, producing a marled effect (as below).
I am not a fan of marls. I would have preferred the yarn to be dyed after plying so that the colour changes moved organically without marling. I realise that this probably puts me at odds with 90% of knitters out there. It also seems very nit-picky since the finished sweater is lovely. Doug can attest, however, that I was continually grumbling while knitting this when I hit a marled section. Many times I thought of cutting out portions of the yarn (as I used to do frequently with Noro), but Doug talked me down from the ledge each time. He was right, but I still found it made the knitting experience uneven.
The diamond pattern is very intuitive and fun to knit, and as there are only two yarns used throughout, there are not so many ends to weave in when the knitting is done. The only tricky part of the pattern is the sleeves, which gave me lots of grief. I blogged about that previously, so if you are knitting this and are having some conceptual problems with the sleeves, I refer you to that post.
I knitted the size 5 with a US4/3.5mm needle. When I finished, there were about 6 inches of negative ease – a lot more than intended. I thought it would take some hard blocking to get it to shape, but in fact the wet fabric eased up quite a bit, so I only had to pin it in place, without needing to stretch. The finished garment has about 1.5 inches of negative ease, which I think looks quite nice. Note that it also grew in length, so if you are in doubt, knit a good size swatch and block first.
The photo above, as well as the second one, were taken at St. David’s Cathedral, which dates to the 12th century. It is a truly gob-smacking cathedral out in the very Western reaches of Wales. It is well worth a trip out there if you find yourself in Wales. The other photos were taken at The Royston, a completely charming and gorgeous B&B, in Llanbrynmair, Powys. We spent a few lovely days there and will definitely be returning.
I really enjoyed this knit (despite the sleeve troubles). Josée Paquin is on a roll lately, designing one great sweater after another. Tomorrow I go back to work after a much needed holiday. But there are still some hours left of my holiday today, so I am off to sit in the garden and pick up my knitting.
