Category: knitting

Ack. It’s hectic around here. Taking new opportunities = lots of work to do. I’ve been dyeing, spinning up some stuff for the shop, writing patterns and doing lots of knitting which is Work. I’ve been knitting all day, but none of it for me!

One project going fast is a sweater I’m designing for lettuce knit, a cabled cardigan out of Misti Alpaca Chunky. Dude, is this yarn ever soft! And working up quick on 8 mm needles. The body’s on hold as I was doing the sleeves – finished those yesterday.

Last week at SnB I also made a point of casting on for a new project (hah, like I don’t have enough to knit already) – the Sienna Cardigan from the latest Interweave. This is the aran weight cashmere I bought from Colourmart. It doesn’t really feel like cashmere, more like a really good merino, but I can feel that it’ll become really, really soft with some wash and wear. And it’s the most perfect colour, as remarked upon by several people that night.

One other exciting thing (ah, the small things): putting labels on bundles of roving for the store, since we’lre not sure the Fleece Artist order will get in before my drop spindle classes start. I love the paper – it’s unbleached kraft, 60% recycled and 30% post-consumer.

Back to some pattern-writin’! I’m trying desperately to get that diamond cardigan written up and up for sale.

P.S. Check out the sidebar —-> and sponsor me in the CIBC Run for the Cure! Pretty please?

Why, hello. It certainly has been a few days – you know how the summer slips away so quick right before you go back to school? Well, it’s less than two weeks before school starts for me, so I’m trying to get in some of that “relaxing” before I gotta start getting up in the morning, reading books, packing a backpack, etc.

And now, adventures in beautiful buttons. So on a tip from Alexandra, I ordered a bunch of vintage mother of pearl buttons from an eBay seller for a mere nine cents apiece. They arrived a few days ago in a large box considering it only contained a dime bag with wee buttons in it (it was like…a 12x12x12 cm box stuffed with newspaper shards). The buttons? Beautiful.

There was one that was quite chipped, but hey, I ordered extra. Since I didn’t have any matching thread, I decided to use some of the yarn that I knit the sweater out of – Rowan Wool Cotton. It consists of four 2-ply strands, so I separated it into four and used one 2ply strand to sew the buttons in.

(Buttons are being flashed out against the sweater due to sunlight; this is the most accurate photo of the sweater colour-wise.)

Unfortunately…

While they look fabulous, the buttons are a little too small and delicate for the task – they’re a thin flat button with a shank, and it would seem that the holes are too big (or the buttons are too small). They do okay, but there’s going to be poppage. I will say that the sweater hasn’t yet been blocked, so maybe it won’t need to stretch as much over the bust when I put it on, but I can forsee the buttonholes getting even bigger.

The only solution I can come up with without having to find more buttons and take out the old ones is to make the buttonholes smaller – reinforce them and somehow make the buttons stick. Argh! I really wanted this sweater to be done. (Sweater is the Vintage Pink Cardigan from Interweave, Spring 2005.)

Also residing in blue sweater land:

Finished pieces of the blueberry Greek Pullover (Interweave Fall 2005). The neck treatment is just crochet, so nice and easy. I’m hoping to sew it together tomorrow. And Jill? I think I used less than 10 balls of Main Line.