Category: sweaters

a cozy cashmere sweater

As you may remember, I worked on this sweater while I was at TNNA this January. I managed to screw up the yoke pretty royally when I got home – I started the v-neck below the underarm, attached the sleeves and went merrily along decreasing for the raglan and the neck, but discovered pretty late that I had actually mis-divided the front for the bust increases and v-neck! I had to rip all the way back to the waist, argh.

But once I got everything back on track it was smooth sailing. I knit this sweater with just five 50g skeins of Handmaiden 4ply cashmere – cashmere is so light, there are a lot of yards per skein. Since the yarn is hand-dyed, I’m not reeeeally surprised about this, but there’s quite a bit of green in this yarn that looked just silver in the skein!

No pattern for this one, sorry – it’s just a simple bottom-up raglan with waist shaping. For the sleeves I did a slight balloon shape – I cast on 48 stitches for the cuff, then increased dramatically to 72 sts, which is the upper arm circumference, and just knit straight up to the underarm. For the V-neck, I started decreasing away a couple inches below the underarm, since I wanted it to be fairly deep. I stuck a little cable along the raglan lines and decreased until there were no more front stitches, then I added on the twisted rib neckband.

I’m not a huge fan of the pooling, but you know what? It’s a cashmere sweater and it’s still super soft and cozy.

February 27, 2011
happenings

I’ve been knitting, reading Jane Eyre for the first time, watching more Friday Night Lights (starting season 4) and more knitting.

I also hung out with some knitters from afar!

Jess of Fig and Plum came to knit night a couple weeks ago and it was a great time. (Excuse the weird lighting.)

And Jodi Green came by to visit while I was working – it was the first time we’d ever met, despite longtime internet acquaintance.

I did, in fact, finish those colourwork thumbs and managed to knit linings too!

It’s a good thing all the knitting for my soon-to-be-born pattern collection is done (these mittens will be in it), because the photoshoot is on Saturday!

In the meanwhile I got to start a new sweater for myself out of delicious Malabrigo Rios.

Goes great with a cuppa coffee in one of my Jennie the Potter mugs!

February 10, 2011
wintery

It’s pretty chilly out (-15C, 4F) and there’s a fair amount of snow on the ground. I’m wearing an old Malabrigo worsted sweater and my cashmere Beauchamp Cowl, I just finished a cup of hot chocolate and I’m nice and toasty. Turns out that wearing a cashmere cowl indoors really helps with the warmth factor!

All I want to do these days is cast on for more things. But I have so very many things on the needles already! My cashmere sweater from the last post is ready for the sleeves and body to be joined at the underarm, but of course I went and started another one.

I really want new sweaters, NOW! I know if I just kept on with one project I’d be much more likely to finish it quickly and have something finished. But that just isn’t how it works around here, ha. This black sweater is a compound top-down raglan, with a v-neck. I think it’s going to be a wrap sweater, since I have plenty of yarn. It’s a lovely many-plied blend of silk and cashmere, which I’m knitting quite tightly since it will grow considerably when I wash it. The only downside?

It comes in 25g skeins. It’s worsted weight. So there’s only about 45 yards per skein! I’ve not even been balling up the yarn, I just sit with the loop of yarn open on my lap or my desk, and knit straight from it. I suppose an upside is that I feel like I’m getting through a lot since I can knit up a skein in a sitting? Still, that is a heck of a lot of ends. (I tried the Russian join for one, but it just didn’t really work out very well with the structure of the yarn. I’m planning to just do my usual join and try to weave in the ends in small batches as I go.) The sweater up to where it is in the photo is, I think, 5 skeins.

January 24, 2011