Category: sweaters

  • success…and rippage

    I managed to finally, FINALLY finish the yoke of my brown Casbah sweater – it’s taken me so many rips to work this out!

    set in sleeve success!

    This is the bottom-up set in sleeve from Knitting Workshop, and it fits! No fault of EZ’s that I had to rip so many times, I just clearly wasn’t paying enough attention or y’know, planning ahead. For those that wondered, I’m attempted to knit this sweater with 3 skeins of Handmaiden Casbah (heavy fingering weight merino, cashmere, and nylon). I’m knitting it at quite a loose gauge, 6 stitches per inch, and I’ve used up just two skeins of it to the end of the yoke. So I’ve got one skein to do the button bands and then knit both sleeves as long as I can get!

    Some more of this colour, although it’s a bit different seeing as how it’s handdyed, came into the store a few weeks ago so I just might opt to do the button bands in that and use the rest of the matching yarn to do the sleeves. I’m a big fan of 3/4 length sleeves anyway, so we’ll see how it works out!

    I also finished up those socks that were going so quickly before:

    finished: plain cedar socks

    They’re knit with Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock (which is one of my favourites!) in Cedar, 68 stitches on 2mm needles, top down, heel flap. They’re for a gift, and although they went so fast at first (I knit the first sock in only 2 days) they slowed down a bit and I finished the pair in maybe a week and a half or two weeks, something like that.

    Of course, for all the knitting success, there’s always some downside! This handspun sweater wasn’t working out, so I finally ripped it.

    yeah, this wasn't working out

    Of course, since it was all striped, that means that I ended up with wee little balls of yarn – oh well. I’m sure they’ll find something else to live as.

    wee balls of handspun

    For now they’re just sitting prettily!

  • what’s that yarn?

    Sorry to keep you guys in suspense! I really thought I’d written that I’m using my handspun for the top-down cardigan from my last post – I dyed it as well. It’s a two ply merino, and I’m just hoping to have enough for a sort of croppedish cardi with maybe half or three-quarter length sleeves. I’ve got about 2.5 skeins, and I used 1 whole one for the yoke.

    I’m not sure whether this one will be written up, although I am considering working up a TDR spreadsheet that would give you numbers for your own sweater based on your gauge and measurements. We’ll see! There’s so many other TDR resources out there, so I don’t want to be redundant!

    I’ve got just way too much on the needles these days, I knit and knit and don’t feel like I’m ever getting anything done! Case in point, this sweater:

    bottom-up set in sleeve?

    (It’s darker than in the photo.) It’s a bottom-up, seamless set-in sleeve cardigan a la EZ (Knitting Workshop) in Handmaiden Casbah. I used silver grey yarn for the inside of the hem and chocolate brown for the rest of the sweater.

    a new sweater project

    The body is done and the yoke is alllllmost done. I’ve stalled out a bit because I need to think for a few minutes on how to proceed on the back neck. I cast on the sleeves provisionally and joined them for the yoke after about an inch – since I’m unsure how far my yarn will go and I don’t want to run out in the yoke! So after the yoke is done I’ll pick up the sleeve stitches and work them back down to the cuffs.

    The thing about this sweater is that it’s a seasonal one – I’m planning to do just a couple (probably one big and two small) snowflakes on the shoulder. As you can see, there’s nothing there yet, because I tried using intarsia and it looked like ass. The design is just too sparse and non-block-like to keep the edges neat. So duplicate stitch it is!

    But the snowflakes mean I really should finish this one in the next two weeks or so for maximum wearbility. I’ll wear it in January and February too, but before Christmas would be nice.

  • whoa, time warp

    How is it Sunday already? I swear it was just Wednesday.

    Despite a touch of ambivalence towards some of my projects, I’ve been fibre-ing up a storm around these parts.

    Knitting a top-down raglan cardigan along with my sweater class students:

    handspun tdr

    It might be a Christmas present, we shall see (I’m sorely behind on that, but more on that another day). I’ve got tons of other projects but had fewer photos than I thought! I’ve still got to finish up those Cedar socks, which are up to the toe on the second sock – so right at the finish line, really! I’m trying to get back to some neglected projects that would speed along if I just worked on them. I’ve got a couple of new projects in mind too, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day, y’know?

    I’ve also been weaving up a bunch of new scarves and things for my etsy shop – look for an update this week (of course I’ll blog about it). I’m aiming to have a good handful to put up, then maintain a rate of a couple a week for the while leading up to you-know-what.

    i really do love weaving

    This time I’m doing some narrower scarves along with wide ones, some that are a bit chunkier, and some with handspun. Fun fun! And a great way to use single skeins in my stash!