I was browsing around on Ravelry last night and noticed that there were several projects that I don’t have pictures for. So, I took a few pictures this afternoon.
First up, a project that has been long in hibernation — Anarchist Sweater.
Can you believe that this is now 2 years old??? Yeah, I can. The colors were chosen for my stepmother, but she passed away before I had a chance to do anything with them. I added and changed few colors to make to more “me” (added the purple, changed the off-white to a less yellow white), but the colors still don’t appeal very much. This is part of the reason why the project languished.
That’s not the only reason that this project languished. The sweater is knit modularly, in strips. You knit a square, attaching each row to the previous strip as you go; knit the contrast (purple) row in garter stitch; continue up the strip. Next, you pick up all the stitches along the long edge of the strip, knit a contrast garter stitch row, and start the next strip as before.
Let me tell you, that’s a lot of flipping back and forth until I taught myself to knit backwards. And then there are the ends! I don’t normally like to knit my ends in as I go because I think they look too bulky, but part way through this beast, I decided, heck with it. I will grow grey before I finish weaving all these stupid ends in.
So, the body is done. I have knitted in a rolled collar and bottom edging. I’m not sure I like it. I’ll have to wait until after I block it to see if I really like it or not.
The current blocking points for finishing this sweater?
First, I can’t decide how I want to do the sleeves. There are 2 variations in the book: continue sleeves as the body, using color blocks; or, make the sleeves in stripes of colors. There’s the third option — do something completely different, like a solid color (purple?). Unfortunately, I don’t have enough of the purple left to make this happen. And I need to do inventory of the leftover yarn to decide what should be done here. I’m favoring the stripes or solid. The good thing about this is that dye lots don’t matter much, should I decide that I want to finish it in purple. But I’d have to buy more, and I’d rather not. I just want to use up the stash. Any thoughts out there?
Second, it’s too hot to have a pound or more of wool flopping around on my lap. I’ll wait for cooler weather.
Tangled Yoke. This stalled out because I put it down at one point in the midst of the cabled portion of the yoke, and miscounted when I restarted. Now, I can’t remember where I left off and I need a block of time to sit down with the pattern and the sweater to figure out where I am and finish it.
Aside from that blocking point, there’s the same, it’s too large and heavy to work on during the warm weather. Although, fall is coming soon, and when it gets cool enough to work on it, it’s cool enough to want to wear it. So, either I need to just suffer the possibility of heat stroke and finish this sweater, or wear something else until this sweater is complete after the fall weather arrives.
I think this is the major downfall of seamless construction sweaters. The large fabric flopping about while you are working on the last bits.
How do you handle fall knitting, as in knitting things to wear in the fall? When do you do it? What types of patterns do you normally pick?
Flower Hat by Ruth Sorensen for Iris, using Kauni. Iris picked out the yarn while we were picking out yarn for Grace. I had wanted to take Ruth’s hat class at Madrona, but just couldn’t quite fit it in. Village Yarn and Tea had the patterns and a wide selection of Kauni yarn. Iris picked out 2 different, but coordinating, colorways, and the flower pattern for her hat. I am making the full version. There is a low version, but Iris had a big head, just like me.
Grace I and talked about this yarn a bit. Kauni might be a little too scratchy for Iris (and me too). I suggested to Grace that she sews a jersey lining into the hat. So, not only will this add an insulating layer, but also protect Iris from the scratchiness of the wool. She should be quite easy to pick out on the ski slopes in this hat!
I haven’t knitted on this since I was on Whidbey Island. I picked it up again last night and was merrily knitting along when I noticed a mistake 3″ down ( a couple of dropped stitches here and there). I ripped it back to the end of the first flower row and started again. And I remember working on the band about 3 separate times before I got the color combination right. The pattern uses 3 different colorways, and since I’m only using two, I had to make sure that I had the right color set up for background and foreground. I know, that should only be 2 attempts at most, but I screwed up somewhere else. I can’t remember where. So, by the time I finish this hat, I will have technically knitted this hat at least twice, if not more.
I should be finished with this this weekend. That is, if I don’t end up knitting the hat yet another time.
And get a load of the depth of the hat! It’s a full 9″. Even with a Sarah Palin’s little up-do, I can’t fill the hat. But that was with the hat sitting slightly above the ears. I would imagine that Iris would wear it over her ears while skiing.
