Nordic Sweater Yoke Ideas
Topic: nordic knitting

I am lost in design land as I ponder color stitch patterns for the yoke of the adult Nordic Sweater. February 1 is the day I will start knitting the yoke, as the body (all 18" of it) is done.

I have made dozens of yoke sweaters, and Meg Swansen's version of the EPS percentage system is the route I will take: there will be 5 rounds of decrease from underarm to neck while color patterns dance along the way. The trick is to find charts that will work with this concept AND please the sweater design.

A wonderful, wonderful snowflake appeared in my life last week in a 1972 copy of Women's Day Sweater Ideas (how I worshiped those issues...remember when we couldn't get ANYTHING knit related at the grocery store except for that, and only ONCE a year?!?) It is, however, 30 rows high. By my calculations, the yoke of my sweater will be 9" x 7 rows/inch which means 63 rounds deep. The stellar snowflake will interfere with the decreasing rounds, so I will probably not use it.

Blast.

But, I have always had reindeer in my brain, much to the dismay of my Knit Night buddies. They are waiting to see what I pull out of my sleeve on this one and are voting for sheep, ducks or something esoteric. But, I have always wanted my own reindeer sweater. What's wrong with tradition? (And I'll end up writing the pattern with optional charts for their knitting pleasure because I adore them).

There are three knitting books that I have been spending quality time with this past week: two by Annemor Sundbo (Everyday Knitting , Setesdal Sweaters) and one by Annichen Sibbern Bohn (Norwegian Knitting Designs). The variety of reindeer in them is mind boggling, and I think I will find happiness and design bliss when I crunch stitch numbers later today.

Slogging Away
Topic: stranded knitting
January is all about numbers and bookwork for me because of the business, and I get cranky. I would much rather be creating something new. So, I managed to squeeze in a new array for yarn display in the shop (my daughter and I moved about 3000 skeins of yarn yesterday). But, that's as far as it can go until I get all the forms/numbers/check statements/inventory logged and accounted for.

In this month of Nothing New On The Needles, I am pretty content, to my surprise, knitting away on the body part of the Nordic Sweater for the Cape Ann Knitting Retreat in March. I HAD wanted this to be done by Jan 1 so I could get to the writing of the pattern before the last minute, but if I try not to worry about THAT, then I am having a good time.

I have been knitting with two colors in two hands for many years, but this is the first BIG project knitting with a new way of holding the yarn in my right hand. Since I learned Continental knitting with my left hand (and had become quite speedy!) I had neglected retraining my right hand to be more efficient than the taught-to-me-by-my-mom-pick-up-wrap-put-down method.

And, now when I wrap the yarn identically around my right hand to match the left, I have included a wrap around the pinkie finger to control tension. This keeps the yarn in place on my right hand between stitches, and makes the whole process very efficient.

With the miles of body licing I am knitting right now, I am getting a LOT of practice. And I am getting noticeably faster.

It's all good.

...the clock is ticking
The Felted Footies are felted...

Bob's sweater is done:

and blocked:

I even managed to make 3 hats this past week, spin 5 oz of angora, reknit the cuffs on a pair of mittens and get everything wrapped.

I'm on a roll.....

Powerful socks
Topic: stranded knitting

2005 was the year I started to learn and practice yoga. It has become a centering point in my life, and I work to find time to practice every day. For me yoga is first a stretching and strengthening of my muscles, and then a calming, meditative balm for my mind. Muscles that used to kink up and cause pain after 4 hours of knitting, have found a way to fully relax. It's all good.

My Knit Nite group all practice yoga, and one of them is my yoga teacher, whom I adore. With the holidays up and coming, I wanted to create something festively yoga for them.

Thus, Proud Warrior Socks were born. One of the poses in yoga, Proud Warrior brings confidence, balance and strength to the student. This is what Knit Nite does for all of us attending, too, so it is a fitting logo for these socks.

Practicing yoga in the winter in chilly spaces includes the use of layers of clothing. While the active poses are best done on a non-skid surface in bare feet, once seated/floor positions begin, your feet can get cold. Socks that require two hands to put on/pull off will slow you down. These socks are knit with a much wider cuff to facilitate a fast removal. I knit these with Regal wool from Briggs and Little, stranding the vines/warriors in as I went.

...Tis The Knitting Season

The holiday decorations are a big item in our house. The lights, the lights are EVERYWHERE. I truly enjoy knitting with everything festive. I have two sweaters, my son's and the Nordic, to finish before New Year's Eve (18 days and counting)because the annual Rip It Purge (RIP) will happen on December 31. I need to spend a day (soon!) to inventory what is not yet done, to see if I can salvage anything.

I have completed all my spinning projects for 2005, and my bobbins are empty, which is another necessary task I've assigned myself, so that when the New Year dawns, I am free to explore new ideas and projects as the mood strikes.

I plan for constant knitting in the last week of the year to celebrate and enjoy the season as much as I can, so I may make it.

If you are a multi-project knitter like I am, then you find that you have needles you didn't realize you owned, scattered in knitting everywhere. Not only does this tend to get expensive, it is wasteful when you realize you own four 32" Addi circulars in size 5 (!)and none in size 6.

Have you ever looked into your knitting bag(s) to see what was started and then abandoned? Did you realize it was a good idea when it started, but it took a bad turn for whatever reason? Do you get depressed about it? Do you urge yourself to finish that old project, even though it is no longer appropriate, before you buy any new yarn? Does it take the fun out of knitting?

Liberate yourself by Moving On. I pick this point in the year to make a clean break of it, and rip out projects that are no longer timely, workable or interesting. You can reuse the yarn and the needles. If you have decided you don't care for the yarn anymore (and sometimes we come to hate it after we have worked with it for a while) you can donate it to charity. If your project is almost finished, but the size, color, person it was intended for has changed, you can donate your almost finished project and the yarn to a charity knitting group.

I like to be creative in the finishing of some no longer desirable items. I cannot tell you how many one piece cardigans (knit from the bottom up) I have simply ripped back to 8" deep, and then bound off for a scarf. Or the socks I turned into slippers for wee ones for Children In Common as it takes almost no time to make a 4" foot. Or the sweater backs that have been folded into pillow covers with buttons sewn through all layers to make the closure. Anything square/rectangular can be incorporated into an afghan project for the homeless and donated to a knitting group that knits for Warm Up America!.

So, put the fun back into your knitting bag and get rid of the baggage!

Finding Time To Knit

We are all busy. You have no idea how many people tell me they envy my job because I have nothing to do all day but knit. Ha! I have to carve out time just like everyone else, AND I have shop patterns that need to take precedence over my own knitting desires.

With the cold weather moving in with a vengeance, getting to the wood stove to tend the fire looked like just another infringement on my time. However, at 5 o-dark this morning I decided to put a decent light next to the stove and picked up the headband I have been TRYING to get to for 2 weeks. In the 45 minutes I sat there, I got an inch knit. S0, now I will park there with my coffee and knitting each morning with a wood stove brainless project.

I might even get my next pair of socks done that way.

The second sleeve of the Nordic sweater gets cast on this afternoon if all goes well. I need daylight to get started on that project, along with a stable of needles and a good movie.

And there goes the first one this winter...
Topic: nordic knitting

When my son showed up at my doorstep this Sunday morning complaining of the cold, he asked me if I was "done" with the hat he had seen last week. I got one last picture of it as he walked away.

It's fabulous on him.

And we are off and knitting...
Topic: nordic knitting

My needles, yarn basket and I are sharing some quality time now. I am zipping along on the sleeve. I actually have it almost finished, after our marathon Knit Nite last evening.

Some thoughts on hemmed edges and jogless color jogs.

I have made 5 hems in the last 6 months and some have come out better than others. There is always a stubborn line-shadow when I tack them down. The amount of "tacking" seems to make a difference. Unfortunately, when the inside is so loosely attached to make the double thickness barely visible from the outside, the inside looks like a frogged mess. To help me deal with this, I have decided to make it a design element. So, the hem sewing line is the red stripe you see in the cuff.

Now, I boldly stated no straight color lines would be in the project. The fact that I added one tells you how desperate I was to fix this hem-shadow thing. So I am committed to including jogless jog information at the retreats next year when I teach these sweater skills.

Judy Gibson is another of my knitting gurus. Her jogless jog website is simply fabulous and always helpful in these situations. I opted to make the red stripe as follows: work the first stitch of the next round from the row below in red, slip the last stitch worked back to the right needle point (to keep my beginning of the round color pattern in sequence on the chart), cut the red yarn and proceed. Looks pretty good.

This week I am teaching 5 classes, all of which require 3 hours of preparation. So I am desperately working to keep blocks of knitting time in my life as I am totally, totally in love with this project. I can't wait to see what the body looks like!!!!

In the meantime....

I am trying to get enough of the sleeve done to sew down the cuff before I snap a picture, so I thought I would share my annual Christmas knitting project: Felted Footies...the ULTIMATE in warm footwear for indoors.

This is a before-felting/just-knit photo. I have two more pairs to make, and then I will felt them all at the same time. Stay tuned for "after" pictures.

These are my own invention, and they came to life in 1996 as the felting/fulling craze entered the knitting world. Worked on #13 needles with many strands of wool/angora/alpaca/mohair, with the same short row heel I use in all my sock patterns, they have become my favorite seasonal gift. I knit them, praying with every stitch, for the people I love each Christmas. There were years when those I knit for were lost to me, but as time has passed, issues have resolved and all is better. This project reminds me of where I have been in years past, and helps me keep Christmas giving handmade, humble and personal: the way I want it to remain.

Pine Leaves Nordic Hat
Topic: nordic knitting

The last 3 weeks of knitting have been duly interrupted by Mercury and Mars in retrograde as well as the annual Thanksgiving feast at our place. It has been work to get anything new to come together. But, here it is. I am tickled with the size, shape and fit of this hat (which had to be forcibly taken away from my 30 year old son for picture taking) but the colors are (again) not what I want for my sweater.

The good news is: the pattern is written. (I love finishing up things). And...AND, now I can see the sweater colors in my head. So, I cast on for the sleeve last night and I am off. Pictures to come soon, I promise.