Sleeve decreases without counting...too much

I am always looking for short cuts when I knit and I LOVE knitting gadgets. Trying to keep a piece of paper and a pencil beside me while I work means the dog cannot snuggle with me while I knit, so I try to knit by the seat of my pants whenever possible for Penny is a most welcome companion.

To this end, I was faced with 25 sets of paired decreases, every 3 rounds, for the sleeve I am making on the Handspun Sweater featured on BareHare, my angora rabbit blog.

There are countless ways to do this, but I pulled out my coiless safety pins...both plastic (Clover brand) and metal (Countrywool brand). I have a hard time counting rows as-I-go while watching TV and petting the pup, so the pins are fabulous. I count them out and clip them all to the front of the sweater before I start so I cannot lose them before I need them. I used 9 metal ones placed every time I made a decrease round with the plastic one marking the tenth decrease round. Then I worked by pulling out the first metal one I used to mark the 11th round, then so on, until I reached the plastic one, which got moved to the 20th decrease round, and then five more metal ones were placed as needed and voila..I am done with the sleeve decreases and have arrived at the cuff length...EXACTLY!

New cable vest cardigan pattern in the works
Topic: cables

FINALLY...I have the week clear to work on another pattern. It seems that as soon as I arrange time for pattern work, all sorts of family/rabbit stuff pops up. I am already behind schedule on my pattern editing!

This Sailor's Rib Cable pattern has been a long time favorite of mine. Worked in ECCO merino superwash wool from Zitron, I like the stitch definition and softness of the fabric it is making. I started this vest last Fall when my Dad underwent knee surgery, and it was my faithful companion while I sat through the hours waiting. I used a similar pattern years ago for my first Aran sweater and have never lost my fondness for it.

This vest will have a reverse stockinette stitch roll edge. I have becomed attached to this "no edge edge" finish after seeing it in Deborah Newton's book
DESIGNING KNITWEAR which is THE hands down classic, in my opinion.

Wee Blue Nordic Sweater Finale
When Tina came in yesterday, I was reminded I had not posted a done pic of the wee Nordic in Dale Baby Ull. So here it is.

I am totally immersed in writing pattern details. I fought with EXCEL all afternoon and have the pattern for the
Meandering Cable Vest all figured out...just have to organize the details into into the final format, which should take another hour and then I'll be done...with that one. This pattern has 8 sizes, from a finished chest of 34" through 62" and EXCEL makes it possible to get the math right the first time.

Then...10 more to go before the end of August.

The Wee Nordic sweater gets farther along
Topic: nordic knitting

I am on the home stretch. The neck hem got knit last night, and all that is left to do is hand sew it down, and then

weave the underarm stitches together for a seamless finish.

I had an easier job with the hems this time. Since I was using two strands of Baby Ull for the sweater itself, it was a simple matter to use just a single strand for the hems. And, being thinner, once sewn down they were almost invisible. Being thinner, they are not as good looking, but their functionality far outweighs aesthetics in this case.

Tomorrow I will post the final picture of the sweater. It still needs blocking, so I'll get to that this afternoon.

Number crunching, pattern writting and Excel spreadsheets

Why is it that the first sweater went so well, but now that I am writing the pattern as I go, sections of the second one have been reknit so many times I am losing track?!?

Last night I tore out the 150, 158, 146 yoke stitches 3 times to get to 160. Maybe the STARGATE and BATTLESTAR repeats were not the best choice for TV watching while knitting stranded patterns? At any rate, I am dabbling with using new tools, so my efforts have drifted into a new experimental zone.

My best buddy Dee came over this past week and sat me down with Excel and we hammered out pattern repeats for the Faroese Shawlet, which is a finished pattern, but I needed to see how it all worked. And it does, as long as you input the right formulas in the right boxes, keep careful word notes on what you are doing, and are as careful as you link back to already formatted boxes. Good enough.

Well, doing it on my own (4 hours worth of figuring and data entry, by the way) landed me with a sheet of numbers for this Wee Nordic Sweater in size 6 months, which I faithfully plugged into the pattern to see how they worked.

Obviously, I goofed somewhere.

Back to the calculator and Excel to rethink what I did. I can see that it will be great number crunching accuracy backup once I get more familiar with it.

Pastel Nordic sweater and a better bunny

I spent last night knitting with friends. They are the salt of the earth. If you aren't part of a knitting group, do not rest until you find one, for you learn more by sharing with other knitters in real time than you can imagine. Knitting can be a VERY social activity, and I although I suspect it is pastimes like these that keep isolated people sane, they also enhance group get togethers.

At any rate, I love my Knit Night friends. I LOVE THEM!!!

When I chose colors for this next Nordic sweater, I went with my favorite blue and yellow, which makes me feel good when on anyone, especially a wee person. The white was hard to decide on, and many of you came into the shop and voted for the peach (!), but my hand put the white in when I wasn't looking.

The bunny has become less stylized, and the stripe placements altered so the color exchange flows, but other than that, this is the same sweater as the red one.

EXCEPT, I am using two strands of Dale Baby Ull.

The gauge is ALMOST the same, a tad bigger, and I am using the same size needle as with Heilo. Dale Baby Ull doubled wants to be 5 stitches=1", and I am knitting at 5.5 stitches=1". We will see what happens when I wash it. Because of the superwash treatment, superwash wools tend to stretch once wet.

Little Red Nordic Sweater
Topic: nordic knitting

The third time is always the charm in necks, I have found. It's nice to know this up front, so you don't mind ripping back a little to get it right. Even non-experimental knitting patterns sometimes need to have the neck redone to look good once on. So, when you are making a neck and you think you are done, you are NOT done, so don't cut the yarn yet. Loop that last stitch on a stitch holder and try it on first with the skein dangling.

This little sweater looks a little oversized for the neck, but it is an outdoor sweater, and bigger is better when dressing a tot. I love the neck hem finish!

The second Nordic sweater is coming along in a pastel color combo, and I have started to write the pattern. It is MUCH faster to just knit, but writing as I go makes the pattern a little more readable.

The weather has been just beautiful lately, and I am spending a lot of time outside in the Rabbit Barns, so knitting takes a back seat! Once it gets too hot to work outside, I'll be logging more hours on the needles.

Neck shapes and sizes
Topic: percentage knitting
I have ripped out the neck of this sweater 5 times. After the third time, I took it to a 6 month baby for trying on. I was glad to see that my intuition is right, although it has been a LONG time since I dressed such a cherub, and I cheerfully(?) made the neck smaller on the final reknit.

Babies come in all sizes, but the one thing they share is a proportionately larger head than adults. Thus, when figuring the over-the-head neck fit, one has to take this into account. Add to that the ordeal of getting the sweater on a cranky tot, and we see that the bigger the neck, the better.

I fashion a 50% neck for little kids (1/2 their body measurement) and that works well. However, I made the MOST ADORABLE hemmed neck and it simply does not stretch like a ribbed neck finish. So, I ripped that back and made a 55% neck and it looked dreadful. At that point I found a wee one to try it on, and have decided the 50% neck is JUST fine, even with the non-stretchy hem finish.

I am knitting and sewing down the hem for the final (5th) time. It has been a long time since I sewed hems, and my skills were rusty, so this has been good practice. As soon as I get it wash-blocked, I will post a final picture.

In the interim, I cast on for the next sweater in pastels...baby blue, baby yellow and white in a double strand of Dale's BABY ULL. I have that hem done and am working on the bunnies at the border already.

Immersed In Nordic Color Patterns
Topic: nordic knitting
I spent last night with my charts, my sweater and the SciFi channel.

I really, really love knitting with color. I have kept myself tied down to aran and gansey knitting for the last 3 years and I am DELIRIOUSLY happy with the change. The next two sweaters are evolving as I knit this one, and I cannot WAIT to get to #2.

Last night I pondered how to raise the back of the neck with a few short rows. Normally, I put them all in the collar, but I will experiment and see if I can live with them in the yoke.

By 10:30, my eyes were blurry, and the chart reading was getting muddled, so I took out my post-it-notes and blocked out everything but the row I was working on. (This is quite necessary when you have to keep one eye on Battlestar Gallactica, which repeated an episode I MISSED last time around.)

Yoke Join and Even Decreases
Topic: nordic knitting

Jenny wants to know how to make all the yoke decreases happen and still keep pattern chart continuity.

It's relatively easy to figure it out for one size. It gets harder to make it work for all sizes.

Yoked sweaters (traditionally)only require 3 rounds of decrease spaced equally from the midway depth of the yoke to the neck. However, having made a number of these, a la, Elizabeth Zimmermann, I know they do not fit as well as they could. So, going with Meg Swansen's altered method, 5 rounds of decrease will be employed. This last shaping allows for a more gradual stitch number change, and better fit, IMO. My Sheep-In-The-Round and Icelandic Flecks and Diamonds sweater patterns are made that way and I adore wearing them.

I have fallen in love with the look of the traditional "liced" Sedestal sweater. Most of them are drop shoulder, steeked affairs, and that will be an added step that goes beyond the scope of this pattern. But that does not mean we cannot borrow the wonderful stitch patterns that we find on them! Putting Sedestal row patterns on a yoke sweater design means having the luxury of solid color rounds in which to work non-interfering decreases. Voila! Problem solved. Now only stitch numbers/repeats will be an issue.

The yoke pattern I am working with has the following repeats: section 1: four; section 2, sixteen; section 3, eight; section 4; four. So, after each decrease round (and there will be 5 of them), I need only remember to check that the decrease round results in a number divisible by the following section. However, I have discovered an interesting characteristic of the 16 stitch chart...I can safely eliminate 2 stitches per section about 2/3 of the way through it. This will allow the 5th round of hidden decrease to happen at a nicely spaced spot.