Orange XOXO Cardigan

DD2's been looking for a long and roomy cardigan for a while. We could not find one in children's, teens’, or women's clothing stores around here or on internet. She has a relatively clear idea on how it ought to look and feel, and that makes it impossible to find the exact one. So, I decided that she needs my help.

We started with yarn selection: not scratchy wool, not a bulky yarn, soft and delicate, and in orange, her favorite color. We ended up with acrylic/wool blend in bright orange from Bergere de France. I purchased a pattern CD and ordered the yarn for her last fall.

Next, pattern. Not quite willing to design the whole cardigan from scratch, I looked for girls' cardigan/pullover patterns. Even if DD2 was not quite sure about the photos I've shown her, I decided to order a Phildar Enfants issue. There are two designs I thought might work for her ideas. Design 14 with lots of 1-by-1 ribs but roomy lower bodice and Design 4 with some interesting cables. Main issue is that I like to knit interesting patterns while DD2 does not like ‘fancy’ clothes for a special occasion. She wants everyday sort of clothes. Basically, she likes a lot of stockinet stitches. This is bad news for me. In order to make miles of stockinet stitches less boring, I added a variegated lace weight alpaca yarn from my LYS. It is called J. Knits Lace-A-Licious in pink color, Providence. It added a nice hand and color interest to the fabric without itchiness.



With DD2's desire in mind, I combined the two designs from the magazine: roomy lower bodice and fitted upper bodice of Design 14, XOXO cable pattern of Design 4, and ample sleeves but not too baggy. Even though DD2 resisted the idea of adding cables, she loved XOXO pattern. So, I happily knitted the orange XOXO cardigan.





She loves the result! Thanks goodness!!

Puppy Yarn’s Braid Scarf

I saw this cute scarf made by a Japanese knitter, Ishi-san, who does such great jobs at anything she creates. I learned the pattern is from Puppy, a Japanese yarn company, and was made available free in 2003 to customers purchased their yarns. In other words, I don’t have the pattern.

Here is what I thought it might be done. It is okay, but something is not quite right. I used 5 mm crochet hook and Crystal Palace yarn Taos.



Later on, Yuri-san, a knitting friend in Japan, offered to send me yarns and the pattern. So, we exchanged knitting goods across the Pacific. She loves Norah Gaughan’s designs but Berroco booklets are not available in Japan and that’s what I sent to her. I now have the yarn and the pattern to crochet the braid scarf!

With the pattern and the same yarn used by Ishi-san, I tried the other day at Knitsmith. Initially, I was not quite happy with the results, but after playing with the location and the method of anchoring the chains at the bottom of the last double crochet, I think I got it. Now, all I have to do is to finish the project before next winter.

Green Cabled Yoke Pullover

This one was one of those designs you fall in love at first sight: fabulous folds created by cabling, and yet, very simple in construction. It involves rectangle pieces for the body and yoke, and trapezoid sleeves. Looks more than that on the photo. I thought the yarn ought to be soft but not flimsy to show off the beautiful folds of the yoke. I knew I did not have such a perfect yarn in my stash and I was looking for one. At my LYS, I saw a swatch of a very fluffy looking yarn, CEY Lush. It was just perfect for the project I thought. It is a lover yarn with 50% angora and 50% wool.

Cables yoke has two rectangles, one narrower and longer than the other to be placed right above the bodice and the wider and shorter one to go on top of the narrower one. The original garment has a turtle neck above the yoke. It looks fine on the model, but I thought I would not like it with angora/wool yarn. It will choke me. After finishing the cabled pieces, I went ahead and completed the yoke to try on. The yoke looked a bit different depending on where you place the shoulder points along the cabled strip. I liked it when the crossing hit the shoulder points. For the neck edge, I picked up about 25% more stitches than the pattern, knit one round, purl one round, and cast off purl-wise very loosely.

For the body, I wanted the front edge to dip a bit more than the back and started by picking up stitches from the back yoke only, leaving front yoke and sleeve sections. Also, when I tried on the yoke, it felt too small to go around my body and arms comfortably. So, I decided to add underarm stitches as I knitted the back body. I could have made more difference in the front and back bodice lengths but that will be for the next version, if at all. It looks okay as it is for now. Now, the sleeves, or no sleeves? My knitting friends at Knitsmith were all saying I should just do without sleeves. I agree that it is very elegant that way. However, it is less likely to be worn without sleeves than with them, and I decided to knit sleeves after all.

Yellow Tweedy Cardigan

I started to knit this cardigan on January 1, 2009. It is knitted with about 7.2 skeins of Peace Fleece in Khrushchev Corn Yellow. I love this shade of yellow.





I bought this yarn a few years back, way before Ravelry, when I visited yarn stores in Maine and New Hampshire with my knitting friends. Ordinarily, I would not consider yellow for myself, but this one was different. I am not a color theory expert and I have no idea what makes this yellow so different from the other ones. I fell in love and bought some skeins without having a particular project in mind.

Then, came Ravelry. After becoming a huge fan of Norah Gaughan, I would look for her designs and marvel them on Ravelry. Then I happened to see Norah's Tweedy Aran Cardigan from Interweave Knit magazine 2001/2002 issue in many different yarns and colors. Some of the finished projects were actually knitted with Peace Fleece. Then, I knew that I had to knit it with my yellow Peace Fleece. Given such a useful tool as Ravelry, I started to study the finished garments. I noticed that I liked versions which looked much longer than the others. I thought the longer versions show off waist shaping better. I also looked at button choices made by fellow knitters. Truly, Ravelry adds such an interesting dimension to knitting.

Now, about Norah's pattern. I love her fancy rib stitches: very stretchy and highly textured rib stitches. I almost thought of using them for entire sleeves but I decided that it might be too much for my poor wrists as this yellow Peace Fleece was quite hard on my hands in twisted stitches and cables. The photo below shows the texture of the fancy rib stitches best.



To make my life easier in executing fancy rib stitches, I took an extra step and rearranged stitches for easier knitting: Slip the first stitch to the right needle purl-wise and slip the second stitch knit-wise. Place these two stitches back to the left needle. Notice that the right leg of the second stitch is now easier to access from the back. Proceed by knitting into the second stitch’s right leg, and, without removing stitches from the left needle, knit the first stitch’s right leg. Remove both stitches from the left needle. Note to self: Fancy rib stitches eat up a lot of yarn. Estimate more yarn if I ever knit the same cardigan and use the stitch on sleeves.

Here are the changes I made: Lengthen the bodice by about 2" and to add more waist shaping (instead of 5 times, I did 7 times). Instead of making button holes involving just one yo, I chose to use a similar method I employed for Winter Wonderland Coat and did one-row button holes over three stitches. The modification was made to strengthen the right edge of the holes. Cast off the first stitch by slipping it over the last stitch on the right needle (it looks like k2tog). The next two stitches are cast off without using the working yarn by simply slip the stitch over the next stitch twice. Turn the work around and cast on four stitches using cable cast on method. Turn the work around and knit (or purl) the first stitch on the left needle with the last cast on stitch on the right needle. For this last step, the last cast on stitch must be transferred to the left needle first.

I found nice black horn buttons with notches etched on the surface, mimicking the fancy rib stitch pattern. Overall, this was a quite satisfying project.



I noticed that it goes very well with my Noro Sock Scarf recently finished.

Crochet Noro Sock Scarf

I saw this beautifully crochet scarf in this blog sometime ago. The stitches are very interesting and beautifully executed. And the colors of the yarns ... . Absolutely gorgeous! Unfortunately, they are not available in the US as far as I know, and this is one of those cases where yarns mattered a lot. So, I just admired the work and never thought of making one myself. Then, I saw another scarf on Ravelry where Noro's sock yarns were used for the same pattern with gorgeous result. Here is her blog post on it. I happened to have one skein of Noro Kureyon Sock yarn in color 95, my favorite in Noro Kureyon colors.




This ball of sock yarn, I originally entertained the idea of knitting a skirt with it: the idea that its nylon content prevents bagging around the hip. I did not like the fabric as much and the yarn ball was just sitting at the bottom of WIP pile. At any rate, I jumped on the idea of the crochet scarf. I used the diagram from here and modified a little to make the fabric flatter: where there is one single crochet symbol, I added two more in the middle section and one more at the edge. I did five wheels per row. The wheels were crocheted using yarns alternately pulled from inside and outside of the same ball. It was quite a mess to pull yarn from the center as it had a tendency to twist, kink and knot. I ended up purchasing another ball to complete the project and it would have been much easier to use two balls alternately from the start. For the edging, I did a single row of single crochet. It is absolutely lovely!

Although it was not easy to crochet this scarf, I love the result so much and I am already working on the second one using two colors #95 and #188, just like Anne did.

On Winter Wonderland coat

When the coat was finished, I brought it to my knitting group. On that particular day, one of the fellow knitters, Valerie, was there with one of her daughters. She was quietly knitting cute little Totoros with very colorful yarns and buttons. One week later, I was given the best compliment I could ever imagine. Valerie's daughter asked her if I really knitted the coat when they got home. Hearing that it was indeed what I knitted, she told her mother that she wanted to become as good at doing something as I knit, and later she decided that reading is what she wants to be very good at. I am so glad Valerie told me this story and truly stunned to learn that my knitting could do some good as it did to her daughter.

So, in the pursuit of the craft, here are some updates on the coat. The front bands are behaving better after application of Petersham ribbons, but they are still somewhat uneven. I now realize that this is due to stitches being pulled in by cable patterns. I could have applied wider petershams. I might try that next winter.



I failed to mention on the earlier post, but I do a little trick when I knit one-row button holes: I cast on one additional stitch which will then be knitted with the next stitch. I do this to prevent weak and stretched inner edge on the holes. Despite the trick, I found my buttonholes not quite sturdy at the outer edge. So, I decided to reinforce the buttonholes: using the same yarn, I applied buttonhole stitches all around. Another thing I forgot to mention: I use back buttons for support.

Winter Wonderland Coat

Happy New Year from snow covered Boston!

Watching snow falling quietly, I was sewing up Winter Wonderland Coat yesterday, the very last project of 2008.



It turned out relatively light as it required about 3.5 skeins of Cascade Ecological Wool and the gauge was right on target with the specified needle size. Initially, I was not that sure of the yarn choice and I began knitting sleeves first. It turned out to be a good decision as I had to rip all the way to the beginning once. My tension was too loose and I was making mistakes all over the place. Overall, knitting was fun. I realized how I love cable and lace patterns. I also love the front dip and collar shaping. One thing I am not happy about is the flimsiness of the front bands. I am planning to attach petershams which I placed an order from The Sewing Place. Hopefully, it will do the trick.

Red Dress

For my DD2, I knitted a dress in 2002. She was 5 years old. The pattern is Child’s Sand Dollar by Jade Starmore with some modifications, and I knitted with Baby Ull by Dale of Norway. She wore it every winter all these years since then until this winter. She pulled it out of her winter clothes and said that sleeves were too tight at the cuffs. After all, she’s been growing and sleeves were too short and cuffs were landing on her mid arms. What did I do? Undid the cuffs and knitted the sleeves longer. She wanted them to be very long. So, here she is with her ‘new’ tunic.



The photo below shows the difference in sleeve lengths.

Iced Tea

Not sure what I was thinking to commit to knitting multiple stockinet stitch projects this year, but that’s what happened. Thanks to boring and mindless stockinet stitch, however, I was able to knit and watch TV for many nights leading up to the election. Not only that, I was very productive. I finished six iced tea pullovers by the time Obama became the 44th President. The first one was knitted with GGH Scarlett, 100% cotton. Next four were knitted with Sublime Soya Cotton DK and the last one with Berroco Bonsai. The version with GGH Scarlett ended up with a twisted bodice. Side seams would not fall straight from the armholes, and run slightly towards left, about 2 inches. Not too bad, but still bothersome. While knitting, I did not notice much of kinks or excess twist, but clearly, the yarn was not well balanced. I had no problems with Soya Cotton and Bonsai.

Here are the first 5 iced tea pullovers. The top left is knit with GGH Scarlett, and the rests are with Sublime yarns.



The one below is with Bonsai yarn.



The bonsai version was modified a little to make the front dip a bit deeper.



I've never knitted one pattern this many times!

Sunny Vests

Something very unusual happened during the summer. DH picked up one of my knitting booklets, Sublime #610, and actually said he liked Varsity Stripe Vest. This is only the second time in my knitting life that he actually liked something I could knit for him. I had to act quickly before he changed his mind. I began knitting before we left for our summer vacation. I was knitting at the beach of Denia, Spain. That was a gorgeous place we stayed. I can visit the place again and again. My SIL also picked up her forgotten needles and the two of us were knitting. I hope she continues to knit.



He is wearing the second vest actually. What happened is that he wanted it not too loose and baggy and I did not use my best judgment. The first one I was knitting at the beach turned out too small for him and became mine. Again, I had to knit two to make the intended garment. I used Sublime Soya Cotton DK. It is much softer than 100% cotton yarns and I love it.



Vicki, el chaleco que llevo puesto es el que estaba haciendo en Denia, para mi querido esposo. Sin embargo, se quedo corto y he tenido que hacer otro para el, asi que el primero me lo quedo yo.

Hellenne's hand painted silk scarf

These are silk scarves Hellenne painted, or should I say paintings on silk? Hellenne’s colors are just breathtaking and silk chiffon fabrics are fabulous. I’ve been admiring her work for quite some time since I ‘met’ her on a sewing forum. Some of them will travel with me to Spain in a few days, and one of them will be mailed to Japan with Terra Cotta Manon in fall.

She also painted these below. Don’t you think they look as though painted for my Lucy?



Here is my Gingko scarf with Green Manon.

Lucy in Venezia

Once I won eight balls of ribbon yarn in wonderful light mint green shade on Ebay. It is a bulky ribbon yarn called Filati Bertagna Venezia and has about 99 yards per ball. Eight of them did not seem enough and I went back to Ebay, but I could never win them again. It was about five years ago and they cost me less than $15!

What could I knit with 800 yards of yarn? I had no idea initially and the yarn sat there for a few years. Then Rowan 37 came out and I saw Lucy. It is a cardigan with overlapped front bodice pieces which are buttoned up at the top section only. It has a wide lace border on the body and the sleeves are entirely knit in lace pattern: a very cute cardigan suitable for cold office in summer. Although it is not knitted with a thin ribbon yarn, it requires a bulky weight yarn and the quantity was sufficient. I was going to knit it up right away. Instead, it sat a few more years until now.

As always, I put my fall/winter projects away in late spring. I pulled out my summer projects out of their hiding place and saw the ribbon yarn, its color being still wonderfully fresh and beautiful to my eyes, and I remembered what I was going to knit with it. After completing last year’s UFOs, I immediately cast on Lucy, thinking I have enough yarn and the weight is perfect. Well, it was almost perfect, but with a few big surprises. The lace pattern gauge was about the same, but the stockinet stitch required so much lower stitch and row counts. This is good news for someone who once worried about not having enough yarn. Revised the pattern according to my gauge and started knitting the back. I used up almost 3 balls, three out of eight. I had two front pieces and two long sleeves to knit with the remaining five balls!

What I did next was to cut where ever it was possible. Front pieces cannot be overlapped so much, just enough to button them up. Also, I can lower the front neck line. Sleeves could get shorter. With all these cut backs, I made it. It turned out a bit different from the Rowan version, but it is cute enough to me. I love the red button against this pale mint color. I had this button for a while, but again, I had only one of them. It was shaky in the middle of the process, but it turned out all so nicely in the end.

Nearly never finished

I actually finished this tank top last weekend, but I could have had it totally frogged. Reason? See the little lump next to a shoulder strap? That's how much leftover yarn I have, maybe four or five yards. I got so nervous about the yarn amount that I knitted like a crazy person with needles towards the end. Somehow my intuition was working ever so perfectly unbeknownst to me, and my decision to make the top section shorter did save the project: I skipped six rows from the front and 8 from the back.

Where is my time?

I cannot believe it is been a month since I posted on Green Manon! Where did my time go? June seems to go by so quickly since DDs started to go to their elementary school. Not that I did not have time to knit, but I certainly did not have time to relax and think. I knit here and there throughout the day, and that adds up especially with a small summer garment.



This is a summer cardigan I began knitting last summer. It was almost forgotten in one of my many knitting bags. Since I had stopped knitting in the middle of a front bodice and did not make any notes on where it was that I stopped, I had to figure that out first. This should teach me a lesson. Once I managed to decipher my handwritten notes, it was rather smooth sailing. The only trouble is the yarn. It is a cotton and nylon blend from Elann.com. I love the color, but I am not that crazy about the feel of the fabric. It is rather rough to touch. What’s worse is that it is really hard to ‘read’ stitches. The pattern on the other hand is just gorgeous. It is from Bergère de France no. 123. I thought that the booklet was out of print, but I recently learned from Ravelry that it can be ordered from their website with reference number 19409 under Commande tab. In any case, I just adore little eyelet rows between different lace patterns and along the front and neck edges. They are quite functional as well as decorative. The pattern has six rows total with all the rows knitted in garter stitches. The eyelet stitches are knitted on the fourth row, facing the wrong side of the fabric, with yarn over and k2tog repeated. Definitely nice little detail to be used again and again.

Green Manon

After a visit to my LYS, I found two sets of suitable buttons for Green Manon. Not being sure which pair to use, it was decided that I ought to use them all. A chopstick on a chopstick rest kind of look, but I love it.

Despite Manon designed by Norah Gaughan being beautiful and interesting to knit, I had reservation on how it would look on me and I decided to change the upper body section a bit. The focal point of the design is in the peplum and its geometric design, and they are kept as they are. Modifications are made on the rest of the design to make the ribbed band at waist level and hence make the upper body longer. Some details on the modification are the following: skip two rows of ribbing every 8 rows on panel sections, which meant 48 rows removed from the ribbed band. It sounds a lot smaller, actually too small. However, remember that the ribbed stitches tend to turn out looser than the stockinet stitches. It was the right amount being removed for me. Next, re-calculate the number of stitches picked up for the upper body, lengthen the upper body section below underarm to about 5.5 inches, and add 4 stitches along the side seams on upper body section to compensate for the narrowed ribbed band. More re-calculation required to match the front and back shoulder seams. Peace fleece I used is not a smooth yarn and it feels rather scratchy against the skin. This garment will be worn over a top or a blouse and I made sure that it has enough ease built in it. If it were knitted with soft and smooth yarn, it could be very nice with no or scant ease, like the version I knitted for my sister. When the weather gets a bit cooler, more photos will be added.


Addendum: Finally the weather and my schedule cooperated. With my DD1's help, I have some photos. Me wearing Green Manon and a back view. I tried on the terra cotta version for my sister. Here and here. Terra cotta Manon is very snag and its shoulder width is too small for me. Nevertheless, I think it can be a nice warm weather cardigan with cotton or silk yarns.

Oxymoron

I saw this beautiful design by Joëlle Meier Rioux in a Classic Elite booklet and said ‘Aha!’ What a combination, bulky and lacy, also delicate. I had to knit this oxymoron garment. Although the original is knitted with a DK weight cotton blend yarn, doubled, I had Vittadini Samantha in my stash. A bulky cotton yarn, just right for this design.



It took me less than a week to complete and the result is great. I've been wondering what I could knit with this bulky Samantha for a few years. Then, one day, the right design comes right at you. I am so glad to have my 'healthy' yarn stash. Here is the lovely lace pattern at the center front.

Norah Gaughan designs

I used to knit Fair Isle garments mainly. These days, I am all for cables and geometric designs. As soon as I learned that Norah Gaughan published new booklet series last fall, I had to get a copy. The first volume has many designs I just adore. I ended up knitting a shrug from her second volume first. Although it is designed for a summer yarn, I thought it might be nice with winter yarns. I had Noro Silk Garden Lite in blue/yellow color which I used for a hat. I wanted the shrug to be extra cozy and added Kidsilk Haze in Trance, a slightly darker blue. I just love the way colors in Noro yarn get blended with each other by the silk-mohair’s blue wash.



I used 4.5 mm needles and cast on 171 stitches as specified for the smaller size and knit the Top piece. For the bottom lace section, 4.5 mm needles produced a fabric which was stiff compared to the top section. So, I re-started with 5.5 mm needles and cast on 49 stitches instead of 64. The gauge for the lace pattern was 5 rows per inch. I knitted 290 rows for the bottom section. It is so lovely that I’ve been wearing it every night.

Next, a fellow knitsmith, Nancy, was knitting Manon from Norah Gaughan’s book No. 1, and I decided I want to knit one for my sister. I happened to have 12 balls of Peruvian Highland Wool in terra cotta, the color she loves. Now, my yarn is worsted weight while the pattern calls for Aran weight. This difference did not deter me, but I had to keep in mind that my sister is at least one inch taller and quite skinnier than I am. Especially, her shoulder width is much narrower. There is no way of fitting the garment while I knit as she lives in Azumino, Japan. If the garment fit me too tight, it would fit her just right.

Instead of planning changes like I did for Elizabeth I, I decided to plunge fearlessly this time. As I expected, things went wrong. I began knitting the peplum for size 34” with 4.5 mm needles. The finished peplum section was much larger than I intended. Also, I noticed that I prefer to have the ribbing section a bit narrower and sitting at waist level. Switching to 4 mm needles, I started from scratch and decided to skip two rows of ribbing over every 8 rows of cable pattern. It turned out almost exactly how I wanted it to be.





The rest of the bodice went smoothly and the only change I made was to lengthen the underarm side seams to 5 ½”. My sister does not wear trendy clothes. Those short sleeves won’t be easy for her to deal with. I knit slim and long sleeves with cuffs which are not sewn at sides. For the closures, I crocheted button loops with chain stitches. Extra buttons were attached at the top of the cuffs.





The finished cardigan fits me very snugly, too snug actually. My DD1 looks quite good in it, too. As I truly love the design, I started knitting one for myself in green.



Looks like it’s going to be much larger than my sister's. Thanks goodness!

Tinkering Elizabeth I Pullover

Some years ago, I did yarn swap with an accomplished knitter in Switzerland and acquired beautiful Camel Dunedin yarns. I knitted Elizabeth of York with some of them. I loved the way Dunedin shows off stitch pattern. If I were to classify this yarn, I would place it between fingering and sports weight, or almost sports weight but not quite as thick. Its texture is spongy and similar to Gems Merino. I would probably use it as a substitute for Dunedin.

With the remaining Dunedin, I decided to knit Elizabeth I Pullover, which I knew required some tinkering. I heard it is too large overall and the neck opening is too wide, in particular. I decided to make this pullover more fitted with zero or very scant ease all around. For that, 5 stitches were taken out at each side of the bodice. At the same time, I did not want to modify the beautiful center V-shaped design. In order to maintain the design, I decreased the number of stitches reduced along the raglan shaping. Note that these changes made on bodice pieces do not change the number of stitches along the top. So far so good. Next task was to make sleeves narrower. I decided that the raglan shaping for the sleeves do not need to match that of the bodice, and I took out 8 stitches at the center of each sleeves. I felt that reducing the neckband length by total of 16 stitches might not be sufficient and added a dart at the top of sleeves, reducing further 12 stitches for each sleeve, with the total of 40 stitches removed from the neckband. The photo below shows the center dart on the sleeve.



Note to self: I may have been better off matching the raglan shaping of the sleeves to that of the bodice, and increasing the center dart depth so that 16 stitches were removed at the center top, with 30 stitches in total decreased along the neckband.

This pullover is very elegant and relatively quick to knit. I would knit it again happily.

La Alhambra Pullover

This pullover reminds me of La Alhambra with pillars and ceilings adorned heavily with arabesque paneling. We visited Granada, Spain, two years ago and I finally got to visit La Alhambra. What a feast for senses! It is a spectacular place visually, of course, but the sounds of water running through the palace and the aroma of flowers and trees. I would love to visit again and again. Perhaps, I should have chosen ivory yarns for the pullover.



The pattern is from Couture Knit no. 8 by Shida Hitomi shown above, which I got last summer in Japan. I saw this pullover first time in Ms. Shida's book of
250 knitting patterns a few years ago and I’ve been longing to knit it ever since. Mine is knitted with Rowan Pure Wool DK in Dahlia, which of course is not the original yarn.

As you can see, I changed the collar so that the cable patterns continue from the body, and that it stays off of my neck. I just ignored the neck shaping, kept knitting with cable patterns slightly modified, and cast off when the length I wanted was achieved.

Trial and Error

This seems to be the way I accomplish a good result.





Addendum: I just learned that the pattern is available in German from here for free. Let me know if you want my English translation. I don't think it is accurate, but it worked okay with me.