Slowly but surely

I'm not making very quick progress on the various sweaters and cardigans I've been working on.  I'm still on the second sleeve of the Kauni cardi, I'm getting ready to rip the body of the bohus but I've finished the body on the Fibonacci cardi and have started on the sleeves.  I made a mistake at the beginning with the ribbing so I'll have to redo it but I love the way the body has come out.  As you may remember, this was knit in a tube so I had to sew the openings for the front and back neck and each sleeve.  It would have been easy to felt those areas but I didn't want to wait for it to dry so I just used the sewing machine.  I won't cut the front until I get ready for the button bands.  Make it much easier to work the sleeves to leave it in the tube.

If you think there's a weird shift of the rows, you're right but it won't matter once I steek it and get the button bands on.  I decided to just do regular sleeves, knit from the top down.  I thought I had the same number of balls of each color but when I had a look, I must have only had 2 of the turquoise and the green  but I had 5 of the blue.  So I decided to do the sleeves in a solid blue color with small color stripes when then coincide with the small color stripes on the sweater.  I think that will hit about the elbow and then I'll repeat them at the cuff.  I think that will keep the stipes interesting instead of distracting.

There's no pattern for this, I'm just winging it, so it makes the progress so much more satisfying!  Hopefully I should be able to write the instructions down at the end, once I get it all figured out.

Come on Along

If you're in the Springfield area on Saturday, January 21st, be sure to sign up for a class (or 2 or 3) at the Lincoln Land "Needle in a Haystack" event. It's a little hard to get to the information but here's the easiest way to do it:

1. Go to the Lincoln Land website.
2. Click on the image for the Forward magazine.
3. Just below the magazine is a page number box. Click in that box and then type "60" in the box and hit enter.
4. This will open the magazine to the page showing more information about the day. 

They have added classes since this was published but I don't see anywhere on their website where they've updated the list.  You can certainly call the Community Education office to get an updated list - 217-786-2430.  I know one of the classes is for needle felting and the lady teaching that class is FABULOUS (and, yes, I meant to shout that).  There will also be some advertising in the Springfield paper so you can keep an eye out for that.

If you see the class(es) you want to sign up for (and don't miss out on the lunchtime presentation on "Loving Lace" - all kinds of lace!), you can either register by phone at  or you can register online here. 

There will also be vendors and demonstrators all day long so if you need some yarn or needles or fabric or fiber, this is your day.  It will be a great event to bring the kids out to as there will be plenty of hands-on things to try.

I'm teaching the Mitten class and a class on learning to spin using a drop spindle but the rest of the day I'll be demonstrating bobbin lace.  I'm not that great but I can do the basics and I'll have a pillow set up so you can try your hand on the basic stitches, too.

Break's Over

Hope you had a wonderful holiday season.  As you can tell, I took a little break and it's been a little hard to get back into the swing of things.

When last we visited the in process sweaters, there was a Red Palm Bohus with the yoke finished and the body started.  While I was at my Mom's this happened:

This is the Bohus with the yoke and body done (all except the ribbing) and one sleeve finished (all but the ribbing.  I had enough yarn to start the second sleeve but since I need to spin a little more for that sleeve, I decided to wait so I could work the new yarn into the existing yarn.  I haven't done the ribbing yet because I haven't made up my mind exactly what I want to do with it. The body is really blousier than I wanted it. 

I just don't think I was ready to say done because there's every chance that I'm going to go to rip-ville and slim the body down some.  I was really hoping for a more fitted look. 

But at the time, I'd just done this heroic thing (it felt heroic to get all that done) and I couldn't contemplate the thought of ripping.  Now that I've got a little perspective, I think I'm closer to doing it so that I can get the sweater I wanted.  After all the work spinning and knitting, I want to want to wear the silly thing.

While I'm contemplating (and spinning more merino), though, I came across this pattern:

In this book:

 I went to the yarn shop and found some yarn I'd never heard of before called Stoccarda.  There were only 6 balls of the yarn, each with 82 yards.  The pattern called for Bear Brand Supra Mohair held 2 strands together, using 10 balls, knitted at 2.5 stitches to the inch.  I had no idea what the yardage was supposed to be with that yarn (although I now know that they were ***TADAAAAA*** 80 yards per skein.  Holding 2 strands together means I would have needed 5 balls of the Stoccarda.  See how this is all shaping up?


 I've taken the picture while I was in the middle of putting it together so I could show the interesting construction.  It's worked from side to side, as you can probably see.  The pattern is worked in sections to mimic the fur stole look of the time (1961).  You knit across until you get ready for the first sleeve.  Then you knit the bottom underarm section and put the stitches on a stitch holder.  Next, you cast on the extra stitches for the sleeves, and knit the sleeve section.  Once the sleeve section is done, you bind off the extra sleeve stitches, pick up the underarm section and work across the back.  You do the same thing on the other sleeve and work to the finish. 

Once you've finished off the final edgin section, you close up the little end, sew all the seams together and you have yourself a fabulous vintage stole.  2.5 stitches to the inch on US size 13 needles.  No time at all.

And, in case you're interested, I did have enough yarn.  In fact I only used about 2 yards of the last ball.  Maybe I'll use it to make a Russian-style pillbox with the fuzzy border and white top.  I have some Cormo that needs to be used.  That sounds interesting.

Actually, knitting this has given me all sorts of ideas for adapting this construction but I'd better get the ideas written down so I don't forget. 

I'm off to finish the other side so I can wash and be ready to wear with a fetching chocolate brown outfit I've got.  I think it will be just right!

The 3 Cardis

You've heard of the 3 Tenors, now let me introduce you to the 3 Cardis.



You've already met the Red Palm Bohus taking center stage here.  She's being made from merino and bluefaced leicester handspun yarn and is now on the round and round and round never-ending stockinette in the round stage.  It would probably be considered boring if it weren't for the yummy softness of the merino yarn.

To the Red Palm Bohus' right, please welcome the Nashua Handknits Creative Focus Fibonacci Cardi.  This is yarn I bought at Athena Fibers in Sioux Falls, SD, a few years ago.  When I bought these wonderful colors (worsted weight single ply 75%wool/25%alpaca), I bought them for the express purpose of knitting a Fibonacci stripe sweater from them.  Every time I've seen them in my stash, I've reminded them that one day they would become a wonderful, happy Fibonacci striped sweater.  The day has finally arrived. 

I know the tube above doesn't look like much now because it will have to be steeked before it becomes a cardigan but just you wait.  I realized I needed to steek it at the point I realized that the nature of Fibonacci means that I would have odd numbers of rows every other time and there would be no way of syncing the working ends without either steeking or having to work in a thousand ends.  Naturally, faced with that choice, steeking was a no brainer. I don't have a pattern for it but the plan is to knit for a little while longer (I'm about 2 inches past the armhole shaping) and then set it up for saddle shoulder sleeves and a crew neck.  It's all part of the adventure. 

The great thing about this yarn (other than it's obvious fabulousness) is that it's fairly chunky and is knitting up super fast.

And last, but definitely not least, on stage left, is the Kauni Cardi.  This pattern made the rounds a couple of years ago and I found it interesting but I always fall into these things late in the game so I've just started mine.  Actually, I started it a couple of months ago and got most of it done really quickly.  For some reason, I've stalled on the second sleeve and just need to get my butt in gear and get it finished. 

I find this pattern fascinating because it uses two multiple color (honking big) skeins of yarn.  Same yarn but you start at different points of the colorway so you're only ever working with 2 strands of yarn.  The color effects come from the changes in the colors in the yarn.  Isn't that a great effect?

If you choose to work this pattern, be prepared to have to fill in a lot of blanks or just kind of go your own way.  The pattern is, at best, just a sketch of what you will do.  But for this sweater, it's worth the effort.

See what you think

After delays created by the need to spin more of 3 of the colors (and ply and wash and dry) and the sheer number of stitches (430 or so), I'm almost finished with the yoke of the bohus cardi.  I love the colors and the effect but it's come out much more dense than I expected and I'm not sure I'm going to like that.  The shaping looks a bit weird here but that's just because it's not blocked out yet.  I've decided to keep going for a little while to see how it's going to work out.  The rest of the sweater will be the red that you see in the collar. 

I can't say I'm enamoured of the way the pattern is written but I'm a big girl so I'll get it figured out (or at least make something up!). 

Just Gotta Show Someone

After buying the book, Poems of Color a few months back, I've had a plan to knit a bohus sweater.  But I decided I wanted to spin the yarn for it.  The pattern that took my spinning fancy was called the Red Palm.  Even though the pattern was geared more to the pink side of the color wheel, I'm not so much of a pink girl so I wanted to do something more with to the orange/yellow side.  That led me to combine a color study I wanted to do with the project of spinning the colors for the yoke of the sweater.  See here. 

Next on the plan was to spin the red merino top from Ashland Bay.  About 800 yards of fingering weight 2-ply yarn was completed and, although not enough for the whole sweater, I thought it would be a good start.  Then I found out it was top down, which allows me the satisfaction of seeing the yoke come to life to support me through the long days of knitting a mile of stockinette.  Granted it will be red merino stockinette but nevertheless the fascination of the yoke will help the journey.

The other night I finally got started down that road and here's what I've come up with:

You can see the pattern as displayed in the hat pattern, although each bohus pattern in the book contains a pattern for a jacket, a sweater, a cardigan and a hat.  I'm making the cardigan.  You might need to click on the photo to see the color blends a little better but I'm really pleased with the effect so far and you can see my colors floating around there in back.  I love the way the strategically placed purl stitches do to add texture to it.  Add to that the "texture" of the not very well spun yarns and it's all I could have hoped for.

(Just a word about the less than perfect yarns.  They started out as a color study where I carded varying amounts of white, yellow, red and black yarns to make the gradual color changes.  I'd never done very well at long draw - which is what you generally do with rolags - which are what come off hand cards.  Add to that the fact that the yarn used was blue-faced leicester and merino - both longer stapled wool - which isn't as conducive to long draw.  It was a recipe for uneven yarn - even though I really like the effect in this project - and I've learned tons and did a way better job on the red merino.)

It's not something at this point that I can sit and work on for hours because the yoke is knit on size 1 needles which makes a dense fabric for the yoke but is a little hard on the fingers.  Like any kind of colorwork, though, it's mesmerizing to see the pattern develop.  Once I get through the yoke I should be able to work through the rest of it pretty quickly.  After all it's just stockinette with red merino.

My Favorite

I know you're not supposed to have favorites but this hat and scarf are my favorites of all the ones I've made this year.  This started out as part of the attempt to knit my handspun stash.  The yarn is handspun from the cloud (a type of fiber preparation, for the unitiated) from a mix of alpace, silk and merino wool that I bought several years ago.  I love the gradations of the yarn and it's really, really soft.

Anyway, I started the scarf just using a little lozenge pattern I found in a book somewhere.  I don't even remember which pattern or where I found it because I started it QUITE a long time ago.  I got tired of knitting the scarf so I decided it was long enough and I was finished.  But I still had half a ball left.  What to do?

At the time, I was in the middle of the great hat fever of 2011 so it seemed logical to make a hat to match the scarf.  Nothing could go with that, right?  Actually, for once, that was right and I threw some stitches on the needles, and started knitting.  Like anything that you do by instinct without thinking too much about it, it ended up fitting perfectly.  I made it extra long so it would slouch a little and when I got to the end, I decreased over 3 rounds to make it bunch up at the top and there you have it:

I wasn't that excited about the scarf until I remembered that it was, indeed, a lace pattern that would not be harmed by a little blocking.  Classic duck to swan transformation followed and now I love it.  I suspect that I'm going to wear these every day.  No matter how many hats or scarves I may have now or in the future, none of them can hold the candle to these.  The standard is now set.

If you're interested in a quick and dirty pattern, here goes:

Scarf
I think I used size 3 needles and my yarn is fingering weight (more or less) so you'll need to work that out for the yarn you use, especially for the hat.  Sorry, the needles had already gone back into the stash before I though to write this down.  I didn't really work out a gauge (which is why this is "quick and dirty") but the best I can tell is that the ribbing on the hat is about 6 stitches to the inch.

Cast on 50 stiches and knit in seed stich for 6-8 rows (or however many you want).
For every row, there's a border of 5 stitches knit in seed stitch.  I won't repeat that on the rows below but you'll know to just do it.  (Seed stitch is just knitting K1, P1 across the base row and then on each subsequent row, you purl the knit stitches and knit the purl stitches.)
(Pattern is a 6 stitch repeat)
Row 1: 5 border stitches in seed stitch, yarn over (YO), *SSK, K1, K2tog, YO, K1, YO*  Repeat from * to * to last 5 stitches, do the 5 border stitches.
Row 2 and all even rows: Border, Purl to end, border
Row 3: Repeat row 1.
Row 5: Repeat row 1.  How many tmes you repeat row 1 will determine how long your lozenge is.
Row 7: Border, *YO, slip 1, knit 2 together, pass slipped stitch over, YO, K3*  Repeat from * to * to last 5 stitches, border (this is a transition row)
Row 9: Border, K2tog, *YO, K1, YO, SSK, K1, K2tog* Repeat * to * to last 7 stitches, K1, SSK, border.
Rows 11&13: Repeat Row 9.

And so forth until it's as long as you want.  Do remember that with this lace pattern, it will block significantly longer than it appears.  I would say mine extended about a third again longer.

Hat
I casted on about 108 stitches and knitted about 2 inches of K2/P1 ribbing before starting the pattern.

I worked the above pattern until the hat reached about 9 inches from the beginning and then I decreased this way.  The lace pattern is basically in sections of 3.  So on the first round of the decrease, I slipped 1 stitch, knit 2 together and passed the slipped stitch over.  Then I knit a round plain.  Then I knit 2 together all the way around.  Then I cut the end and used a darning needle to thread the tail through the remaining stitches, pulled them in and I was done.  Usually when I pull the yarn through the stitches like this, especially here where it's a pretty drastic decrease, I use the needle to thread the yarn through several times just to strengthen it.  After that, you just work in the ends as per usual and you're good. Here's a shot of how the top is gathered.

I blocked the scarf but not the hat.  I like the way the hat fits so I don't plan to block it.  You could do, though, if your hat seems too snug.  Enjoy!