Post-Op: A Luscious Sweater Story

Posted on November 5, 2013 by MissCarlotta

Way back in April I cast on my Luscious Sweater. It is all knit on size 2 needles in fingering weight yarn and its pretty much all stockinette… which meant lots and lots of pretty repetitive knitting. At first I had high hopes that I would have my sweater done by my trip in June.

There were errors in the pattern. Simple stuff that honestly felt like the pattern needed just a bit more proofing, but I was only the second person on Ravelry to cast on, and the other person hadn’t posted updates since they started, so I was determined to keep on. (For the record, the first two errors I verified with the pattern publisher, but after that I decided to save them up for one email at the end. I did post every issue I had on my project page. I believe that most of my issue came from stitching the non-standard larger size.)

Day before I leave on my trip and I’m casting off my last piece and blocking… spirits are high! I’m seaming up the other pieces because I am totally going to have this for my trip!

And then.. I pin the last piece in place and discover….. the two tails, do not line up.

So disappointed

And this isn’t a minor off by a few rows, made a small error no one else will notice issue… this is a one side falls at the knee.. and the other side drags on the floor.

So I set it aside and went on my trip and it was an INCREDIBLE time.

And I came back and I pondered and plotted and wondered if it was possible to fix this train wreck or should I just frog it… all 13 balls of yarn.

In the end.. I decided to fix it.

I threaded some 10 weight crochet thread through my main drape section from the side seam to the exterior as a life line:

Prepare the patient for surgery

I carefully un stitched the long side seam of the main drape:

How “Unseaming” !

And then…. I cut off the first tail of the drape….

Post scissor application

I carefully picked up every stitch along my row and set out to knit again! I started out with an additional set of short rows, because I wanted to make sure that the drape tapered a bit more towards the knee. (I’m not certain I actually needed to do this… it just felt like I should and at this point… the sweater was unwearable so what’s the harm of trying imo.) My thought was that the issue was that the taper of the main drape wasn’t at a sharp enough angle, so I increased my decreases by half again. I’d left my shorter side drape pinned in place so I had a comparison for length to aim for. I got to the end of the new tail of the drape and laid the sweater out for comparison.

The measure here is lined up with the new tail and the side drape point.

It looked to be significantly closer in alignment than the original! I knew since my side drape was just pinned at this point, that I could adjust that piece as well, and so this looked to be markedly successful! So I got out my scissors and amputated the other side of the drape tail. I followed the same basic directions of short row set followed by increased decreases. I did lay out my sweater repeatedly to check if I was on-target for matching.

So after stitching a new front tail… I re-seamed my long seam, and stitched down the side drape and….

SUCCESS!

It is absolutely much more symmetrical!

Now… I am a little bit uncertain how I feel about this sweater, but I’m not sure if that’s the taint of the earlier disappointment or something else. I’m wearing it today… and we shall see. Here’s some wearing photos so you can see the fit.

Show in standard Misscarlotta not-quite-focus

And the other side:

Front knee is slightly bent.

So there you have it… the final results of Doctah Knittah!

As a side note… I am so very glad this wasn’t my first sweater and that Ben’s Ben was so successful, because as I look at future knitting projects, prior results make a huge impact. I haven’t yet made a second pair of socks… because the first pair was so dang boring on sock #2.

Oh Ewe!

Posted on October 29, 2013 by MissCarlotta

Last I checked unborn children don’t have internet access… and I am fairly certain my sister-in-law living out in the woods (yes literally) doesn’t have regular internet access, so I think I’m in the clear posting this gift for my future nephew.

Ewe won’t believe how many sheep & lamb puns I thought up making this…

The directions are pretty easy, but would benefit greatly by having a picture of the frame assembly. I read them a couple times and yet I still managed to put him together a wee bit wrong. Still right enough that it works and he looks good… just wrong enough I needed to make some minor adjustments.

Since I had some left, I used a pair of safety eyes. I also gave my lil’ lambchop a tail.

Guess what?!
….
Sheep butt!

My cord is an I-cord which I threaded a couple additional strands of yarn through to make it a bit more like a rope for strength and stretch.

Mary had a Little Lamb She tied it to a heater…

And every time it turned around it burned its little seater!

And if you thought that last sheep joke in the captions was baa’d…

Mary had a Little Lamb, Little Lamb, Little Lamb.
Then she passed her plate again, And had a little more!

Counter-pillaring the Days until Christmas

Posted on October 2, 2013 by MissCarlotta

Normally I do not pre-post gifts, but this one was too cute.. and since the giftee is too young to even read so… I’m going to post it anyway! So without further ado… the Counterpillar!

What walks down stairs….

I found this very adorable pattern of a string along toy, that includes some colors and numbers and thought that it would be a great gift. The original includes beads for each of the numbers, some pom-poms and a picture hook to loop the tail. I was making mine for a very young child, so I omitted those elements and added a soft knob tail for the loop instead.

Knobby number 9

If you prefer the knob tail, here’s my instructions

Cast on 5 stitches to DPN

Work 5 rows as an I-Cord.

Increase in every stitch next row (10 stitches)

Knit a round

Increase in Every Stitch (20 stitches)

Knit 3 rounds

Decrease 10 times (10 stitches)

Knit a round

Decrease 5 times (5 stitches)

Stuff the ball end of the tail, and then use your needle to thread through the remaining 5 stitches to close.

Stitch your I-cord end onto the last segment.

You may need to adjust your cord loop length a bit to ensure it fits over the knob tail, but it seems to work alright!

I’m counting on you Mr. Counterpillar!

Double your Pleasure with Double Knitting Fun!

Posted on September 24, 2013 by MissCarlotta

So several ages ago (also known as last December) I decided to learn how to double knit. This is where both sides look like the stockinette or “v” side of the knitting. You may recall a post in January or April on this project.

Well I’m pleased to report that I’m finally done!

Green and White is always Right!

A full nine snowflakes make up this baby! There are 5 differently patterned flakes. Two larger and 3 smaller patterns.

Like the force there is a dark side…

And a light side

To me double knitting is very beautiful, but it seems like it takes so much more time, basically its like you are doing a 1×1 rib, but you also have to pay attention to the detail of which stitch in the pattern facing you and the edges so that the two sides are hooked together and not open at the edges.

From WIP to FO in 1 batch of extra determination!

And that’s one project that can go on the Christmas gifts completed pile!

Speaking of things completed… I also knit up a second Spring Thaw for a friend of mine who was admiring the first. I believe it is now presently touring part of Canada.

A shawl knitted for Sporks, but not on sporks. (which might be possible but probably insane)

An August Spring Thaw

Posted on August 20, 2013 by MissCarlotta

Did you ever have those moments when you look back and say to yourself, now if only I had done this in a different order…..

Such as… if only I had started with the Spring Thaw Shawl instead of the Gamayun Bird, I’d at least have finished one of them on vacation. And I totally could have managed it on the plane.

So without further delays… allow me to present a completed Spring Thaw Shawl!

Spring Thaw… just in time for fall chills

This pattern is actually pretty easy to follow along, and available in both written and charted if you want to get your toe in the waters of lace so to speak. I went with 12 leaf repeats down the center spine, primarily because of how my yarn colorway was working I decided I wanted to end as I began.. in the dark smoke.

Perfect for a gentle breeze like the one today!

The yarn I used was Patton’s Lace in Woodrose, and it took me just under a skein from start to finish….. which means I have another skein of it. To me, the browns and greys make it more interesting than just a simple pale pink.

The mohair in the mix gives it a nice soft fuzz to the pattern.

The mohair in the mix gives it a nice soft fuzz look.

I was rather surprised at how quickly this came together… from cast on to fully blocked and photographed in just 6 days!

Full view

Heading into Charted Waters with my Evening Grosbeak Gamayun Shawl

Posted on August 16, 2013 by MissCarlotta

So a few posts ago, I was talking about my troubles with my Gamayun Bird Shawl and even before that I was posting about the planning of it to have a colorway similar to the Evening Grosbeak female birds we get here, because I find their grey and yellow to be rather lovely.

I am ready to say that I finally finished my shawl!

Normally I post inside, but today was just too nice of a day to not get my bird in the sun!

Normally I post inside pictures, but today was just too nice of a day to not get my bird in the sun!

This was the first charted lace knit project I’ve ever tried. And so I made one kind of major mistake… I read the chart left to right, as I would read a book or a cross stitch chart. But in actuality, knit charts are supposed to be knit right to left, the opposite way. Now I was fortunate in that this is a fairly symmetrical pattern so when I discovered my error as I was about to forge onto chart three… I was able to read stitches and adjust my pattern to turn out and not frog back for the bazzillionth time.

Here’s a bit of an indoor close up:

Mirror, Mirror Gamayun on the Wall

So technically speaking this is a mirror version of the pattern, but I have this rule that if you can look at it with the eyes of someone that didn’t knit it and it and the issue is not noticeable, then you should just chalk it up to the field of “one of a kind” and not a mistake of epic proportions.

This pattern did give me a good opportunity to use life lines (which are a separate contrast yarn you thread through your rows every so often in case you have to frog back some so you don’t drop any of those stitches) which I am certain I will use when I take on the task of fixing the Luscious sweater. (No, its not fixed yet. Be patient… its my second sweater ever and I’m spending quite a bit of time figuring out the best way to fix it with my limited skill.)

Uh, we had a slight knitting malfunction, but uh… we’re fine….finally updating on the Sweater and Travel knits

Posted on July 10, 2013 by MissCarlotta

So last post I was saying how I was going to probably not finish my Luscious sweater in time… but I will have you know that dedication and several seasons of TV episodes will certainly take you pretty far. I actually finished all the pieces to my sweater, and was starting to assemble on the 13th.

woohoo! Look at how cool it is looking!

I am not a tall person. I come in at just under 5ft 5in. And after assembling the main drape, I tested out the size and it seemed rather long. But ever the optimist… I hoped that it would just be a little long and some of that would be corrected in the rest of the assembly. So I added in the sleeve section and tried it on again. The tail on me would be dragging on the floor.

……*sigh*…….

Could it be that I was just too short? I pinned up the side drape…. and nope… it was just the right length. There is about a foot of difference between the two points. So needless to say… I didn’t take my sweater on vacation. So now I am working on garnering up the internal fortitude and creativity in an effort to try and fix it. As to what went wrong… well I can’t be certain, since I consider myself a more intermediate knitter. This is after all my second sweater. My theory, which is based solely on the errors I have found (first two were confirmed by the company that published the pattern – the remaining errors I have still to submit and figured I would collect them all in one email at the end) is that this sweater was not test knit in the larger sizes, and the issue lies someplace in that particular area. The details of my issues you can read about on this projects Ravelry page.

And so… I did say I was setting it aside while I was traveling and going to work on a shawl, and learn the art of chart reading anyway… right?

About that……. well starting a lace chart project at 3AM at the airport is probably not the wisest idea. I should have learned from the myriad of times I picked up and put down the Branching Out portions of the Family Tree Baby Blanket while on various flights. But no… I cast on and got to the second row of the chart and found I’d already made a mistake someplace. So in Amsterdam I frogged those few rows and cast on again. And I knit the first 14 rows between there and here right after we got back with our jet lag brain.

But in review… it looks like I have a mistake someplace. The first section feather points look all nice and pointy:

Kind of a terrible picture… but you get the idea here.

But when you get into the second section something has gone clearly awry… my feather points look like a pair of dutch-boy pantaloons.

Seriously?! ¬.¬

So its kinda looking like a second frogging. (For those not in the knitting know… its called frogging because you “Rip-it” out.) Which brings us to a new joke I heard while in Amsterdam…. You shouldn’t try to explain puns to kleptomaniacs. They take things literally.

I will see myself out….

Taking Flight: Knitting for the birds and airplanes

Posted on June 4, 2013 by MissCarlotta

So let’s say you find yourself in the enviable position of taking a vacation to foreign lands, and you find yourself facing a 5 hour flight followed by an 8 hour flight. And somewhere down the line of trip planning you decide that a fair portion of that 13+ transit hours could be spent knitting… and then you wonder about if they even allow knitting needles on flights.

Well first let me say that if you live in the US, the TSA has given the knitting needle OK; however, cutting implements are a whole other matter. But when one is planning an international trip, one has to consider the other countries… and that’s where it becomes a little more of a “maybe” situation. You can send your project off in a self addressed envelope if they turn your needles away, but if you’ve just spent a month knitting up half a sweater the idea you might find yourself waiting for the postman for the other half just doesn’t sound like a good time.*

So while I had high hopes when I started of actually wearing my Luscious Sweater on this trip, its time to admit that the project will need to wait until I return.

I did finish up the main drape section!

So now its time to pull out some back up plans. A project that won’t be too big so it only takes a couple balls… yet big enough to keep you occupied for several hours on a plane and during vacation down time. My solution… a shawl or two!

~ And thus we come to the bird portion of our knitting blog. ~

Not that long ago I was thinking to myself that it would be pretty amazing to have some bird colored yarn. The Stellar’s Jay Vibrant Blue and Black, the Kingfisher’s Teal and Rust… or the Female Evening Grosbeak:

Evening Grosbeaks are primarily monogamous, so Fellas if you like it you better put a chirp on it.

I am hoping that this Rock Candy Colorway by Sockease will do the trick.

Oh oh Oh!

And my plan is to make it into a shawl called Gamayun Bird out of it. Since I’m a bit of an optimist in my knitting (hence the unfinished aforementioned sweater) I also bought some other lace yarn for another potential project… but you will have to wait until I cast that on for an update.

The Grosbeak males are a much more vivid yellow.

*All that stuff about the Postman… well let’s be honest, earlier this month we received an envelope with no stamp, no return address, and the wrong zipcode. The vast majority of the time they certainly get it right!

Enter the Entrelac Zone (and some Luscious Progress)

Posted on May 10, 2013 by MissCarlotta

I took a face your Fears challenge to learn Entrelac. Which if you are unfamiliar with its a style of knitting that turns out looking like a basket weave texture that you get by picking up and binding off (by knitting combining two stitches into one in pattern) which is unlike counterpanes where you make each unit separate and then assemble. On the whole most patterns seem to stick with smaller blocks and just knit along for texture, but there are a few items that are really unique out there like the Forest Path Stole which combines blocks of lacy texture.

Most people start out with a nice simple scarf… but I am not most people so I went with… the Nyan Cowl.

Click here if you are unfamiliar with Nyan Cat or just want to Nyan today.

Technically I have not finished the Nyan Cowl as I mean to finish the poptart as a nice little pocket for toting around something small, such as your ipod or secret pocket of poptarts or whatever, so that and the finishing touch of affixing the tail to the front need to be done. I am debating if I should write up this guy as a pattern since he is a bit cute if I do say so myself.

Since I wasn’t quite 100% on how seriously I should have actually approached the challenge, I also decided that I’d start a small baby blanket with the still large quantity of baby yarns I have been gifted in my stash so here is the early preview:

Something a bit more traditional than the Nyan

I also have some updates on my Luscious Sweater since my earlier post of just yarn. I have cast on the main section, found a couple of errors in the pattern (detailed in the Rav link) and I am now working my way up and over the shoulder from the V-neck base marker. These photos are earlier than that, but they give an alright impression of how the fabric of the knit is coming together.

Early progress of the “wrong” side showing the edge and the main stitches twined together

Right side up, front bottom edge of the sweater

I am actually on about the 4th ball of the main color (out of 13) and so knitting along there are 3 balls attached to the project (Each edge in the contrast and the main color) to which I am thinking someone needs to invent some stackable snap-together yarn bowls. Think on that just a bit… you get to where you need to twist you just snap them apart, twine them the right way and re-snap them together.

Progress Updates, Future Yarn projects and a little bit more

Posted on April 3, 2013 by MissCarlotta

Firstly let me start out by saying… I have been knitting things since March… just they have been very little things… or not done yet things.

Little things like this cute doily out of crochet thread on needles I never remember the size of because my needle gauge tool only goes to the first 0. (You’d think a single 0 would be enough, but apparently the world is not prepared for negative numbers in needle sizing.):

Pattern is called Auge

This is not your granny’s doily though…. This baby is not soon to be draped over an armchair or under the candy dish. This is your first cup of coffee or glass of water by your bed… because that’s just how big it is.

That’s no doily! That’s a coaster!

I have also been working on my double knit scarf and I’m a bit further along than these photos as I am now nearly done with flake number six.

Side A: Delicate White flakes against a dark green background.

Side B: Powerful Green flakes on a snowy white background

So I think with my current progress I am at least past the hump of the middle of a scarf project.

Now I must confess I have still not gotten any further on my bird needlework project and every time I’m up in the library room with my sewing I remind myself I really ought to finish it up.

But in the mean time…. I did say I was going to make two sweaters this year, one for Ben and one for myself. And I’m only half done with that project… so I took the next step and… couldn’t narrow it down past two designs I really liked. One is called Spoke, and the other is called Luscious. Well I figured the easiest method since they took two different kind of yarns was to browse through my various yarn options and see if I couldn’t have the yarn decide. (Each take a different yarn weight)

Well the yarn decided alright…. it decided I was making two sweaters!

A Future Spoke Sweater!
(and a side of conductive thread for gloves)

Future Luscious. The heathered color on the left is the main body color, with the darker as the trim.

As if that wasn’t enough yarn… I got a nice reminder that I had Jimmy Beans Bucks from some yarn I bought when working on Debora. So I did what any good knitter would and bought a beautiful skein of lace weight yarn.

I am leaning towards the Frozen Leaves Shawl with this, but it means a full charted pattern.

And that brings us to the end of the updates and progress… and you are wondering what exactly I meant by a little bit more. Well…. I was contacted recently by someone that is getting ready to cast on a Debora blanket! And to me… well that’s pretty awesome! If you’ve ever watched Howl’s Moving Castle, then you will know what I mean when I say that’s the “I like your spark!” compliment.

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