Plum Incunabula Cardigan

Some years ago, I backed Karie Westermann's kickstarter to write a book of knitting patterns inspired by the evolution of book-making in Europe. If this sounds a bit niche, well, the concept may be but the resulting designs in This Thing of Paper have a broad appeal and classic sensibility that I associate with Ms Westermann's designs. Longtime readers already be aware that I knit a lot of designs by Karie Westermann, her name featuring heavily in my roundup of 2015 projects with links to some individual pattern write-ups. Ah, the days when I blogged a lot.

The Incunabula Cardigan went straight to the top of my queue but it took me a while to find the right yarn - and in the end I bought the recomended yarn, Blacker Classic DK, when it was discontinued last summer, in the colour "Plum", getting a SQ (sweater quantity) for less than £50 including shipping in a workhorse yarn that I knew would last. I used to be a big fan of Blacker Yarns but their management hurt someone I considered a friend and I went off them. But in a time when dyers are facing yarn shortages because the knock-on effect of lockdown overseas and british shepherds are burning or burying their fleeces because there's no domestic market, any local breeds of sheep is probably worth supporting. That said, my main problem with Blacker Yarns has always been that their colour pallet is usually muted in a way that doesn't work for me. "Plum" is...not an exception? It's on the border of colours that I like/look good in, a touch more rust than I would prefer. I can wear it, it doesn't make me look ill, but it doesn't make my skin glow the way blue-based jewel tones can. But the reduced price and knowing exactly how much to buy based on the pattern made it a sensible choice for an admittedly Autumn cardigan.

I knit it as written, after getting gauge on smaller needles, though I knit both sleeves before ading the cuffs as I was considering changing the length. It's just as well I did as I wound up with two different length sleeves, neither of which was the length suggested by the pattern. Oops. I mostly knit things as written, but clearly my written comprehension is, uh, variable, because this was not a unique occurance in my knitting journey. I liked the length of the shorter sleeve as a finished measurement so I ripped it back a few inches and knit the cuff, then ripped the other sleeve to the same point, knit the cuff, cut the buttons off my Red Rosemorran cardigan that I knit back in 2014. They were too heavy for the silk-blend lace cardigan and the buttonholes stretched out so they wouldn't stay in the holes, but they're perfect for my Incunabula.

After a glorious spring of gentle warm sunshine, our summer has been a dreich disapointment, rainy and overcast, not really warm but not cool and too humid for layers. Meh. There's a reason I list giving up on Summer as a reason Autumn is my favourite season. (Spoiler: they're all my favourite season if they actually happen, but Autumn is a nice, reliable season. The nights are going to draw in, the temperatures are going to drop, the leaves are going to fall.) And I am going to enjoy wearing my Incunabula as I crunch through the leaves with my little pumpkins.

2015: State of the Knitting, Gifts

I don't really feel like I have a lot to show for this year's knitting, although Ravelry shows I completed 27 projects this year, so it has to be at least considered that I'm being too hard on myself. Without further ado, a roundup of 2015s "unselfish" knitting:

Finished Objects
I made three "Haps" (and a mini-Hap) all as gifts: a full-Hansel in yellow with blue and green for a former coworker who was getting married; a half-Hansel in green with yellow and blue for Miss Morgan who came to visit; a mini-Hansel for Little Djinn's dolls in scraps; and a sparkling pink/purple mystery shawl (now Havra), a half-hap style construction for Miss Krissy's birthday. Miss Krissy loved hers, though she reports that her taste in colours is getting more muted (Autumnal?). I don't think the other three were particularly impressed.

I knit a pair of little fingerless mitts in pink with white hearts from a Knit Now (magazine) kit for Miss Anya's birthday because it arrived just in time and she loves pink. She made a big fuss about how much she likes them, but she's since moved to England.

For Little Djinn I knit three pairs of socks, two pairs being the same will, frogged to reknit them, both times too small. A third pair seems to be too long. She wont let me measure her. I finished her second Ravi Jr cardigan, this time in an orange that's almost gold.

I also knit her a little hat which, really, I knew better. She doesn't wear hats, unless they're my hats and she snatches them from me. It's a really nice hat, though, Quynn in super soft rainbow wool from a local "natural" dyer. She now says she wants hats with pom-poms so I guess I can try that next? She might wear a hat someday, right?

Her favourite knit has been Fudge the Dog, another kit from Knit Now magazine. Fudge is one of her two favourite toys to take out in the pram, the other being a (storebought) knit kitty, Puddy. Fudge likes to go for walks with us and see the "other" doggies.

On the charity side, I knit a Sheep Carousel to be auctioned at the Highland Wool Festival (didn't win the contest; no idea how much was bid for it) and a couple of small hats for refugees, but then I was poorly on the collection dates so I need to find a new home for them.

Chris did not fair as well in the gift-knitting department. I finished two hats which I felt didn't much suit me and I passed on to him, first the Seaforth which he hasn't taken to, though he has been grateful for it the times we met up in town to walk home and he didn't have a (warm) hat with him. I also gave him the mystery hat, now Skelter, that I knit in November which he likes except the pom-pom bounces when he walks, and I keep borrowing if I'm going out and know he won't be.

The Snawheid hat I knit last Nov/Dec was also given away, because whilst I loved it, it didn't fit well and I knew someone with a smaller head who would appreciate it.

UnFinished Objects
I did work a little on Chris' languishing Terry's Pullover, and finished grafting the sleeves on (pour execution decision - not a design element) and I think I even seamed the sleeves, but faced with weaving all those ends in - and there are a lot of ends as I knit this before I knew about spit splicing - keeps overwhelming me. It doesn't help that he mentioned that he doesn't like to wear pullovers, preferring cardigans, which I feel he could have mentioned before I knit it twice (the first time was too tight).

On NYE, I started a Wee Liesl for a friend who was due that day. The baby in question showed up late last night, but I've finished the body and am working on the first sleeve so I should be done before too long. I picked the pattern because I have the recommended wool in stash, leftover from knitting Little Djinn's baby blanket and a cardigan for myself.

Frozen or Frogged
I started a Wee Melia for Little Djinn in a gorgeous glowing orange, but 3/4ths the way through I realized I need to do the next size up and she now tells me she "doesn't love orange". Gah. I bought more of the same wool in a pinky-purple that hasn't arrived yet but hopefully she'll like. I need to decide if I'm going to try ripping the orange attempt back halfway and making it bigger or swapping the wool or and what pattern to pick for the new colour.

Also in limbo are two pairs of socks for Chris. There's the bullfinch socks I blogged about just before Christmas and the Herringbone Rib socks I started back in April 2013. Yeah. I'm on the cuff of the second sock, but it's not a stitch pattern I can work without concentration so they're just going to have to wait. Or get frogged. Frogging seems more and more likely, doesn't it? They can languish for now.

In December I started a KAL on Google+ for a maple leaf shawl but I'm not feeling the love. I'm thinking the wool I picked would make a better Stella Luna.

October KALs: Status Update

As you may recall, I signed up for two Knit-a-longs (KALs) both of which started on 1 October: Carol Feller's Mithral pullover KAL, and the Great British Socksaway KAL. I thought that by now I'd be a gibbering ball of stress, knowing that I've failed them both and wanting to go knit stockingette cowls for the rest of my life. Surprisingly, I'm doing rather well.

Tarsi Toddler Socks
I really hit the ground running with these darling little socks, finishing them in 11 days. I used every last bit of wool, ending with only inches left so the fact that they're ever so slightly too short in the foot is just a crying shame. Little Djinn loves them, but they just shift right off her little feet and no amount of pulling them up can keep them on. Oh well. I tried and I will keep on trying.

Mithral
At the same time, I knit the first clue of Mithral, which was for the front and back of the shoulders, from the neckline down to the bottom of the armholes (Clue 2 starts with joining the two pieces in the round - the picture above was a few rows into Clue 2). The wool is deliciously soft in my hands but, as I anticipated, that doesn't mean it's easy to work with. It's not difficult, I'm not fighting it, but I am having to check from time to time that I've got the actual stitch and not just fluff and it's very slippy on my needles. Between that and the eternal worry that the finished sweater won't fit or make me happy, and working on it has kind of become duty knitting - I want to finish and wear my lovely new sweater, but I can't be disappointed with the finished object if I never, you know, finish it. The good news is that I thought this KAL ran for the same length as the GBSocksawayKal, 6 weeks, but it actually goes into December! So as long as I do a little work on it here and there, I shouldn't fall too far behind. And, while I like wining, I don't need prizes.

Pheasant Socks
Remember how I said I had two suitable sock yarns for the wool from British sheep qualification for the GBSocksawayKAL? I was wrong. My other wool is, as I said, from the Faeroe Islands. Faeroe. Denmark. Somehow despite typing the word "Faeroe" my brain was still thinking "Orkney". Um, oops. I was faced with two problems here - I like to always have a pair of socks on the needle as "handbag knitting", eg something small enough to be portable and easy enough to be picked up and put down a lot, and I was feeling a lot of envy for the self-striping Pheasant colourway from West Yorkshire Spinner's Birds range. So when my friend Miss Morgan was visiting and short one ball of yarn for a hat she was knitting, I ordered a skein of Pheasant at the same time. Then there was a problem with placing the order, Miss Morgan got sick and left early, and it didn't show up until after she left. Oops. But the WYS pheasant, at least, is as wonderful as I hope.

For whatever reason, WYS doesn't have any publicity shots of the skeins knit up, just in the ball, and when I'd seen people's probjects they all seemed to be like the Blue Tit colourway - stripes but a a lot of mottling of colour between the stripes in the way that Opal does self-striping yarns. Opal is (was?) my default sock yarn, but I mostly thought of picking a colour as getting the least annoying one. Pheasant isn't like that: Pheasant has five tonal colours (rust, pumpkin, goldenrod, navy, and petrol (dark teal)) in clear stripes with a small stripe of grey between each colour. For me that works out as five rows of a colour, two rows of grey, five rows of the next colour. They are stunning. I decided to do a pair of very plain, vanilla socks with an afterthought heel, neither of which I've actually knit before.

I don't know how much is the stripes ("just one more!") and how much is the vanilla sock so it's just round and round, but I have never knit a sock that quickly. I kept making myself work on other things and I still knit one sock in four days. Remember how happy I was above to knit a pair of toddler socks in 11 days? 5.5 days each sock? I just knit a full size sock in 4 days. I put off starting the second one to work on Mithral. And then knit a hat and half a mitt instead - then I checked the timeline for the Mithral KAL and realized I could finish my socks like I want to do anyway. Someone please tell me I'm not the only person who won't let myself do A because I have to do B and so I do C instead?

This is my first time working an afterthought heel, though the pattern I picked, Fork in the Road Socks by Laura Neel, has you work the afterthought heel in the same order as if you were doing a heel-flap and gusset, after the leg and before the foot. I'm not sure I like it from a construction esthetic - and please note this is a critique of the style, not the pattern which is clear and results in a correctly sized sock - the unworn socks look...weird. They don't lie flat. There's a fair argument to be made that because feet are not flat, socks shouldn't be either, and I'll have to see how comfortable they are to wear before deciding if I'd knit them for a non-stripy yarn. For stripy yarns the afterthought heel is perfect as it keeps the stripes in perfect order.

And Chris looked at my beautiful Pheasant socks and requested a pair for himself. I showed him the colourways available and he picked Bullfinch with Cayenne (from their solid "spice rack" range) for contrast cuffs, heels, and toes. I also picked up Blue Tit for when I've knit those, with contrast Blueberry Bonbon ("sweet shop" range) and the limited edition Christmas colour Cherry Drop.

FO: Tryghed Hat

In my previous blogpost I talked about all the hats I want to knit and the beautiful yarns I have to knit them...and then I promptly went out and bought more wool to knit a completely different hat (This is why I shouldn't have a stash): Tryghed by Karie Westermann, from her Hygge collection

My gauge tends large so I went down a needle size and it took me about a day to knit it, checking only to see that the ribbing fit comfortably around my head, and finished that same day. Experienced knitters are waiting for the problem: I checked my circumference, but I didn't check my row height. I washed it, blocked it lightly, and waited for it to dry so I could try it on. Nowhere near long enough. Oops. Fortunately I'd not yet wove in the ends, so I let it dry completely, then unraveled past the lace row, added another 5 rows, then added a similar distance in the second ribbing section. Blocked it again, and voila! 

I didn't have a blocking implement ("dinner plate") the correct size to have the hat fold on the lace row, but it looks fine when modelled. The yarn is Jamieson's Shetland Heather Aran in "cedar" which is a Forrest green with magenta and teal spun through it - one of those colours you could never hope to photograph or describe, it has to be seem - and used 58g which is just over one ball.

I also picked up two balls each in the colours "oceanic" and "sholmitt" which is a natural grey to knit the Skovtur mitts, also from the Hygge collection.

September and August Finished Objects

Finished Objects!

Scollay Cardigan by Karie Westermann

Love love love love this cardigan! I knit it in the suggested wool, New Lanark Mill DK which is wool tweed with silk slubs, in the colour Milano (I keep forgetting if it's Milano or Verona - both are lovely, I got the pinker one). I knit the XL size, my gauge was a tiny bit larger than the pattern recommends which I accounted for in the length but not the width as I wanted a smidge more room than the XL but not as much as the XXL. I also knit the sleeves flat, rather than have to figure out if my gauge was different in the round (hint, it almost always is). I bought several sets of buttons trying to find the right ones for the cardigan. One set was the right colour but the wrong size and the others were all the right size but the shade of pink. I picked coconut flowers that had been glazed pink on the front and attached them wrong side up so the pink is against the wool. It works surprisingly well.

Full Hap by Gudrun Johnston

I finished this back in July before the end of the Hapalong (hap knit-a-long) but it was a gift so I couldn't share a picture. I bought the pattern along with the craftsy class and I loved everything about it. I loved participating in the Hapalong, I loved watching the craftsy class and listening to Ms Johnston - it was very soothing and interesting if that makes sense, and I loved knitting the pattern and seeing all the different colour combinations people came up with. Three of my colours are from Judith Glue a little tourist tat shop in town except instead of tat they largely stock things made in Orkney. The yellow, green, and light blue were each £10 and described only as "100g 100% lambswool". The blue is mystery wool from my stash, described only as "£4.00" on what looks like a charity shop tag. The bright blue was heavier than the others, but worked well enough and, I think, largely made the shawl. I'm sad to say that I don't have a great feeling that the woman I gifted the shawl to will love it in the way we hope any knitted gift will be loved, but such is the nature of life, right?

I'm using the three Orkney colours to knit a half hap in between other projects (it started as my travel project to Amsterdam but despite the four hour delay leaving, I only got about 20 sts knit the whole trip). The half-hap is so much faster to knit than the full size one that I'm ready to accuse everyone who knit one in the KAL of cheating or witch craft or something. I'm on the edging now and I've decided to knit back and forth, rather than turn it around every 8-15 stitches. It's not really fast yet, but it may get there as my left to right knitting improves. I may have enough wool left over to knit another half hap with the third colour as the centre.

Brainless by Yarnissima

These are "brainless" socks, one of my two default toe-up sock patterns, in a cotton-blend Opal sock yarn. I started them before Easter and finished them in time for Autumn. That's how long it takes me to knit a pair of socks, for a value of knitting that mostly involves knitting while following Little Djinn around the floral hall. I'm proud of myself for getting the stripes to match up, though I seem to have done the heels differently and the second way doesn't fit as well. Also, the stripes somehow got off on the second cuff. I don't care enough to redo them. I wore them yesterday when it was really hot (20C/70F) and my feet were too hot even with the cotton, so I doubt I'll bother with cotton blend wool socks again, especially as I didn't really like any of the colours, these are just the ones I disliked the least.

The good news is that, while I was knitting these, I found out that my favourite yarn dyer uses Opal's regular sock yarn as the base of one of her sock yarns so I can get the wool I like in colours I love instead of just being okay with!

Fudge by Barbara Prime

Fudge the Dog was a kit from Knit Now magazine and as soon as it arrived in late May Little Djinn insisted I knit it. I mentioned her a few months ago, but I don't think I ever posted a picture, so here she is in all her glory. The kit included the yarn and eyes and Little Djinn loves her. The current issue of Knit Now magazine has a kit for Puss in Boots by the same designer so if you think she's cute you can knit something very similar and get a very nice magazine not very much. I knit everything but Fudge's body in the round instead of flat to save seaming up, and as Puss doesn't have the spots I'll probably knit her entirely in the round.

Mithral Hat by Carol Feller

In preparation for her next pullover KAL, Carol Feller released a hat pattern using the same stitch pattern which was a bonus pattern for buying the pullover pattern in advance and can be used as a swatch for the sweater. High from the yarn fumes after finishing my Scollay, I bought the pattern and ordered the yarn (also discounted in September from Purlescence) and quickly knit it up. Then I blocked it and realized it's a disaster, so I frogged it (the knitters out there all gasped in shared pain at frogging a brushed yarn) and re-knit it on larger needles. I just cast off the second attempt today, blocked it over a balloon in front of the space heater, and took a picture. I still need to measure to get my gauge so I'll be ready when the first part of instructions (it's not really a "clue" when we know what the finished garment will look like) are released tomorrow. And, yes, Mithral is a LotR reference.

Beanies and their longer cousin slouchies don't do anything for me, but the hat has already been claimed by my little knitwear model (protip: don't hire a model who wants to do a photo-shoot whilst bouncing on the bed unless you have a much better camera than the one in my phone).

Red Rosemorran

Back in February I think it was, The Scrumptious Collection, Vol 3 by Fyberspates* came out and, as there often is, a blog-tour with give-aways at each stop happened and I was lucky enough to win a copy**. It is a really beautiful book, both physically (page layouts) and conceptually (patterns) and my only problem was deciding what to cast on. I loved the Kenwyn hat and cowel, and needed a hat to match last winter's purchase of a dark teal (they call the colour "petrol" here) coat, but I saw there is a contest on the Fyberspate's rav group where the first person to complete any of the patterns in the book with the suggested yarn would win the yarn to knit any of the other patterns in the book. I had the yarn for Rosemorran in my stash and I wanted a summer cardigan for our changeable Scottish weather so I thought, Perfect! and in March I cast on.

Are you laughing yet? I'm laughing. I thought I could cast on a cardigan in March and finish in time to wear it over the summer? Hahahaha, no. I didn't work on it at all when I was in California for three weeks, and I occasionally knit other small things like a sheep for the Highland Wool Festival competition, but it was my main project and I just finished it last week, in October. Yeah, world's slowest knitter strikes again.

I made a few modifications, most notably using Custom Fit to get a cardigan that would fit me perfectly, without having to work out my own modifications to the pattern. Lazy, yes. Worth it, oh yeah. I took the basic shape from the pattern (long sleeves, crew neck, ribbing lengths for cuffs, hem, and collar, knit the stitch pattern, knit my tension square/guage swatch, washed and blocked it, then entered the size and weight along with the number of stitches and rows I needed for the pattern repeat and using my measurements, I got a custom pattern for a custom cardi. Custom Fit even estimated how much yarn I'd need (though I've not weighed the finished jumper to see how close it was and it has buttons now).

Seven months of knitting later, and I've got my jumper! There was a little problem with the buttons, namely I had eight of them and 10 button holes and when I went back to the shop where I bought them they were (gasp) sold out, but I'd used two on a cardigan Little Djinn has outgrown and I was able to find it in the retired clothing box, cut off the buttons, and add them to my jumper.

Is it perfect? No. I should have gone down a needle size on the ribbing to tighten it up. The shoulders aren't perfect - are they too wide? are the arm holes too big? Are they perfect but the weight of the jumper is pulling them down? I'm not sure. I may sew a ribbon on the inside of the button bands to add stability, and possibly under the shoulders as well. but it's beautiful and it follows my curves perfectly. So much better than I could have done on my own, even knowing intellectually how to "do the math" to adapt a sweater.

Oh, and the contest to knit the sweater first? Someone else knit it first, of course. Winning the book and having a wonderful cardigan will just have to satisfy me.

---

*rav link because a quick google didn't turn up a page for the book itself and the listing on Fyberspates website isn't as good as the rav page.

** my winning strategy? I only entered once (I didn't want to accidentally win more than once), but I entered on a blog with a smaller following.

FO: Knotty Honeymoon Socks

Back in December I announced that my New Year's Resolutions would include learning new sock techniques. Yarn Harlot keeps pointing out that socks are a small canvas on which to practice (or show off) knitting techniques. Don't have time to commit to a fair isle sweater? Knit a pair of stranded socks! Want to play around with cables? We have sock patterns for that, too! But I specifically wanted to concentrate on the different ways of constructing socks: casting on, turning the heel, binding off. For my first socks I selected Nancy Bush's Knot Socks from Ann Budd's Sock Knitting Master Class and took them with me as my Honeymoon Knitting Project*.

The Knot Socks called for three techniques I'd not tried before: Double Start CO, Dutch or Square Heel, and Three Point Toe. I really like the Double Start CO. It creates a slightly decorative edge and the stitches cast on in pairs making it really easy to count and make sure one has the correct number of stitches before joining in the round. I absolutely love the Square Heel. The slip stitch "ribbing" extends through the short rows for turning the heel and offers a little extra padding and extra reinforcement to the heels. Cute and practical! I am less enamoured of the Three Point Toe. I knit a little long in the pattern so, rather than rip back, I increased the rate of decrease stitches and the three points come together under my toes. It's not uncomfortable, but I'm not aesthetically pleased. I'll try it again, starting the decreases when I'm supposed to, and see if I feel any more warmly toward it, but I predict in the future, should a pattern call for a Three Point Toe that I will be substituting a different one.

As for the cabled "knot" pattern, I'm not 100% satisfied. I felt like the cables were "cheating" and that a double-sided cable would have created the same effect but more in keeping with the illusion of plaiting four individual strands together. I'm sorry I can't explain it better than that. I didn't want to play around with the cables in the middle of knitting a pair of socks, but should I make these again, or knit something similar, I'll sort it out to my satisfaction.

I was also less than completely enthusiastic about the pattern being isolated on the front with the ribbing on the back of the leg. In a perfect work the knots could have been worked all the way around and then flown smoothly into the slip-stitch heel. I don't know how that would actually work with the heel, but my inner perfectionist wanted it. At the very least, I would've preferred that the extant ribbing flowed into the slip stitch heel.

These are not intended as criticisms of the designer or the pattern. I enjoyed knitting my socks and I enjoy wearing them (they're lilac btw, not the blue pictured though I like the blue more than the actual colour). I'm sorting my feelings out so that I know what I like, what does or doesn't feel "right" about a given design or construction. I prefer all-over designs; I prefer heels that flow from the pattern. I prefer a more complicated cable that follows rules I invented in my head to an easier to describe one that gives identical results. That leads me to my only deliberate modification: I mirrored the cables on the second sock to create a symmetrical pair.

~ * ~ * My husband talked me down to packing three pairs of socks to take on our honeymoon. I got through one Knot Sock and started the second. I consistently over-pack knitting projects.

FO: Summer Mystery Shawl

Summer Mystery Shawl 2011 - Wendy D.
Supreme Possum Merino 4ply - 50g/210m - 40% possum, 50% merino wool, 10% silk
60"x32" - 380m

I finished this shawl last night, washed it this morning, and it's blocking as I type. Forgive the particularly bad picture - my office is the only room I can keep the kittens out of where I can block the shawl and also the room where we're keeping all the wedding stuff - mostly in boxes stacked in corners. Then there's my desk and chair and did I mention it's the smallest room in the house?

I love this shawl. I was worried it would be too small, even though I added an extra repeat. I'd originally cast on two extra repeats (on each side of the center) but unblocked that had almost as large as this is blocked and I'd thought that too big, and then I worried it was too small, but I think this will be nice. I do think, in the future, that I will try to block shawls to be a little longer across the wingspan and a little less deep.

It's nice to have knit something I can actually use and show off. Between my wedding shawl and things I'm knitting for other people, I keep wanting to throw on something recently-knit and coming up short.