(Early) Spring: Knitting Color & Knitting Progress

My newest knitting yarn is this.

Three skeins of Silken Straw by Alchemy Yarns of Transformation.  It is a 100% silk ribbon yarn in a colorway called Spider Orchid.  (I cannot really explain why -- but, to me, the variegated color is all about early spring -- like the pine trees through the window in the photo, or the shadows under the trees where there will soon be flowers -- )

I want to make a spring/summer top with it.  I am going to work hard to make it a design of my own.  Maybe you cannot tell from the photo, but it is a special yarn... (not at all inexpensive), unique in color, and well, it is a "yarn of transformation".

From the Alchemy website:
"The first touch. The initial glimpse of Alchemy Yarns of Transformation tells you we are passionate about everything we do. Pleasing the senses. Soothing the soul -- we strive for nothing less than the transformative moment in art and life." 

I hope that I can do justice to all of that.

In the meantime, I have been knitting away on my Hart (designed by Julie Hoover) and I am almost finished with the first I have a good start on the second sleeve.  (Does it really take me longer to finish editing a blog post than it does to knit a sleeve?)

The back of my Hart blocked out to an appropriate width but is a bit longer than I expected (I knit it an inch and a half shorter than the pattern). The Shibui Knits Pebble (silk, merino and cashmere) is lovely and light, so I am hoping I will like it in what will be a rather long cardigan for me.

The fronts are ready to come off the blocking board.  I used a technique I call "piggyback blocking", described in a previous blog post:  Helene Update: Piggyback Blocking.

The right front of Hart was laid over the left front.  This saves time in measuring the second front.  You only have to check measurements on the first piece.  After it dries, spread the second (symmetrical) piece on top to match the shape of the piece below and re-pin all of the edges.  I expect to block the two sleeves in a similar fashion.

This paragraph is for critical knitters only!  Please feel free to skip it if you are not a (critical) knitter.
I'll be the first to admit that my side seam edges are not very straight, but I know that they will be fine once I seam them.  The front edges have a narrow icord in which I wove a blocking wire for each piece.  I chose not use wires on the side seam edges.  (With the waist shaping, it would take three of my not very flexible wires per piece.)  I also chose not to work the selvedge stitch as in the pattern.  I did try it for the first couple inches of the back.  The slip stitch selvedge was straighter, but it also caused a looseness in the nearby stitches that would not be at all helpful when working the actual seams.   This, my friends, is truly a matter of the personal preference of the knitter.

I hope that you are enjoying your own early spring (with or without knitting)!  

The Fight Continues or (I Have to) Have a Hart

What my daughter said still remains quite accurate: "Those are fight'n words!"

The Leigh that I started earlier this year was frogged weeks ago. Simultaneously, I found myself swatching for a Hart.  (Both sweaters were designed by my newest favorite designer, Julie Hoover.)  I have become a bit obsessed with Shibui Knits Pebble [48% Recycled Silk, 36% Fine Merino, 16% Cashmere].  Knitting a Hart in Pebble will be a "mindless" long term knitting project.  Mindless knitting is comfort knitting.  I like a good balance of both mindless knitting and challenging knitting each and every day.  

In spite of my proclaimer at the very start of the new year, "I don't think I will ever use any other designer's patterns again", I just have to have a Hart.  It will be black and it will be featherweight and floaty. The type of cardigan you could wear over and over again.  I really want one.  It will work well in my wardrobe.  What more can I say.  (I have to) Have a Hart.

Let me throw in a quick knit tip:  Try remembering when swatching with black yarn... whose stitches, especially at such a fine gauge, are notoriously difficult to count... that, if the same yarn is available to you in a lighter color... use the light color yarn to swatch for the black project.  I had to learn this after a couple of not totally helpful black swatches!

  
I do not need a Leigh.  I loved the idea of a light and loose top made in the Ash colorway of Pebble.  But Leigh is probably a bit too boxy and shapeless for a short person like me.  I don't want to look like I am wearing a gray paper bag.  I will be thinking of an original summer top to make with the ash colored yarn... it will be a design of my own making.  Which will not be mindless knitting, at all.

♥♥♥

Oops, I Did It Again

Yesterday, I cast-on for a new sweater just for me.

I was NOT supposed to do that.

I have more than enough knitting for now with a magazine project on the needles that is due in early February. I have a couple of sweaters (I wish to blog about) that need finishing. Some pattern writing and formatting are weighing on me as well.

Casting-on for a new sweater was an easy trap for me to fall into...

First I saw this blog post by Sally Rainey in praise of both the pattern and the yarn. The pattern was designed by Julie Hoover (my newest favorite designer). After I read the post, I bought Julie's Leigh pattern and her Hart pattern as well. (Check them out if you have a minute. Just. Beautiful.)

And the yarn! Sally used the same yarn Julie wrote the pattern for, and it is one that I enjoyed swatching with at a "Shibui Yarn Tasting Party" at Gosh Yarn It! last year. Shibui Pebble [48% recycled silk, 36% merino and %16 cashmere] is a marvelously tweedy, light as air, lace-weight yarn that is held double when knitting Leigh. I bought eight skeins of it in the 'ash' coloway during the Gosh Yarn It! year-end sale (the day after I bought the patterns).

I had the yarn. I had the pattern. Yesterday, I swatched and cast-on for Leigh, and I knit a good inch or two.

I was NOT supposed to do that.

At some point during one of my daughter's visits over the holidays, we were in a car together and talking about knitting. (I can't remember why we were in the car, or why we were talking about knitting.) I said to my daughter, "I think I have reached a point where all of my future knitting will be my own designs... even sweaters. I don't think I will ever use any other designer's patterns again." 

In Julie Hoover's recent blog post she says she was obsessed with Pebble in 2014 when she wrote several patterns for it. She says she is still obsessed, and she was about to cast-on for a Cohle (also beautiful) as part of a KAL she is hosting. She referred to the project as her "pleasure knitting". Note: It is something she will enjoy knitting, but it is her own pattern.

Sadly for me, I must stop and think about NOT making this Leigh. I would enjoy the experience of knitting one of Julie's designs, but as a designer myself, I know that I really could make a sweater of my own design using the Pebble.

I keep thinking about what my daughter said to me in that car after I said what I said. She said, "Those are fight'n words!"

I guess I will be frogging that little bit of Leigh. It has been a fight for me to decide that.

And I thought that she was just joking!
 

On the Needles

Linen.  Linen.  Linen.  I do love to knit with linen this time of the year.

An earlier detail photo of my current linen project... a project that I have become quite obsessed with finishing...

 This is where I was about a week ago...

   Project page (Ravelry):  ckknit's Die Cut Vest
            Pattern:  Die Cut Vest
        Designer:  Sara Morris
    Yarn:  Shibui Linen, four 50g skeins in "ash"

A week ago, I was in a perfect place:  The second half of my vest was started and the first half not quite done.  I had lace knitting to work on whenever I wanted (knitting lace is fun), and plain stockinette for the times when mindless knitting was better for whatever reason.

But now, with the first half completed, all that is left is about 5" of straight stockinette.  At about 10 rows to the inch (well, if I actually can take the boredom of it all) I could finish the knitting in about a week.  And I think that I might.  I would love to see this piece completed.  Blocked and finished and ready to wear.  (Do you realize that this being a knitted piece, and with an odd kind of non-shaped front neckline, I may actually find that I do not like wearing the thing at all?  I always say, you have to have a certain amount of faith when you knit.  This project requires all the faith that I can muster.  I am determined.)

So, this is me now, "On the Needles".

The Scrunched and The Scrunchable

I am writing to introduce two of my current WIP's.  I have nicknamed them the scrunched and the scrunchable.

scrunch - verb

1. To crush or crunch.

2. To crumple or squeeze; hunch.

scrunched - past tense of scrunch

The scrunched is my latest top down sweater project made with Ysolda Teague's pattern "Lauriel" from her book LITTLE RED IN THE CITY.

To keep it simple, my Ravelry name for this project will be "Lauriel". 

As an aside (that is not really an aside), I am still not convinced that top-down seamless sweaters are best.  I did buy a 32" long circular needle to replace the 24" long one in the photo, but everything (knit at the correct gauge with a yarn that has a 'springiness' to it) is still unpleasantly scrunched and tight.

My own thoughts are that an hour's worth of seaming can be well worth it, if it makes all of the knitting straightforward and pleasurable.  Am I alone on this?

scrunchable - capable of or suitable for scrunch(ing)

The scrunchable really is that -- a scrunchable scarf made with yarn containing stainless steel.  The yarn is from Habu Textiles, the pattern, "Hakusa Scarf"  designed by Kristin Johnstone. 

To keep it simple, my Ravelry name for this project will be "Hakusa".