New Schedule

 Well, big news.

TKGA decided to publish a special issue to showcase the 2020 competition entries. We had the option to submit the pattern and since I actually wrote one while I was working up the project, I sent it on. So now, I am officially a published designer. Check it out on Ravelry.

So, design brain is getting in the way of my Master Knitter project, but more on that some other time. I did finish the sleeves before the end of the year. The body is cast on, but I'm still working on the waist edging. I hope to begin the stranded work by the end of the year.

The new schedule is to finish in time for Texas Bluebonnet season 2021. That way, I can take a photo of my beautiful sweater with it's inspiration.

Hats Hats Hats

 Hats, hats, hats.

I've been designing. I blame that contest. While I did not win or place, the process seems to have triggered something and I became somewhat obsessed. The only thing to do was to drop the TKGA masters sweater and give in. 

So, here we go.....

The star stitch pattern has a lot of future designs. I've done a child's size sweater but I'm not yet happy with the neck opening. In the mean time, here is a hat done in KnitPicks Brava sport. 

I thought that even though the Brava is marked as sport weight it worked up more like DK. 

I'm calling this one the Stars Around Hat. 

Then I got into some alpaca and did a lace pattern called Smiling Diamonds. So, it is the Smiling Diamonds Hat.

It took some fiddling to get the crown to work. This hat has a little I-cord top knot, just because. 

The alpaca was ancient, but I think any soft DK weight yarn would work well. 

The picot edge is folded over, and I put an elastic headband inside. That way, the hat will stay put even if the alpaca decides to go saggy. 

Next up is the Migration Hat. It is also alpaca and also has some elastic inside. 

 

It is worked from the top down, and I really like how the crown turned out. It looks almost like a four leaf clover. 

After some futzing around I was able to load them on Ravelry so now I have a little shop there. 

Many thanks to my friend Kendall who modeled for me. She will be getting a Stars Around hat in her own personal colorway.

So much for the schedule

 Well well. 

I planned to beaver away at my beautiful TKGA certification project and complete two sleeves this month. Then that designer bug I had caught got into my head. 

I designed a hat. I may rip apart the band and redo it as the cast off I chose is way too tight. But, the chart is done and instructions are written. I need to take a better picture, but here is an OK one:

Now, I'm working on a child sized pullover with a circular yoke. I want to sprinkle the decreases so that they don't line up. I was worrying about creating an impossibly complicated set of instructions as I worked through the sizes.

Last night my brain figured out how to work out the instructions. It was a blinding flash of the obvious. Turns out that if I choose increments of 18 for the yoke stitch count I can write all the decrease rows the same, adding one new row for each size. Gauge for this design is 5.25 sts/inch so adding 12 sts to the body increases the chest width about 2" which is about one size. 

 So, when I work out the same design for adults, I'll begin with the yoke and work back from there. 

I hope to finish my current design this week at which point I will go make my second sleeve. 

First Sleeve has some ends

I just now finished the knitting for the first sleeve of my TKGA final project. That puts me pretty close to the schedule I made up last week. I do have some ends to work in. 

Earlier today I loaded, unloaded and spread 600 pounds of compost/manure on part of my front yard. I had ground cover before Hurricane Harvey. When the backhoes came to pick up all the stuff that was removed from the house - furniture, doors, drywall, bedding, you know - your whole life on the curb - they scraped up the ground cover too. Two and a half years later it had refused to grow back, so I bought some top soil and planted more Asian jasmine. While it has not died, it has not flourished and I think there is something missing from the top soil. I put that same soil in some porch planters and am having trouble getting things to grow there as well. So, I held back two sacks of manure/compost for the planters and put the rest on the jasmine. We should have some rain later this week so it can start working it's organic magic and maybe in the spring that section of the yard will have recovered. 

In any event, I'm tuckered.

Design Fever

I apparently am quite thrilled about hacking the star stitch. It does not seem like much, but sometimes it seems miraculous. In any event, I'm designing a child's size sweater and beanie now. Yesterday, I went into a frenzy, thinking I could work it up for some random publication deadline. I thought it through, and am calmer now. Maybe there will be pictures of said sweater in the future. 

Today, I resorted my priorities and went back to the TKGA masters sweater. I decided upon a schedule - work the sleeves in October, the body in November and December. January will be finishing and reviewing my written work.  

I am a few rows from finishing the first sleeve repeat and I'm pretty happy. I remeasured gauge and needed to tweak some numbers, but not so much that ripping or a major rewrite was involved. 

Then I made Chap Jae for Neighbors night out. 

Almost October

 Hmmm, haven't posted since April. Blogger looks different. Stuff happens when you don't pay attention. 

Pandemic depression. I spent a few months not doing much of anything but knitting and working Sudoku puzzles. I hope most of that is over. I'm riding my bicycle a few times a week and trying to walk the other days weather permitting. 

I was so glad that Laura and Sally landed east of us. Beta was some welcome rain, but now the bicycle path is flooded. 

Oh, and I'm working on some designs. 

Maybe I'll be posting less and focusing on designs. Maybe. 

First, is the TKGA masters certificate sweater. I just cast on. I did the swatch way back in May or June. It took a while to get it right and then for KnitPicks to restock the colors I wanted. 

Here is the swatch. Tell me it is pretty.

I also entered some gloves into the TKGA contest. I wrote the pattern so if someone wants to test knit it to check I'll send it onto the first person who asks. 

My husband took the photos. I think they are great.

 

Too Early for the Victory Lap

Ahem.

Last week I thought I was about to stick a pin into the worsted weight stash down.

Then I swatched some vintage wool and shetland wool and found it worked to 20 sts/inch which is worsted. I have the same sort of vintage yarn by other makers and they work to DK gauges nicely. I did a bit more research and learned that this particular brand plays better as worsted.

Then I found a few friends in the worsted category that also had been hiding in the DK bin.

On the bright side, this is a really great color and I tried working it with KnitPicks wool of the Andes. They play together very well. I do have my next two projects already picked out, so this will go into the queue for a few months.

In the mean time, I'll be inspecting and resorting the stash. It got moved around a bit in the past few years and the hanks need to be placed back with their friends of the same weight. I need to also look out for more of this particular brand.

Almost There

FWIW, I have been on a quest to work through my stash of worsted wool for several years. I have strayed from that quest from time to time but since 2012 it has been the focus of most of my knitting projects.

I'm getting really close to calling it done. I've been thinking about what that really means as we all know that there is always that odd little ball of wool that is too large to put away, but not large enough to do much with.

I just evaluated the remainder, and bagged two sets of coordinating oddballs for another two toddler sized sweaters - about 250 grams a bag.

This bag was in the last stash photo. A parchment/tan, red and some dark brown.












I had a good amount of blue and I thought the orange would make a nice pop for edges or something.

After that, I think I'll call it done.

This guy is finished except for buttons:

I really like the slip stitch pattern here.

What day is it?

Like many, I'm losing time with this shut down. Totally forgot to update here last week.

Last I visited this blog I was finishing a little sweater. It is done now.

I made a note to not work this pattern again. The cables are nice but the shaping is not to my liking.











I'm working on another toddler sized stash sweater. This one uses five colors in a slip stitch pattern that I am enjoying very much.






I'm also pleased with the stash reduction. Here is a picture from September:

And this is the picture today:

So, I've almost finished a toddler sweater from the leftovers of my previous project. It is a pattern that I have used before - Trellis from Knitty.

I'm not feeling the mojo to take a photo of it. Perhaps next week when it is finished.

I have succeeded in learning bead crochet. I made a few bangles as a gift for a friend who is joining the D.A.R.

Other than that, I'm trying to manage grocery shopping in the time of pandemic. I had a small curbside order pick up today and did not get the rice or lemon drink that was ordered. Seems there has been a major run on rice in my area.

Still, most of my troubles are minor and we are all well still.

Another Finish

Smaller worsted oddballs make for the smaller projects I've been working lately. I still like the big sweaters, and here is a new finish.

Of note, this project represents the last over 300 gram worsted weight yarn left in my stash. 

Another note, I was so anxious  about yarn chicken that I overbought the background color. Drat!

Next week, you may see a child-sized cardigan made from the overage.

Yikes! I've been lazy about keeping up the blog.

I made a few more baby sweaters.

This first one was a remake of a baby puzzle sweater that I did many years ago. I made some notes about the pattern and I'm happy with the improvements. It's still way too small. I increased the stitches a lot and still ended up with a newborn size. I'm wondering if I'm interested enough to continue to tweak this pattern.


This one is an oddball inspired by the northern lights. It ended up about 24" so should be a 9 month-12 month size.







I also finished the grid jacket. I think it turned out pretty well.

Neck Trek

A few years ago I went through all my projects and finished, frogged, or tossed them all. I have been mostly monogamous since then. I like finishing things.

For a few reasons, I have strayed from that habit. I currently have three adult sized sweaters on the needles and a few baby/child sized projects in mind.

Last week two sweater bodies were at the neck stage and I discovered earlier a problem with the neck from a previous sweater. Thus, last week was neck week.

The problem neck was from the Milo sweater I made a few years ago. Not only was it too tight, but there was a dropped stitch right at the base. You can see the before and after pictures below. I probably ought to reblock it and give those rib stitches a yank. They look kind of sloppy.  I'm super glad that I still had a bit of that dark blue in the stash.

The Drops project was next. Alas, I did not take a photo of it with the neck, and I don't feel like taking out the sweater and the camera again, so a neckless body will have to do for today.

I also began a sweater in a yarn called Brilla purchased from Elann in my binge-purchase days. It is a cotton/rayon mix and is decent to work with. I became obsessed with a pattern called "Mulberry Grid" from Knitters magazine that came out while I was living outside of the U.S. I was able to backward-engineer the pattern so I could try making the little jacket. Since I have a limited amount of material and no reliable way to get more I started with the body and cropped it a bit. I feel that I have enough skeins to make full-length sleeves.

I was pleased with how fast the body of this sweater worked up. Logically, it makes sense since it is mostly big holes. If anyone is looking at this blog and wants to know how I did it I will discuss it here. You would have to leave a comment.

These two green beauties should be finished up in March.

So Much Math

I made this sweet bunting many years ago. Since I'm in a baby sweater mode, I decided to make another. Well, this is not entirely because of the recent baby sweater obsession. I'm considering how to make this into an adult design.

I'm glad I reworked it according to pattern. One of the things I dislike about yoke sweaters is the need to do short-rows to work the back of the neck, or fiddle with calculations to create a nice dip in the front. When I blocked this, I realized that the zig-zag of the yoke pattern naturally creates a neck dip. I'm thinking that short rows to fill in some of the back can work very nicely.

The next part of this project will be to chart it. I'm not so good a visualization, especially when it comes to lace. The directions are seventy-something rows of line by line directions. A chart will help me a lot.

Next, I need to decide what to do with the body and arms. The first time I worked the project, I continued the lace. This lace does have bias, and I recall not being entirely pleased with the result. Perhaps a line of yo below the last repeat, then moving back to stockinette would be better. I'll have to work some swatches to figure out how that will work.

Last, what weight yarn? This one is in sport weight. The weight is very nice, but I will need to make sure the increases calculate out properly. My next stash objective is the DK stuff and I think I have enough magenta and enough red to make an adult sweater in either color.

I'm not ready to put pencil to paper and work out all those decisions right now.

In the mean time, I'll go back to my current active project. It is an openwork cardigan and looks like a mess right now. Perhaps next week I will have the body completed and will be able to block it out and see how well my gauge swatch matches what I ended up with.

Mittens!

I'm enjoying these little projects. Oddballs are getting smaller. I suppose I could have made these adult size, but I have not made mittens for a very long time. I was looking through some of my vintage pattern books and this pattern pulled me in.

I'm switching back to baby sweaters and continuing to work on the larger Drops project.

New Baby Sweater

Well, oops, I seem to have forgotten to write a post for the past two Tuesdays. I seem to have become quite skilled at distracting myself. Maybe I need to work on smaller plans as the big ones seem to intimidate me these days.

In any event, I made another baby sweater. This one is a bit larger - 22 inches. I really like tri-color slip stitch, but it is a really slow knit as each row works only half of the stitches. I use it a lot as cuffs as it is non-curling.

The row gauge is compressed compared to stockinette so I'm a bit unhappy with the sleeve shaping. I'll have to work out the rows better next time.

As I worked this one, I wanted a pop of red, so I went with some I-cord trim. I was thinking of two rows of I-cord with the button holes in between. When I put it on, I felt that would be too much so I put button holes on one side. Then the edges did not meet. So I thought about a zipper. Then I decided on a frog sort of solution, pulled back the I-cord and added button holes on the second side.

I bought buttons with shanks some chain and some jump rings and made these little connectors. I think it worked out pretty well. Sort of a baby smoking jacket look.

Happy New Year

Well, hello again.

We had a lovely holiday and did a lot of visiting. I'm very glad we made the trip even though I am not fond of traveling over the Christmas holiday.

I notice that my yarn usage was over 15,000 yards last year. I made a lot of sweaters. I'm also half way to 8,000 views. Still not too many people looking, but more than before I suppose.

There was much car knitting and I finished the knitting on the big multi-color project. Those ends took a few days to work in so the project was finished this year. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

I also got the TKGA rework finished and returned. I think I did better work, but we will see if it is good enough.

Once those were cleared, I made a little baby sweater. I'm still working oddballs and still like things to look planned rather than a bunch of ends stuck together. The idea was to go for a fade look, but I'm not sure it was really successful.

The balls seemed to all finish about a row or two apart so the stripes are more stripey than a fade should be.

I did like the stitch pattern. I will try again with another group of yarns. The button band is striped because I didn't have enough to make a single color button band. Way to use up those odd-balls!

I started a new project, but more on that next week.