It's a collar!

This yarn is just impossible to photograph... the cables totally get lost in the little speckles of the yarn. They aren't very well visible even in real life (I wish I had picked a more solid color to display the cables better), but are even worse in pictures. So just try to see the cable, because I assure you, it really is there!

It continues around the back, and I love how it looks like a neclace when I wear it!


And maybe soon you'll get to see me wearing it, too... :)

It's a sleeve!

I finished it! Well, at least the knitting part. :)


This is the second sleeve, but obviously nothing has been sewn togethter yet. After working on all kinds of lace and color work, this stockinette on 4 mm needles was just super fast! The only reason this sweater has taken so long was that there always seemed to be something more interesting to work on. But now that the weather is getting cooler (we even got a sprinkle of snow this week!), I'm much more motivated to get it done. And hiding somewhere in my closet, there is another almost done sweater that needs a shawl collar knitted on it. Maybe (just maybe) I'll get that done next.

I'll probably have time to work on piecing this thing together later tonight, so you can expect an update maybe in a day or two. Until then, happy knitting!

One more picture of the Argyle vest, as promised, and then moving on to new knits:
I knit a size between 38 and 40 inches, but the yarn relaxed quite a bit during one day of wear, and now it's a little too big (this picture was taken in the morning, so it's still the right size.) My final gauge is quite different from the test swatch I knit (and I even washed and blocked it!), so even that doesn't always save you ... the benefit of thoroughly knowing the yarn you knit with would have been huge! Oh well... I'm going to give it kind of a rough wash, and see if I can shrink it just a hair. The yarn I used was Brown Sheep Company's Nature Spun sport weight wool, colors Victorian pink and Plumberry.

And while I'm trying to decide what to do for the Lonesome Skein KAT, I'm working on this:


That's the brown sweater with cabling, that I've been working on for just short of forever. I just cast on for the first sleeve, and it dawned on me that I could knit it in the round. What a revelation! This seems to be the project that only gets worked on when I don't have anything more interesting to do, but I'm trying to do it justice, and get it finally finished.

A brown package

hmm... what could be in it?
Could it be?? Is it she?

Even the Helper is helping! This is a big job! (Notice the book he is carrying around: "Writing Research Papers" :D -gotta start them early!)

Maybe this will give you a hint:



Oh, wow, you guessed it! It's the Argyle vest! Hooray! Finally all done, and even the shoulders fit:

Although I apologize for the subpar picture -it was taken with the timer late at night in bad light. It was a little too late to wake up the Husband to take a picture of the finished product. Somehow I don't think he would have appreciated... Maybe tomorrow, when the vest is completely dry (yes, it's still quite damp in that picture), I'll model it with a button down shirt, like I'm planning on wearing it to work, and have him take a proper picture.

Almost there

For a while today, the Argyle vest was actually done. All done, except for weaving in the ends. But that didn't last long. The shoulders were way too big, both up-down, and sideways. So big that I didn't even take pictures, it looked too goofy. The thing with this pattern is that you can't really try it on very well before it's all done. Before cutting the steeks, it looks like a sack of potatoes (nothing against the pattern, don't get me wrong, but that's just how it looks, before you cut it), and after you cut the steeks, they are too fragile that you don't really want to pull it over your head before you stabilize them. So you end up going all the way before trying it on.


Right now all the rib has been frogged, and is back into balls of yarn.

I still like the pattern, though. I think the fit issue was mainly caused by the gauge being so different, plus not all the measurements were given, so that you could confirm you're on the right track (such as the width of the shoulders). What I'm planning on doing is first taking an inch off at the shoulder seam, and then pick up the stitches for the arm hole rib closer to the center of the body to make the shoulder bands narrower. I will also use a size smaller needle for the rib, I wasn't really crazy about the looser rib with size 3.5 mm needles. These are both fairly quick and easy fixes, and even though I hate frogging, I don't mind fixing the misfit, because I really want to wear this thing!


If I were to do this pattern again, I would either use a different method for securing the steeks (this pattern uses the crochet method), or I would work the crochet line one stitch away from the center of the steek. Now it's so close to the edge that some yarn ends have actually sneaked out of the securing crochet line, and I've had to add another line of crochet in some places.

To say something positive about the pattern, because, really, I do like it, the fit is very good basically from the arm pits down. And once I have the shoulders fixed, I think it will be one of my favorite garments. And I think I need a similar vest in shades of green, with a round neck line. Hmm...

More Argyle

First, thank you all for your kind comments about the shawl! I wore it to work once already, and it really amazed me how warm a lace shawl can be, even though it only covers your shoulders.

Now it's time to work on the vest, again. I'm just past the point where you start the arm hole steeks, and there really is a lot going on on every row. Keeping track isn't very easy, especially since I can't just follow the chart because of the different gauge. I'm about 4 pattern repeats into it:
I'm really enjoying the pattern despite not being able to simply follow the chart. I'm even thinking I need more than one of these things! But of course, let's see how this one fits first... and not to forget all the other projects that are already on my "to knit" list, some of which I already have yarn for.

Here's a close up of the neck steek:

I've never actually made anything using steeks, so this is my first time. And now I'm thinking, why didn't I do this before? It's just too smart for color work not to do it this way. So fast!

Here's also the fake side seam:


My feelings about the seam are kind of neutral. I'm not sure, if I like it or not, but if I had disliked it a lot, I would just have left it out. I don't think it's something I would use in a pattern of mine -I'm fine with no seams, if it's knitted in the round. (I feel like my hand looks very naked without my wedding band, but one of the diamonds became loose, and I had to take it to the ring doctor to be fixed!)

My blog roll was long over due for an update. It now better reflects the blogs I really read on a daily or weekly basis. There are still some missing that I like, but didn't manage to save into my bookmarks an now don't remember how I got to them, but usually I end up finding the same blogs again, so I'm not too worried. They'll pop up somewhere, I'm sure.

The finish line

I pushed myself through the finish line last night, and the modified Fina Hyrnan was born. Here she is, stretching her leafy wings on the floor, feeling all pretty:


See the part with the small leaves? That's the part I added to make the scarf bigger. Now it measures 70 cm length wise, 140 cm sideways.


It was a bit of a stressful knit because of the size issue, and then I wasn't sure how the added border was going to work. And those last few looooong rows were torture... but I like the end result, it turned out ok, I think:


Specs:
Pattern: modified Fina Hyrnan from Three-cornered and Long Shawls
Needles: 3.5 mm Knitpicks circulars
Yarn: Color Your Own from Knitpicks (seems like they changed the name to "Bare")
Size: 70 cm x 140 cm

Some Argyle

Ok, so I gave in.

I started the argyle vest before finishing the scarf... slap me on my fingers!

The colors on the vest are a dark plum that almost looks brown in some light, and an old rose-ish pink. I would have preferred even more old rose and less pink, but I couldn't find anything like that in a suitable yarn, so I went with this. The colors reminded me of something -my favorite ice cream! Look:

Blue Bunny Bordaux Cherry Chocolate. Mmmm...

I know I will have to get to a certain point on the vest, before I can put it down and do the 3 (!) finishing rows on the scarf. Three. I know, I know... but mind you, they are some very long rows! At least a half hour of knitting per row. Or maybe it was more like 15 minutes... but I know that over my lunch hour, I can only get 2 rows done, so that tells you something. It's slow going, and I don't really care for that.

Talking of speed, I had to time myself one day, when I read a couple of other bloggers' posts about knitting speed. So I took a pair of needles (chrome plated, if you must know), and some worsted weight yarn (7 Veljestä, if you insist), cast on 50 stitches, located a timer and a helper, and went to town (for my Finnish friends: "started knitting".) First try, I asked my helper to time me for 1 minute. Naah... I must be faster than that. Again. Still no improvement... So I said, let's do at least 4 minutes, and we'll reduce the measurement error considerably (the science geek that I am). I'm knitting like crazy, smoke is rising from the needles... this is going to be my record! How are we doing on time? Oh, so he forgot to push the start button. I take a deep breath and we do another retake... 4 min and 40 s later, I've got 280 stitches. Exactly the same speed as the first try, so apparently there was no measurement error working against me. Sigh. The bottom line is that I can knit 1 stich per second, no more, no matter how hard I try. And for lace and fair isle -I can't even think of how much slower that is! Quite a bit, that's all I know.

Itch

I've been so close for so long to finishing this scarf! The first time I though I was close was after I was done with the center part, before realizing it was way to small, and I had to add something to it. The second time I thought I was close was after I finished the added leaf motif, and only had the border left. And then the whole time there after. And it's _still_not_done_! My goal was to finish it this weekend and post tonight with a blocking photo. Well, as you can see, not blocking yet. I actually only have two more charted rows to go (plus the reverse side rows and the crochet bind off), but each row being well over 500 stitches, I don't think I can reach my goal. Even though the kids are already in bed, and I was going to do some TV knitting with a movie rental. I couldn't possibly stay up as late as it would take me to finish.

And then there is this. Temptation with a capital T, and I'm just ITCHING to get started! It's going to be an Argyle vest, a very necessary piece of clothing in a fashion concious girl's closet, I've decided. I went to my LYS to pick up a couple of balls of green Wildfoote that they'd ordered for me, and ended up with this bagfull of yarn. They also had more temptations -Rowans new Tapestry (this might be one of my new favorite yarns), and Malabrigo (definitely one of my favorites). It was very hard to say no to these, but I actually rarely buy yarn that is not inteded for any specific project, and I just couldn't think of what to use the beautiful Tapestry for, and I didn't think I'd need a third Malabrigo scarf... so I demonstrated incredible willpower, and walked out of the store having bought only what I went there for. With the exception of the Vogue Knitting fall edition, but that doesn't count, since it's not yarn. ;)

Modifications

It's been a hectic week, and I haven't gotten a whole lot of knitting done. There's been some changes in the family structure, I should even change the text in my profile... I'm starting to lose count of all the kids, but last I checked there's five of them that live here now. Yes, five! There's benefits to getting kids by picking them up at the airport, but I tell you folks, the benefit of being pregnant for 9 months is to be able to prepare mentally for having another kid. Even a little less than 9 months might be enough. But try 28 hours. I'll just say that it's an adjustment for all parties involved.

But I've still managed to carve out a few minutes of me-time (read: knitting time) here and there, usually late at night. A few precious minutes that help me keep my head straight in this circus. ;) The Latvian mittens didn't get thumbs yet, since all I've worked on is Fina Hyrnan.

As it turns out, I had underestimated the amount of yarn I have for the scarf by, well, a LOT. And also that Fina Hyrnan was going to be VERY small. I think the instructions say 61 cm across the middle, top to bottom, but mine didn't seem to come even close, no matter how much I'd block it. And from experience, I know this yarn pulls back some after blocking, and doesn't hold the blocked dimensions very well, so it was going to be a small scarf. A tiny scarf. So I started looking for suitable lace patterns that I could insert in between the center and the border. The border is a leaf motif, so I wanted something leafy. This is what I found:It is by no means a perfect insertion -I'm struggling a little with making the increases look pretty and planned, not look like they somehow happened by accident. But the stitch count matches with the final border, so it should all work out. In the process I have gained even more appreciation than I had before towards people who design lace garments. I never thought it would be very easy, but now I know for sure! I only have a vague idea of how the transision from this border to the next will work, and I'm almost too scared to even put it on paper -what if it'll be a disaster? I do have some plans drawn out, but how exactly it will happen, I still have a few slow rows before I have to figure it out for real.

Here's a little more detailed picture of the inserted leaf border:

Like I said, I don't think it'll be perfect, but it will make the scarf more usable because it'll be a better size.