There were high hopes for a productive Easter break, with lots to blog about. In reality, I came down with a bad cold on Thursday, and have only been able to potter around in dribs and drabs for the last two and a bit days. The cold’s impeccable timing is a little frustrating, but what can you do?

Despite the reduced productivity, I managed to finish Somerset yesterday.

Somerset Cardigan by Melissa Wehrle
Around 6 balls of Cleckheaton Angora Supreme
3.25mm and 3.5mm needles
Started: December 2009
Finished: April 2010
Modifications: Smaller needles, added length to the body and an extra buttonhole, made the collar narrower
Ravelryed: here

Although a few modifications were made (which were largely to do with gauge) it’s a nice straightforward knit. The end product is maybe a little big around the shoulders, but it’s still quite wearable. I might need to work on smoothing out the collar edge a bit more, but it’s looking a lot better now than it did when it was first finished:

The yarn created a very soft and warm fabric and I think it worked well with the pattern. It did tend to break if I was a bit rough with it though, and being an angora blend, it sheds like no one’s business. It was particularly nice to find a use for the yarn as I purchased it over five years ago. I originally intended to use it for a pattern that called for 4 ply angora yarn. As Angora Supreme is around 10 ply, the initial swatches required 2mm needles in order to get even close to the required gauge. My sanity and fingers are very glad that project didn’t get past swatching.

The real star in this project is the buttons. Without venturing too far down hyperbole lane, I think these buttons are truly things of beauty and match the cardigan really well. They were purchased from Buttonmania, a button wonderland in Melbourne CBD. The buttons were purchased by the owner of Buttonmania in a collection of 33,000 (yep, thousand) buttons. She showed a lot more restraint than I in that situation; I’d be sorely temped to dig a pit, empty the buttons into it, and dive in, Scrooge McDuck style.

On an unrelated note, it was a relief to read that I’m not the only one that dislikes ribbing. I felt a bit guilty being so negative in my last post; it’s not reasonable to think that I’d like absolutely every aspect of knitting, but I still felt bad whinging about something I do for enjoyment.

There aren’t too many major things to report from round here, so here’s a highlights reel of the minor things I did today.

Baking

Bara Brith via Taste
Mods: omitted the mixed peel, increased the sultanas to a heaped cup, used cinnamon, cardamon and nutmeg rather than mixed spice, used Nuttelex rather than butter (didn’t have butter on hand and was impatient to make the bread), and halved the amount of honey glaze.

The bread looks great (even if I do say so myself) and tastes just as good. Next time I’ll use even less honey on top of the loaf as it’s quite sticky.

In making this bread, it became clear that that bread making and knitting are complementary activities. The long proving and baking times allowed me to get quite a bit of knitting done. Admittedly, I could have been washing dishes as I went, but knitting beats doing the dishes every time.

Sewing

Pincushion (PDF) by Fiona Lech

My goal of properly learning how to sew this year began in earnest today, finishing a project started at Brown Owls last year. It turned out a bit wonky, both in terms of sewing the two circles of fabric together and spacing the red threads to form the pin cushion segments.

Despite its homely appearance, it’s still completely usable and the buttons used on either side match nicely. This project sits firmly in the ‘should have gotten round to this ages ago’ camp, so I’m really happy it’s finished. Now, to find some suitably pretty pins to go with it!

Knitting

Somerset by Melissa Werhle

Not so much knitting, but blocking. This project was started in December and is now nearly finished, but hasn’t been mentioned on here until now. It’s not a project that is meant to be kept secret, nor am I unhappy with it (far from it actually), I just haven’t gotten round to posting anything about it until now.

The yarn I’m using is Cleckheaton Angora Supreme, a yarn discontinued around five years ago. While it’s a lovely warm, soft yarn, it likes to spread the angora love around a bit. Even while pinning it out, quite a few whisps of angora stuck to the mat. Black clothes should be avoided when wearing this, I think.

So there is my scatty, yet productive, Sunday. It felt like I was hopping from project to project with rapid pace throughout the day, but the products of my stop-start labour are quite pleasing. If only all weekends could be so fruitful!

Not sure what exactly it was about my green cardi, but whenever I did anything with it, it seemed to suck the common sense right out of me.

First it was not getting the fronts even, then it was forgetting that I could take passable flash photos using the external flash bought from a recent school fete for the princely sum of five dollars.

So, the Tyrolean, or Duffer, Cardigan is now finished.

Tyrolean Cardigan from Vintage Knits by Sarah Dallas
4.25 balls of Panda Pure Wool, dark green
3.25 and 4.00 mm needles
Start: August 2008
Finish: June 2009
Ravelryed here

Overall, I’m quite happy with it. The bobbles look good, it’s warm (very important now it’s getting proper cold here), and the buttons match well. I suspect that I may have mentioned it in a previous post, but the yarn and buttons were stash, and I already had the book. That in itself pleases me as much as the finished product!

The only modification made to the pattern was to lengthen it slightly to accommodate my longish body. The cardigan body is a perhaps a bit boxy for my body, but that’s easily solved by only using the buttons around the waist. If I were to do it over again, waist shaping a la the non-cropped, non-tryst vest might be a better option for me. That said, I’m sure this is something I’ll be wearing a lot.

The four days off at Easter makes this place a hive of productivity. It’s not stressful like the Christmas holidays are and the weather is much more conducive to productive work. This Easter, I was determined to finish off all the major knitting for my Tyrolean Cardigan. Good Friday I sat down and knit and knit and knit and knit and faffed on Ravelry and then knit some more. Finally, yesterday afternoon, the second sleeve was cast off, folded it up and put it with the pile of Tyrolean Cardigan parts ready for blocking. At this point, I was feeling rather chuffed that I had finished something within the completely non-binding non-verballised timeframe.

Then I blocked it and marvelled at how nicely the stitches had settled the pieces were pinned out. It was then that something seemed amiss with the front pieces. No amount of pushing and pulling would make them look like mirror images of one another. Turns out one is 5 rows shorter than the other.

Normally I’d try to fudge it and hope that it’d look alright once it was seamed up, but it doesn’t seem possible in this instance because the bobbles draw too much attention to the discrepancy. Luckily my dufferism only occurred at the cast off and decreases for the neckline, so it shouldn’t take too long to fix. To be honest, I’m not sure how I managed to muck it up like that, but by golly it’s a good lesson in carefully checking over measurements before gleefully casting off and loudly proclaiming ‘Finished!’.

While knitting on the bus earlier this week, I noticed I was knitting with olive green yarn, while wearing an olive green coat and an olive green bag in my lap. Then I realised that my wallet is olive green, the last jumper I finished was olive green, two neglected projects in my cupboard are olive green, and I still have some olive green yarn stashed away. Even the first lot of yarn I bought after I started knitting again was olive green.

I really do like olive green, but making that mental list made my head spin. Once this current project is finished I will not be knitting with or purchasing any olive green yarn for a bit. It’s only fair for the other colours in the spectrum. I hope that I’m not the only one with a subconscious obsession for a colour.

So yes, the current project. The Tyrolean cardigan from Sarah Dallas’ Vintage Knits. This was an opportunistic project as I had the needles, yarn that knit to gauge, a number of options for buttons and the book, so it really didn’t require any effort on my behalf at all.

Despite my apparent love for all things olive green, I didn’t really want to be olive green. I was inspired to give this pattern a shot, after seeing this version on Ravelry, but wanted to do it in some manner of grey. Having said all that, I’m fairly satisfied with the colour so far.

Progress has been fairly steady, with the back finished and the left front almost done as well. The body is a couple of centimetres longer to accommodate for my slightly longer torso, and I think I’ll give the embroidery a miss.

I really don’t have much to say about Liesl, except that I’m delighted with her, and a little disappointed it’s too cold to wear her out at the moment.

Vital stats:

Liesl
around about 6.5 balls of Alps Merino Washable, 482 (brown)
7mm 100cm circular Addis.
Start: June 2008
Finish: July 2008

I liked that the pattern has scope for modifications based on how long you wanted the sleeves and body, and how high you wanted the neck. I really enjoyed being able to choose my own adventure.

An added bonus was the fact that I only had to buy the pattern, and the thread to sew the button on. Not exactly sure why I bought this yarn originally, I suspect it was an episode of dilated pupil ‘I must have this yarn because it’s so cheap’ that I seem to suffer from every now and again. It had been marinating in my stash for around 2 years, I had no idea what I was going to use it for.

The button was from a jar of buttons I bought at a garage sale ages ago. I never noticed it before, it was only when I was going through my button collection to see it anything suited that it leapt out at me.

Liesl was my first experience with a top down jumper, and I think I’m hooked. Being able to try it on while you’re knitting is possibly the best thing ever.

Even though minute by minute the days are getting longer, the winter doldrums have finally hit. It’s started to get properly cold now, the type of cold that gets into your bones.

It’s also the kind of weather that makes it hard to take photos outside. The sun is weak, and in the blink of an eye, it goes from decent light to pitch black.

I have been fairly productive on the knitting front though. The diagonal lace scarf is all finished up.

Vital stats:
Diagonal Lace Scarf
About 150g of Bendigo Woollen Mills Rustic in 12 ply, Sunflower (not listed on their website – bought from their bargain room)
6mm 100cm circular Addis.
Start: June 2008
Finish: June 2008

This was a very very quick knit for my standards, pretty much all done on the bus. the pattern was modified slightly by casting on 19 instead of 24 stitches, for a slightly narrower scarf.

As soon as the scarf was pinned out blocking, I cast on another bus knit – Liesl by Ysolda.

I got a good start on it last weekend, while watching my dad race his car at a track not far from me, and am now past the armholes (despite what the photo indicates). I really can’t wait to finish this project – just so I can wear it!