Cornsilk Pullover by Amy Herzog
5ply yarn from the Bendigo Woollen Mills bargain room, avocado
3.75mm needles
Modifications: Combined two sizes, lengthened the arms

Start: July 2011
Finish: November 2011
Ravelled: here

Besides blocking, it’s finished and I’m very happy with it! Look at the back, it fits like a glove!

I actually finished it on Monday night. The seaming took a lot less time than expected, which I can only put down to my cheer squad (thanks DrK!). The sleeves are a bit bumpy in places but I think it’ll be fine once I’ve given it a wash.

This is the first Amy Herzog pattern I’ve knit, and I’m impressed. The pattern was pretty clear, and the result is pretty pleasing. To fit with my body shape, I combined the bottom half of the 38 inch size and the top half of the 36 inch size. To make them fit together I rejigged the waist decreases a little bit, and seemed to work quite well.

This jumper was more or less knit in tandem with my sister’s Manu. Working with this yarn was like working with jute in comparison to the Pear Tree I made Manu from. However, it didn’t seem too bad once I’d finished with the Pear Tree and was working almost solely on this jumper. There seem to be a lot of guard hairs in this yarn which are probably the source of its jute-like texture. While I’m happy enough with the fabric, I’m not sure I’d buy this yarn again if the opportunity arose (unlikely, as it was purchased a long time ago from the Bendigo Woollen Mills bargain room). It just happened to be in my stash, it was the right gauge and there was a jumper’s worth.

Using slightly dodgy yarn for the sake of using it up probably isn’t the best approach to knitting with stash. However, I tend to be a bit of a bad weather friend to my yarn, sticking with it until I’ve found a use for it. That’s not to say I don’t destash, but the process of letting my yarn go can be a bit more difficult than it should be.

The yarn was originally purchased to be used for my colour work vest. I evidently wasn’t very good at judging how much yarn I needed, because there was enough left over from the vest to make this jumper and there is still a fair bit left. It was also purchased during a brown and green phase, which has now morphed into a brown, grey, blue and red phase. I contemplated overdyeing it after finishing, but I’ve thought of two skirts and one dress I can wear it with, so light green it shall stay for the time being.

Almost as exciting as actually finishing something is the fact that it was cool enough today for me to wear it to work. To be honest, it could have been in the high 30s like it has been in other parts of the country of late and I would have still worn it. I wasn’t going to let a little thing like heatstroke get me down.

My Cornsilk Pullover is now being seamed up. The back and front pieces are now as one, the collar has been knit, the sleeve caps set and one sleeve seamed. The Bureau of Meteorology predicts that the temperature will reach a maximum of 19 degrees in Melbourne on Wednesday, which could be my last opportunity to wear a jumper this year. The question is, will I, or can I, finish it in time?

There are a couple of things working against me; having to go to work, and knitted pieces pinned together with sewing pins not being particularly conducive to taking onto public transport. Probably the biggest threat to getting this jumper finished in time is my almost compulsive tendency to try the jumper on after every stage of seaming. One shoulder cap set, try it on. Another couple of rows of sleeve seamed, try it on again. A lot could happen, fit-wise, in a few rows.

On the other hand, it’s only two side seams, a sleeve seam and the collar seams to go. I blocked the pieces before seaming so if I was really pushing it, I could wear it in public before giving it all a wash/wet block. Maybe.

See you on Wednesday with either a tale of triumph (featuring a finished object), or a tale about the one that got away.

Manu by Kate Davies
Around 700g Pear Tree 8 ply, grey
3.5mm, 3.75mm and 4.5mm needles
Modifications: Lengthened the sleeves and the body, mirrored the pleats

Start: July 2011
Finish (sort of): September 2011
Ravelled: here

It’s been over a month since finishing it, but I gave it to my little sister only recently. When she unwrapped her cardi she cheekily exclaimed ‘about time!’, as she’s been asking (in the form of whinging) for a jumper or cardigan from me for a while. As soon as it was unwrapped, she put it straight on and seemed pretty happy with it. Lucky for her.

The best part of this pattern is the little details; the icord cast on and bind off, the pleats and the sweet icord buttonholes give the cardigan polish. It’s those details that made the acres of stockinette stitch worth it.

There were only three minor modifications that I made to the pattern. The first two were to lengthen the body and sleeves, based on the measurements on a cardigan my sister often wears. The other modification was to mirror half of the pleats, which I did after seeing a few versions on Ravelry with that modification. The cardigan just seems to look more balanced in comparison with the having all the pleats facing the same way. It was lucky that the size I made had an even number of pleats, because I’m not sure how I would have dealt with mirroring an odd number of pleats.

After the little yarn hiccup at the start of the project, it was a joy to work with. Lovely and soft, a few lighter nubs for variation and the fabric had a lovely halo. It looks like I might be able to make something small for myself with the leftovers, but that does little to deal with the nagging feeling that I’ll never be able to get that yarn for such a good deal again.

Even though I’m calling it finished it’s not really. When I gave it to my sister, I mentioned that she could have pockets on it if she wanted. Her response was ‘I like pockets’ which more or less translates to ‘I would really like it if you added pockets to this cardigan, dear sister’. Pockets she will have, but only after I manage to get the cardigan from her. I predict it will be officially finished in July 2023.

This post could have gone up hours after the last one, but I’ve had a dose of the denials which has meant I’ve waited a week to publicly say it: I don’t have enough yarn to finish the Woodland Capelet.

The main section is finished, and all that’s needed is for the top darts to be sewn up and the ties to be knit. However, the ties are made up of around eight rows of stitches. Each row is 208 stitches long, and I have this much yarn left:

My Frankenstein Lego Man kindly offered to step in for scale, and also provides a fairly accurate representation of my furrowed brow when I had to face facts; no amount of happy thoughts are going to get me there. I’m not quite ready to give up on this project yet though, so if you have some unwanted Bendigo Woollen Mills Allegro in Scarlet floating around in your stash that you would like to sell, I would love to hear from you. I think I need about 20 to 30 grams of yarn and I’m not fussed about the dyelot at this point. Besides financial compensation, I can guarantee that you’ll be a contender for my favourite person for the second quarter of the 2011-12 financial year.

Now that my attempts to knit a quick project have been thwarted by my picky taste and/or my stubborn resolve to use up that Allegro even if it’s the last thing I do, I have turned back to the bigger projects I originally shunned. The funny thing is, I feel like they’re flying off the needles when before progress felt so slow I could have been frogging instead of knitting. ‘Tis just another reminder that pretty much everything is relative.

I’m not sure how well I conveyed it in my last blog post, but I was really looking forward to making a Thousand Splendid Suns cowl. Really really looking forward to it. As soon as the secret squirrel project was finished, the swatching started. Sadly, something just didn’t feel right as I knit with the Jitterbug.

Then I swatched with the Madeline Tosh sock, and I got the same feeling. It just wasn’t quite right. Now that I look at the photos of the swatches, I think the ‘suns’ don’t translate that well to thinner yarn, they just look a bit measly. In theory either yarn could work well if they were double stranded (not together though, that probably wouldn’t look too good), but I doubt I have enough to make a cowl from a double strand. It’s a little disappointing that it hasn’t worked out, but it’s better not to force these things I feel.

Putting the cowl on hiatus meant in theory, I could start working on the other pattern mentioned last time, the Man scarf. Instead, I got distracted by the Woodland Capelet and its pretty scalloped edge.

I’m running the stash gauntlet again with this one, using the Bendigo Woollen Mills Allegro that was meant to be for my knee high Kalajokis. There wasn’t enough yarn then, and I’m not convinced there will be enough yarn this time either. If there is enough yarn, it’ll be a very very tight squeeze. What can I say, I like to live life on the (pretty scalloped) edge.

The problem with working on a secret squirrel project is that when there’s a chance the recipient of the finished object might read your blog, you can’t write about it. This project has been one that pretty much monopolised my knitting time for the last couple of months, so there hasn’t been much for me to write about (with the notable exception of my report on the magic of de-pillers).

Now that I’m almost finished, I’m in a strange state. One of feeling relieved that it’s nearly done, yet not knowing what to do with myself once it’s officially a finished object. I suspect there will be a little bit of separation anxiety when it is no longer in my possession.

To try and ease myself into a life without it (it feels odd calling it ‘it’, but I can only really talk about ‘it’ in vague terms still), I have been thinking about the next project. The only condition I’ve placed on this next project is that is must be a relatively quick one.

There are currently two patterns that are contenders to be the next project; A Thousand Splendid Suns and Man. Both being neckwear, they should be pretty quick to knit. Man was mentioned a couple of posts ago as a pattern I could use the Bison + Bamboo yarn I acquired at the Bendigo Sheep and Wool Show. I still think the yarn and pattern are a good match, and it would also be the first thing I’ve knit for Matt this year. However, there’s just something lovely about the A Thousand Splendid Suns. The only thing that is stopping me from awarding A Thousand Splendid Suns the prize of being my next knit is deciding which yarn to use. At the moment there are three yarns under consideration:

Collinette Jitterbug in Vincent’s Apron. This was meant to be a Leda scarf, but decided I didn’t need another yellow scarf. Since deciding that, I made a yellow Gaptastic Cowl so evidently I wasn’t that committed to my yellow neckwear quota.

Madeline Tosh Sock in Twig. Originally intended to be a Shaelyn shawl, the colourway was a bit too variegated for the pattern. The cowl is a bit plainer so I think it could work well.

The (dearly departed) Knittery Merino 4ply Sock in Chocolate. It’s currently a lace ribbon scarf that never gets used. I don’t dislike the scarf, but it’s not one I think of grabbing when deciding neckwear is needed. It’s too pretty a colourway not to be used, so I’m considering frogging the scarf and turning it into something I’ll wear more often.

Whichever yarn is chosen, some modifications to the pattern will be needed as all of the yarns are 4ply and an 8ply yarn is called for in the pattern. That shouldn’t be too much of a problem though, as long as I can fit the cowl over my head.

Knitting, or dreaming about knitting items that are reserved for colder weather probably seems a little silly given it’s starting to get quite Spring-like. However, I live in Melbourne, which means I need to be prepared for any weather eventuality. Like that time I went to the cricket and got sunburnt and hailed on all in the same day…

This is possibly the most boring post you are ever likely to read. It’s also possibly a slightly disturbing insight into the workings of my mind. Don’t say you haven’t been warned!

Acquiring a new appliance or gadget always comes with a mildly obsessive testing phase in this household. Earlier this year we bought a new iron and for the first few weeks, I ironed shirts and trousers and skirts and handkerchiefs as soon as they were dry. Ironing clothes is a fairly common chore so this probably doesn’t seem that extraordinary. However, we have a policy of minimal ironing so it was quite a strange phenomenon for this household. The iron still gets used relatively often, but not with quite the same amount of joy or frequency as when it was in its testing phase.

Recently I determined that some of my knits were looking a bit fluffy and/or pilled and the de-pilling comb I was using wasn’t really suitable for hand knits. After a bit more research than was probably necessary, an electric fabric shaver was purchased. It’s probably a bit more than I was expecting to pay, but I read a lot of good things about it on Ravelry, which had to count for something, right?

Today it arrived, and before you could say ‘please stop writing about de-pilling knits Emma, it’s disturbing’, I had taken the vest I was wearing off and was removing woolly fluff like it was my last opportunity to do so, ever.

For those wanting relief from the ins and outs of my pilling solutions journey, my first victim was my Grandfather Vest. This vest really deserves its own ‘where are they now‘ post, because it’s probably one of my most frequently worn knits. My initial misgivings about the fabric appearing uneven were soon forgotten. In fact, the only real issue I’ve had with it is that it looks a bit fluffy and daggy with all the wear it has had. This is what it looked like before I took to it with the fabric shaver:

And after:

The difference between the two photos probably isn’t that great, but I can assure you that it took off a *lot* of fluff. The vest probably doesn’t look completely brand new, but it’s looking a lot less daggy. Decidedly undaggy, even.

Now I’m assembling a mental list of all the items of clothing Matt and I have that need de-pilling. All in the name of testing.

Since the last post, I’ve been bouncing back and forth between two knitting projects. One is the project I unceremoniously dumped the Turn-A-Square hat for and the other is a secret squirrel project that I can only speak vaguely about.

The day after my last post, Knitscene’s Fall 2011 edition was released. I remember back in the day when I used to stake out the local Newsagent or a now-defunct chain bookstore and wait weeks, or even months, for imported knitting magazines to be stocked. Now I just download the magazine from Zinio on the day that it’s available in its country of origin. Such an age of convenience we live in (a statement I’ll no doubt laugh at in 5 years time).

If you’re a fan of Amy Herzog’s designs and/or her fit to flatter series, I recommend having a look at this edition of Knitscene. She’s the subject of a designer’s profile, and there are quite a few of her designs featured. Two that piqued my interest were the Cornsilk Pullover and the Pinstripe Pullover. I had suitable yarn in stash for the Cornsilk Pullover, so that was that.

Since taking this fairly insipid photo, I’ve finished that piece (the back) and have started on the front. I’m really looking forward to wearing it, but as it’s mostly stocking stitch, it’s not a really an interesting project from a blogging perspective.

The secret squirrel project was started after the Bendigo Sheep and Wool show and uses yarn purchased at the show.

I’ve never had the pleasure of knitting with Pear Tree Yarn, but it was very difficult to resist when they were selling it for a song in Bendigo. After a little bit of to-ing and fro-ing over colours, I picked up a kilo of grey Pear Tree 8ply specifically for this project. It’s really lovely yarn to knit with, but I have had a couple of hiccups with it.

The first, and most dramatic hiccup was discovering that the first skein of yarn I used was a slightly lighter weight than the rest of pack — where the yarn in the other skeins were made up of four plies of yarn, this one was made up of three. The difference in gauge meant that I had to rip back all of my work and start again. The other hiccup I’ve had is finding lots of knots in one skein, the kind where only one ply of yarn is knotted together. I’ll admit I did get a bit frustrated by both hiccups, but I’ve tried hard to keep it in perspective in the following ways:

The Pear Tree wasn’t the only yarn that I acquired at the show. On the Friday of the Show, there was a gathering of knitters, spinners and crocheters from Ravelry. The lucky door prize Gods must have been smiling upon me that night, for I managed to win some yarn:

It’s Bison Bamboo from Ixchel Yarns and it’s unbelievably soft. The yardage on it is really impressive (around 160m per 50g), but I bought another skein to give myself a bit more freedom when picking a pattern. Initially the plan was to make a cowl, but there might now be enough to squeak out a scarf for Matt, to make up for the Turn-A-Square indiscretion. So far the frontrunner is the appropriately named Man scarf from fallmasche (rav link). I’m not completely convinced that it’s the pattern for this yarn, but as I’m not likely to cast on anytime soon, I don’t have to decide just yet.

Kalajoki Socks by Tiina Seppälä (rav link)
4.5 balls Patons Patonyle 8ply, red
3.25mm DPNs
Start: June 2011
Finish: July 2011
Modifications: see below
Ravelryed: here

It may not seem like it, given how close this post is to the start of the Sheep and Wool Show, but I finished my Kalajokis with plenty of time to spare. Sadly the weather gods have not been smiling upon me lately, so I’ve had to wait for half-way suitable photo weather, before writing this post.

The biggest modification made to the pattern was to make the socks knee-length rather than calf-length. If you’re interested in making knee length ones yourself, these are the modifications I made:

• Cast on 74 stitches rather than the 54 given in the pattern.
• Knit 14 rows of twisted rib for the cuff, rather than 10 rows given in the pattern.
• Starting with the first row after the ribbing, I decreased 2 stitches every 5 rows 10 times (54 stitches remaining).
• Knit around about 2.5 repeats of the river ribbing for the leg, rather than the 1.5 repeats (give or take) given in the pattern.

The calf shaping is pretty crude, particularly when compared with the shaping used in the Delicious Knee Sock pattern. That said, the socks seem to stay up and it looks fine, which is all that matters really.

It was a really enjoyable pattern to knit; not something that I could work on without concentrating on it a little, but still simple enough to take along to a Stitch n Bitch. The rib snaking down the side of the socks is really striking and reminds me of ric rac a little bit. Not sure if anyone else sees that though…

The Patonyle 8ply I used makes for a lovely soft and warm fabric. Sadly, it also made for a sock that is too thick to fit in my everyday boots which is a bit of an issue. However, I do have a backup plan so I should still be able to wear them this weekend.

In my excitement about getting the socks finished in time for Bendigo, I completely forgot to think about the knitting that I should take with me and don’t have anything suitable on the needles. Such a rookie mistake! The current frontrunner is a Turn A Square for Matt using leftovers from my stripy knee high socks (he’s brought me enough cups of tea to warrant a beanie), but I cannot rule out a last minute change to the lineup…

It’s been just over two weeks since starting the knee high Kalajokis, and there are about two and a half weeks to go until the Bendigo Sheep and Wool Show. I imagine there have probably been some sleepless nights as people worry about the status of my socks. Fear no more, for here is an update!

Last week I finished the right sock. The speed with which the first sock was finished caught me completely by surprise, particularly given I’m having so much trouble remembering the ‘river’ ribbing. My inability to remember the pattern is another surprise; with the number of times I have knit and reknit the socks with Bendigo Woollen Mills Allegro, you’d think I’d be able to knit these socks in my sleep…

The Patonyle 8ply I’m using is lovely and soft, but I probably prefer Allegro for this pattern. Allegro’s tight crepe construction just feels sturdier, and the ribbed ‘river’ pops out a bit more. That said, I’m really happy with how the socks are turning out in Patonyle; they’re thick (perhaps even too thick for my boots) and warm, and it’s a really great red.

Progress on the second sock feels slow, but that’s probably because my mind is wandering to the next project. As fun as socks have been, it’s time I made myself a jumper. Or a cardigan. Or a different cardigan. Or a summer top…