Knitting 40 shades of green

Appledore

    I am more or less a selfish knitter.  More than anything else I knit because I enjoy knitting and I knit for myself (which means that if I don't finish them, it is only me who is effected).  But when my step mother started talking about the sweater pattern she saw in the window of the local yarn store, I thought the sweater might make a nice gift.  It was this pattern book by Martin Storey.  The cover sweater.

We talked about color and she wanted it to look like the one pictured here.  I had some trouble tracking down enough yarn in the same dye lot and once I finally got it and started the sweater, I broke my arm ice skating.  This is where the project was stalled. 

I have decided that now that she has forgotten all about this sweater it would make a great Christmas or birthday gift (her birthday falls 17 days after Christmas).  So now all I have to do is dig up the needle tips which were moved to some other project and get knitting on this.  I think I should look in the box with the monkey romper which needs a few final touches before baby Bella is too big to wear it.

Stop Monkeying Around

Well, little Isabel finally made it into the world Wednesday morning shortly after midnight and I have yet to finish the monkey jumper I was making her.  Why? you might ask -- well look at this picture, do you notice anything missing?

How about now when you can compare the front with the back?

Yes, I forgot to make the decreases for the sleeves on the front.  I had this sneaky suspicion that it was an "at the same time" direction but I failed to believe that I might have to start the decreases before I was done with the monkey.  So, I finished the monkey and realized I have to pull out the last couple of inches and reknit them.  I haven't been able to face this fiasco so I have been casting on new projects just to avoid pulling out intarsia.  But now that the baby has made her entrance to the world (although somewhat reluctantly as she held out for an extra week, an induction and still they had to go with the Cesarean) I had better suck it up and stop monkeying around.

Mother, it is finished and waiting

Finally after years of waiting I have finished my mother's sweater. I brought it in the car on my way to Montpelier Fall Fiber Festival during the weekend of festivals with just the collar and the seaming left to do. I was meeting my mother there and thought I could seam it up while watching the sheep dog trials. However the weather was extremely hot and dusty and sitting around with a whole sweater on my lap was out of the question. My mother, however, wasn't aware of how close to finished I was. She pulls me over to check out the pockets in a sweater hanging in one of the booths (not wanting to ask about her sweater outright), she points out cardigans but then as soon as I mention that it is almost finished -- just a row or two on the collar and lots of seaming -- she states that it is much too hot for a sweater today and she will gladly come to get it once the weather turns colder (she is nothing if not gracious after her needling and nagging).

In past years I have given my mother flowers on my birthday since in my ego centric world it is my mother's day. This year I will present her with a sweater, just like the old sweater. Happy Mother's Day, Mom. Hopefully, she will agree to model it when she comes to pick it up (or when I drop it off). If not, I will have my photographer take some pictures so that I can do a summative post.

Almost finished with more abandoned knitting...

In an effort to finish some things up and put some order to my house, I have been rescuing abandoned knitting from various parts of the house and dedicating myself to finish things rather than start new things.  (Although while searching for matching yarn or previously knit parts I keep finding things that I want to start but then I imagine that I need the needles that are stuck in some piece of abandoned knitting.)  Well, two different people had asked about my mother's sweater in the past few months and with just the fronts between me and a finished sweater I figured I better get working on it.  The weather will soon be turning crisp and my mother will need a warm sweater for her walks out to the chicken house to gather eggs.

I have finished the five pieces and now must work on the button bands, pocket edgings and collar.  I should be able to get to the seaming by tomorrow and will easily be done before the Montpelier Sheep Dog Trials and fiber festival where I will see my mother.  Now if only I can find the buttons that my mother bought for this at MDSW year before last.

There are two things in life for which we are never truely prepared...

Not too much to speak of happening here at 40 shades.  I am plugging away on the Log Cabin Blanket and am back  on my random self imposed schedule of 1 square per week which would have me finished with 51 blocks by today (I am currently half way through 52).  But there is knitting that I should be doing and have been putting off.  My sister called with big news...

Yes, she is having twins. That is twice the baby sweater knitting. That changes everything. I started looking at patterns, cute coordinating intarsia sweaters , complicated cabled arans, sweet little frilly things. Who was I kidding? We all know that I am deadline challenged when it comes to baby knitting and these girls are due in May (does that make them geminis?) So I decided that I would make cute stripey sweaters of my own design. And because I am anti baby colors, I have chosen greens and oranges. Now to get knitting...

November 30: yet more on baby sweaters

Well, I will go with popular opinion and use the Celtic knot buttons on the yellow haiku.  I was swayed by the argument of ease of buttoning on squirmy children and maybe I will decorate a plain sweater with the whimsical buttons without function.

I was distracted from seaming the green trellis which I will get to this weekend (and then need to decide on buttons -- maybe I should purchase more Celtic knots?).  I have a baby shower in 9 days and I hadn't figured on having to knit for this baby.  I cast on for a Baby Kimono from the Mason Dixon knitting book.  I am more than half done with only a few hours of knitting although I worry if a baby wrist will fit through a cuff made from a 4" sleeve.  I am knitting with some variegated cotton that I bought on my early forays into e-bay -- I got a huge lot at a great price but it is a questionable yarn as far as my likes and sensibilities.  If this works out I may make a slew of these to use up the bounty.

I left my photo cable at work yesterday (and had training in Richmond today) so I will post a picture in the morning.

November 27: Button, button

I am not thrilled with how the sleeves are set in but I wasn't going to rip them and knit them again so I just sewed them in one last time. They are a little better, but not much. So I went to my local Hancock fabrics to find buttons, however, I seem to be the most indecisive person ever on this issue. So I will leave it up to you dear readers. Should I go with something whimsical, befitting a wee bairn, or something a bit more sophisticated.

Here are close ups of those last two. Excuse the crappy photography (I took the photos at the local Panera next to Hancock fabrics and the lighting left something to be desired) and leave your opinions on which buttons I should go with in the comments. (That means all of you lurkers, too). Is it dinosaurs, hearts and stars, Celtic knots or those metal swirls?

November 2: trellis

It snowed in Colorado and there is a little girl who is likely to get cold if I don't hurry up and finish her sweater.  You have seen the back:

And I did the two sleeves at the same time and have completed them:

I am working on the left front and hope to finish it and the maybe the right front by Monday.  Then I can set to seaming it. 

Everyone is having babies...

It is a long established fact here at 40shades that I am not overly concerned with finishing things.  A sweater can sit in plastic bags with all the pieces knit, for years before it is seamed.  Take Salt Peanuts for example, almost two years before I got around to sewing it up.  And I still haven't sewn the collar down so that it is instantly wearable.  And that is one that I actually finished -- there are others out there languishing in the stash extra bed room just waiting for some mattress stitch. 

Remember Haiku?  The baby is going on three months and all it needs is a little bit of seaming before she can wear it.

hmm, there is mention of three baby sweaters needed in that post.  This accounts for one, Haiku accounts for two, and the third?  The baby is 5 months old, she lives in Colorado, it gets cold in Colorado.  I have been knitting Trellis.  I am finished with the back and two inches on each sleeve...

Looks like I have my work cut out for me and we won't even mention all the other babies who haven't made an appearance yet.

A very simple sweater

The first thing (aside from gauge swatches) I ever knit and finished was a sweater.  Sure lots of people don't start off knitting sweaters but I have always been rather intrepid about my knitting and couldn't see any reason not to jump right in with a sweater.  It was the 80's and I heard plenty of horror stories about sweaters with 9 foot sleeves or two different lengths, etc.  But, I carefully followed the pattern and the one thing my grandmother taught me was to make a gauge swatch and use it.  So I finished a sweater late in 1989 and gave it to my mother. 

It is a simple cardigan with a rounded collar and pockets from a Brunswick (they were bought out by Paton's several years ago) pattern leaflet called Classic Keepsakes (copyright 1988).  The pattern was one that had directions for three different weights of yarn and was straight forward.  I knit it in a worsted weight wool that was tweedy and fun from a LYS in Alexandria that has long since closed and has hand made ceramic buttons.

My mother has loved this sweater and been careful not to wear it out gardening and to treat it with care but it is 17 years old.  She requested that I knit her a new sweater almost 2 years ago.  We were at the Montpelier Sheep Dog Trials and Wool Festival (which seems to have changed its name to Fall Fiber Festival) and I was looking at some yarn from Carodan Farm that I thought was well priced.  She said, "How about I buy this yarn for the sweater I want you to knit me?"  I think she even let me pick the color.  Well, I let it sit in my stash for quite some time until earlier this summer when I went to visit my sister and use her swift and ball winder, I took it with me.

Well, I have been buying patterns and making suggestions to my mother for two years and have finally come to realize, she doesn't want me to knit her another sweater.  She wants me to knit her that sweater again.  Instead of continuing to search for another acceptable pattern, I will knit her the sweater she wants -- if I want to knit something fun, I will make it for me.

I felt a little guilty that I have had this yarn for almost two years now so I started swatching.

There are three different needle sizes represented in those two swatches and none of them come close to the worsted or bulky pattern gauges.  With needles any smaller the fabric would be too stiff, any larger and it would be too floppy and loose knit.  What is a Goldilocks to do?  Yes, math.  I choose the fabric that I liked best and figured out the number of stitches I needed to cast on for the dimensions I wanted and with 9 (x3) sizes and very little shaping I was able to find a size with instructions  that matched my new calculations (saving me from having to rewrite the whole pattern).  The knitting is going rather fast.  I cast on late on September 1st and by afternoon on the 2nd I had finished the first skein of yarn.

As I am currently suffering from startitis, I will introduce you to another project tomorrow.  Don't worry I am still on track (ahead even) with the Log Cabin Blanket  I completed square 12 today.