Next Up

I've been having an unusually difficult time choosing a pattern for my next project. I am in a woolly sort of mood these days, probably because the weather is (finally!) consistently in the 50's and 60's, which is as close to winter as we get around here. I have an urge to knit a zippered aran cardigan from some brown fishermen's wool I have in the stash. One would think, of all the thousands of aran sweater patterns, it should be easy to pick one that suits and just get on with it. Not so. After a truly absurd amount of time perusing the options on Ravelry, in my various books, and in every back issue of every knitting magazine I own, I finally found a winner (Ravelry link). Ironically enough, it was already in my queue, which is, of course, the last place I looked. Alas, it is not available for download or individual purchase, and is from a four year old magazine. But, oh, I love the internet! A copy should even now be winging its way toward me--I hope.

In the meantime, I am unwilling to cast on anything else, since I know I will want to start the aran as soon as I have the pattern in hand (yes, I really do try to keep to one primary project at a time). I have been keeping busy instead by modifying some of my FO's to better suit. As I've mentioned before, I've come to realize I like my sweaters a bit longer than I usually make them. So I've been altering some of my favorites. This one, for example:

This is my Not-So-Sahara, knitted from lovely Cascade Eco Wool. I wear it almost constantly. But the wool is springy rather than stretchy, and I find it tends to shrink up as I wear it after blocking, causing me to tug at the bottom and cuffs. So I picked out the bound off edges (just one more advantage to top-down knits) and lengthened them about two inches. Now it looks like this:

I'm much happier with it now.

I also fixed one of my husband's sweaters, which I knitted about three years ago (the yarn is discontinued Cervinia Londra--wool and acrylic; the design is my own).

That's Bertha modeling it. She's smaller than my husband, so it's a little drapey.

This one was done in pieces, bottom up, and sewn together. So it wasn't until the whole thing was done that I realized the sleeves were long enough for an orangutan. He's worn them rolled up for years, but it's always bugged him. So I shortened them. This proved to be much more difficult than I expected. I figured I could just cut the sleeves where I wanted the cuffs to start, pick up the live stitches, and work downward. It works well in theory. It was hugely frustrating in practice. The yarn is slightly fuzzy, and has been worn and washed a lot. It was tough to locate individual rows, much less individual stitches. And then there are a multitude of cables and textured stitches, which complicated things. It ended up taking me several hours to get all the stitches onto needles in a way that made sense. And then I realized that I had made all the sleeve increases below the elbow, so that after cutting off the bottom four inches of sleeve, I had a really, really w i d e cuff to work with. I ended up decreasing a lot of stitches, hiding the decreases in both the last pattern row and the cuff itself. I was afraid I was going to end up with a weird sort of puffed sleeve effect (anyone remember the "puffy shirt" from Seinfeld?), but it seems to have turned out pretty well. Here's a close up:

My husband is happy with it, anyway, which is what matters.

Next up is going to be this:

This is another recent project, my Kochoran Scoop. There is really nothing wrong with this, except that I think I would wear it more if it were longer. Since I have more of the yarn I used, and this one is also top-down, it's a simple thing to add a few inches to the bottom. That should keep me busy for this evening, at least.

And finally, I've set to work on a new spinning project. I have about a pound and a half of merino/silk roving in a silvery-grey with green and burgundy accents that I think would be perfect for Wisteria.

I was pretty ho-hum about that particular pattern, until I saw this version (Ravelry link). I think the stripey-ness of the semi-variegated yarn used in the original turned me off; I love the more subdued look of the heathered grey. I spun up some of my roving last night, and it is coming out a muted silver with a beautiful silky sheen.


Color in spinning is utterly baffling to me. I never have the slightest idea how a roving will look spun up--or if I do, I'm completely wrong. The spun singles here is almost solid, although it's a little darker in person than in the picture. I like Wisteria better in a solid color, so that's okay. I think I'm spinning to get about the right gauge (after I ply it)--although spinning gauge, too, is always a mystery to me--so it may work out. Don't look for an immediate cast on in any case; I'm not a very fast spinner, and a pound and a half is a lot of roving.

There you have it: what a sweater knitter does when she doesn't have a sweater on the needles. I mean, other than sit in a corner, rocking and moaning and sucking her thumb.

FO: Not So Sahara

Pattern: Sahara from stitchdiva, sort of. I modified it to work with a heavier weight yarn and to create a shallower, shawl collar, and to have narrower sleeves and a different trim. But the basic shape is pretty much the same.

Size: Um. Maybe about 35".

Yarn: Cascade Ecological Wool in Chocolate, just over two skeins. This is a satisfying yarn. It's "minimally processed" and undyed, so it's still pretty woolly, but there was no vegetable matter and not much lanolin, as far as I could tell. It didn't smell particularly sheepy, either. But when I put the finished sweater in to soak, the water turned very brown. I thought, "Oh, look, the dye is running." And then I realized it's not dyed yarn. Ugh. I washed it four times before the water was finally clear. The finished sweater is also lighter in color. Amazing what washing out the dirt will do. The yarn is fairly soft even in the skein, and softens and drapes more after washing, but it's not what I would consider next-to-the-skin soft, although I am an acknowledged wool wimp and there are probably plenty of people who wouldn't be bothered by it.

Needles: Size 8 Knit Picks Options 32" circular.


Thoughts: I intended this to be a very basic, throw-on winter sweater, and I think it fits the bill admirably. I did add a tiny bit of fussiness by crocheting a little edging around the collar. I don't think it's my favorite sweater ever, but I do think it will get more wear than most of my sweaters, just because of its simplicity. I am a lazy dresser. My more impressive and dramatic knits always seem to demand more of an effort than I am willing to expend; it's the simple ones I reach for over and over again. Sounds like there might be a lesson in there, somewhere...

The Accidental Vest

So I worked out the shawl collar. As you can see, I went with garter stitch, despite all the good suggestions you all made. I just couldn't quite picture how to work out any of the pattern stitches with short rows, especially when I wasn't sure how the short rows themselves were going to turn out. Now that it's done, I think I could have make a pattern stitch work, but this is okay, too.

My husband loves this as a vest. I pointed out to him that I don't wear vests, and he said, "You would if you had one like that." Which is probably a good point. I then explained that I need a winter sweater, to which he just laughed. We share a closet, so I don't really have a leg to stand on there, either. I am forced to admit that it would make a really nice vest with just a little edging around the armholes. But I still want a sweater, so I'll be starting the sleeves shortly.

As for the collar, I'm going to try crocheting an edging all the way around. It's a little plain as is, and I've got a craving for something a tiny bit fussy.

Edging Toward the Finish

My Not-So-Sahara is knitting up quickly, and I think it's working out fine. I ended up having to play with the numbers a bit. With the larger gauge (16 sts. to four inches instead of 20 sts.), even the smallest size would have ended up too big. So I just used the measurements of the original, combined with my own modifications for fit, to come up with the right stitch counts.

This is my original Sahara, worked at the gauge called for in the pattern:

This is my Not-So-Sahara, worked at the larger gauge:

The fabric isn't washed or blocked yet, obviously, and will grow a bit when it is. Based on my gauge swatch (stop that laughing; I know gauge is just a myth, but it's all I have to work with), the finished sweater should be about two inches bigger around than it is right now, which should be about perfect, since I want this one to be a little looser than the original. As you can see, I've only got a few more inches before I reach the edging, which means I need to make a decision.

I'm having some trouble choosing a ribbing for this sweater. I'd like to do the cuffs and bottom in garter stitch, but I like all my ribbing to match, which means I'd have to do the shawl collar in garter, too. (It's a symmetry thing.) I don't really have anything against a garter stitch collar, and garter stitch is pretty good for hiding short rows, but it does seem a little bland. I could do a basic 2 x 2 ribbing, which I'd like for the collar, but I'm not sure I want that for the cuffs and bottom, since I don't want them to pull in. Whatever ribbing I use, it needs to be reversible, since both sides will be visible on the collar. And it needs to work with short rows, which most patterns don't. I've been through my stitch dictionaries and I haven't come up with anything I like all that much. I'm debating the possibility of doing everything in garter and then adding an interesting edging just on the collar, maybe along the lines of this, only less bobbley. (I actually made this sweater, but I left off the collar edging.)

If I can't come up with a better solution before I hit the bottom, I'll go with garter, but if anyone has any more interesting suggestions, I'd love to hear them!