Tag Archives: ktfo2018

Hipster painter pants (2018 FO-12)

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Hipster painter pants (2018 FO-12)

If you feel like you’ve seen these pants before, you have and you haven’t. These are the replacements for the previous natural pair that sadly shrank in the wash.* I’d been sorely missing having them to lean on all spring, and am thrilled to have a version back in my closet! They are both better and worse than the originals, in various ways. There’s no match for the incredible Huston Textile Union Cloth the originals were made of: Woven in California on a smaller loom, that cloth is chunkier and airier at the same time, and the fiber was CA-grown, climate-beneficial wool and organic cotton. Exquisite stuff. The ones above, on the other hand, are in some generic undyed canvas I bought at Elizabeth Suzann’s garage sale last summer for $2/pound (meaning these pants cost me about a buck), and it wears and hangs completely differently than the Huston cloth did. I feel great about the fact they’re 100% cotton remnant fabric, and even better about how genuinely not precious these are. I had said that I was not going to treat the originals as precious, and I’m saying the same about this pair, but it’s easier to feel that way when the fabric is, in fact, not precious! What I love about these pants in natural canvas is they’re like stylish painter’s pants, so that’s how I’ll be treating them.

I’ve gotten a lot of questions about how I modified and sewed my waistbands on all of these “toddler pants” of mine, since I don’t use the Robbie waistband (or pockets). So I’ll do a write-up on my waistband method for The Details. After which, I’ll show you this sweater, as soon as I can get it written up! Details on the ikat tank are here.

By the way, happy #memademay! Are you participating in any way? I’m at a point where every month is me-made month, in a sense, so I’ll probably be pretty loose about how I chime in. Definitely, absolutely not taking 30 selfies. ;)

• Pattern: Robbie Pant by Tessuti (reuse No. 5)
• Modifications: self-drafted pockets, assorted tweaks, modified 2″ waistband
• Fabric: remnant/unknown, 100% cotton natural/undyed canvas

*The fabric had been washed in hot water before it was given to me; I did not re-prewash, and I paid the price. And yes, I washed the finished pants on cool/delicates and air dried, despite their prewash. They shrank anyway — these things happen sometimes! The world carries on.

My first Linden sweatshirt (2018 FO-11)

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My first Linden sweatshirt (2018 FO-11)

I was trying to figure out how this could be the first garment I’ve made this year, when it’s mid-April already, and then I remembered: blue Bellows. Anyway, here I am crossing the first thing off my Spring Make List, item 3b. This was a bit of a trial run with me and the Linden Sweatshirt pattern, and I promise it’s much less sad and droopy looking on me than it is on the dress form. I’m also still pretty new at sewing knits, and this fabric posed an extra challenge, so I went into the whole thing with a decidedly que sera attitude. It was very quick to make and I’ll get plenty of use out of it, but it’s not my best work.

The fabric is a super gushy, thick pile terry, with a little bit of a surface pattern to it. So there was no chance of finding matching ribbing, but I wasn’t sure how well it would work to use itself either. I also had a pretty small piece of it, all of which is why I opted to use it for view B of the pattern, which has a folded hem at the waist and short sleeves, and only the neckband to worry about, ribbing-wise. My other concern was the neckline itself. Jen Beeman and I have become great friends over the past few years, and agree on just about everything, but necklines are not one of them! I can’t stand a gaping neckhole, and Jen can’t stand anything up around her neck, so I expected that this neck would be larger than I would have drafted it myself. Rather than worrying about it (since I wasn’t sure this was even going to work) I opted to trace off the pattern as is, sew it up, and see how much I might want to adjust the neck on the next one. Sure enough, when I sewed the front, back and sleeves together — this is a straight size 8 — the neck was on the big side for me, but fortunately I had just enough fabric to cut a wider neckband and make up for some of that.

My first Linden sweatshirt (2018 FO-11)

Attaching the band was a job, thanks to the fabric. There was absolutely no chance I was going to get three layers of this fluff under the foot of my serger, so I basted it together on my regular machine — then unpicked the parts where the layers shifted and redid it, congratulating myself that I hadn’t tried that on the serger. Sewing the three layers together caused the top one to fold back on itself at the stitching line. So next I carefully zigzagged all three layers of the seam allowance together, again on my regular machine, and by then they were compressed enough that I could get the whole thing under the serger and finish the edge properly. I still have one spot where the outer layer wasn’t quite caught enough, right at the top of the raglan seen in the photo, and then I did a shoddy job topstitching it. But these are the sorts of things that the average person who sees it on me will never notice!

Then came the hemming. Even with the presser foot pressure off and using a long stitch, sewing the two layers together caused the whole thing to splay a bit, so it’s a little bell-shaped, which is fine with me, honestly. (I added two inches to the length when cutting it, and sewed a wider hem than called for.) But I didn’t want the same splaying to happen at the sleeves, so I just serged the edges and will wear them rolled.

This top has a lot in common with the wool knit version made from Jen’s other pattern — my whole modified Hemlock tee thing. But I’ll try to get pics of me wearing them both for comparison. Apart from one being boiled wool and one cotton jersey, meaning they’re useful at different times of the year, it’s a good demonstration of how much better I look in a raglan than drop-shouldered garment.

Having now sewn this wonderfully quick and simple pattern (just like everyone always told me), I’m excited to make my proper heather grey sweatshirt version.

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PREVIOUSLY in FOs: ScandinAndean earflap hat

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ScandinAndean earflap hat (2018 FO-10)

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ScandinAndean earflap hat

The last of the four February hats was the one I was the most nervous about: the earflap hat for my 10-year-old niece. In addition to being the one where the fit could go really wrong — there being no ribbing to simply hug the head, and que sera from there up — I was making up the pattern and adding colorwork into the mix. So many opportunities for it to go wrong! Plus with my sister’s Første having taken two weeks to knit, I had two days to get this one done and blocked. No room for error. Thankfully, it worked out beautifully!

I was initially planning to use Purl Soho’s Top Down Ear Flap Hat pattern but was concerned it would be too thin, not warm enough — even with the little bit of stranded colorwork I planned to add — plus it would have taken longer at that gauge. So I decided to improvise a version of it at worsted gauge. A good yellow (as had been requested) is not super easy to come by, plus my niece is very crafty and I’ve passed on my love of yarn to her, so I decided I’d hit up my sweet friend Brooke of Sincere Sheep when I got to Stitches West, knowing she has a good naturally-dyed yellow in her palette, and I’ve been wanting to knit with her U.S. Cormo Worsted. Armed with the perfect skein, I swatched and measured and calculated. I’d be working at a gauge of 4.75 sts and 7 rows per inch, with a target size of 20″ circumference (92 sts) and 8″ depth (56 rounds).

At that point, there was nothing to do but knit — and hope it worked out. Rather than doing the top the way the Purl pattern has it, I split the crown stitches into 6 sections and increased every row thrice, then every-other row until I had 92 sts. (A total of 24 rounds for the crown.) On the first work-even round, I started the lice stitch — using leftover yarn from her mother’s cable hat — spacing them every fourth stitch (staggered) every third round. I wound up doing 9 stranded rounds, stopping a few rows shy of my intended depth. Then I took a good hard look at the stitch counts and ratios from the Purl pattern to determine how to divide up my sts for the ear flaps, which worked out to 20 sts for the back, 22 for each flap, and 28 for the front. Then I followed the decrease logic in the pattern, decreasing down to 3 sts instead of 4; worked 56 rows of I-cord; and did the tassels as per the pattern. And voilà: adorable.

I love how the ivory lice stitch breaks up the semi-solidness of the hand-dyed yarn, and totally love this yarn. As I was knitting the colorwork, I was feeling like Is it weird I’m using this Scandinavian lice stitch pattern on an Andean-inspired hat?, but I decided to just call it ScandinAndean and embrace how cute it is. Mashups for the win!

ScandinAndean earflap hat

So I’m very happy with how the four of them worked out: My sister and brother-in-law both got cable hats with a very similar motif played out a bit differently, at different scale. And the kids both wound up with earflap hats — my nephew’s squishy helmet and this darling cap for my niece. It warms my heart to know the four Floridians are somewhere in the Colorado Rockies right now, feeling toasty in their handknit hats.

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PREVIOUSLY in FOs: Log Cabin Mitts No.6

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Elsewhere + Mitts No.6 (2018 FO-9)

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Elsewhere + Mitts No.6 (2018 FO-9)

Before I get into today’s post, I want to say a huge heartfelt thank-you for all the nice messages and positive thoughts you’ve sent my way these past two weeks. Bob is thankfully on the mend and on the receiving end of nothing but good news and results from his doctors. He’s got a few weeks of rehab and healing ahead, and then will be back in his studio painting, and back in the pool training for the Alcatraz swim he’s had planned. So all is well, we are exiting the woods, and thank you so much. Phew!

Now, back to business: In recent days, I managed to finish up the pair of Log Cabin Mitts I was knitting in the Verb booth at Stitches West the weekend before last. (Gosh that seems like forever ago now.) This pair is made from one of the kits they had made for the booth (there are just a handful left on their site), and oh how I love this yarn. For this pair, given that I was literally knitting them on the fly and in public, I decided to totally wing it on the color placement, and just let it be freeform. Well, ok maybe not totally. The only thing I had in mind as I picked up each next color was that I had chosen the Mountains colorway — natural, super pale grey, light mushroom and a variegated grey-purple — and I did want to make a vague allusion to that in my “random” composition. I mentioned in my previous post that I’m headed into the asymmetrical part of my sketch pile, but this one isn’t even planned asymmetry, and I love how they came out. Here they are at Ravelry if you care to put a like on them!

And with that, a bit of Elsewhere:

– It’s March Mayhem time at MDK! (And also the Tournament of Books, my longtime favorite March event.)

– A concise but informative update to Jared’s long-ago long-form piece about the difference between woolen-spun and worsted-spun yarns

– In the realm of knitalong prizes, a night at Squam is pretty up there

– Love this QuiltCon People’s Choice winner

– “In just 4 days, top fashion CEOs earn a garment worker’s lifetime pay”

– Even prettier than an Easter egg

– and just everything about this

IN SHOP NEWS: We finally have both size sets of Lykke Driftwood DPNs back in stock! As well as the sheep scissors, which we can’t seem to replenish fast enough! We also now have all of the Mini Porters from the sewers, so when they’re gone, they’re gone.

I’ll be back next week with the first of the Logalong panel FO Q&A’s! Have a great weekend in the meantime—

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PREVIOUSLY in FOs: A hat to rival Gentian

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A hat to rival Gentian (2018 FO-8)

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A hat to rival Gentian

I’m over here combing through my giant stack of Logalong prize contenders — tearing my hair out over how thrillingly hard you’ve made it! — and hope to have it all sorted, settled and written up in the next day or two. Meanwhile, an update on my February hats project: The latter two of the four are currently wending their way toward Florida, and not a moment too soon.

You guys, this beanie took me two weeks to knit. And I’m not talking about two weeks where I didn’t have much time for it and so it got scant attention. I’m talking about two weeks that included large amounts of stress knitting, two cross-country flights, seven hours in a surgical waiting room, etc etc etc. I’m talking about two intense weeks of knitting. A hat!

My plan had been quite simple: All I needed to do was knit one hat a week. Piece of cake, right? For the final two, I had it all mapped out. I’d knit the ribbing on my sister’s Første before boarding my flight to Stitches West, so I could sit down on the plane, pull out my cable chart, and focus on nothing but it for the full length of the flight. (I’ve knitted worsted-weight cable hats before; I know the lay of the land!) Then I’d get yarn for my niece’s hat at the show, and knit hers on my flight home. Worst case scenario, I might still have some crown shaping or tassels to do, between the two of them, and then they’d be on their merry way.

Well. I started the fisherman’s-rib brim a few nights before my flight, and knitted about an inch of the 4.5 to be done. A little more progress the next night. And the one after that. I boarded the plane thinking I was surely just a few rows shy of the chart — I could whip them out before we were even in the air. Mm, no. We were probably somewhere over the Grand Canyon by the time I got to start the chart, and when they said we were beginning our descent into Oakland, I was the one bellowing “Noooooo …” from aisle 12. I’d only managed to knit about 10 rounds.

Long story short: It eventually dawned on me that this hat is as much knitting as a sweater body. In addition to the 46-round brim (that alone being as much or more than the usual number of rounds for an entire worsted-weight hat), the body of the hat is 144 stitches — that’s a sweater, in my world — and the hat totals 101 rounds of knitting. And let’s not forget the knitting is fisherman’s rib followed by densely packed cables. Not to mention chainette yarn that requires you to be really deliberate about where you’re sticking your needle. Of course it took two weeks!

But hear me when I say that it was worth every minute it took. This thing is MAGNIFICENT, and especially in this luscious yarn. I wish you could paw it. I might not have savored the knitting the way I did with Gentian, but the finished result is at least as thrilling. A hat to marvel at and beam over, and I’m so happy it’s going to my sweet sister. I just hope it fits.

Tell you how my niece’s hat turned out once she’s seen it. ;)

• Første pattern by Jessica Gore in Woolfolk Far / Like it at Ravelry

PREVIOUSLY in FOs: Black and bluish mitts

Black and bluish (2018 FO-7) + BRB

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Black and bluish Log Cabin Mitts (free pattern)

I’m in a hospital waiting room today as my husband is having some outpatient surgery. Nothing to be alarmed about (although all positive thoughts beamed toward Nashville are mightily welcome!), but I’m just not sure how much blogging I might get done this week since my focus will be on him. I’m sure many of you are thinking it’s been absolutely ages since you’ve gotten to see a pair of Log Cabin Mitts, so I’m leaving you with my latest pair. These got their thumbs on just in time to travel to Stitches West with me and get fondled by countless curious knitters along with the rest of the stack. (Those present having been the originals, ebony-and-ivory, toffee, these and the ones in progress — the grey ones were given to a friend.) This is leftover Shelter in Fossil and Newsprint, carried over from previous pairs, along with leftovers from my blue Bellows-in-waiting, and I absolutely love the interplay of the b/w and the blue/purple/green Harrisville tweed. These might be the last symmetrical pair for a minute — I’m headed into the asymmetrical part of the sketch pile.

Meanwhile, I’ve got my work cut out for me choosing winners from the #fringeandfriendslogalong feed, where there’s a daunting abundance of creativity and gorgeousness. Remember it isn’t technically necessary to be finished with your project — all of the prize details are here — but you can’t win if you don’t enter, which you can do by posting to the feed, i.e. by using the hashtag. (Photos do have to be appearing in the feed in order to be eligible, so if you have a private account, either switch it public for a few days or make a separate account just for sharing your log cabin pics). I’ll do my best to get it done between now and the end of the week, and will be back just as quick as I can—

Log Cabin Mitts (free knitting pattern)

PREVIOUSLY in FOs: Toffee mitts

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Toffee mitts + YARN for sale (2018 FO-6)

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Toffee mitts + YARN for sale

So you know how I’ve been using these Log Cabin Mitts as a way to finally knit up some of the incredible skeins I have sitting around on shelves and in bins? Obviously one of the first ones I reached for is this delicious toffee-colored wool I bought from what was then TN Textile Mill (previously and once again Shutters & Shuttles) at Porter Flea in late 2016. The yarn had been custom-milled for a project that didn’t come to fruition and I’ve been intermittently pestering Allison ever since about what would happen to it. (If you don’t know, Allison now works part-time at Fringe Supply Co. keeping the trains running.) Today I’m thrilled to announce that I was able to acquire the remaining skeins from her and they’re for sale in the shop! This is the DK weight in Toffee, but there’s also a chunky weight, and both weights are available in Toffee and Black. Obviously supply is inherently limited, and I’ve hoarded some for myself! So get it while it lasts, whatever you may opt to use it for.

Related: Remember it’s only a week until I pick winners from the #fringeandfriendslogalong, so get those projects posted, whatever state they’re in! Full details on all of that here.

In other news, I’m off to Stitches West for the weekend (first time since I moved away), where I’ll be alternately roaming the show floor and hanging out by the big Fringe display in the A Verb for Keeping Warm booth (917/919), so if you’re there, please say hi!  Verb will have a full range of Fringe goods, including a stack of the limited-edition Mini Porters, and they’ve also made up exquisite little mini-skein bundle Log Cabin Mitts Kits! If you aren’t at the show, they’ve made a small number of kits available on their website.

Have a great weekend — I look forward to seeing some of you! — and I’ll be back on Monday.

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PREVIOUSLY in Log Cabin Mitts: Ebony and ivory

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