Tag Archives: sweaters

Updates & Elsewhere

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Updates & Elsewhere: Yarny links for your clicking pleasure

You guys, I got sooooo much knitting done this week for the Tag Team Sweater Project. It was like old times. Unfortunately, I also ripped out a lot of it — specifically, 8.5 inches of Anna’s second sleeve. Late Tuesday night, I finished the second cuff, knitted to the first increase and put a pin in it. The next night, I had a marathon knitting session and worked those 8.5 inches, lining my increases up above that first one. Only at midnight, when admiring my output, did I notice that I had put the first one in the wrong place. With 99% of all sleeves, it wouldn’t matter — I’d just declare that my new center point and carry on accordingly. But since this cuff is garter-in-the-round, which leaves that pseudo-seam, they did need to line up in the exact right spot. So I ripped and re-knit. Before all that happened, I was on track to have the sleeves shipped out today on (re)schedule. But if I excuse myself from the studio for a couple hours this morning and knit my little heart out, I may still be able to send them out today. Cross your fingers for me! Or for us both — looks like Anna is cutting it just as close.

ELSEWHERE:

Do you all know about Among Friends? I was honored to have the High-fiber tote included in their Best of the Bay box, which just shipped out. These three ladies have been really great to me and they do such a thoughtful job with their club — you should take a look at their upcoming offerings.

Also: I loved seeing this turmeric-dyeing tutorial by Rebekka Seale on Wool and the Gang’s blog. And Jared Flood’s post about the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s “Knit, Purl, Sow” show. (Say that three times fast.) And I can’t wait to read this Julie Hoover interview at Caitlin Makes.

SHOP UPDATE:

I asked the lovely maker of the amazing Bento Bags, if she could make an even bigger bento, and she happily obliged. So today in the shop you’ll find the all-new, first-ever XL Bento! Big enough to hold all the yarn and parts of a worsted-weight sweater. Or, y’know, a small child. It’s awesome! There aren’t very many in this first batch, so if they sell out before you get there, never fear — I’ll have more in a few weeks.

Also new today are some perfectly charming Bonsai-style scissors that nobody should be without.

And! At long last, I got a bunch of rice baskets in — both natural and patterned. Hie thee to Fringe Supply Co.

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Have a great weekend, everyone — thanks for reading!

New Favorites: Svalbard

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New Favorites: Svalbard

All this bottom-up stockinette business has me longing for something completely different — one-piece, clever construction, interesting stitch pattern(s) … anything! I saw a beautiful example of Bristol Ivy’s Svalbard cardigan at Stitches this weekend and realized it might be just exactly what I’m craving, as it’s all of those things in one. Pretty sure all I’d tamper with is the sleeve length.

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PREVIOUSLY in New Favorites: from Amirisu Spring 2014

Tag Team Sweater status: Worried

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Tag Team Sweater Project : Sleeve-O-Meter

One drawback of the whole Stitches adventure is that I’ve had zero time to knit. The nice thing about a knitting convention is that all the vendors are knitting in their booths all day, in between sales. They’re pretty amazing — they have their yarn in a bag around their wrist or tucked into their apron pocket, and their hands are going a mile a minute, even when they’re standing, talking to customers, walking around. Even if I were capable of getting into a knitting-standing-up groove (I’m a devout cross-legged knitter) there was no time. I knitted two rows of one of Anna’s sleeves on Friday and had to rip them out late Friday night. Then I knitted those same two rows — and maybe one or two more — on Sunday. And that’s it!

You’ll recall that when we launched into this whole Tag Team Sweater Project, I had no concerns whatsoever about my ability to finish the four sleeves by the appointed date. And when I made the decision to do Stitches (on exceptionally short notice) in the middle of it all, I thought if I finished all four cuffs before the show started, I’d be able to sail through a lot of the stockinette while manning the booth. As you can see from the Sleeve-o-meter, none of that happened.

The exchange date was originally set for this Friday (!!) but, for better or worse, I’m not the only one behind schedule. Anna was still trying to get me my body by then, but I won’t have any sleeves to attach it to anyway. So we’ve decided to ship on Friday (god willing) for Monday arrival. Which gives us Friday through Monday to try to get our own parts in order. VK Live is now only 18 days away. Does anyone believe we have a shot at this? We’re not giving up yet!

By the way, Anna is doing a site migration and can’t blog till it’s done, so make sure you’re following @toltyarnandwool (and @karentempler) on Instagram for #tagteamsweaterproject updates.

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p.s. If you were looking for Bento Bags over the weekend, I had reduced the online inventory in an effort not to double-sell anything during the show. You’ll find more bentos available today.

A tale of two sleeves

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Tag Team Sweater Project progress report

There’s good news and bad news about this Tag Team Sweater Project. The good news: I get to knit with an amazing yarn I’ve never knitted with before. It’s Swans Island Pure Blends, undyed merino and alpaca, and it is heaven. It’s knitting up into a sleeve so luscious I can’t stop pausing to pet it and slip my forearm in there. The bad news: I don’t get to keep it! Anyway, here’s where things stand on my end:

ANNA’S SWEATER

You guys know I like to let the sleeve be my swatch, so I cast on the prescribed number of stitches on US6 and knitted the first cuff. My garter gauge for this puts the cuff at 8″ circumference instead of 8.75″, but Anna and I agreed that’s a good thing — especially with garter’s tendency to splay. So then I forged ahead into the stockinette on US7. Two inches in, it was abundantly clear I’m a tighter knitter than Anna and Carrie Bostick Hoge, whose pattern Lila is. The pattern gauge is 19 stitches per 4 inches. I was getting 21. Anna is getting 19 on 7s, and I’m now knitting loosely on 8s to match it. Interestingly, I thought the fabric was a little loose at 21 sts, but seems perfect at 19. Go figure.

So now I’m obsessing a little bit over sleeve length. The hardest part of a bottom-up sweater is getting the sleeves the exact right length. It’s always a bit of target practice: You’re knitting up to the underarm, but you don’t know exactly where that underarm will be. You’ve got a pattern schematic with a yoke depth measurement, but that depends on your row gauge matching the pattern’s row gauge. Thankfully, Anna and I are both matching row gauge here. So last night while she was trying to write her blog post and put her kids to bed, I was pestering her to measure a sweater she likes the fit of. (I wish you all could see this string of texts.) It had an armhole depth of 7 inches and a sleeve length of 18 inches. Since her row gauge matches Carrie’s, we can have faith that her yoke will match the pattern’s armhole depth of 7.25, which means I’ll knit her sleeves to 17.75. And hopefully that will hit the mark. I really don’t want to be responsible for her having a sweater with sleeves that are the wrong length!

MY SWEATER

Pattern gauge for Trillium is 20 stitches per 4 inches. Anna swatched and got 19 stitches on 7s and 21 stitches on 6s. My gauge for Acer using Shelter and 7s was 21 stitches, and I’m pretty reliable about that — see above, for instance — so we decided to knit this sweater at 21 stitches instead of 20. (For both sweaters, we’ll be knitting on different size needles to get the same gauge as each other.) The size we’re knitting is about 4 inches of positive ease on me, so there’s some wiggle room. And there’s always blocking.

I cast on my first sleeve as well, to make sure all is well at the outset as she’s starting on my body. And all is not well. This is the first time I’ve ever had the benefit of having tried on the sample garment before knitting from a pattern. Apart from the sleeve length (my arms are really long) I loved the way it fit. So I went into this thinking it would be a no-brainer — just knit the sample size and stick to the pattern. But the surprisingly big cast-on count got me scrutinizing the schematic after all. Turns out the cast-on count makes sense with the schematic: The pattern is for a 10.5″ cuff. But that’s not the sweater I tried on. My wristbone is 6.25 inches. You can see in this photo (and another taken that day) that no way is the cuff 40% bigger than my wrist. What gives?

There’s no problem adjusting the cast-on count for the cuff dimension I like, but it’s unsettling. If the sleeve cuff on the sample doesn’t match the pattern, does the rest of it? We shall see.

Meanwhile, there’s another matter on which Anna and I agree: This twisted broken rib is the slowest thing on earth! Dear Anna, let’s only knit 3 inches of it instead of 4 — deal?

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First of the best knits of Fall 2014: A Détacher

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Best knits of Fall 2014

I have such a design crush on Mona Kowalska of A Détacher. It may be because her personal motto seems to be “Two sweaters are better than one.” Or maybe “There’s no such thing as too many layers.” But for whatever reason, I always find her collections amusing and odd and inspiring. Sweater dresses are a clear trend in the Fall 2014 shows, and Kowalska has several in her collection — including a couple of swoony dress-length hoodies used as layering pieces. She’s also got swants and other sweatpant-shaped pants layered under all the sweaters. Plus thin, meshy turtlenecks under tunics and dresses with sweater-cuffed “sleeves” tied at the waist. Another reason I love her is that she almost always wears it best:

Best knits of Fall 2014

Also: If I can’t have this outfit, I can’t go on.

New Favorites: Kyoko’s colorwork

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New Favorites: Kyoko Nakayoshi's colorwork

This must be one of those “grass is always greener” things, because suddenly all the solid-colored stuff in my knitting queue is making me crave colorwork. I’m also strangely drawn to fair-isle-style vests these days. My fascination with them was heightened by learning stranded knitting and beginning to pay a little more attention to Fair Isle traditions. But then ever since reading about Amber’s steeked vest (even though it wasn’t meant to be a vest), I’ve been dying to try that. Maybe this spring. Anyway, one of the best ones I’ve seen — in terms of something I could actually imagine wearing as opposed to revering — is Kyoko Nakayoshi’s vest, Suzu. Which also reminded me of these great chevron-patterned accessories of hers I’ve been craving to knit: Silver Maple Comfy Socks and Beanie. I want those socks on my needles as much as I want them on my feet. Which is to say: a lot! (In black and natural, of course.)

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SHOP NOTE: Pom Pom 8 is here! as are another few copies of 7 and 6 — which I’m told are the last of their kind!

Introducing the Tag Team Sweater Project

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Introducing the Tag Team Sweater Project

That night in San Diego, after the trade show, when I was hobnobbing with the yarnerati while wearing my one-armed Acer, there was a moment when Anna Dianich confessed that her problem with sweaters is she hates to knit the sleeves. We all have things we get bogged down in. For me it’s long rows of back-and-forth knitting, as in, for instance, a sweater body! So I yelled across the circle to her that we should knit sweaters together — she could knit the bodies and I’d knit the sleeves and we’d both get our sweaters done a lot more quickly. When she made a joke about it in a comment the other day, I decided it’s more than a funny moment in a bar — it would be really, really fun to actually try it. If we both chose bottom-up sweaters, I could knit four sleeves, she could knit two bodies to the underarms, and we’d each be responsible for our own yokes. So while she suffered through the flu last week, she also put up with me haranguing her about the idea. Yesterday she said yes, and thus the Tag Team Sweater Project was born.

Our strategy is very loose. Today I’ve sent her a box of Brooklyn Tweed Shelter (in Thistle!) for my chosen pattern, Michele Wang’s Trillium. (You saw that coming, right?) She has sent me a box of Swans Island Pure Blends for hers: Carrie Bostick Hoge’s Lila. We’re both buying both patterns. I need to have all four sleeves done and hers sent to her by the 28th; she’ll send me my body by the same date. Then we’re to have finished sweaters for wearing and photographing when we meet up at Vogue Knitting Live in Seattle* on March 14th. Yikes!!

I don’t know how this will unfold, but it could be harrowing! Apart from questions like Will they be able to match each other’s gauge, this is a pretty short timeline, even for tag-teaming. I’m not worried about Anna’s sweater — she’s chosen wisely. With that wide neck and stockinette, she’s home free by the time the sleeves and body are joined. The fun part of hers is that short-row hemline. For me, there’s a lot of knitting left to be done at the point of the join: the whole circular yoke with short rows and bobbles, plus button bands and neck. Will my sweater have buttons by the time we meet up? Will it even have bands? Or will it be another episode like this.** You’ll have to watch to find out!

We’ll both be blogging about the project and posting regular updates on our Instagram feeds — so make sure you’re following Anna’s Tolt blog as well as @karentempler and @toltyarnandwool on Instagram.

Do you think we can do it?

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*I’m going! Will you be there?

**One-armed Acer documentary photo by Anna Dianich, taken in the darkest lounge of all time. That’s me with Courtney Kelley of Kelbourne/Fibre Company. If you look closely at our right hands, you can tell we’re just about to give the camera the bird. Fun times!