NuttyIrishmanKnits

In Progress

This has truly been a mild summer, and it seems that when the weather is cooler my mind really turns to wool... and needles.  Last week I had a hankering for some good natural wool and I have to say I love Lion Brand Fishermen's Wool.  I know this might not be the first place one's mind goes to when thinking about a good earthy wool (or even second or third) but it really is great stuff.  And it comes in such a large amount... (227 g) that you can leave the store with two skeins and be ready to knock a sweater quickly.

I also knew which pattern I wanted to pair my wool with as well.  I found it on Ravelry a few weeks ago, Francis Revisted, by Beth Silverstein, and I loved it immediately.  This is my first time to knit a top down sweater, which is fantastic.  Or a sweater with raglan sleeves, which is also great!  This may be my favorite combination by far, and the design ideas are endless. 

I've finished the body and first sleeve, so only have the second sleeve and cowl to finish.  I'm hoping to gain some length on the body when blocking.  I'm knitting the small, which fits perfectly, but is a little short for me.  I know that one of the joys of knitting from the top down means you can try on as you go... but I'm too lazy to put all those stitches on waste yarn to try it on... So instead I hope to pick up a little length at the end.

I love the seed stitch detail on the hem, sleeves, and cowl as well.  I considered continuing the body and sleeves with the stockinette stitch, and may try that later on a different raglan.  Hopefully I'll have my Francis Revisited finished by the weekend!

I also have another sweater almost finished that I'm not convinced about.  I've been working on the Gathered Pullover from Interweave and I'm really not liking the holes created by working the center cable.  If you've knitted this and had a similar issue let me know if you have words of wisdom to correct it!  I'm almost finished with this one as well, but the cable has me stalling...

I hope the weather's nice where you are today!  It's cool and raining here, so I've made a pot of chicken noodle soup and a little hot chocolate.  Needless to say I am totally in the mood for some fall knitting.  So I'm going to get back to finishing my other sleeve... Happy Knitting!

Karma Goes Around Comes Around

 
Fiddlehead Mittens by Adrian Bizilia.
Knitted in Cascade 220 Heathers and Cascade 220 wool, blue colorway with red scroll.
Knitted on US size 3 Addi Turbos, 40 inch.
Ravelers see it here.

I'm so pumped right now about our July mitten class we are having at the yarn shop.  We have a lot of sock knitters here in Kansas, but I haven't met too many mitten knitters.  And I'm fully determined to make our sock knitters switch hitters!  Not to mention July is the perfect time to do a little Christmas knitting! 

We're using Adrian's enormously popular Fiddlehead pattern this go 'round, which I think is a great choice.  The colorwork is not overly complicated and the pattern repeats on front and back.  I knitted a test mitten using Cascade 220 and I am really pleased with how well this yarn worked.  The pattern calls for dk weight yarn, but since Cascade is worsted I was a bit worried.  I really didn't want to go below a size 3 needle.  So I held my breath and went for it.  And believe it or not, knitted on US size 3's this mitten actually ended up smaller in both row and stitch gauge than my original.  Go figure!

 

Just to change things up a bit I reversed the colorwork, with the colors changing in the background rather than the scrolls, and I have been working diligently in getting my Continental technique up to par.  I held my main color over my left index finger and my contrasting colors over my right.  I know you are actually supposed to do just the opposite, but since I reversed the colorwork, I really wanted to make sure my scrolls stood out and didn't get tucked down in the blues.  I think it turned out pretty well!

I've got one more mitten to knit up, only this time I'm using Noro Kuryeon for the colorwork.  I've seen several great looking mittens on Flickr using the Noro, and I think it's a great idea if full-out colorwork is not really your thang.  (Fake Isle proved that to be true.)

And as for other knits, I think I'm on a blue kick! I don't know why I get on color kicks, but when I look at my FO's on Ravelry I always move through stages.  Weird. 



I've been working the last month on a sweater... for myself... Yeah!  I wanted to knit something that would be my favorite comfy sweater.  I had wanted to knit Raspy but the pattern isn't available right now (I have since located a copy of the discontinued Denim People by Rowan), so in the meantime I started perusing (yeah, I peruse!) my EZ books and opted instead for her great Seamless Hybrid.  There are some lovely ones online and I decided to get out my denim yarn squirreled away for Raspy and use it instead for the Hybrid.  Love it!  I have a feeling this really is going to be my favorite sweater... especially perfect for my lounge pants.  This is my first time using EZ's EPS system, which is sheer genius.  I've allowed for two inches of positive ease, and did a small amount of shaping in the waist so I wouldn't have a tube.  (Guys, you can get away with the tube.  Girls, not so much.)  And of course the perfect comfy sweater has to be able to handle a good washing, otherwise you just end up with a stinky perfect sweater that no one wants to be near.  And from past experience with Cotton Jeans I know it holds up well in both the washer and dryer.  I have one more sleeve to knit and then I can join the body and sleeves together and start that great saddleback.  Whoo-hoo!  (I'm just a bit pumped about this sweater... can ya tell?)



And as for Clapotis I am actually making progress.  Lord have mercy but it is true!  I have dropped eight stitches and have only four more to go before starting the decreasing.  The silk garden is gorgeous, but this yarn is terrible about not wanting to drop.  I have a feeling those of you who opted for a different yarn without slubs probably had a much easier time than I am with the dropping of stitches.  I have to manually release every stitch.  It's a bit of a bummer but the end product I know will be worth it!

And last week after saying I would NOT cast on anything new I changed my mind and decided to do the Baby Surprise Jacket.  So I emailed a friend and said, "Hey, let's do this!  Shouldn't take more than three days!"  Well, I was at Michaels buying a seam ripper (another story...) and found some semi-cute yarn?  You know the cheap yarn that you know you shouldn't buy, but you're there and it's there it's maybe sort-of calling to you?  You know when it says, I think I might be able to possibly work for such-and-such?  Well I gave in and it completely sucks and I am therefore frogging the whole thing.  This is what happens when I get away from our great LYS and get sucked in by the mediocre competition.  From now on I am sticking to the good stuff.  So I'm remaining loyal to the Clap and it's holding my attention.  I'm pressing on with my Seamless Hybrid and  EPS is proving true.  And I strayed from Shelly and ended up frogging.  I guess it is true; karma goes around comes around.

Am I a Knitting Puritan?

Bird in Hand by Kate Gilbert.
Knitted in Cascade 220 wool, avocado and deep brown.
Knitted on a pair of US size 3 Addi Turbos.
Modification: After reading the braid instructions I wimped out and used my old fave, the Norwegian Braid.  I also chose to use purl rows where the pattern denoted additional braids.
Ravelers find my mitten here.

Now I know what you're thinking... this doesn't look like the Clap!  Nor does it look like Chevalier, or bloomers... I know!  It's none of the above, but it is a partially finished knit that has helped me break through my mental block of finishing all those other projects, minus Chevalier.  Chevalier had to be frogged four times (!)  in an attempt to find a suitable size for me, and sadly, I was unable to do it with the o-wool.  I hate that!  I really wanted to knit those mittens in the o-wool, it's perfect for them!  But I kept ending up with either a flimsy wanna-be (single-stranded) or a ginormous  man-mitten (double-stranded).  Even changing needles sizes didn't work.  Drat!

And my Clapotis is coming along.  I am four skeins into it using the Silk Garden.  My unrealistic goal of last weekend was a no-go, so I've moved this deadline out to Mother's Day, which I think is much more reasonable!   So the Clap should be in the mail by then, on it's way to Memphis.

And as for Annabelle's Unmentionables... all I can say is when you drop the ball, it is so nice to have a friend there to pick it up and run with it!  I am barely inching my way through this pattern right now, and Shelly blew through it with considerable gusto.  Her FO (and it's model) are so adorable that I had to show them off to you guys.  Blogger's bragging rights!

This is Miss Ainsley modeling her Unmentionables, which look awesome!  Shelly used Nashua Cilantro for these in a pretty mint green.  This yarn has such bounce to it!  And being worn by an active toddler doesn't hurt the bounce factor either!  (Ravelers can find Ainsley's Unmentionables here.)

Yesterday, while knitting from the screen**, I was listening to my favorite podcast Stash & Burn.  I don't know which episode it was (found it!),  but a question regarding "Start-itis" with was posed:

        ~do we penalize ourselves in knitting? 

And this got me to thinking, probably because I find myself in that particular boat right now.  Do I sometimes chastise myself for wanting to cast on a new project when I have several on the sticks already?  Projects that are going no where fast and I find myself MOPPING the kitchen floor instead of finishing?  Maybe this is something we can all relate to, and I'm just throwing it out there...

        ~have I begun to impose unnecessary rules on my HOBBY?

As for Bird in Hand, I've got to say, my confidence in my own stranding ability has been somewhat restored.  The Fiddleheads so threw me off my game that I seriously began to question whether or not I really understood stranded-colorwork.  But this mitten encouraged me along the way, and I'm really looking forward to working on the second.  It also doesn't hurt that Cascade smooths like a dream when blocked within an inch of it's life...

So hopefully after a bit of a self-imposed break my pace will begin to pick back up to one I'm more comfortable with and I'll have more FO's to post about!  In the meantime, it's time to hit the sticks and I'll be darned if I'm not actually looking forward to it this time!  So here's wishing you happy knitting today... Cheers!

**When we moved to Kansas my printer cable was lost, and I am therefore relegated to knitting from the screen on nearly everything.  Including Inga!  Crazy!

 

Rediscovering Mojo

Clapotis in infancy.

It has been a bad week for knitting.  For the past few days I couldn't knit a garter stitch dishrag without frogging it ten times.  It seems like every knit I have cast on since Fiddlehead has taken four or five times to take off.  I think I've eaten some bad mojo. 

Truth is, Fiddlehead so wore me out that I'm in a slump.  My internal alarm starts sounding the moment I start casting on multiple projects within hours of each other.  For me, that is not a good sign.  That means nothing tastes good, I'm just grazing...

Where did it all begin?  Honestly, it began with Fiddlehead.  Alice and I blew through the first mitten and I thought al-right, who 'da man?  who 'da man?!  Then mistakenly I started the lining for that mitten.  Fingering weight yarn on size 2's.  For me, I'd prefer to be shot and put out of my misery.  So I ended up wasting a day's worth of knitting, which caused me to lose all interest and momentum for the second mitten.  Not to mention blocking these mittens was a major pain.  Thankfully Alice bailed me out with directions for a great mitten form.  It may look like prison contraband, but this little do-hicky gets it done.

For some mysterious reason the colorwork for the scrolls causes a major ridge down either side of the pattern.  I tried to adjust to this on my second mitten by knitting it on a long circular instead of dpn's, but that ridge reappeared almost immediately.  I tried everything... switching colors so that that the dominant yarn would be less-dominant, knitting loosely through that change in pattern... ooi.  It was a struggle, that in the end gave me nothing but another ridge. 

So I've spent the last couple of days in cast on... rip off, cast on... rip off mode.   And surfing Ravelry way too much.  (Speaking of patterns... who killed Magknits?)  Oh, and buying WAY too much yarn!  But, I've got to say, buying a butt-load of yarn will improve anyone's mood.  (WARNING:  If you're on that yarn diet, you might want to quit reading here, or proceed at your  own risk.)  First I bought some of that amazing o-wool made by the Vermont Organic Fiber Co.  I purchased a couple of twists of their incredibly soothing tweedy Balance.  It is so soft, and then after a soak it plumps and softens even more.  Ahhhh.  The healing power of tweed.  I have cast on Chevalier and am in heaven.

Then there are the eight skeins of Silk Garden (see picture top 'o page) I just bought to knit the incredibly French and incredibly lovely Clapotis.  Andy's mom is flying out for Annabelle's birthday at the end of this month, and since her own birthday was last month (the plane ticket was our present to her...) I thought this wrap would make a lovely gift as well.   I'm officially on the Clap wagon, but a bit late.  (I can't call it that without snickering...)  And of course Noro, like Malabrigo, can make you light-headed it's so good...

Then there are the six balls of Nashua's Cilantro, in aqua, bought for a certain Unmentionable  pattern that I am now mentioning.   I have high-hopes for this yarn.  It is washable and dryable.  Right now that is sounding oh-so wonderful. 

As for my Fiddleheads, I will be taking pictures of them today and will hopefully post about them tomorrow.  The KAL was a blast, and I think Alice and I just feed each other's yarn addiction.  She's trying to stay away from buying any more and I just keep sending her links of all my recent purchases.  (OMG.  I'm an enabler!)  And I am seriously loving her finished mittens knitted in Ultra Alpaca Light.  What do I love the most you ask?  NO LINING!  They are so full and plump that lining is not necessary.  Then of course there are also these inspiring babies on Flickr that will make any yarn addict completely gorge themselves on alpaca.

So that's where I am!  I don't normally post on things in progress, but I guess a post like this is in order.  Knitting is sometimes an uphill battle.  A mental up-hill battle, that requires as much dogged-determination as it does knit and purl.  So slowly, but surely, I am rediscovering my mojo.  My knitting wheels are starting to turn again and that fire is being stoked... (okay, how many lame clichés can I actually string together in one sentence?)  I hope all your projects are moving quickly and with considerable gusto!  If not, please... let me know.  You have my permission to vent here.  After all... misery loves company!  (sorry, just one more for the road.)