Two Projects Here

There are actually TWO new projects here in these pictures.  The topmost pretty pink on the spindle is my supported spindle project on a Texas Jeans russian walnut spindle.  The spindle is magnificent to spin as the flicking tip is very fine and spins incredibly fast and easily.  The fiber is a blend of merino and tencel in pink, peach, and silky white and is gorgeous.  The spindle is resting on my handspun raglan cardigan, in progress.  It will be a top-down cardigan with a shawl collar.  The yarn is 3-ply handspun polwarth and silk wool and is about a sport weight.  The pictures were taken last night in the fading sunlight on my boat as we travel up the Chesapeake Bay on our way to St. Michaels.

Here I am getting ready to attend the Bead Society's Annual Bead Challenge Show Artist Reception. Since I have a piece in the show, I must look my best!!! This is the Hanne Falkenberg Cordelia Sweater I finished up recently but never modeled.

This is the necklace which is in the show.

Preview

Here is a peak at one of my current projects. It is intended for a gift so I'm publishing only a small picture.

Julie Models Her Smart Skating Sweater and Hat

My grandaughter's American Girl doll is wearing her latest creation. I blogged about this project previously, but just got the first picture of the doll wearing it! It fit so well that I'm amazed.

Finished Mauve Coat

If you will forgive my self-portrait shot, then here are the final pics of my coat. I have worn it already, and it is very warm and heavy. The sleeves are slightly too short because I was worried about the shoulders and neck stretching and took extra steps to prevent that - binding off stitches instead of the 3-needle bind off and picking up of live stitches that were called for in the pattern. Most of the projects in Ravelry which I saw for this coat had much too long sleeves and sloppy necklines. Mine does not. I am still hoping the sleeves will stretch a little bit, but I am mostly very pleased. And I love the buttons I made!

American Doll Sweater and Cap

This is a birthday present for a special girl's American Doll. I sewed on a few beads on the black plain yoke of the sweater for some sparkle. The sweater has a placket with buttons on it on the back shoulder, in order to fit over the doll's head.

Lacy Newborn Sweater

This cute baby sweater is made from Louet Gems fingering weight merino wool. Took almost no time to knit, as compared to an adult size! There was no provision for a button in the pattern, but I think one of the picots will work just fine for a button hole.

Drops Cardigan 66-6 Finished

I am a contortionist now, after taking my own pictures in the mirror. I'm not unhappy with them either, and the sweater cabling shows up nicely. The cardigan took almost 7 skeins of Louet Gems Merino sport weight in grape. The yarn is fantastic and has wonderful stitch definition, and is also machine washable and dryable. Not important for a garment for me, but for others, it would be.

This is the final project for my correspondence course from The Knitting Guild of America's Finishing Techniques. I learned whole lot and now have a wonderful notebook of samples and notes for my further study. I am now the queen of mattress stitch!!

Norwegian Teddy Bear Cardigan

Just in time for the cooler weather, Mr. Teddy models his smart cardigan.

Teddy Bear Norwegian Cardigan

This is a steeked, stranded Norwegian cardigan for my granddaughter's stuffed animal. I'm using my own personal teddy bear as a model, but he doesn't look so happy. It must be because the sweater is not finished yet, don't you think?
I'm making this sweater up as I go, using traditional Norwegian techniques, and untraditional Lion Brand Vanna's Choice acrylic yarn leftover from alligator scarves. The neckband is the only remaining part to be finished now. I even found yellow buttons to match in my button stash.

Grape Cabled Cardigan

This is the cardigan I am knitting for the final project of The Knitting Guild of America's course Finishing Techniques. The yarn is Louet Gems Merino Sport weight in grape, and is wonderful yarn, but very springy so that the ribs really contract. It does stretch alright but I'm wondering about blocking it. Time will tell. The pattern has the cables on the center front and just ribbing everywhere else, and is a V neck. It calls for 6 buttons but I may put in more, simply because I don't want the closing to gap. The pattern is free from Garnstudio web site:
http://www.garnstudio.com/lang/en/visoppskrift.php?d_nr=66&d_id=6&lang=us

Sleeve Lined Up

I am getting close to the end of the knitting of the sleeves. The second sleeve is a couple inches shy of being finished also, but now I am awaiting more yarn. I steamed the sleeve but not the body, and lined them up, just so, in order to get more of an idea of how they will go together. Soon, I shall have to do the machine stitching and cutting of the steeks. Naturally, I procrastinate on this step, even though I have done this before. I'm a procrastinator - what can I say?

I'm really liking this pattern and the use of the rose border is genius.

Rose Border Duplicate Stitch

I couldn't live with the original rose border which I totally knit so it went to the frog pond.

Here are the closeups of the duplicate stitch I am doing. You can see the progression that occurs: I knit in just the green areas, and then did the duplicate stitch to make the completed band. It takes some time to get used to it, but I sort of like doing the embroidery on the sweater. It sure does look a whole lot better.

I am starting to think about the front bands, and what I should do with them. Maybe the duplicate stitch, but then again, maybe just gray with the row of red on the edge, as the neckband shows in the original design.

Body Complete

This is the completed body of the Drops Design 27-2 Norwegian cardigan. The pattern is free if you click the link. The yarn used is Karisma, 100% superwash wool, and is the yarn for which the pattern was designed. It's very nice yarn.

Here are pics of the sweater thus far. I will now machine-stitch the steeks for the sleeves and cut them open, and then knit the shoulders together with a three-needle bindoff.

I have had quite a few problems along the way. My major, major problem has always been my tension. I had to frog part of M3 chart (rows 29-38), because of my tension, since I could not live with the results. I am still trying out new techniques for stranding and weaving, and knitting with both strands in my left hand and sometimes one strand in each hand, attempting to see what works for me. I ultilmately replaced the original rows with another chart which had shorter floats, and it was much better for me. I also had to skip a few rows of M3 in order to get the length required for the diagram of the sweater. My row gauge was not totally consistent either.

THEN, the really hard part: M4. Talk about wonky tension!!!! I carried multiple colors in my left hand, and the gray background in my right. I sort of picked out the color in my left as needed. I am not really happy with my work in this area, as the the floats were really too loose on the back. (I sort of used the Philosopher's Wool method every other stitch, but I was so concerned about the floats being too tight, that I overcompensated. I have pulled up some of the longer floats on the back to diminish the size of the stitch to make it more even.) It became better as I worked. However, I can't stand to think about ripping it out and starting again. I'm thinking that duplicate stitching may be the way to go, but I was simply determined to get better at my knitting technique, and it IS better, although not up to my standards. :-) I am going to let this sit overnight again, and maybe 'think' about redoing M4.

At this point, I can't even consider doing M4 for the button bands!!!!! Stay tuned.

Planalto Cardigan Finished

This was quite outside my comfort level as far as yarn choices. It was cotton and viscose (translated: shiny rayon) Mariposa by Louisa Harding, and the pattern was also Louisa Harding, from the Hummingbirds pattern book. It was a very easy and fast knit, but the yarn caught on everything - even my rough hands. I continually was putting on hand lotion. But in the end, I was extremely happy with the outcome, and the fit, and the drape. The pattern called for more buttons but I liked a single one.

Ribbing and Buttonholes and Steeks

The wrist ribbing was totally stretched out from over-zealous blocking on my new wooly board, and I had thought to try to rewet and reblock, but it was so stretched out that I felt as though it would be useless to try, so I just reknit the wrist bands. Now they look a lot better.
The first band I knit for the center of the cardigan worked out well. Even the colors cooperated. But the buttonholes for the other band were another story. I reknit the first buttonhole about 10 times before it started making any sense to me, and each buttonhole got better as I went along, although I am not totally happy with them. Then I went on the the tacking down of steeks on the inside. I will not show the inside on my blog, since it looks quite awful, primarily because of the color changes. I overcast and tacked the edges with purple on the first band, and while it looked acceptable on the purple and red sections, it was hideous on the yellow and green since it showed up very vividly. The only way around this was to have cut multiple sections of color from the remaining yarn, and I wasn't about to do that. So it will have to do.
The collar ribbing is also slightly too big, and I am going to do some single crochet around the edge to see if I can tighten it up slightly. The sweater is very comfortable to wear, and it looks fairly good if one doesn't inspect the inside. Polymer clay buttons are up next, but since I'm going on vacation tomorrow(!!) it will have to wait.

Kauni Cardigan Progress

Shown on my new Wooly Board! Now I have to cut the center open, and pick up bands and do buttonholes. Yikes. All in corrugated ribbing. Double yikes!

I started out with two huge 290 gm skeins of this yarn, and I just weighed what remains, and IT IS 233 gms!!! I love the yarn and am already thinking about another sweater with the leftovers. In case you're interested, I am knitting the large size.

Kauni Cardigan Sleeves

Sorry for the shiny background! Don't know how to photograph this large thing!!
I am sailing right along on the cardigan, and if I didn't have a lot of company, I suspect that it may have been completed by now!
The two sleeves do not match, and I didn't try. For one thing, I don't believe I could have matched them, since it's difficult to tell where the colors change because of the LONG color repeats! I also thought about knitting them both at once with a steek, and then cutting them and sewing them on the body, but I chose not to do that. So in the end, I just kept knitting without cutting the yarn. I hate to waste it!!
I think that in the future, I will not knit a two-color sleeve down from the shoulders when it is attached to the body. I hate all the turning the sweater, and the two strands of yarn, and the two-circular needles or dpns I am using.
Soon, I will have to do the ribbing on the center, and am thinking about doing it with steeks at the top and bottom so I will be knitting circularly, instead of knitting back and forth with corrugated ribbing. I tried it with the neck ribbing and hated it. I'm also thinking about the buttons, and whether my polymer clay skills are up to the color matching or not. But that's another day!!!

Kauni Cardigan Progress

I've made it to the first sleeve!! I already knit the neckband since I was already at a similar color as the bottom ribbing, and I am attempting to at least have similar colors for the knit bands. I hate to waste any of this gorgeous yarn so we'll see how it works out. The knitting has begun with the opposite end of the yarn in the ball, so that the color changes will be in the same order. The gauge on the sleeves has been all wonky and I frogged several inches of the sleeve and started over using two circular needles, in a size smaller than the body. The second picture shows the yarn I have left!!!!! I started out with four balls altogether and used the smaller ones first. The incredible part about this yarn was that there was NOT ONE SINGLE KNOT OR BREAK IN EITHER ONE OF THE SKEINS. This is in huge contrast to some yarn skeins I have used in the past (not this brand) that have had multiple knots in 50 gm balls. These were 290 gms each and not one knot. Amazing!!

You are also seeing how I manage the floppy sweater body while knitting the sleeves. I folded it all up in quarters, and stuck a circular needle through all the layers resulting in a nice small package to handle. The center steeks have not been cut yet to make it easier to manuever.

Kauni Cardigan Progress

Here is the work-in-progress, almost to the armhole steeks. I believe that I am almost through the entire color sequencing and am liking it a whole lot! I did some pencil coloring, as suggested in some other blogs, to see about differing color combinations, but in the end, I just started at the beginning of the two skeins. Of course, the beginnings were just perfect as you can see, since the two colors are one place away from each other on the color wheel.

I've been researching steeks, and finishing them, and such, and have some ideas, but I'll wait and see how it goes at that time. I am such a procrastinator.

This sweater also incorporates the Philosophers Wool technique, using two hands, and weaving every other stitch. Takes a lot longer that way, but is very sturdy fabric.