Ta Da! Finished!

I am quite happy with the way this one turned out! Is there a couple of things that I might change if I did same pattern again? Yes. But this is definitely a sweater that I will wear on a regular basis, and not just when I am lounging around the house. I will be wearing this to the office tomorrow!

Summary:

Pattern is Textured-Stitch Sweater Vest by Carol Covington in the book Vogue Knitting: Very Easy Knits ©1999 Butterwick Pattern Company.

Yarn is Paton's Classic Wool in Dark Grey Heather and Plum Heather 100% wool.

Knitted using Addi Turbo 60" circulars in US7 and US5 and I used a loose long tail cast on.

I knitted both the front and the back simultaneously which helped in getting the stripes even and the reduction for the armholes at the same place. This did make things a little confusing at times after I had started the V-neck since I had three balls of yarn going at the same time.

Having never done a vest with 1 X 1 ribbing on the arm openings, I ended up knitting the first one, trying it on and realizing that I Put in too many stitches as the ribbing stood straight out from the body of the sweater. Oh well, practice makes perfect! I knitted the second set with half the number of stitches at the top and the bottom of the arm hole and I think it turned out well.

If I had the ability to change anything, it would be knitting the rib at the bottom a little tighter as I did the neckline and arm holes. But I am not unhappy enough to do it over.

Best think is, I love the way the main sweater color highlights my hair!

Happy Knitting!

Convertible Mitten Update -- Finished!

I finally finished the convertible mittens. It took me awhile to get to the point where I wanted to take the time to finish them. If you remember from a previous post, I had some trouble with the thumbs. Of course, when I don't feel confident about what I am doing, I tend to put it off; but 35 degree temperatures in Chicago was the  sign that I needed to finish them for my friend's sake! 

You can see in the palm of the mitten where I tried to graph if using the Kitchener Stitch. I really like the way the ribbing around the finger opening looks. I only put a "texting" thumb on the right hand. I am not really happy about the way it made the thumb look weird and really over-sized. But from the picture, it makes it easy to text. It would especially be beneficial to iPhone users (or other smart phones) that are driven by touch. When using these phones, you must remove your gloves to use them.  I think that I will be making myself a pair of these really soon! 

Happy knitting!

It's football Sunday, so I think I will block.

I could hear the football game and announcers in the background as I began working on my Textured Sweater Vest. They were talking about blocking and that is what I was planning to do. Of course, the football players version of blocking does not include pins and steam.

It's amazing how much knitted fabric stretches.

I have not had too much experience blocking before -- that is mostly because I used to knit mostly with man-made yarn and I haven't had good luck with blocking those knitted fabric. But the Patons Classic yarn that I am using will look best if properly blocked. So I went onto the internet to search for some information on blocking wool. One of the best sites I found was on Knitty.com. This article by Jessica Fenlon Thomas is quite comprehensive and gives the author's opinion on the best way to block just about any type of yarn there is, so I have made it a favorite for future use. 

After reading Thomas's advice, I grabbed the sweater pieces, pins, a measuring tape and my iron and  headed for the spare room. I stripped the blanket and comforter off the bed leaving only the sheets and the mattress pad. I measured and pinned according to the pattern dimensions. By rummaging around in my linen closet, I found a flat twin sheet and ran it though the rinse and spin cycles in my washing machine. That got it wet without sopping. I folded it in quarters and laid it over both pieces.

I have to tell you that at this point my heart was really beating. What if I screwed up!? The instructions said to sit the hot iron on top of the wet sheet to drive the steam into the fabric. My iron is a cordless iron, which was nice because I was quite a ways from an outlet, however, the iron cooled quickly on the damp sheet and required several trips to the base to reheat.

I set the iron around the edges first and worked into the center. The top layers of the sheet dried which made it easy to see where I had already been. After I had been all the way around the sheet, I removed it and left in all the pins. I will leave it pinned out until tomorrow evening. That way there will not be any question that it dried completely. Stay tuned to see what happens.

Happy Knitting!

Sweater Vest continued

Work has kept me incredibly busy over the last couple of weeks. So busy that I did not get too much knitting in. It took me nearly all month to get the two pieces for the sweater vest done, but I completed the knitting tonight and will now bury all the loose ends and block the sweater. My plan is to get it done by next week so that I can wear it the following week to work.

The texture pattern is really lovely and I am happy with the way that it turned out. I did have some trouble working out the way the neckline was done and I ended up using a graph to figure it out. Math is great!

Happy Knitting!

Animal Tracks - A good yarn: Knitters make sweaters for penguins after oil spill

Life sometimes gets in the way of knitting. I didn't even have time to blog last weekend, but a friend passed this story to me (THANKS SCOTT) and I had to share. This is so cute it should be against the law!

Animal Tracks - A good yarn: Knitters make sweaters for penguins after oil spill:

Sweater Vest

Well, I spent the last week working on a new project. Yes, I know I have not finished the mittens, but I have a good excuse. My friend was not able to try them on so that I can check for proper placement of the texting thumb opening. Or at least that is the story to which I am sticking!

But I love my new project. It is a V-necked sweater vest which I found in Vogue Knitting: Very Easy Knits a "best of" book put out by Butterick Patterns in 1999. My pattern, Textured Vest" is just as the book states -- very easy. The 4 row pattern is easy: Knit row, Purl row, K1 P1 row, Purl row. The texture that is created resembles a waffle.

The pattern shows it in a solid color, but I am mixing it up a little. The main color is a lovely charcoal grey heather the stripes in a dark plum heather. There will be 3 plum colored stripes 2 narrow stripes flanking a wider stripe starting below the arm holes and going above half way up the v-neck. I have chosen a beautiful Classic Wool by Patons a 100% hand wash wool. It knits beautifully. The twist is perfect and it has a nice elastic feel to it when stretched.

Convertible Mitten Update -- Thumbs Down

The convertible mitten project is languishing in a bag as other obligations (work) and passions (MHFV) have taken priority over knitting this week. Thankfully, I do have a long train commute out of the city everyday and was able to get a little bit of work done on the mitten thumb. It was, however, all for naught as I soon found out I made a huge miscalculation on the number of stitches that I needed to leave live for the thumb. By the time I had knitted half way up the thumb, I realized that you could have put 3 thumbs in the opening. Of course it looked ridiculous. So much for "winging it."

It is errors in judgement like this that make me appreciate website forums like Knitting Paradise. I was able to quickly get a suggestion from another knitter on how to correct this problem. I am getting lots of practice picking up stitches with dpns. I picked up a row of knitting as close to the original live stitches as possible and frogged down to that point. I then tinked back to the original live stitches.

My next step was to use the kitchener stitch to close up some of the stitches in the palm.  I have never used the kitchener stitch on any project, so I hit YouTube and watched a video by theknitwitch. The video was easy to follow and the repair job turned out better than I expected. I had a rather difficult time because the stitches were a bit stretched and they didn't smooth out really well. The lesson learned here is to use a waste yarn that is not bigger than the yarn in the project. I will obviously have to do the same thing to the second mitten as it has the exact same problem. At least I was not knitting the mitten thumbs two-at-a-time!

Happy Knitting!