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It took me about six weeks, but it was all just very relaxed and enjoyable knitting.  I had to use buttons from my stash, so ended up pawing through my great grandmother’s button box and found these football shaped buttons.  They are jade green colored on the back, but the fronts have been mellowed by the sun, and the only jade color left on them is in a little line detail they have carved in them.  I dont know what garment they were salvaged from, but my guess would be either a coat or the front of a dress because there were 10 or 12 of them in the button tin.

I went with 3/4 length sleeves.  I decreased about 10% before starting the garter stitch hems of the sleeves and the bottom of the cardigan.  Also, as EZ recommends, I slipped the first stitch of the rows to make a nice chained edge to the  fronts, and I used my favorite bind off - which I refer to as “Annie Modesitt’s bindoff” - although I’m sure she didnt invent it, I just saw her demo it once so in my mind it’s “hers.”  It’s the K2tog Bindoff found on this page.

The Knitpicks Andean Silk yarn “crocked” quite a bit, (turned my Denise needle tips blue!) so when I washed it for blocking, I added distilled (white) vinegar to the wash.  Hopefully any excess dye is now no longer a problem.  It did fade down from the deep blue-green jade color, but it’s still a very nice color.

This yarn is *very soft* with a beautiful drape though, and I would not hesitate to use it again in another project.  Just be aware that it does not necessarily “finish” to the same deep jewel color as originally contemplated.

I, personally, don’t like the “eyelets” that were included in this pattern, so I knit into the back of those yarn-over increases to eliminate the holes.  I also decreased about 10% before knitting the garter stitch cuffs and bottom hem so they aren’t so “belled”.  Just a personal preference though.  This sweater looks great just as written, gauging from the sampling of the 2,643 other Lady Sweater projects listed on Ravelry as of November 2, 2008.

I bought extra yarn because I thought I was going to run out.  I actually would have, only I just barely needed a yard or two of one extra ball of yarn.  Sooooo….since I have it here and I was overcome by that “end of a great project let-down” - I cast on for a hat with the same yarn.  That is currently drying.  Now what????  I may have to get the wheel out and spin for a while and contemplate my next project.

Tags: Elizabeth Zimmermann, February sweater, Knitter's Almanac, Pamela Wynne, Yarn by EllyMae
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Well, she’s progressing slowly, but still moving along. I had a bit of a dilemma when I got to the sleeves.  The circular needle I’d been using was just right for knitting back and forth on a cardigan, but it was too short to “magic loop” the sleeve.  So, after trying out a couple of other needles in the stash, and hitting the same brick wall, I remembered the good ol’ Denise needles, and something I’d read a while back about if you needed more than one of a certain size, just put that size tip on one end, and any other size ont he other end.  The actual loops knitted depend on the size needle you actually knit with, not the one they’re coming off of…and, well, as we know, even if it MADE a difference, I’m quite prone to just “shrugging” and moving on.  So - enter “two circs” - like Cat Bordhi teaches so amusingly on YouTube.  I actually learned it from her book years ago, but still enjoy watching her teach.  So, anyway - the sleeve dilemma finally solved, off I went.  I decreased out the seven stitches I added at the armpit for this sweater, because the sleeve looked like it might be rather cavernous, so I just gently eased it away over a few rows, and it seems to have a nice fit now.  I’m pretty sure I’m going to make the sleeves 3/4-length…pretty sure….maybe.

Tags: Cat Bordhi, February sweater, Knitter's Almanac, Pamela Wynne by EllyMae
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Slowly but surely - she’s getting there.  I still love this yarn,  although it’s got some interesting “splices” in it that spring up when you least expect them. :(  They aren’t “knots” per se, but hard little spliced spots that will act just like a knot, so I’ve had to snip those out and start yarn again in spots where I’d rather not, but after it’s all woven in, hopefully it’s not going to make a difference.  Heaven knows I’ve got my own additions that weren’t planned for to weave in too.

So,  I’m “down to the sleeves” and since they’re knit right on the garment, it doesn’t feel like I’m just knitting a sleeve.  I still have my lap warmer to wrestle with (boy alpaca is WARM!) and the gull-lace is down to a rhythm and is “readable” so it’s a great TV watching project too.

Tags: Elizabeth Zimmermann, February sweater, Knitter's Almanac, Pamela Wynne, Yarn by EllyMae
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Every now and then, I consider subtitling this blog: “Confessions of a Crummy Knitter” - or words to that effect.   So, anyway, I’ve been knitting.  Things come out close to how I envision them, but usually not quite in the same ballpark.  I just keep telling myself it’s a learning process, and even though they come out flawed and full of “oops” moments, I’ve learned that much more from the mistakes.

A friend of mine gave me the most amusing book from 1968, and it’s full of baby and toddler and young children’s sweaters and hats, and of course booties, and a few other fun things, like mittens and hats with animal faces and ears on them.

The pink bonnet is one of the bonnets in the book.  I need to stitch some satin ribbon on it to finish it off.  I goofed up the lace pattern…of course. The textured pattern is called “Quaker stitch” and it’s alternating stockinette and reverse stockinette to make a nice stretchy fabric to accommodate a pretty good range of head sizes.  I like the seed stitch borders.  When I bound the bonnet off along the bottom edge, I used two different bind-offs.  The front sections, I used one that I saw Annie Modesitt demonstrate once which she calls the k2tog bind off.  I like it because it’s such a pretty edge, it looks kind of “crochet’d”.  However, it’s not very stretchy, so for the midback section of the bonnet, I used EZ’s sewn bind off, which is illustrated in her book, “Knitting Without Tears”, for a slightly more stretchy area.

The black socks are just the finished pair I’d been working on previously.  Basic sock “recipe” - and they also have my unique stamp of “oops I forgot I did that” on them - and one heel flap has a 3 ST garter selvedge - and the other does not.  Sigh…

How cute is the ladybug sock????  Yes of course there are boo-boos in it - need you wonder???  I finally got my hands on a copy of the (out of print) book Vogue Knitting on the Go, Socks.  I’m sure I could have improvised this from the Dale of Norway book that has Marihone in it (the Ladybug sweater that still sits waiting for steek cutting and sleeves to be sewn in), but I’m glad I got the book because I knew it had the pattern in it.  I found the book used through Amazon.com.  It smells of ciggy smoke though (ick!) but hopefully that will fade eventually, and I won’t have to resort to putting it into a plastic bag with some charcoal briquets to take that stench away from it.  The book is a small one, and just the right size for a knitting bag.

Tags: Dale of Norway, Elizabeth Zimmermann, Knitter's Almanac, Ladybug Sweater, Vogue Knitting, booties, knit hat, knitting, knitting books, knitting for babies, lace, sock knitting, socks, stranded knitting by EllyMae
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Well, another one!  I really like this pattern, as do many knitters who enjoy the practical wisdom of Elizabeth Zimmermann’s designs.  For this one, I wanted to make it look like a watermelon (no, those aren’t Christmas colors)…so my idea was to make the body of the sweater and sleeves the dark green, and us the lighter green, ecru and red as the inside of the “rind” and the watermelon - only - you know, the way I plan often isn’t actually the way things work…so of course I came up short on the dark green yarn.  As a result, this little sweater hibernated in the depths of my yarn bag for probably a year.  Finally, one day recently, I decided I wanted my stitch markers back (this project had most of them on it, yes indeed, I need to buy more stitch markers), and so I went looking for which WIP (work in progress) had them - and I found the watermelon sweater innocently sporting them, as well as my size 3 Profi bamboo circular needles.  And so the decision was made to just go ahead and finish the sweater with whatever striping I ended up with - and that’s why it’s striped instead of the original plan.  I still like it.

I used Knit Picks Shine sport yarn, one skein each of these colors (well - only parts of a skein of the red and ecru).  The sweater has a nice “heft” to it because Shine is cotton and microfiber mixed - so it has a little bit of a shine - um - DOH! - and it’s heavier weight than just cotton would be.  I want to make another one some day, but use my original idea and make the bottom all the darker green, with maybe just the very bottom edge and perhaps cuffs using the ecru-to-red change.

Project link on Ravelry.com.

Tags: Elizabeth Zimmermann, February sweater, Knitter's Almanac, Yarn, baby sweater by EllyMae
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