i make stuff

Sportified Wispy.

A few years ago, Hannah Fettig designed the simple yet awesome Whisper Cardigan, published in Interweave Knits, and I made one right away. What I love about it is that it's a sweater that goes with just about anything - you can pull it on over a tee shirt, you can pair it with a dress, whatever, and it doesn't use much yarn. It's really more of a shrug than a sweater, a shrug with a long "skirt" or body to it. That sweater was so popular, Hannah re-issued it (with a few modifications) as the Wispy Cardigan, published it herself, and more people started knitting it. Her mods made the sweater a little more crisp - added ribbing to the bottom and the sleeve cuffs, most notably, so that the ends didn't curl up. 

My old Whisper is pretty much spent. I knit it out of 100% merino laceweight yarn, and the armpits have felted entirely. I knew it was time to make another, and I decided that I'd just go ahead with the Wispy for myself. However, I realized that in my Seattle climate, laceweight maybe wasn't the most practical choice if I really wanted something I could wear most of the year.

In truth, sport is my favorite weight yarn. I wish there were more patterns written for sport weight, because it's kind of the best thing ever. One of my favorite sport weight luxury yarns is madelinetosh pashmina. It's pricy, but it's simply fabulous and well worth the cost. I got the hankering to knit myself a Wispy out of pashmina, and I was hooked! I picked up a few skeins from ESK and prepared for the awesome...and awesome is exactly how it came out.

PATTERN: Wispy Cardi by Hannah Fettig
NEEDLES: US 6 (4.0mm), US 4 (3.5 mm)
YARN: madelinetosh pashmina in Antler

SO. In order to modify this puppy for sport weight yarn, I first knit myself a swatch. Somehow, magically, my gauge was very, very close to the slated pattern gauge, so that made life a little simpler. I decided to knit the bulk of the sweater on 6s and the ribbed collar band on 4s.

One thing I knew I wanted to do was convert the sleeves to knitting in the round, and make them more fitted and tapered (I do love a fitted sleeve). This pattern has an interesting construction where you knit the shrug first, going up one arm, across the back and down the other arm, then you pick up for the body. So to modify the sleeves, I started off with 52 stitches in the round, knit my ribbing for 10 rows, then knit 5 rows and increased 2 stitches every 7 rows till I had 72 stitches. I then knit the pattern as written until I got to the other sleeve, and I reverse engineered what I did on the first. The result? A well-fitting shrug with nice, fitted sleeves.

Otherwise, I basically knit the pattern as written, the only other change being the rate of increase on the body. I knit the first 6" with an increase every other row, then changed to every 4th row for the rest of the skirt. This way, my front panels didn't come too far into my middle, what with the length I was knitting.

Really, really pleased with the result. Pashmina is such a delightful yarn, and the sport weight will mean that I can get a lot of wear out of this just about all year in Seattle. I'm pleased to say that I only used 2 skeins of yarn for this sweater, so it's really not terribly expensive to splurge for a sport weight luxury yarn!

Plus, another fun thing with this one - I explored some new spots in my 'hood for the photos. It's so easy to fall into a rut with your photos, don't you think? I find myself lazily heading to the same spots to pose, and it's so much better when you can pick out someplace new as a backdrop! 

One yarn, two projects.

At the beginning of the year, I took on a Pay It Forward project that involved letting several people sign up for me to make them something, and then in turn, they would have to pay it forward to someone else. I've been a wee bit slow to get going on these, but I finally buckled down and got started this summer. I decided to spin up some fiber into yarn and make handknit legwarmers for my friend Alex, who's a yoga goddess and so of COURSE needed legwarmers!!!

I started with this fiber, falkland dyed by Funky Carolina, in a color called Run Into the Fire. 

I had two braids of this gorgeous stuff, so I made two skeins of sport/dk 2-ply yarn, spinning on my Lendrum DT.

Once the yarn was done, I got really excited because I realized I totally had enough for TWO projects. So I decided to knit the legwarmers and also a birthday hat for my friend Marianne. I love how the handspun yarn looked in the two projects.

PATTERN: Improvised
NEEDLES: US 5 (3.75 mm)
YARN: My handspun, Funky Carolina Falkland

I made up this pattern, so feel free to use it. For an average woman, cast on 40 stitches (gauge about 4.5 stitches per inch). Knit 3" (approx. 18 rows) 2x2 ribbing. For the first knit row, increase 4 stitches, evenly spaced (I just did a k1f&b). Knit in the round. Increase 4 more stitches in row 50. Knit to 80 rows. Do another 3" (18 rows) 2x2 and then cast off using the sewn bindoff method. Easy!

PATTERN: Norie by Gudrun Johnston
NEEDLES: US 5 (3.75 mm)
YARN: My handspun, Funky Carolina Falkland

This is such a great hat! I wasn't sure about it in handspun at first, but my friend Tracy convinced me that with a semi-solid handspun, it wouldn't interfere with the lace panels, and she was right. This is a great pattern for a not-too-crazy handspun yarn. I love the slouch factor and the lace panels. It was a very fast knit, and I think it's really cute on my pal! The only change I made was to leave out the last pattern repeat, but it's still very slouchy.

And that's how one gal makes two gifts from the same yarn. Yay!

The perfect sweater.

I want to share a sweater project I'm really proud of because it's the first cardigan I've made that I modified a good bit to suit my needs and my body - and it was a success. Earlier this year, I made my Owls sweater and changed the length and the waist shaping to suit me. I think this gave me a little boost of courage to take a stab at modifying other patterns that almost worked for me but needed a little something.

Last year, I saw Hannah Fettig's Carrot Cardi pattern spring up on Ravelry, and I was drawn to it, but not in an "I must make this right now" sort of way. I faved it and then kind of moved on, busy with holiday knits and other delights. But I kept thinking about it.

I've spent a lot of time in the last year getting better at making sweaters, but also thinking more about what kinds of garments are fun to knit AND also get worn. As knitters, we often find ourselves drawn to a pattern because it's beautiful or interesting in its construction (looks fun to knit). But too often, those beautiful sweaters end up on a forgotten shelf in our closet and not on our bodies. I know this has happened to me a lot in the past, and I'm trying really hard to pinpoint what makes a sweater both fun to make and then really wearable. 

One thing I've realized is that I like layers, given the climate I now live in, and I like sweaters that are easy to take off or throw on over other tops. For my lifestyle and wardrobe, this means cardigans - but mostly open cardigans, not so much with the cropped or buttoned or decorative cardigan. Functionality is the main objective. I've also realized that, as much as I love hand-dyed yarns, the sweaters I wear the most often are colors that go with a ton of things in my wardrobe. More often than not, they're neutrals - greys, browns, blacks, creams, perhaps a dark blue or that perfect shade of green that goes with so many colors. Yes, I think green can be a neutral. I'll revisit that in a few weeks when I have a new sweater FO to share. 

So with this in mind, I kept coming back to that Carrot Cardigan, and as I studied the photos, I became more and more convinced that I needed to make this sweater, but with a few changes. First of all, I didn't like the baggy sleeves. I'm pretty small, and Hannah's patterns tend to run large as it is, so I knew that I would have to do something about the sleeves to make them more fitted, because I definitely wanted a cleaner, less bum-around-the-house look - although I did want a sweater I COULD bum around the house in. Also, this sweater had knit flat, seamed and set-in sleeves. I hate seaming shoulders. A few sweaters ago, I learned how to pick up stitches around the sleeve hole and knit down in the round, and I figured that's exactly what I would do in order to make the project more fun for me. Also, I knew that it would be easier for me to modify the sleeve tightness if I knit them in the round from the top down - try it on as you go! Finally, I decided to add a faux seam to the side of the garment to give it a bit more structure, another trick I learned on a previous sweater. I read through the pattern carefully and made some notes about the changes I wanted to make, and then I was off to the races!

Since moving to Seattle, I've made a few friends who also happen to be handy at dyeing yarn. I love supporting them in their small businesses, so I decided to ask my friend Brigette over at Hermosa Fiber Co. to custom-dye the yarn for this sweater. I had seen her Coal colorway before and knew it was the exact sort of neutral colorway I needed to make this sweater more wearable as an everyday kind of garment. The yarn came out perfectly - semi-solid and beautiful, and I got to guinea pig her brand-new sport base. Loved everything about the results.

PATTERN: Carrot Cardi by Hannah Fettig
NEEDLES: US 6 (4.0mm)
YARN: Hermosa Fiber Co. Sport in Coal

I know I always say my latest sweater is my favorite, but I've actually knit other since, and I can say this is STILL my favorite sweater to date. I love everything about how it turned out. It fits me perfectly and it suits my wardrobe entirely, and of all the things I have made, this is the one that fools people the most in terms of looking like I bought it at a store.

I'm really happy with how the sleeves came out, because as I expected, slimming them down gave the whole sweater a much more streamlined and sleek look. I do like the comfy look of the original, but with the slimmer sleeve, I feel like I can wear this to work and not look like a bum (albeit a cute, cute bum).

The faux seam is such an easy addition that I think I'll probably end up adding it to many of the seamless sweaters I make in the future. Seamless sweaters are so appealing because you don't have to do any sewing at the end other than weaving in ends and closing up underarms, and often the knitting is more mindless than knitting flat pieces with more shaping to them. But the faux seam adds more structure without actually adding any difficulty. You just set off a column of stitches on either side with some stitch markers, and then when you've knit the entire body, you drop the stitch all the way back down and then use a crochet hook to weave it back up, creating a seam. It's awesome and easy and fun!

There you can see the fake seam, just near my hand.

I love this sweater, and I hope everyone makes one - whether you follow Hannah's pattern as written or make your own. I was really excited when a fellow Raveller contacted me recently to let me know she had followed my mods and made herself a sweater and loved the results. Yay! I am getting better at this whole modification thing!

The little things.

As a knitter, I find that I feel a lot of pressure to knit sweaters. I do enjoy knitting sweaters, but somehow it seems like that's what I'm SUPPOSED to be knitting all the time. But in truth, I get a lot of pleasure from knitting smaller items. When you've been chugging away at a big sweater or blanket project for weeks, it's really refreshing to cast on for something small and nearly-instant in gratification. I'm a little behind on posting FOs, so I thought I would share some of the smaller things I've been making the last few months.

PATTERN: Toast by Leslie Friend
NEEDLES: US 7 (4.5mm)
YARN: Funky Carolina BFL in "Lupin," spun by me

I love these little mitts. I spun up the yarn and knit them as part of a knit-along in the Funky Carolina Ravelry group. I split the fiber up a lot to spin the singles, and then navajo (chain) plied the yarn, which created the skinny striping effect you see. LOVE. Such an easy knit, I think I knit most of them while watching The King's Speech in the theater. :)

PATTERN: Toorie by Carina Spencer
NEEDLES: US 5 (3.75mm)
YARN: madelinetosh DK in Oxblood (1 skein)

LOVE this cute little hat. I made this for my friend Chris. She loves hats and looks adorable in a cloche, so it seemed like the perfect thing for her. This yarn has such a great texture and as always, Tosh dyes are beautiful. This colorway has a lot of red, purple and black in it, very complex and glowy.

PATTERN: Melody by Melody Moore
NEEDLES: US 8 (5.0mm)
YARN: Have You Any Wool Lustrous in Graphite

It's a good rule of thumb to always have a Melody shawl on the needles. It's knit in a plain stockinette round, using a whole skein or more of lace or fingering weight yarn, and then you cut it to make the fringe. Super mindless and easy. I love this delectable yarn from Have You Any Wool. Her dyeing is very special, and I encourage you to try the yarn. If you've ever knit with Sundara Yarn Fingering Silky Merino, this is similar in feel. I wouldn't call this project instant gratification, but it's certainly mindless knitting, great for picking up for small in-between moments or working on while chatting with friends.

Sock central!

This year, I promised myself I'd get to making more socks, as I only had about 7 pairs and I have about a bazillion skeins of sock yarn I'm trying to knit through - not to mention all the fiber that's begging to be spun up and knit! Here are a few pairs I've made so far this spring...

PATTERN: Walk Now by Irishgirlieknits
NEEDLES: US 1 (2.25mm)
YARN: Funky Carolina Superwash Merino/Cashmere/Silk in "Vampyr"

Holy decadent socks, Batman! When my friend Carrie recently dyed up a bunch of yarn along with her normal spinning fiber, I knew I needed to have a skein. She does the best reds! This one had to come and live with me. Even though the blend is super fancy, I just really wanted to make socks, and my OTHER friend Carrie had just released a new sock pattern - it seemed like a match made in heaven. Thanks to my pal Ceylan for taking photos for me during our March weekend lakehouse getaway in Texas.

PATTERN: Wendy's Generic Toe-Up Socks (recipe)
NEEDLES: US 1 (2.25mm)
FIBER: Two if By Hand Superwash Merino in "Whiz Bangs"
(spun to 2-ply fingering/sport weight yarn)

It's impossible to explain how much I love these socks. This is one of my favorite colorways dyed by my girlfriend Ceylan - isn't it awesome? I think you really have to see what the fiber looks like before it's spun, because it's so stunning...

OMG. I love it. I have spun this several times, for customers of Plied Together (our Etsy handspun yarn shop) and will be spinning several more braids for upcoming custom orders. It's the best. I made basic toe-up socks using a provisional cast-on and with a short-row heel. Love!

It's fun to make stuff for MEEEE! :)

Comfort Jeanette With Apples

Tomorrow, I'll resume my Rockin' the Handknits series - I've really been enjoying putting those together and hope you have, too. But first - I have a couple of new knits of my own to share with y'all and I'd love to start with a pair of socks I knit up for my friend Jeanette. I call them Comfort Jeanette With Apples. I knit these socks with my own handspun yarn, which I made using a braid of yarn dyed by my friend Maria of Two if By Hand. Here's the original braid of fiber (the second braid is for me and will be spun/knit later):

Two if By Hand SW Merino in "Comfort Me With Apples"

Jeanette asked me to spin her braid up as a navajo (chain) plied sock yarn, and that's just what I did. Fibers dyed like this make wonderful self-striping yarn when you chain-ply them. Chain plying means taking one strand of yarn and making loops to create multiple plies, rather than taking two or more strands of yarn and plying (twisting) them together). I was super pumped with the stripy, awesome result:

Pretty neat, eh? After I spun up the yarn, I thought, "Ya know...Jeanette doesn't really love knitting socks. Maybe I'll just knit them up for her as a surprise!" And that's what I did. Stealthily, I knit the socks without her knowing and zipped them to her in the mail. 

Sometimes, it's really nice to knit something for someone as a surprise! But you can see how the yarn knit up into stripes. Cool! They're a bit fraternal, but still pretty awesome.

I just did a basic toe-up sock for these, casting on 20 stitches provisionally for the toe and increasing every other row till I had 56 stitches. Then I knit to two inches before the heel and did a normal short-row heel, followed by the leg and a twisted 1x1 rib cuff. Easy!

 

 

Rockin' the Handknits - Ceylan's Manu

This week's star: Ceylan (ceylangul)

Ladies and gents, this is Ceylan, one of my dearest pals and partner in knitting/spinning crime. I love her SO! Ceylan's one of the many incredible friends I have made thanks to the fabulous yarnie website Ravelry. I started to "Rav-stalk" her, as we call it, when I saw her gorgeous knits online, and eventually we got to chatting on the message boards and realized we both curse like sailors and pretty soon we were B! F! F! I met her in person for the first time in 2009 and we were fast friends. I think within a half hour or so of meeting in person, we were making inappropriate jokes left and right.  She lives in Texas and we share many things in common - night owl tendencies, love of a good rock show, movie or book, a stiff cocktail, a little raunchy humor, and a hearty laugh! Last summer, we started Plied Together, our little handspun yarn shop on Etsy - check it out if you haven't already.

When I first came across her online, I was blown away by all her beautiful handknits, not just because they were so beautifully knit and photographed, but because she really has a sense for choosing patterns that compliment her curvy bod and then picking the PERFECT yarn to make the most gorgeous clothing that looks amazing on her. It's a real gift, that ability to look at a pattern and say, "Is this going to look good on me?" Ceylan does it better than anyone, and if the pattern is appealing but not QUITE right, she modifies it and makes it work for her. I am so jealous of this skill, and now that we're real-deal friends and not just Rav-stalking friends, I constantly bounce ideas off her for sweaters, because I know that if she thinks it'll work, it'll work! All hail the great Ceylan and her wealth of knowledge! She's so patient and willing to think through a pattern with me, which I really appreciate. But enough of my friend crush! On to the fabulous knits!

I really can't think of a better example of Ceylan's pattern-to-garment genius than the Manu sweater she made last summer.

Ceylan's Manu Sweater
Pattern: Manu by Kate Davies
Yarn: madelinetosh sport in Iris
July 2010

This sweater was originally written as a long cardigan that buttoned at the top and had pockets at thigh level - you can check out my version for a visual. Ceylan knows that button-on-top cardis don't flatter her as well as other shapes, but she was drawn to the pleats at the yoke of the sweater and had the imagination and good sense to think, "Hey! I could turn this into a pullover and rock it!" And that's exactly what she did, with amazing results. Now she has a pullover version of that gorgeous smocked yoke sweater.

This sweater is so beautiful on her! I love how it hugs her curves. The original sweater was kind of artsy and cute, but her version is sexy and professional. I think it'd be killer and totally work-appropriate with a black pencil skirt and heels...

...oh wait - she already thought of that!

Some Cloudy Day

I've been so busy showing you all these other people's gorgeous handknits, I've been neglecting my own! Here's a recent knit that I'm in love with...

PATTERN: Some Cloudy Day by Tiny Owl Knits
NEEDLES: US 3 (3.25mm)
YARN: Mama Blue Knitting Goods Sea Merino in "Smoke"
(discontinued, any fingering weight yarn will do), 380 yards

I ADORE these legwarmers! My friend Ceylan knit a pair over the summer and I knew I had to have them. I put off doing it for a while because I assumed they might take a while, being tall - but no. They didn't. They were a very quick knit, mostly because the pattern is super simple and you'll memorize it after the second repeat. And then they just fly right off the needles!

It's very sad that this yarn was discontinued. A couple of years ago, Mama Blue Knitting Goods was a sold-out-in-five-minutes-every-time Etsy shop, and I frantically stashed a bunch of yarn - as much as I could grab, which wasn't that much, given the frenzied shop updates. When I heard she was going out of business a few months ago, I was sad, but she had slowed down her updates dramatically, to the point of barely even dyeing any yarn. So now I'll have to hoard my remaining skeins. This yarn is super soft and cozy. But any fingering weight yarn will do, as long as the yardage is high enough for you to get good length. I believe the pattern is actually written for sport weight yarn, so you could go that route, too.

These are awesome for lounging around on a weekend, and they fit inside my tall boots with the top peeking out for sass-factor. LOVE!

 

Cuddles the Sweater.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Cuddles the Sweater.

Pattern: Cadence pullover by Jordana Paige
Yarn: Plied Together 2-Ply, 630 yards heavy worsted weight
Fiber: FLUFF Fibers Merino/Cashmere/Silk in "Cuddles"
Knit by: Erin Walker

I didn't knit this sweater. But I want to share it with you because it's a very special labor of love, the combined work of three talented artists (why yes, that's me patting myself on my own back - I am one of the three). My very dear friend Erin, owner of the online yarn shop Eat. Sleep. Knit., knit this beautiful sweater from yarn I spun using FLUFF Fibers merino/cashmere/silk fiber, hand-dyed by my wonderful friend Jeanette.

How's that for a circle of handmade lovin'?!

This is the first time I've ever spun a sweater quantity of fiber, and it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be - in large part because Jeanette's fiber is so beautiful and soft and well-handled, it was a joy to work with. I spun 20 ounces of fiber into 5 skeins of yarn, and it took me about a week to do. The hardest part was maintaining consistency for that many skeins of yarn. Since the fiber was hand-dyed, and I wanted it to "match" as well as it could, I mixed it all up before spinning, so Erin would have a really blended effect, and I think that worked out in the end. Her sweater is just lovely, no? 

Here's what the fiber looked like when I got it (forgive the vaguely pink lighting, it was tough to photograph on a rainy Seattle day).

And here's what it looked like once I spun it up:

Sometimes it's hard to look at handspun and envision what it's going to be like knit up, and that's what has stopped me from spinning for a sweater for myself so far. But I think Erin did a great job choosing the right pattern for this yarn. It has a nice embellishment at the top that's not marred by the way handspun yarn stripes gently and naturally. All around, I think this is a beautiful project, from the dye job to the yarn to the knitting/wearing of the garment.

There will be owls.

Finally - an Owls sweater of my very own!

PATTERN: Owls by Kate Davies
NEEDLES: US 10 (6.0mm)
YARN: Cascade Eco Wool #8049 (Tarnish), 1.5 skeins

This sweater...what a win! It's been a sensation on Ravelry for so long, and I always admired it, but this fall really put me over the edge. Several of my girlfriends knit this sweater, which increased my admiration for it, and then at Rhinebeck I saw about 10 more of them floating around and knew I had to have one. I'm glad I cast on recently - somewhat on a whim - I was waiting on other sweater yarn and decided to go for it. It knit up SO quickly, as the yarn is pretty bulky and I was on big needles.

The sweater is written at a gauge of 3.25 stitches per inch, and I had 4 stitches per inch, so I knew some modification was going to be in my future. In the end, I changed a LOT of the numbers to make the sweater work for me. It's written sort of small, and so I started out making the largest size, a 44" if you're at the right gauge, which I wasn't - I would have ended up with about a 36" sweater. Trouble is, it was going to be great on my (super wide) hips, but too big up top - so I ended up starting out with the largest size, then decreasing down further for the waist and working the top half of the sweater and the sleeves a size down. In the end, my sweater is about 34" around the bust, perhaps even a little smaller, so it has a little negative ease. It's PERFECT. I think it's super-flattering, which surprised me, given that the yarn is bulkier. LOVE!

In the original, all of the owls have button-eyes, all the way around the sweater. I decided that was too twee for me, but I didn't want to go totally eye-less. So I gave one wee little owl a pair of eyes. Jay helped me pick them, and the buttons are very small and subtle. 

I'm so pleased with this sweater. It's not a hard pattern, but I love that I'm becoming comfortable enough with my knitting to begin to read a pattern and see how it might not work for me and then modify it accordingly. At least, this is true with seamless sweaters - I'm still something of a novice with sweaters knit in pieces, so I'll have to tackle that a bit. And sure enough, my next two sweaters are going to be seamed. I hate seaming, so this will be a challenge. Stay tuned!

A word about the yarn - Cascade Eco is a wonderful yarn for a very low price. It's really quite nice Peruvian wool. It's a bit itchy, if you're wool-sensitive. Not everyone would enjoy wearing this next to the skin. I like wool, and with a tee-shirt under it I was fine. Not sure I could have gone without, but really - who would want to? Anyway, I would definitely knit with this yarn again - it's pretty soft to the touch and the stitches look great - plus it comes in a lot of lovely natural shades.