Two Swatches

I've always loved these richly textured all over stitch patterns in the Barbara Walker books. This one is easy - 16 stitches and 16 rows and it's nothing but ribs broken with garter stitch bands. And it's beautiful. I want scrunch it in my fingers to bite into it.   In my InnerDesignEye I can see this in a sleeve - I can almost see it in a pullover sweater body. My only concern is that it is a lot of knitting and purling. Lots of opportunities to make mistakes if I have to stay alert while knitting the approximately 60K stitches that go into a long sleeved pullover. Easy to fix, yes, but I don't think this will be brainless knitting. And to make sure it didn't ride up in front I would have to make it slightly oversized. Big Knitting in somewhat Big Yarn on a slightly Big Body? Maybe. Maybe not. But oh la! I love this stitch pattern.

Then there is this pretty cable. Running down both sides of a button band or perhaps centered with a little twisted stitch cable on either side of it - perhaps a twin running down the center back - it would be just enough to make a plain sweater interesting. A plain, almost brainless project that could be toted around. Something it would be easy to add short row bust darts to. 

The stockinette stitch and row gauge comes in at an estimated 4.5 stitches and 6.5 rows per inch - though I would block the swatch first before I cast on. The cable takes a smidge more than 7 stitches per inch. Not that it would matter much if I'm only putting in a few of them.   

So. Here I am. Still undecided. My PracticalBrain says "Oh go with the cable, silly" My FancyNancy Brain says "All over stitch pattern!" 

PB says "You'll get tired of having to concentrate and won't finish it"

FNB says "You'll always yearn for the pretty one"

PB says "You'll look like a mack truck walking down the streetn"

FNB says "You will look Celtic! and it matches your new skirt."

Ah well. There it is. My tweed yarn did NOT come in. It has 2 more days to make me happy but again - if it doesn't come in by Saturday I can always bring down the winter clothes on my Monday Holiday. 

Decisions decisions. 

TheQueen and her Cashmerino

Yes. TheQueen is having a difficult time with her Cashmerino yarn. Mind now - she adores touching it, knitting it, looking at it, even smelling it. But she's not exactly sure what to do with it. It's actually Cashmerino Aran - so it's a thick yarn. Not a really bulky yarn, just thick. And though I thought I wanted to knit it into an Aran sweater I can't seem to settle on the cables I want. I believe that I don't actually 'see' it with my inner design eye.

That oatmeal colored yarn that I want but haven't bought yet ... I know exactly what I want it to look like. It's actually already knit in my IDEye. Of course - that's why I want to go shopping so badly. LOL. This yarn? Not yet. I know I have to give it permission to be something else - because right now, I'm stuck. 

So, what do I know? Hmmm. I know I want a cuddlesome garment. This yarn is just too cushy and plush to create anything else. I also don't want too much bulk around the shoulders. I'm undecided between cardigan and pullover. A Central Park Hoodie type of garment might be the thing, although I don't wear hoodies. Nobody says I have to put the hood in.  It really does look pretty in cables. But I think  - yes - they need to be narrow cables. (hmmm. am I getting someplace here) I know I want seed stitch in there someplace. And I'm suddenly thinking about a diamond cable button band instead of ribbing. 

 And here we begin to see where the problems crop up. Just imagine a thick diamond cable - maybe the Hollow Oak Cable - sitting on top of another as it heaves itself up over a mountainous bosom. Yeah. not a pretty thought.  But who says the part with the button on it can't be done in something flatter? Even a tight stockinette? 

I confess I am a Fancy Nancy when it comes to design. My inclination is to make it fancier. To pile it on till disaster befalls me.  (If you have a little girl, or even just access to someone else's little princess - you really will enjoy this series) I don't particularly look good in fancy. I just like it. In fact - it was partly because my Irene sweater was so plain - mostly stockinette in the round - that I had such pleasure in it. And that's really what I'm missing now - a project that's a pleasure to make. Something that is Not Socks. I have socks going all the time - they are fun - but I get tired of tiny needles. Socks are water. Sweaters are food. I need both for knitting equilibrium.  

Well. I will give that lovely yarn today and maybe tomorrow to decide on what to make it into and then I will just look around in my stash - and perhaps go shopping - and make something else. My motto? Knit no yarn before its time. 

UnAttic-ing Treasures

I really wanted to say unearthing, but I found this treasure in my attic. Because yes. There is Attic Stash too - in TheCastle. I am a knitter. What do you think is in my house?

Quite some years ago I saw the most beautiful red cabled sweater at some shopping mall store and thought "Hmm. I could knit that". Then I fell in love with this book and decided I wanted to knit the cover sweater. So for my birthday that year I purchased lots of balls of beautiful red Cashmerino Aran by Debbie Bliss from a very nice shop in Canada, the name of which I can now not remember.

And I cast on.

And I knit a good bit of it too before I realized I HATED that narrow cable on either side of the center panel. In fact, while I really love the look of cabled sweaters, I was not sure I had the discipline to actually knit a whole sweater's worth of them. So I set the sweater down. I cast on something new. I got tired of stumbling over that big bag of yarn. I packed it in a bin. I grew weary of having to move that bin to get to the stuff in the bin below. I banished the bin to the attic where I couldn't hear the yarn weeping. And there guilt was born. I know that we do get moths up in the attic. I know there's a chance that $$$ yarn was being eaten by hideous creatures who would live and reproduce and die in a wooly paradise.

Long stretches of time would go by when I could forget about that yarn but I always knew it was there and when I did think of it - it was with dread. I'd remember that yarn most frequently whenever I was considering making another big yarn purchase -  not when I was in a shopping frenzy at some fiber festival, mind, but whenever I was at home thinking "What do I want to make next?" - when I had to carefully consider, calculate and then lay out the cash. And since, lately I have been thinking about spending $$ AND knitting an Aran sweater, it should come as no surprise that the lovely red yarn, abandoned, but not forgotten, should at last take a stand.

And so I climbed the attic, flashlight in hand, and lo - in the very first storage bin I found Treasure. Lots of beautiful red cashmere blend yarn in a color I bet has been discontinued. After all, I bought this stuff 7 years ago!!! I inspected it carefully and then frogged it back to the ribbing. Not a single bite of moth damage in any of the  yarn - which leaves me feeling confident the rest of it, double packed in plastic, is in good shape.

So here I am - with a mountain of gorgeous yarn and a yearning to cast on something new (besides obligatory Christmas Socks - they don't count. I have to knit them). I won't try to make the cover sweater on that book. This is TheQueen. She always has to make up her own project. But I may use that pretty central cable. Or I may pull out my Barbara Walkers and pick something else.

Of course - there is now that big empty spot in the attic bin. I am sure the rest of the skeins inside are lonely and feel in need of some comfort shopping stash bin filling New Yarn. It's the end of September. Once I pay off Visa - I believe some oatmeal colored Cleckheaton tweed might come to live in that bin. Maybe. Perhaps. I'll think about it tomorrow. At Tara.

Swatching swatching swatching

Oatmeal Tweed Aran

I always do at least a little swatch whenever I start a new project. Of course - I seldom knit from patterns so I had better get gauge - stitch gauge at least. Once I have some of the garment knit I can measure row gauge if I need to know it. And I usually do. Here are photos of the cables I'm going to use in the Oatmeal Tweed sweater that I will start once I pay off the Visa bill so I can order New Yarn. Or after I finish the Christmas Socks. Or after I knit the red and white lacy thing I talked about yesterday. Or maybe just someday. The fabric is still a little damp but I wanted to see what the real gauge would be on those cables.

I'll double this wider cable and place it in the center with nothing separating the two. I might even cross the diamonds where they touched. 

This narrower cable would be on either side of the center panel with a few extra purl stitches on either side and framed by a twisted stitch mini cable.

The underarm portion on both sleeve and body would be in moss stitch - and here you can see why I didn't just make a swatch but wet blocked it too, because just look how the moss stitch, which is just a broken up garter stitch - both shortened and widened the fabric! 

And suddenly I am thinking I may have inadvertently solved a design problem. Anyone who reads TheQueen knows I need more length in the front of my sweaters than in the back. I have been flirting with Knitting Math to see how to fit short rows in the front of this sweater - a doable task - but also wondering how I will keep track of the different cable stitches I'd be knitting on each row once those short rows had been finished. I could knit the entire back of this sweater in moss stitch and the natural shortening of the row gauge might just take care of the issue for me. And honestly, people only ever look at the front of a good looking sweater. Maybe a knitter will look at the back, but the general public? Nope. Just the front.

Even if I decide to put those cables on the back, though, I shall knit this sweater from the bottom up so that I will have to pay attention to the differences between front and back for only the 10 or so inches I'll be knitting from underarm to shoulder seam. (instead of the 16-18 inches in the sweater body should I knit this from the top down)

As for the width - well - there - everybody knows moss and seed stitch widen your knitting - but wow - the narrow cable and the moss stitch are both the same number of stitches - but just look at the difference.

Hats Off

 The needles, that is. Here is a photo of that hat I was trying on the other day. The cabled part came from the book Hats On by Charlene Schurch, of the more recent and perhaps, more well known book Sensational Knitted Socks.  I love the hats in this book. They are clever and attractive and the techniques are truly well explained. But they always turn out very big. I am not sure what is wrong with the gauge numbers - or with the knitter - but they end up being huge hats. I used the Size Small hat stitch count and it turned out perfectly, but I knew I was using a much heavier yarn than called for. It's a perfect fit. The visible part of the brim is seed stitch but underneath it is a couple of inches of 2x2 ribbing. A couple of knit rows on the wrong side help the brim turn up nicely and it's bound off with i-cord.

  

 

Here is a photo that does more justice to the cable stitches though the color is a little dark. This was another UFO that I'm glad to finish since we all know I am expecting a package in the mail today. I'll call the post office at lunch, because I may have to make a mad dash up the road to pick it up in person if the package was too big for my mailbox. I definitely don't want to wait 2 days to get my Soho Dress Yarn.

And yes - the vest is almost done. Only a few more button band rows, some ends to darn in and a nice wet block. I will finish it this week - but I may also cast on some Camelino first. We'll just have to see.

In the mean time - Happy Hump Day to you.