Eye Candy

I think of magazines as eye candy. After all - they're colorful, frequently fluffy, lots of color calories with not too much substance, and, of course, nearly always for sale at the check-out counter. I'll admit - I buy a lot more magazines than candy - in fact you might say I buy magazines in lieu of candy. I'll even walk the long way around a grocery store or our local Walmart just to be sure I go past the 'other' magazine rack, to see what's new. It's the first place I look when I go into a big box book store. Yup. I may not eat desert first, but I sure do check out the glossies.

My expectations from magazines are not much more than my expectations from candy. I'm not counting on a lot of nutrition from them, but if there are one or two good articles - or in the case of knitting magazines, good patterns inside - I'll buy. This is the image that tipped the scales for me yesterday as I flipped through the Vogue Knitting Holiday 2011 issue. YUM. This is an absolute dream of a hat. The construction is very different from ordinary hat construction, too. And no surprise about the designer - it's Deborah Newton! Ha! Just looking at it in my own blog makes my fingers twitch. There will be a helmet hat in my future.

Since this was the third thing I really liked, even if two of them were 'just' accessories, I stopped perusing it and tossed it in my cart. What also floated my boat were these mitts:

and this sweater: 

That cabled rib makes my mouth water faster than chocolate would. Yum. In fact - it might just show up on my oatmeal tweed Aran - that's just waiting up ahead.

I liked a couple of other patterns as well - even the far more outre hat, again by D Newton, and on the same page. It's too funky for me to wear but it's cool to look at. And the plane jane sweater in burgundy red with intarsia flowers on it. I wouldn't have bought the magazine for those patterns and I would have been the poorer too, because once I got it home there was something I was really delighted to find. Check this out!


Stitch Heaven Salutes Barbara G. Walker DVD from TriCoast Worldwide on Vimeo.


Yeah! I'd never even heard of Stichheaven but I am enough of a Knit Star Groupie to want a copy of this. Hmm. Just the right price, too, for somebody to give me for Christmas.

Yep. This was some eye candy worth the calories, I'd say.

A Tweedy Decision

So - I decide to cast on my Bricca and what shows up in the mail at last? Yes. The sample skeins of tweed yarn I bought because - the photo on-line and in the catalogs looked like KnitPicks just might have the exact color I was looking for. I also ordered something named Barn Door. It doesn't look like any barn door I ever saw - but it's a pretty plum color and goes very nicely with the grey tweed they make. 

But neither of the colors are what I was looking for and since the Cleckheaton is so close it's almost a bulls eye - and since I've been looking at that swatch, displayed on the buffet in the den so I can see it every time I go into that room, I've rather fallen in love with it. 

And So. And so an order to WEBBS was sent off and another box of yarn is winging its way to TheCastle. And I am asking myself   "Do I really think I can knit two cabled sweaters this fall (and winter)?"

Ah well. I have nothing if not hubris.

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.