Category: knitting

knitting

The Rainbow Connection

LindeyLeave a comment

The Rainbow Connection V-neck Boxy sweater, that is. This:

Once again bathroom mirror pic, but it’s not the worst picture. Partially because of the happenings of the previous post and my rift sweater, I decided to knit it in a size that wasn’t overly large on me. In this case, since the sweater is supposed to be quite large, that meant knitting it about 4 sizes too small. I knit the body in the smallest size available, the neck in my own size, and then, because bringing the body in that drastically meant the sweater hit my upper arms, not my elbow or so, I made the arms deeper, just by knitting the top of the sweater to 8-9″ before joining under the arms.

The yarn I have left:

Between the size change and the 3″ sleeves, since I don’t especially like sleeves that come past my elbow, I used all but a few yards of every color, for something like 1500 yards of Miss Babs fingering weight yarn. I’d been planning on making the Muppet shawl by Lyrical Knits with this, and even bought it as a kit, but when I started to see the spoiler pictures of it, I realized it was in a shape I don’t really wear much. Plus I just forced my poor co-writer and PA to take a whole bunch of knitted shawls earlier this month. Knitting a bunch more isn’t the answer, even if I do love a good lace knit.

Now I guess I should go work on finishing that Tiong Bahru that’s been on my needles for . . . (checks notes) almost eleven years. Oops.

knitting · spinning

The Passport Blanket

LindeyLeave a comment

So, some time ago, I was on etsy, breaker of bank accounts and destroyer of lives, and I saw some CVM for sale. That’s California Variegated Mutant for anyone who doesn’t spin, and it’s a lofty, bouncy medium wool, which is also the first thing I ever handspun—on a drop spindle, no less. So I was taken by a moment of fancy, and decided to get some more.

The clever person who owned the farm asked me . . . do you need a SE2SE passport sticker?

And I fell right down the rabbit hole. Apparently, it’s a program to try to preserve rare and threatened sheep breeds, sending collectible stickers to put in a “passport” when you purchase wool of the breeds in question from farms taking part in the program. Included are breeds from Shetland, which has long been a favorite of mine, to things I’d never heard of before, some of which sound downright made up. Florida Cracker? Barbados Blackbelly?

There are a total of 20+ breeds, and while I doubt I’ll ever find them all, I thought . . . wouldn’t it be interesting to put them all together in one project? So I started buying the wool in question, in small 4oz lots, with the intention of spinning them all to a similar weight, and block by block, building an afghan out of all these rare sheep breeds. Because that’s the kind of nerd I am. The fun kind.

So here it is, my passport, in which I’ve collected a whole bunch of stickers, but only just started the immense undertaking of the spinning, with this, that first Lendrum bobbin, 1/3 of the CVM I bought at the beginning of the month:

Wish me luck with what’s almost certainly a bigger bite than I’ll ever manage to chew!

knitting

Flashdance!

LindeyLeave a comment

Okay, I’m trying not to flash anyone, but at the moment, it’s a bit of a struggle.

I was listening to a years-old episode of the Yarniacs, and one of them said that she thought women tended to knit maybe a little bigger than their size, which feels true to me as well. I’ve always knit garments a little big, because I like a loose fit, and also, I know myself. I know my love for bread. I never expect to lose weight.

The problem with that is that in the last year and a half, I’ve lost about fifty pounds, for various reasons. I’m not especially trying to, but it’s fine, and I won’t complain . . . except that I just put on a rift sweater that I knit two years ago. I knit it about a size too big at the time, and well, now I look like I’m auditioning for an 80s music video, because the neckline is so wide it won’t stay up on my shoulders.

Sorry for the dirty bathroom mirror picture, but here’s the effect:

It’s kind of okay, since I’m just wearing it with my pajamas to keep warm on a cool morning, but it’s no longer a sweater I can wear out. I know losing fifty pounds isn’t exactly a normal thing, and it’s not going to happen to anyone under normal circumstances—though there’s a decent chance I’m going to keep going a while, hopefully not too long—but it’s something I think I need to start keeping in mind. If I’d knit my proper size before, it would still be too big now, but maybe not quite as comically large.

So from now on, knit your own size, Isolinde!

What about you? Knit too big? Your own size? Thoughts on why we tend to knit the wrong size?

knitting

To the mattresses

LindeyLeave a comment

I mentioned recently that I’d just taught myself mattress stitch, which . . . is poor planning on my part. Which is definitely a thing I’m prone to doing. I tend to think things through enough to decide a course of action, then I’m set on that course, and nothing will make me deviate. Sometimes not even proof it’s wrong. (See: strengths, Strategic, which is not always all that strategic in practice.)

Other people talked about seaming sweaters over the years like it was a minor annoyance, while I deliberately sought out sweater patterns with no seams, because whenever I had to seam a sweater, it just came out looking wrong. I’d just whip-stitch the right spots, and it came out messy and . . . calling it imperfect would be an insult to imperfection. It was a disaster. I don’t have any great pictures, and I’ve gotten rid of the last offending sweater, which is too bad, because properly seamed, it would have been lovely.

On the right is the best picture I have of the shoulder seam, which is hard to see, but I think it proves my point nicely: Isolinde was no longer allowed to seam sweaters after this. Miles of raglan shaping was my sweater-knitting life. That was okay, because I like raglan shaping, but it was also really limiting for what I was and wasn’t able to knit, so last week I decided to fix this problem, and took to my knitting library.

It turns out that yes, I was missing something incredibly simple that would have fixed everything right up. In fact, it turns out that seaming sweaters is way simpler than I thought. Coming from a background of sewing, I automatically turned right sides to face each other when seaming, and with sweaters? You don’t have to do that. You can work on the right side of the fabric, and when you’re finished, the seam turns to the inside automatically.

This video is from Very Pink Knits, and Staci shows you in three minutes how to fix a problem I had for years:

After figuring out the best way to do this, I jumped in and seamed a vest I’d made, and I think it turned out pretty darn well. You can’t see the seam, but it IS in the picture, which I think is rather the point. Buttons and their placement is still a problem area, but hey, one step at a time!

knitting · TKGA Master Knitting

Master Knitter Theme Song

Lindey2 Comments

Probably dating myself with a MST3K reference in the title, but that’s okay. Mystery Science Theater was great, and I have no shame. Shame is overrated.

Here it is: one of the big things I’ve been planning to start: the TKGA Master Knitting program.

Now, this might be me adding pressure to my hobby for no reason and losing some of the purpose of relaxing instead of working all the time, but also, as a #1 Learner (Gallup CliftonStrengths testing, which I very much recommend to anyone interested in knowing what their strengths are and how to better use them) I also know that I work best when I’m learning new things. And the Masters program is just that: it’s not so much a pressure as a way to learn more about the hobby in what looks like a logical way, building one skill on the next. Since my knitting is largely self-taught, I know full well I’m still lacking in some areas—for instance, I just taught myself mattress stitch last week. For someone who’s (poorly) seamed a lot of sweaters in her life, that’s a little sad.

So the plan is to become a Master Knitter, and maybe, if y’all are interested, to take you along for the ride. Now, to ask Mr. Burns to print off a whole lot of informational materials . . .

knitting

A New Chapter

Lindey4 Comments

Hey all! This is Lindey, and that is Threipmuir by Ysolda Teague, and my very first attempt at a stranded colorwork yoke sweater. I’ve dabbled in hats before, but this is a new one for me. I enjoyed it, and with the short sleeves, it knit up super fast (about a week), and I think it came out pretty darn well. The jaquard ladderback at the feather tips is an interesting technique to avoid long floats that I’ll have to keep in mind for the future.

All this mostly to say hi! This blog is a new thing for me, and I’m going back to knitting in an attempt to stop working myself to death and do something fun instead of working 80 hour weeks because well, I get inspired. I’ve got plans for projects, some small and some probably unrealistically large, and in the coming weeks, I’ll get started talking about them!