Ruben Revisted

In a paroxysm of Elsebeth Lavold love brought on by my visit to the "Knitting Along the Viking Trail" exhibit I hauled out the supplies for the Ruben sweater after I got home.

This is another sweater for which I bought the supplies back in 2004. So, yeah, it's been in my stash a while. Like I said yesterday, at the time I bought it I wasn't up for cables.

I'd also like to point out that I bought these during my one month stint of working at Patternworks. (It was only a month because right after I got the job Hubby got the job offer that took us to Connecticut.) At the time I had just turned into a yarn snob. I was unaware of the existance of yarn stores across the country. I was very sure I would never see such fabulous yarn at employee-discount prices again and I stocked up!

And then I moved to Connecticut and got a job at another yarn store and continued to stock up, but that's a different story that has been told in posts since I started this blog.

Rejected and Saved
In addition to my lack of cable skill, Ruben was held back because I'd secretly bought it to make for Hubby and was biding my time until he might want a sweater.

When that time finally arrived in 2009, he promptly rejected it. sigh.

At which point my older brother swooped in and claimed it for his own.

He asked after it when I was down there for Memorial Day. We were both surprised that it was two years ago.

Swatching, bleh
I knew that I'd gotten as far as swatching unsuccessfully before I tossed it aside for other projects.

When I dragged it back out I found my swatch, but no indication of what needles I'd used. sigh.

At that point I decided to take a knitting hiatus. My elbow was still sore from when I hurt it back in February. My chiropractor has been telling me to stop knitting to give it a chance to heal, but I haven't been listening to him. I decided maybe he knows what he's talking about.

Of course the knitting hiatus lasted for all of three days before I snapped on Friday and started working on my Yellow Lace Top.

With the knitting door reopened I returned to the mysterious Ruben swatch.

The pattern calls for US4 and US6 needles. I figured I probably started with US6 and went to US7 when I didn't get gauge.

I ripped out that old swatch and tried with US7 again. The first swatch was so long ago, who knows what in my life has changed.

Didn't get gauge so I moved on to US8 needles.

Didn't get gauge and the fabric was starting to look floppy and gross. The middle section of the picture is the US8 section.

Wrong Direction
I stared at the swatch unable to comprehend why I wasn't getting gauge.

Then I realized I was getting too few stitches per inch. The gauge is 21 sts in 4 inches and I was getting around 19 sts in 4 inches.

I wanted to be getting more stitches per inch. I should have been going down in needle size, not up.

With the light bulb flipped on I abruptly dropped down to a US5 needle and instantly got gauge.

Phew!

The part I knit on the US5 is at the top of the swatch in the picture. See how much narrower and denser it is than the other sections? Now that is a nice fabric.

Now that I've got gauge all I need is time to knit.

Field Trip: Knitting Along the Viking Trail Exhibit

The "Knitting Along the Viking Trail" exhibit opened at the American Swedish Historical Museum in Philadelphia in March 2011 and closes July 3, 2011. If you are reading this when I actually wrote it there is still time for you to dash down there and see it. The trip would be worth your while.

As I was preparing for the visit to mom's house and the museum over Memorial Day weekend I wracked my brain to figure out why I didn't go in March when the exhibit opened and Elsebeth Lavold was there doing workshops. Then I remembered it was the same weekend Hubby and I left for our March Break trip to Park City, Utah (which I never told you about). Well, a girl can only do so much.

Since we were there on a Friday afternoon, mom and I had the exhibit hall to ourselves, which gave me plenty of time and space to run from one end to the other examining each piece from many different angles. It was very exciting to see in person the sweaters I've been mooning over for years in the pattern books.

Trud
I discovered Lavold's designs in 2004, pretty soon after I learned to knit. Even at that time I knew cables would be a love of mine and bought the "Viking Patterns for Knitters" as soon as I saw it. Seeing the sweaters in person gave me a new appreciation for how they are put together and the details that went into the designs. It seems silly to say that seeing them in person allowed me to see them in a new light. Of course the sweaters look different in person than in a picture.

I was especially excited to see the Trud sweater, which is from the first Viking Knits Collection book. I fell in love with Trud in 2004 and bought the book and the yarn even though it was beyond my skill level at the time.

Then my skill level caught up and I wondered if I really wanted all that fabric from the pleats around my hips. So I started considering other ways to use the yarn, but kept coming back to Trud.

Well, seeing the sweater in person I found that the pleats don't add a lot of bulk after all. The Silky Wool yarn is light and has good drape so there isn't really a massive amount of fabric around the waist. That was very exciting to see. Trud was back on my to-make list! All I have to do is scale down the top. The size small has a 34" inch finished chest, which will be around 3" of ease for me and a tad more than I like.

Hoods
The other change in perspective I had was from seeing Vigdis from Viking Patterns for Knitters and Skjalf from the Second Viking Knits book.

They both have these form fitting, detached hood. I always thought the hood on Vigdis was a little goofy looking in the book. Turns out they are really cute in person! The Vigdis one is just plain stockinette stitch, but the one for Skjalf has cables on it.

In fact, mom and I left the museum discussing how practical they looked. They keep you warmer than a hat since they cover your ears and neck, but they don't block your peripheral vision and catch the wind like a traditional hood would. Having seen them in person I really want to make one now.

Dragons!
It was also inspiring to see the dragons in person that I want to use in my Celtic Critter Cardigan. There don't seem to be patterns for Urd and Saga, the sweaters I'm standing with in the first picture on the post. But they gave an idea of what can be done with the cables. Getting to examine the details of the sweaters up close and see how they were put together was very informative. I took lots of close up pictures of shoulders, sides, collars, and other parts unseen in the pictures in the pattern books.

Well, I could go on and on about how wonderful all the sweater were, but I think you get the idea.

I'll wrap up by mentioning the blanket picture from my last post.

The afghan was massive! It was all her swatches from Knitting Along the Viking Trail sewn together. Once again, some of the patterns that didn't impress me in the pictures in the book turned out to be very attractive in person.

But I think my favorite part of the blanket was the filled in spaces. Little areas where the swatches didn't come together square that were just filled in with grey garter stitch. That amused me terribly.

I guess because those little grey spots showed it was handmade.

KFI: Louisa Harding Millais

The swatch blanket continues to grow. This time with Millais, another new yarn in the Louisa Harding line.

Like Rossetti it is a bulky yarn with a suggested knitting gauge of 3 sts/inch. Unlike Rossetti, which is a boucle, Millais is a smooth yarn. It's lightly spun, giving it a cloud-like structure.

Vital Stats
Fiber: 50% Wool, 50% Acrylic Yardage: 65 Stitches: 3 Needle size: 11 Ball weight: 50g
It is available in 10 colors, which you can see on the KFI site here.

Crochet Swatch
Let's start with the crochet swatch today, shall we?

My sample ball is color #6, Blackcurrant. As you can see in the picture the colors are really heathers, as opposed to solids. This gives it a lot of depth, without interfering with any pattern. The overall effect is purple, but there is some hot pink and black if you look closely.

I went with a I/9-5.5 mm hook this time. I worked 36 dc (US) by 15 rows and ended up with a block about 10 inches across and 8 inches tall. Of course, I wasn't able to finish that last row, so I'll be ripping it out and using the length for sewing when I have enough blocks to piece together.

This hook size resulted in a nice firm fabric that I think will be good for sweaters. It does reduce the softness of the yarn a bit. If you were going for snuggly I think a J hook would be better. Probably in a single crochet (US)[ok, let's just agree that as an American I'm always going to use US crochet terms] to reduce the space between stitches but still keep things soft. On the other hand I haven't washed my swatch, so I don't know what impact that would have. Working in a more imaginative stitch pattern will also influence the feel of the finished fabric.

Have you noticed that just a slight change in gauge can make all the difference in how soft a yarn feels and how much drape it has? This is one of the reasons it is so important to swatch with a yarn before you substitute in a pattern. Just because you can get the gauge doesn't mean you want to.

Knit Swatch
For the knit swatch I went with the Feather & Fan stitch found in the Perpetual Calendar Stitch Dictionary. I used the US 11 needle recommended on the ball band. My 46 st swatch is about 13 inches wide. This is including the 4 sts in garter stitch on either end framing the two pattern repeats.

My ball is in color #9, Adventure. (Isn't that a great color name?) The overall effect is black, but there is dark blue and grey in there as well.

There was a method to my madness in selecting this stitch pattern. The sweater "Smile" from the Dream Catcher book uses a variation on the Feather & Fan stitch, so I thought you'd like to see it in action.

Worked at this loose gauge, because of the big needles, the fabric is nice and soft, which is why I suggested a larger crochet hook might be a better choice.

Well, that's a lousy picture. Trust me that the yarn works up very nicely in this textured stitch. Even in the darker color it has nice detail.

It will be a nice addition to my blanket.

Swoon
This morning I logged into Ravelry and discovered that Louisa Harding had added me as a friend!

I think I managed not to go all fan-girl on her. You know how difficult that is for me.

I asked if she knew when her "Designer's Corner" for the new collection will be updated on the KFI site and will let you know as soon as it's posted. It is always interesting to hear about the inspiration behind the lovely patterns people design.

Yarn. On TV. Getting the Glory it Deserves.
In other news, the ABC entertainment show "On the Red Carpet" is going to feather La Knitterie Parisienne a LYS in California during this Sunday's episode (Aug 15). So check your local time and set your DVR. I hear this store used to be on one of knitting shows on HGTV, so they should know what they're doing.

KFI: Louisa Harding Rossetti

The first entry in my great swatch blanket is Rossetti in the Louisa Harding line. It comes in 10 colors, which you can see here. This is color #6, Heather.

Vital Stats
Fiber: 67% Merino Wool, 28% Silk, 5% Polyamide Yardage: 76 Stitches: 3.75 Needle size: 10 Ball weight: 50g Care: Handwash

Knit Swatch
Since the suggested needle size is a US10 I decided to use it as a starting point and have achieved a nice fabric that allows the softness of the yarn to be appreciated.

I cast on 50 sts and my swatch is 9.5 inches across (total). On the little 6 sts columns (which are totally inadequate for measuring an actual gauge) I'm getting about 3.5 sts/inch

I believe Rossetti is considered a boucle yarn. The base is loosely spun and there is a nubbly binder in a coordinating color, which you might be able to see a little better in the photo below. I did not have a problem knitting with the yarn despite the two different texture.

Also, it does not have as much of a halo texture as some other boucles I've worked with. This means your knitting needle point goes into the stitch rather than getting caught up in a few strands of the base yarn. You know what I'm talking about.

As you can see I decided to go with a cable stitch. They are 12 st cables with 6 sts between and on either side.

My life might have been easier if I decided to work all the swatches in plain stockinette stitch. They probably would have worked up faster as well. However that would not have given you an idea of what the yarn can do. It also would have gotten boring fairly quickly!

I also decide to go with a cable because many of the patterns in the Dream Catcher book feature cables. That book also supports another new yarn called Millias, which I haven't started swatching yet.

The patterns look very nice. They cover cardigans, pullovers, and accessories. Some of them show variations. For instance there is a long and cropped version of one cardigan, and a scarf and shrug that feature the same cable.

Crochet Swatch
Since I have two balls of this yarn I decided to put it through it's crochet paces as well.

This is color #5 Ember. It's a cloudy day today, so I cannot attest to the accuracy of the color in this photo. In real life it's a bit more wine.

Sadly, the ball band does not give a suggested hook size. Since a US 10 knitting needle is 6mm, I went with a J/10 crochet hook, which is also 6 mm.

Maybe I was feeling unimaginative last night, but I decided that if I was using this yarn for a crochet project I'd probably be making a scarf, so I went with a plain old double crochet (US term. I think it would be treble in UK?).

I tried to get the block to be the same size as my knit block so I ended up with a base chain of 37 (with 2 turning chains). My block is about 10.5 inches across, with about 3.5 dc per inch.

Now I'd like to qualify everything that comes next with a reminder that I haven't seriously crocheted in ages because it hurts my wrists.

The fabric with a J hook is a little loose. For my afghan it will be fine and it would probably work for a scarf. But for a sweater it's a little peek-a-boo, so I'd go down a hook. I'm not going to go down a hook for my block because that would change the dimensions and I don't want to loose the work I've already done by starting over. (Please reference my above comment about extended crochet sessions tweaking my wrists.)

I had a little trouble ripping back in the crochet. After 6 rows I realized I lost 2 stitches along the way and had to tear out two and a half rows to fix it. Sigh. The fuzz got a little caught up in itself. By comparison, I had to tink back a row of the knitting and didn't have any problem at all. Other than that, I didn't have trouble crocheting with it.

There you have it. The foundation blocks for my sampler blanket. Um, no pun intended. Now I just have to finish them before I go running off to sample another yarn.