Epic, ASJ: Like Potato Chips

I can't stop knitting it!

I'm totally obsessed and don't want to stop. In fact the only reason I'm blogging is because I don't want to get to far behind and one of my yarns is giving me gauge issue. (More on that later.)

Changing yarns every 10 rows was totally the right decision. I think that is part of the reason I can't put it down. Another reason, of course, is all the pretty yarn I'm using. Finally, it's a simple enough pattern.

In The Morning Light
I have to admit, I did not feel this way when I started. I lost a little momentum with the stealth knitting I had to do. This caused me to cast on the ASJ and put it aside for two days.

When I finally started knitting on Friday it was a rainy, gloomy day. We were watching TV so the living room wasn't well lit. And I was working with dark yarn and couldn't see the color changes very well.

This combined to cause me to think, "Ho hum. Miles of garter stitch. What have I gotten myself into." I knit around 20 rows, two yarns, before bed.

Saturday morning brought some weak sunshine. The pups and I trooped out to the porch to get a picture of my progress and BAM! I fell in love.

Look at how well those colors go together. In the dark living room they looked the same, but in the sunlight I could see the contrast.

The sunlight also revealed the color changes in the Noro that are in addition to the color changes I'm making by switching yarn. It all became very exciting.

So in the pictures the outside edge is Noro Kogarashi. This new yarn comes in 10 colors and is a blend of 51% silk and 49% wool. I have #10—Purple, Turquoise, Hot Pink. Like most Noro yarns it has a rustic feel to the structure, which brings out the softness of the silk without out any of the crunchiness. I like soft silk yarn and I like crunchy silk yarn, so this totally works for me. Since it's the start of my Adult Surprise Jacket the rows are longer and are almost drawing each color change out in separate sections.

The second yarn is Queensland Collection Sandstone. Another new yarn, this 53% Wool 47% Acrylic blend comes in eight colors. I'm using #8—Pale Peach, Hunter. This loosely spun yarn is composed of multiple strands of (at least) three different colors plied together. In this case it's green, tan, and brown. Since all three colors are throughout the ball the color has interest and depth without abrupt changes. The yarn structure also goes a little bit thick and thin, but it leveled out nicely in my sweater. The smoothness of it was a nice contrast to the rustic Noro as I was knitting.

Racing Along
As you can see in the first picture, I was already plunging into my third ball of yarn. In fact, as I write this I'm ready to start my fifth ball already.

That isn't the best picture, I took it with my cell phone. Don't worry, I'm sure there will be more pictures before I'm done.

The third yarn, right after the green Sandstone, is Noro Kochoran in color #83—Black, Purple, Burgandy. You might be familiar with this 50% Wool, 30% Angora, and 20% Silk blend yarn since it is already on the market. My color is one of six new colors introduced this season. It introduced a sudden bright spot to lighten up the jacket. The fuzz of the angora also livened it up with a new texture. Once again, the length of my rows brought the colors up in blocks, adding more variety to my stripes.

I like the black stripe, which I wasn't expecting, and think it and the following salt-and-pepper stripe make and interesting segue into the Queensland Collection Mist, which is the last yarn I knit. This new yarn is a 60% Wool, 40% Acrylic blend that comes in eight colors. I'm using color #2-Denim. Later in this sweater I'll be using #7 - Soft Turquoise and I have a ball of #5 - Tropical Brights squirreled away for the top-down sweater I'm going to make in shades of red.

Anyway. Mist is another softly spun yarn with a thick and thin texture. The size variation is much more than that found in the Sandstone. In fact, working with them side by side like this, I'd call the Mist slubby. The color variation that you see is caused by two strands—a shiny one and a matte one—that both shade from white to dark blue. It's very pretty and makes me curious to see what the other colorways are going to do. Because of the greater difference in the size between the thick and thin portions, and the shortening length of my rows, there is an interesting texture to the Mist section. The thick/thin portions lined up in little parallelograms.
Happily, it's not effecting my gauge.

Change Is The Spice of Knitting?
I instituted changing yarns every tenth row in order to blend the colors a little better and not end up with sleeves a totally different color from the body of the sweater. The unforeseen benefit is the excitement this adds to the process.

Before I have a chance to even think about getting tired of a yarn it's time to change! At this point every yarn is new and interesting. As I continue and they start repeating they will remain fresh. It's totally keeping me awake.

The shaping in the pattern is helping as well. This pattern is making me realize I really like those visual clues about my progress. That is probably one of the reasons I like socks so much and get bored with scarves so quickly.

A scarf is just one endless continuation of the same pattern with little indication of how far you've come and how much further you need to go. A sock, however, has all those turns and bends. This many rows of ribbing, this length for the leg, then on to the exciting heel flap and turn, and finally coast down the gusset to the toe. Socks are just riddled with landmarks.

Well, so is the ASJ, so far. I have to decrease at each marked point until I've decreased away 80 sts total. Combined with my color changes every 10 rows it's fairly easy to track my progress. wheeee!

Check back on me in a few days when all the decreasing and increasing is done and I'm just knitting straight on the central flap. We'll see how quickly my tune has changed.

Stalled
But I have to over come a little hurdle before I get there.

The next yarn in line is Elsebeth Lavold's new Silky Wool XL. I was looking forward to using this 80% Wool and 20% Silk blend since I have some of the original DK version. Also, the deep purple color, which is #11 out of 12, was going to return me to the darker shades I'd started with.

But my gauge is off. The ball band says you can get from 3.75 to 4.5 stitches per inch depending on your needle. I'm sticking with the US10 I've been using all along and got 4 sts/inch. The only reason I stopped to swatch was because the yarn felt thinner than the others I'd been using. On it's own I think the yarn at this gauge would be fine, although I personally would probably go for a little smaller gauge for a straight sweater. However, in combination with my other yarns I'm afraid it will make a thin spot in my ASJ.

If I drop it entirely I'll be down 100 yards of yarn, which could cause issues later on. Well, I guess I'd have to make the body and sleeves a little shorter. My other option is to review my other sample balls and substitute one of them in it's place. I have a Sandstone in #4—Blue, Red, which I had allocated to the top-down sweater. I could use it here instead, but it has less yardage.

Decisions, decisions. I think I'll swatch with the Silky Wool held doubled to see if I get gauge. If it works it will reduce my yardage, but it will also cause less disruption to my plans.

Epic, ASJ: Sleeve Considerations

Yesterday I said I was just going to knit every ball of yarn with out fussing about distributing the stripes in any special way.

However, I'm backtracking on that statement.

The pattern, as written, apparently makes a short sleeve coat. To make the sleeves longer, after you've knit and cast off the body, you pick up stitches along the edges of the sleeves and knit down.

I occurred to me that if I just knit through every ball by the time I get to working the sleeves the only yarn I might have left are the two straight green ones.

It will be very jarring to have a mostly purple coat with green sleeves.

I'm debating how to get around this problem.

One option would be to knit half, or some portion, of each of the large balls into the body and retain the remainder for the sleeves. The issue there might be that I leave too much yarn for the sleeves and then end up with leftovers.

Another option is to work full on stripes. Maybe 10 rows or so in each color in the order I had settled on. This would make an even distribution of the colors and I wouldn't have to worry so much about leftovers.

It's not really an issue yet since all I managed to do last night is cast on. And I don't foresee getting to work on it tonight because I have some stealth knitting that has to take priority.

This all means I have some time to ruminate on it. But, after seeing it in black and white, I think I'm leaning toward stripes.

Post In Which I Confirm My (Knitting) Insanity

As though you still have any doubt regarding that matter.

I'm going knit an Elizabeth Zimmermann Adult Surprise Jacket.

I don't know anyone in person who has knit one, but I'm not going to let that stop me.

I do know people who have knit a Baby Surprise Jacket, but I've never knit one myself.

The pattern booklet I have that includes directions for the Adult, Baby, and Child versions suggests you knit a BSJ first to get the hang of it. But that seems awfully sensible and smacks of swatching, so I'm not going to.

Since May
This is not a decision I've come to lightly, and I don't think it should be approached on a whim.

For those people not surprised with the pattern...you cast on and knit it in one piece. As you work, it is an amorphous, amoeba-like blob that doesn't remotely resemble a sweater. Not until you are done and do a little "origami magic" does the sweater appear. It's a leap of faith pattern because you can't really try it on as you go along.

No, I didn't think of this idea last night. I've had this idea in mind since I received that massive box of KFI sample yarn back in May.

Once I realized it was mostly single balls I thought, "What the heck am I going to do with it all?" Because, really, I was only fooling myself with that whole swatch blanket idea. I don't make afghans. And I don't like working single sampler blocks. Which is why that project has died a horrible death.

Really, don't we all prefer to be actually making something? To have a finished item as the goal? I thought so.

It seems to me the ASJ is the ultimate Hoard busting project. Indeed, the pattern booklet even says, "As true knitters you may have boxes of leftover wools of about the same weight."

Prep Work
Hubby was shocked to see me vacuuming last night. However, it was a necessary first step before I could sort my yarn out on the floor.

I spent a couple hours last night sorting all my yarn by weight according to the recommended gauge on the ball band.

Then I made myself a little spread sheet of gauge, yardage, and how many balls I had. I've entered most, but not all, of this yarn into my Ravelry stash, but didn't think I'd be able to get the info I needed easily because I forgot about the export feature until just this very moment.
sigh.

Oh well, I would have had to clean it up and delete stuff to get to what I wanted.

Anyway.

I discovered that I can make several crazy colored sweaters in DK, worsted, and chunky weight. And by that I mean, I can probably make at least two sweaters in each weight.

wowza.

I decided to go with the chunky yarn for the ASJ, which required sorting the pile of chunky yarn by color to see if I can really pull this off.

The pile in the top picture is composed of purple, blue, and green yarn that seemed to harmonize. I have a second pile of red and orange yarn. That might become just a top down cardigan in the traditional try it on as you go style. A third, much, much smaller pile is browns and greys. Not sure what I'll do with those. Maybe the swatch blanket will be revived after all.

If things go well with the ASJ I'm thinking I might sort the DK yarns and make myself and crazy striped Schleppy Sweater.

I've organized the yarn into the color sequence I want. I think I'll just work through each ball and not try to do stripes by using part of it and saving part of it for further in the jacket.

Charged Up
For some reason I am so excited about this project that I couldn't sleep last night!

I spent time this morning adding suggested needle sizes to my spreadsheet, because I didn't think of it last night. Then I had to fuss with the order I'll use the yarn.

It's going to be Epic!

Now I have to wind the hanks that need to be wound. I should probably also swatch. grr. Then I can do the math and get started.

Celtic Critter Cardigan Retraction

My brilliant discovery the other day might not have been so brilliant after all.

The pajama top measured out to the same dimensions for which I was already aiming.

Well, except the pajama top has a 40 inch bust and I'm after a 35 inch, but close enough.

Of course, the sweatshirt was like 46 inches so the the pajama top was considerably smaller.

I guess the positive aspect would be that I have confirmation of how I want the cardigan to fit. If I can get the ease on the sweater to match the ease I want then I should be happy with the fit.

Hem Test
The lifeline, however, proved fruitful and informative.

Last night I transferred what I've knit over to a spare ball of yarn.

The dang thing measured out to around 50 inches!

I say "around" because it was also curving downward, which made it a little hard to measure.

I'm pretty sure the downward curve is being caused by the flare because of the increases at the bottom of the cable. I had wondered what the expansion in stitches would do to the fabric, but I hadn't figured on that.

So I have to reduce the number of stitches in the pattern repeat to reduce the circumference. But to attempt to control the flare and curve I think I'll figure out how many stitches I'll have after increasing for the cables, cast on that number, then decrease before I have to work the cable increases.

Just to make things more complicated.

To make it easier on myself, I think I'll do the first few rows in garter stitch instead of seed stitch.

Ok, time to go do some math. This pattern won't design itself while I'm playing on the computer.

Done: Tirua Shrug

This afternoon I finished the shrug I was making from Tirua.

It was a very quick knit made quicker by me running out of yarn. hmmm.

I was only able to work six rows after binding off the sleeves.

I think I should have used a size 11 needle after all. I think my gauge ended up sliding off at some point.

Boy howdy, I saw people on Ravelry saying this pattern ran small, but this thing is wee!

It's 8 inches long in the back and 12 inches across at the underarm. This all makes it a little on the snug side.

I wish it had ended up longer in the back, but it is kind of growing on me.

On the other hand, isn't there a pattern out there that only covers the shoulders and back?

Well, there you have. My experiment in making a one skein garment. Let's see how long it survives.

KFI: Ester Bitran Tirua

When I gave away that skein of Ester Bitran Tirua yarn after Rhinebeck you had to know I had another one squirreled away for myself.

After all, how am I supposed to swatch with it if I don't have any?

Yarn Stats:
Fiber: 70% Peruvian Wool, 30% Microberfiber Yardage: 163 Stitches: 3.5 Needle size: 10 Ball weight: 100g

There are 10 colors. I have #802—Rose, Sky.

This is a variegate yarn, because it has multiple colors blending into each other and trading off, as opposed to an ombre yarn, which shifts from dark to light versions of the same color.

As you can see, the color changes are fairly short causing it to rapidly change from one to the next. Because of this the yarn looks quite different depending on the stitch count.

When I swatched for gauge over 26 sts my fabric ended up blue on one half and green on the other, with the red in concentrated lines. One row would be half blue and half green and the next row would be all red. It was rather interesting and I totally forgot to take a picture.

If you just look at the yarn you might think it is a single strand, but closer inspection reveals that it is actually two strands plied together. They are dark and light versions of the same color, which gives the yarn color more depth and interest.

There is no worry about the yarn splitting because it's a little on the sticky side and it takes an effort to separate the strands.

It's a soft yarn with just the littlest bit of a halo and no squeak at all, despite the microfiber content.

Crochet Potential
Since I just have the one skein now I could only work a wee crochet swatch, which only gives a limited idea of how the colors will work up.

I used a K/10.5/6.5mm hook. It was randomly selected based on the fact that the yarn is chunky.

I started with a base chain of 36. The bottom half is four rows of US single crochet. The top half is three rows of US double crochet. The little bright green stitch marker is to designate the change.

I think it's very interesting the way the colors are coming up in little blocks. I wonder if they would line up in stripes over more or fewer stitches. That effect would be something to consider if working either a scarf or a sweater. Of course, as a hand-painted yarn, this would be a candidate for alternating two balls of yarn to break up the colors, but I didn't have that luxury.

Shrug Not Scarf
Clocking in at 163 yards I thought I might actually be able to make a project with this yarn rather than just a swatch.

My original plan was to make a cowl. I thought it would be more interesting than just knitting a scarf. However, I've had the Shrug This pattern from "One-Skein Wonders: 101 Yarn Shop Favorites" from Storey Publishing in my Ravelry queue on the theory that it will work for one of my KFI sample balls.

When I swatched for the cowl and got 3.5 sts on a US 10 needle I figured it would be a simple matter to get to the 3 sts required in the pattern on a US 10.5 needle.

It is working up very quickly. I started on Wednesday and feel like I'm already almost done. Actually, I think I have only 14 rows left to work.

The pattern is simple enough that I don't have any tips to offer aside from keeping a sharp eye on your stitch markers. One of mine slipped after three or four increases and my increase line shifted to the side. I realized about 6 repeats later. Instead of tearing everything out, I just dropped the 5 stitches on either side down to the last correct row and then reworked that section back up.

Yeah, it sounds ugly, but it's simple if you just ignore the surrounding stitches and fabric. It also seemed too involved to document in pictures. I'm sure the friendly staff at your local yarn store, or your knitting group friends, can demonstrate for you. It's a pretty hard core mistake fixing method, but in the end it's still just knitting!

I hope the shrug fits. I'm almost ready to cast off the sleeves, but they look itty bitty. And I hope the length ends up adequate. It's so hard to tell when it's on the needles. I'm not just being paranoid, I think my gauge is off. I think I should have gone up to an 11 needle, but I was too eager to start to keep swatching.

Overall, the pattern has been fun and easy. Now I totally want to organize my other samples by weight and color and see if I can maybe make an entire top down sweater.

But first I should finish this one.