Just Plain Knitting

What a relief, right?

It's ok, you can admit it.

It's been very exciting around here, what with all the swatching, designing, and math I've been doing.

But it has also been pretty tiring.

I mean, you can only operate at that level of excitement for so long before you need some quiet time.

And, so, here you are. Quiet time.

In the form of the socks I've been knitting for Hubby for like two months now.

Official Sock Dresser
Of course this is the second attempt on the sock. The first attempt was just a tad on the small size because I didn't obey the gauge. I'm glad I started over on it.

Earlier in the week I had returned the foot to the 60 row mark and wanted to see how much further I should knit.

I transferred the stitches to a lifeline to protect my US1 needles (I snapped one once trying on a sock for myself. Won't make that mistake again) and attempted to hand it to Hubby for a fitting.

In response he lifted his foot off the couch, held it in the air, and didn't move any other muscles.

I spluttered a bit, hauled myself off the love seat, and trooped across the living room to get to the offered foot.

He calmly explained (reminded me?) that his sock modeling contract includes a provision for a dresser. He's required to try on the sock in progress, but not to make the swap himself.

I could not protest because this did fit in with his pattern of behavior. When he sees me coming at him with an unfinished sock he just sticks his foot out. However, he usually is doing something requiring a little more focus than watching a baseball game, so I never questioned it.

Anyway. My spoiled husband aside, the sock needed another inch.

I was able to polish it off last night. I always think I make the foot a wee bit long on his socks, but he's never complained.

I was able to cast on the second sock last night, but not get any knitting done before bedtime.

I think maybe I'll focus on the second sock this week. Leave the complicated knitting aside for a few days.

Oh, in case you're wondering, there was no discussion when it was time for the final fitting.

Bias Striped V-Neck Shell: Did the Math

On Sunday evening I sat down and crunched the numbers for the top I plan to make from the scraps left from Hubby's Striped Turtleneck.

This activity didn't take as long as planning the Schleppy Sweater did (ahem, all day!) but it did take a couple hours. Although to be fair I kept wandering away for various, unremembered reasons.

My plan had been to use the Schleppy numbers as a base and jump straight to the armhole and neck shaping.

It was not meant to be.

A Little Thing Called Gauge
Unlike the Schleppy Sweater, which was knit in the round, this one will be knit flat because of the stripes.

If I tried to knit it in the round the yarn would be in the wrong place on the second row.

As you may be aware, a knitter's gauge with the same yarn on the same needles tends to be different between in-the-round and flat knitting because of the purl stitch. Many people work the purl stitch at a slightly different tension than the knit stitch. Usually it levels out in the end.

Indeed, I got 5 stitches per inch on the Schleppy, but 5.5 on the V-neck swatch. It's a good thing I stopped to check.

Again with the Ease Issues
Fortunately I was able to use the same garment measurement numbers, even though my stitch count was going to change, because I want a similar fit. I'm keeping it "body skimming" because I want to conserve yarn.

This worked fine for the bottom of the sweater, but not so much for the shoulder area.

I didn't have to figure a cross-back measurement for the Schleppy since it was a Raglan. When I went to work the numbers this time I forgot to add 2 inches of ease and was going off my actual body measurements.

Sheesh. At least I realized what I'd done before I got too far. I think the large number of stitches I had to decrease tipped me off.

I Don't Trust the V-Neck Numbers
I feel fairly confident about the armhole shaping. Although it was a little trickier to figure out the decrease interval than I expected, but I probably unknowingly complicated it somehow.

I even decided to do some shoulder shaping, decreasing in steps, rather than just working them straight across.

No, what I'll be angst ridden about this time is the V-Neck. I'm sure it will come out all wrong.

The way I interpreted both Righetti's "Sweater Design in Plain English" and Paden's "Knitwear Design Workshop" what you have to do is figure out how wide you want the opening, then subtract an inch to account for the ribbing.

That is, if you just figure out the neck line, then add ribbing on top, you'll wind up with a much narrower opening than you expected.

I was down with that part.

Figuring out the V-decrease intervals is what almost killed me. I did a lot of flipping around in both books looking at the formulas they offer to address the situation.

Paden's is a little more straight forward as she has you divide, subtract, randomly add 1, draw a couple arrows and ta-da! there is your variable decrease rate.

I think Righetti's formula boils down to that as well, but the presentation in the book is different, which might be more a matter of the progression in layout capabilities in the publishing industry over the years.

Of course, both formulas work much better when you are using the correct numbers. (Don't ask. Oh, all right. I forgot to divide my available number of rows in half to account for not working decreases on the wrong side rows. Happy now?)

Anyway. I struggled with the formulas for a bit (with correct and incorrect numbers) and then realized they weren't working because I want to decrease 19 stitches in 38 rows, which is basically one-for-one. Every other row shaping, here I come.

See, I told you I make this math business more difficult than it needs to be.

Does Shoulder Shaping Counts in Armhole Length?
By then it was time for bed.

But something was bothering me about the top of the sweater so I took a hard look before I started typing them up.

I want the armholes to be 8 inches long. I have 2 inches of shoulder shaping.

I figured I had to work the armholes even after all the shaping decreases for 21 rows before starting the V-neck.

Both books said to work at least half an inch even at the top of the V-neck shaping for it to lay nicely, which is like 4 rows for me. (I don't have the pattern with me.)

Two of those rows will also be shoulder shaping rows.

And that's when I realized my armholes would be 10 inches long.

Sigh.

I had figured the various elements affecting the armholes (shaping decreases, shoulder shaping, and relation to the V-neck) independently of each other.

It should be an easy fix. I just have to figure out how many rows all that shaping with consume and then adjust the work even rows in between accordingly.

Piece of cake.

At least I realized before I started knitting.

Schleppy Sweater: It Grew!

Not in this picture. This picture is from when I finished it.

I put a rush job on washing it in anticipation of some cool, rainy weather we were supposed to get. That paid off as I was able to wear it yesterday.

Have I mentioned I don't handwash my knits? That does not surprise you as we've already established I like the path of least resistance.

So I threw the Schleppy Sweater in the machine on the hand-knit cycle in cold water with a few other handknit sweaters and multiple pairs of handknit socks.

But the Schleppy got the place of honor on the mesh drying rack. On the dining room table no less. I guess Hubby didn't have any papers to grade last week as he didn't protest at all.

After it dried it looked a little loosey-goosey. I tried it on to discover it had grown in length about an inch. It was also much softer and more snuggly and the collar fit a little better.

Surprise!
On the one hand, this growth surprised me since Hubby's Striped Turtleneck Sweater didn't grow.

However, his sweater has seams and I hear tell seams stabilize a sweater (as in preventing growth in length?).

On the other hand, it shouldn't have surprised me because I seem to remember Margaret, another staff member, saying something about Zara stretching because it's so soft.

However, I was like, "lalalala can't hear you!" And carried on knitting my sweater in the round.

Technically I think this is the first time my refusal to wash swatches has resulted in a project fitting differently than anticipated.

A Whole Inch
After taking the sweater back off I took some measurements to confirm my suspicions.

I'm sure it grew all over, but it seems focused in the long stockinette stitch portions between the collar and the waist and elbow ribbing.

The extra length in the body isn't such a big deal. In fact when I finished the sweater I secretly wished the body was a wee bit longer, but I didn't say anything. However, the corset ribbing seems to have slipped from around my ribs to more around my waist as a belt. Which just confirms I should have followed my original instinct and raised it an inch.

The extra length in the sleeves is much more noticeable. Instead of ending at my first set of finger knuckles (as planned) it now reaches to my finger tips. Although this is warmer it isn't terribly practical and kind of negates the need for the thumbhole. I am compensating by just pulling/pushing the sleeves up.

Interestingly the Raglan decrease was planned as 8 inches long and now measures 9 inches. This is consistent with the 1 inch of growth. However, I never measured the decrease line when the sweater was done. It was planned for 8 inches. I knit until all the stitches were decreased. The sweater fit. Why measure it?

Twitch
I admit it.

Part of me wants to pull it out to the body joining and shortening the sleeves.

But once I take that step how far do I go?

Do I rip the body back and raise the waist ribbing as well?

Might as well reknit the entire sweater at that point.

The urge is passing. It still fits well and looks adorable, so I think I'll live.

Future Perfect
Of course all this information is going to be very useful for future versions.

I've decided I'll keep the body the same, aside from raising the waist ribbing an inch. This will also balance the body better.

When I designed it I was only considering the body length to the armhole when I placed the waist ribbing. I forgot all the fabric above the armhole making the waist ribbing look a little low of center.

The sleeves are totally going to be shorted by 1.5 inches. I was surprised all along at how long they were anyway. I'm also going to shift the elbow ribbing up half an inch.

Oh! And I think I've figured out a way around the stretched stitches in the underarm.

When the pieces are 8 rows short of the desired length I'm going to increase 2 stitches every other row, then put them on a holder on the next row so I can Kitchener stitch them closed.

This will be like wee gussets and also give me something to aim for when joining the sleeves to the body.

I Laugh at the Inch
See that? Total learning experience which will make my future projects better.

I'm so mature.

Knitting Friends Rock

Because when you drop a disheveled pile of swatches in front of them, declare it is the result of your knitting efforts all week, and you still didn't get gauge, they will treat it as the travesty it is.

Which was what Pam did when I presented her with my tangled Spud & Chloe Sweater swatches on Saturday morning.

I did end up swatching with a US4 as well. Not only was it uncomfortable to work on those smaller needles but I STILL didn't get gauge.

In a fit, I then swatched with some Zara on a US 5 (or was it 6?) and also didn't get gauge.

Now I think it's not me OR the yarn. It's the pattern. grrr.

Since I didn't want to give up on the Sweater yarn entirely because it seems nice, I switched gears and swatched for Coral Crossing from the Fall 2006 issue of Interweave Knits.

You guessed it, didn't get gauge.

I've now frogged the yarn and I'm going to make the Ribbit Pattern from the Spud & Chloe blog. Cute little frog, one ball of Sweater. Stray skein of yarn problem solved.

Lending Library?
During a quite moment Pam and I scouted the shelves for other yarn options for me. I let go of the "no 100 percent cotton" rule to increase my options.

We think Cotton Classic from Tahki has potential.

To save me from having to buy yet another single skein just for swatching (trust me, my annoyance level was that high) Pam said she has a bunch of partial skeins at home and she'll let me borrow one.

She's been using them to make these adorable crocheted baby toys so I'll have to return it. But it's not like a little swatching will do it much harm.

Stay tuned.

At the Risk of Sounding Critical

I don't think this yarn is going to work for this pattern.

Which is by no means a judgment on the yarn. It's very nice yarn. If anything it's a judgment on my yarn substituting skills.

Let me start over.

Quick TravelingAnn history refresher
Back in 2004 I worked at the Patternwork's retail store in Center Harbor for one month. Then we moved. (I didn't know we were going to move when I took the job.)

During my month of employment I quickly stocked up on pattern, notions, and yarn at employee prices. I'm still working my way through some of the yarn I bought. Talk about an established hoard.

One of the patterns I bought was the Cabled Top with Cap Sleeves from Karabella Yarns #KK203.

At the time it was above my skill level since I hadn't worked cables. And the pattern is a little dense (even one of the other staff members who was a much more experienced knitter said she knew what it was trying to do it just wasn't explaining it well). But I knew one day I'd be able to conquer it.

Flash forward to last week and mom asks what I want for my birthday. I suddenly remember this pattern and convince her to buy me the yarn. I say I'll buy it, she can wrap it when she comes up for her visit, and I'll act surprised when I open it.

Selecting Yarn
The pattern calls for Karabella Zodiak, which is a 100% cotton yarn that we don't carry at Westport Yarns.
The trick is the pattern gives gauge as 26 sts/4" in the cable used not stockinette stitch, which always makes substituting tricky.

I swear to you when I was looking at the Karabella website last week it said Zodiak was 5.5 sts to the inch. Today it says it's 5 sts/inch, which means the yarn I selected should work.

Anyway. I decided not to go 100% cotton as it might hurt my hands and the consensus is cotton doesn't hold cables well.

Thinking I was after something DK/5.5 sts/inch weight I considered Zara. But Danni was like, "Did you just finish a Zara sweater? Do you want to make another one right away?" Which is a good point because there is so much nice yarn in the world I should expand my horizons a bit.

So I skulked around the store looking for something in the 5 to 5.5 st range that would cable nicely.

That brings us to the blue yarn in the picture.
The yarn I chose is Spud & Chloe Sweater in colorway 7510 (splash?). It is 55 percent wool and 45 percent organic cotton. The tag says it should be able to get gauge ranging from 4 to 5 sts per inch, depending on your needle.

Now that's a little outside my range when I thought I wanted 5.5 sts, but I thought it could work. And I used to think this pattern called for Aurora 8, which is worsted weight, and at least one person on Ravelry actually made this pattern in Aurora 8.

Danni wisely reminded me to buy just one ball to swatch with before committing myself.

And swatch I have. Frantically. Almost every night this week. And to no avail. I'm not getting gauge.

I wanted a 4 inch square but had 4.75 and it kept getting bigger.

In the picture I started with a US6 did US7 then US8. I worked a double wrap, drop stitch row when I transitioned from one size to the next, which are the loose rows you see. I heard that helps prevent the different sizes from pulling in on each other and causing distortions.

I thought maybe it wasn't working because the cables were all squished up. So I soaked it in cold water for 5 minutes, rung it out, the laid it on my drying rack. If anything it got bigger. And the portions worked on the bigger needles are just getting floppy and gross.

I'd like to point out I don't usually swatch to this extent and I never wash the dratted things. I swatch until I get gauge then I plunge into the knitting. Of course, I've also never been bit by something growing considerably after the first washing. As soon as that happens I'm sure I'll be much more diligent about not only knitting a swatch but washing it as well.

Although I've been trying to remind myself swatching is knitting, I was still getting pretty ticked off. Then I finally realized I wanted to be getting more stitches per inch, not fewer, and I had to go down in needle size. Don't you hate it the way that works?

So I started over from the other end of the ball with US5. I knit one pattern repeat, bound off, reeled off a considerable length of yarn, and did it again. This way I'd have before and after dunking samples.

Not that it matters because I'm still nowhere near gauge.

The yarn is just wrong for this pattern.

I think part of it is the yarn is pretty dense. You know how sometimes you grope a ball of yarn and can tell it's fairly squishy because it's got a lot of air in it giving it bulk? You can just tell you'll be able to knit it at a tight gauge. It might not be pleasant at that small gauge, but it will reach it.

Yeah, this yarn isn't like that. Its bulk is all meat. I guess it's the high cotton content.

Which is not to say it isn't a nice yarn. It's a very pleasant yarn. I bet it will make a really nice sweater.

Just not this sweater.

I'm going to make a last ditch effort and swatch on my US4 Addi Turbos. The swatch I made on the US5 is still about 4.5 inches wide, I haven't dunked it, and it's felling pretty stiff. I'm worried the US4 might tip it into the realm of cardboard.

Tonight's the night. If I don't get gauge tonight I'm starting over selecting new yarn tomorrow.

Then what will happen to my one skein of ice blue yarn? Well, I guess I'll end up with either a blue frog or a blue rabbit from the free patterns on the Spud & Chloe blog.

Bias Striped V-Neck Shell: The Vision

This disreputable pile of yarn is (mostly) what is leftover from Hubby's Striped Turtleneck. I say "mostly" because I did not include the partial balls in the pile since they might have rolled away.

Oh, and except for the light green one, I'll get to that in a minute.

When I finished his sweater I looked at the leftover yarn and thought, "That's a lot of yarn."

So I weighed them, did some calculations, and determined that it was just about enough for a little sweater for myself. Especially if I went sleeveless. And I can conserve even more yarn by doing a V-neck. I think. Less territory to cover=less yarn needed.

This will be a yarn hoard busting sweater at its finest!

Matching. Bleh!
The first trick was that I couldn't just repeat the stripes I used in Hubby's pattern. We've been married nine years this coming July. We're beyond the matchy-matchy phase of a relationship.

Not that we were ever into it. Although my brother has a picture of us in matching yellow Brooks Brother's polo shirts, which was a total accident.

Obviously I'd have to mix up the color order.

But, even better, I could turn the stripes on their side and they they definitely wouldn't match!

This entails some intarsia action, but I knit argyles so it doesn't scare me at all.

And if I'm going to the trouble of working vertical stripes, why not have some fun and tilt them on a bias!

My brilliance is stunning.

Having finished the Schleppy Sweater, I was ready for my next challenge. For the scary math as well as knowing I probably had enough yarn.

The Schleppy Sweater took just over eight balls of Zara and weighs 401 grams.

My little pile was equal to about six balls and weighs around 380 grams.

The mitt-to-elbow portion of the Schleppy sleeves each took one ball. If I ditched the sleeves I was in business. Although I might plan short sleeves to have the numbers on hand in case I end up having enough yarn.

But, just to hedge my bets quantity-wise, I bought an extra, fresh ball to be safe, which is the light green one. Which is the one that opened the door to that buying frenzy last weekend. (We didn't have any of the existing sweater colors in stock so I couldn't just supplement one.)

Because of my concern about quantities, and the fact that I don't have equal amounts of each color, I'm going to start with the front of the sweater so if I run out of a color it will be on the back and hopefully less noticeable.

Endless Variations
The next decision was the actual stripe sequence.

I figure I can go with the Schleppy numbers for the body to the armholes and neck.

I divided the 85 stitches by my 7 colors and got around 12. This guided my first attempt (pictured in the middle of the post). I worked a knit/purl pair of rows. Then on the next knit row I shifted everything over one stitch. Purled even. Shifted, etc.

It looked pretty good.

Just to see what would happen, I then tried working four rows before shifting. You can sort of make that out in the picture. It didn't look as graphic as I expected, so I think the two row repeat is better.

Then, because I can't be satisfied, I made another swatch with six stitch wide stripes repeating each color twice. (pictured just above)

The narrower stripes also looked nice. I think it has potential. However, it's also a little busier and I think the colors will fall off one end and have to be added to the other faster, which will really mix up the look.

The wider stripe version is more in line with what I had been vaguely imagining. (We've already gone over my inability to visual spacial relations accurately.)

I didn't want to start messing with stripes of varying width or frequency. Keep it somewhat simple.

All these striping possibilities are what I was contemplating Saturday during naptime.

Tangled Mess
Since I wanted to be able to compare the swatches, didn't want to cut the yarn, and only had one ball of several color—I was working off both ends of the balls.

The yarn turned into an unholy mess. Really a massive knot. You can see the leading edge of it in the pictures.

I was well aware that would happen. And I was ready for it. Almost as soon as I started knitting the first swatch I knew I was going to rearrange the color sequence. And if I was going to rip it out anyway, why bother keeping things neat?

I'm sure I'll change my tune when I'm sitting on the couch picking it apart tonight.

Because of that, don't expect to hear about the Bias Striped V-Neck Shell for a little while.

First I have to untangle the yarn.

Second I have to decide how deep the V should be.

Third I have to do the scary math.

It's an involved business, this designing sweaters stuff.