Finito!

Phew, that was a lot of knitting for no particular recipient!


The second and third of my trio of circular-yoke baby sweaters are finally finished, and I'll be posting the pattern pronto! But first, a moment for boasting.


I am so excited about the technique I hit upon for working the yoke of this seemingly "fair isle" sweater. It achieves quite complicated, one-row color changes (whereas mosaic knitting requires pairs of two rows each), but without ever having to knit with two colors at once!

I am sure I am not the first person to have thought of this, but I did some poking around the internet and couldn't find any other examples. It's so simple, and yet so cool! If you're wondering how it works, check out the Purl Bee's Treeline Cardigan, which exploits the fact that circular needles have two working ends all the time to achieve one-row stripes in flat knitting. That's what got me thinking about how one could work one-row fair isle patterns, slipping stitches as if to work mosaic knitting, but instead of turning the work and purling back and slipping the same stitches, pushing the work to the right and knitting over the same row with the second color! It only works for patterns that have no more than three stitches in a row of one color, but it's an awesome trick! Now I want to use it as often as I can.

Anyway, be on the lookout for the pattern later this afternoon. Yay!

Actually, first a question, though: I am bundling them and selling them as one unit, with a price significantly cheaper than if I sold each individually. But would you want them also sold individually?

A lot of circles

Finally got a chance to photograph a few of the projects in the works. Everything on the needles at the moment is circular! I've got now two baby yoke sweaters in the works and one finished:


I'm quite pleased with how this one came out, though there's some noticeable difference in the dye lots of the two skeins of "Grasshopper" -- most noticeably where the button band meets the collar.

Then there's a really simple garter yoke cardigan, using some leftover Knitpicks Felici self-striping yarn and Knitpicks "Bare":


And then there's the one that caused me the most consternation: a "fair-isle" yoke sweater using a super-secret trick to make it look much more complicated than it is to knit (which is why it's "fair isle" instead of fair isle). I had to rip and redo this yoke a number of times until I was satisfied with the way it looked.


And even when I was satisfied, I went back in and duplicate-stitched one row with the MC yarn (Knitpicks Stroll in "Tidepool Heather") because I was afraid there wasn't enough similarity between the yoke section and the body section (which is the old standby Knitpicks Essential/Stroll Kettle in "Grasshopper" and Lorna's Laces in "Gold Hill" -- the same two colors, in other words, that I used in the mosaic yoke cardigan pictured above). That combo looks quite different in single-row stranding rather than mosaic knitting, huh?


But it looks quite nice now! I'm busily knitting these as I write up the patterns, hoping to publish all three in one packet (they all have the same gauge and measurements). It's my hope that knitters could work from the garter-yoke one through to the "fair isle" one, gradually becoming more comfortable with stranded knitting. Then they could graduate to my Sock Yarn Stranded (which also has the same gauge and measurements) or to any other fair isle pattern! I'm a little frantic to get the pattern finished by the time Sock Summit is over, because even though I'm not going to Sock Summit, I figured that people would come home loaded up with beautiful sock yarn and be looking for projects to knit with it!

Then lastly, to continue the stranded knitting fiesta, there's one of these:


Which I am sure you all recognize as a Selbu Modern in the works, using a popular color combination. It took me a while to hit on the right color of blue, and I'm still not satisfied with it -- I was looking for "Tiffany Blue" or robin's-egg blue, but this is a little greener than either of those colors. I was inspired by haveyouanywool's version on Ravelry. She used Louet Gems fingering, but that was a little out of my price range and I don't like working with it -- too heavy and not springy enough for my taste. This is Knitpicks Essential/Stroll in "Glacial," a discontinued color, and the red is Valley Yarns Huntington (color 4150). I think in combination the two yarns look better than separately, and the Glacial looks sufficiently Tiffany-esque to cut it. Last year I had so much fun knitting and then wearing my Chevron Beret that I figured another pretty beret was just the ticket for getting ready for hat season!

16 knitting days left until Christmas!

I've reached the point where school stress and knitting panic meld together into the perfect cocktail of anxiety. Instead of finishing end-of-term grading or beginning work on my final papers, I am knitting myself into a frenzy here as I finish holiday gifts. Completed this weekend: the partner to the Felici striped sock I made a while ago:


Now only one sock left to go: the partner for the Jaywalker sock I made last month. Here's the progress, such as it is:


The next few projects I can only show snippets of, as I don't know if the recipients will be reading this post:


And there's more: I am still totally stalled on my grandmother's February Bed Jacket, for example, needing to work a few more lace rows and bind off the body before starting on the sleeves. If I can get that all done in time I may try to cram in some mitts for a few relatives and friends. Then after Christmas, it's back to selfish knitting for me, baby! And man, do I have some fun things lined up!

Produstination

Comprehensive exams are in just a few days, and of course what that means is studying 24/7. And by "studying 24/7," what I mean, clearly, is "watching the Olympics, cooking unnecessarily fancy food, drinking quite a bit more wine than health benefits warrant, listening to Moby Dick on CD, patting myself on the back for listening to such an erudite book, and knitting." It's been productive procrastination city here chez Looking Glass.

The upshot:

Significant progress on both Radcliffe cardigans, especially the one for my mom, whose body is only about 6 inches from completion:



Quite a bit of length on the chevron scarf (man, I'm hoping those wrinkles block out!):


The cuff of a fair isle glove:


And -- steel yourselves -- I've made a sock.


After setting a lot of stock in my being a non-sock-knitter, I have knit a sock. I understand a little better now what the appeal is -- it's pretty quick knitting, despite the tiny gauge, and it's definitely satisfying to try it on every 15 minutes or so and marvel at the perfect fit. This is a trial run at knitting socks for my sister, whose only real luxury as a second-year OB resident is the fancy socks she wears under her clogs. She's picky though, about itchiness and thickness -- I'm hoping that this Lorna's Laces yarn fits the bill, as it's about the softest and thinnest sock yarn I could find.

Not usually a fan of variegated yarn, either, I find myself inordinately pleased at the fabric this yarn creates, though it was a bit tough finding a pattern for the cuff that was both elastic and not marred by the striping. I finally settled on a double eyelet rib.


Now -- merciful heavens -- I can't wait to buy a skein of solid sock yarn and try my hand at something more complicated!

tubular

Okay, I have to rip it out because it's the wrong size, but I needed to share this:


The gorgeous tubular cast-off I learned from TechKnitting.

Just look at that edge:


It's a thing of beauty. And stretchy? Like you wouldn't believe. In fact, so much so that I threaded in a little elastic (visible in the shot above) as I was kitchenering it closed, to make sure it would hold its shape (this is a neckband). What a difference a good finishing technique makes!

In fact, it was so much fun to learn this new finishing technique and have it turn out so lovely that I am looking forward to ripping it out so I can do it again!

December wrap-up

Knitting has been abysmally minimal this month altogether, for a variety of reasons (mostly laziness and schoolwork). But I didn't want December to end without at least one more post. Therefore, I present:

Progress on mystery sweater sleeve

Late start on holiday gift-knitting: endpaper mitts for my graduate student friend with a cold apartment and lots of papers to type

Another baby sweater for Andrew, using the yarn I frogged from the ill-fated car intarsia sweater. This is quite a bit more boring and conventional, but more useful and less problematic to knit.

Happy New Year, everyone, and good luck with all your knitting projects! I am looking forward to a month off from grad school -- a month I intend to fill with much more knitting.

December tidbit

December has been a slow knitting month, so I've been terrible about posting. Here is the only real progress I've made this month:

the sleeve of the secret sweater

blasted interminable fair isle yoke sweater. I'm making progress on this one by sheer discipline: it's the only piece I'll allow myself to put in the knitting bag when I leave the apartment, so that I can't work on anything else.

It is slow going: each row of the fair-isle yoke sweater takes me about 20 minutes (that's basically one trip on the A train to midtown). But also, here is what my normal knitting spot looks like these days:


I'm working on three different medieval lit papers. Stupid edjumacation getting in the way of my knitting time...

Progress is slow... because I keep starting new things...

The fair isle yoke sweater is chugging slowly along, like an A train on weekends. In fact, the above photo represents quite a bit of work -- the body is now down to the waist and only needs about seven more inches, I think. Knitting stockinette at a gauge of 9 st/in is kind of mind-numbing.

Therefore, I've been alternating it with a few other projects. Two of them are sort of secret though, so I'll give you snippets:

fancy fair isle awesomeness

underexposed cable awesomeness

Finally, here is a hat.
This was an afternoon break, Andrew-B-and-his-amazingly-round-baby-head-are-visiting project.

Happy Halloween!

Just in time for Halloween, here's a pattern for you (I've been sitting on it for quite a while, but the publication I sent it to didn't pick it up):

Dante Alighieri is famous for writing the Divine Comedy, the story of his trip to Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, but he’s just as well known for his iconic headgear: every picture of Dante ever painted depicts him in a droopy medieval “sack hat” worn over a white skullcap with earflaps whose cords he lets dangle in a devil-may-care (pun intended!) attitude. Sometimes Dante is also shown with a poet’s laurel wreath atop this hat.

Since I couldn’t find a Dante hat for sale on a recent trip to Florence, I decided to make one of my own, complete with intarsia laurel wreath and dangling earflaps. Real medieval sack hats were just tubes of fabric drawn together at the end, but I gave mine a little shaping at the top so that it would lie the right way and not fall down over the eyes. Since the stranding and the addition of earflaps already added some bulk, I opted for attached i-cord ridges to imitate a folded-up brim without the doubled fabric weight. The result is, I think, not just a delightful costume element but also an attractive hat for everyday wear.


SIZE
S [M, L] (shown in size S; sizes are extremely customizable). Size S fits teenage children and small-headed women; size M fits large-headed women and small-headed men; size L fits large-headed men.

FINISHED MEASUREMENTS
Circumference: 18 [20, 22] inches
Length: 11.25 inches

MATERIALS
Karabella Aurora 8 [100% merino wool; 98 yd/90 m per 50g skein];
[MC] #7223: Burgundy; 2 [2, 2] skeins
[A] #7767: Sage; 1 [1,1] skein
[B] #1364; Oatmeal; 1 [1,1]

1 set US #8/5 mm double-point needles
1 set US #8/5 mm straight needles (optional)
16 inch-length US #8/5 mm circular needle
24 inch-length US #8/5 mm circular needle

Stitch markers
Tapestry needle

GAUGE
16 sts/26 rows = 4" in stockinette stitch

PATTERN NOTES
Attached i-cord: tutorial can be found here.
Provisional cast-on: tutorial can be found here.
Three-needle bind-off: tutorial can be found here.
Sl1-k2tog-psso: slip one stitch, knit the next two stitches together, and pass slipped stitch over this stitch.

PATTERN Band
In MC, CO 17 st using provisional cast-on.
Row 1: k8, join yarn A and k1 with A, k8.

Laurel wreath pattern, first half:
In stockinette stitch, work the setup rows for the laurel wreath, following the chart. For size S, work 3.5 repeats of chart (there should be four leaves on each side of the wreath). For sizes M and L, work four full repeats of the chart (there should be four leaves on one side of the wreath and five on the other side). Finish laurel wreath with the appropriate branch tip, depending on which side of the wreath your final leaf is on.

Continue in stockinette stitch in MC for 5-10 more rows. This is where you can customize the size of your hat: work a few rows past laurel wreath pattern, then hold band up to your head or the head of the person for whom the hat is intended, stretching it somewhat for a close fit. When band seems to reach halfway around your head, count the number of rows past the laurel pattern, knit this same number of rows, and move on to the second half of the laurel wreath:

Laurel wreath pattern, second half:
Turn laurel wreath chart upside down. Join yarn A again and knit exactly the same wreath as the first half (including your appropriate branch tip), only going from leaf tips to stems, to create a mirror image of the first half.

Leave live stitches on your needle and pick CO stitches from provisional CO with another needle. With a third needle, BO beginning and end stitches with 3-needle bind-off, making sure the middle “stem” stitch of laurel wreath is lined up on each side.

With MC and 24-inch circular needle, pick up 3 stitches in every 4 rows along one (long) side of your band. Work applied i-cord along these stitches. Repeat with the other side of the band. Use dangling yarn ends to weave together the ends of the i-cord at the seam of the band.

Hat body
With MC and 16-inch circular needle, starting at the seam, pick up the same number of stitches along one side of band. Place a marker (pm) at the first stitch.
Round 1: k half of the stitches, pm, work to end of round.
Round 2: k to 22st before middle marker, k2tog, pm, k to 7 st before middle marker, k2tog, pm, k to middle marker, remove marker, k5, pm, ssk, k14, pm, ssk, work to end of round.
Round 3: k, slipping markers.
Round 4: k to 2 st before first marker, k2tog, sl marker, k to 2 st before second marker, kttog, sl marker, k to third marker, sl marker, ssk, k to fourth marker, ssk, work to end of round.
Repeat previous two rounds three more times.
Round 11: k to end of round, removing all markers but the one at the seam.
Knit 12 more rounds.
Before starting round 23, count your stitches. The final shaping requires a multiple of seven stitches. If you don’t have a multiple of seven, use the next round to decrease by the remainder, spacing your decreases evenly around the round (for example, if I had 73 stitches, I would decrease by three stitches now).
Round 24: divide your stitches into seven equal increments. *Knit one increment, pm, repeat from * to end of round.
Round 25 and subsequent odd rows: *k to 2 st before marker, k2tog, sl marker, repeat from *.
Round 26 and subsequent even rows: k, slipping markers.
When there are only 2 stitches left between each marker, break yarn, leaving a 6-inch tail, and use a tapestry needle to draw yarn through remaining stitches. Pull needle through to WS, pull tight to draw up stitches, and knot yarn.

Earflaps
Put hat on your head and use your finger or a pin to mark a spot about an inch behind your right ear. Using yarn C, start at this point at the seam where you picked up stitches for your bottom edge i-cord, and pick up 19 stitches, working toward the front of the hat.
Row 1 (WS): k1, p1, k1, pm, p13, pm, k1, p1, k1.
Row 2: k1, p1, k1, slip marker, k13, slip marker, k1, p1, k1.
Work three more rows as established, with seed stitch at edges and stockinette between markers.
Row 6: work seed st to marker, slip marker, k2tog, work stockinette to marker, k2tog, slip marker, work seed st to end.
Row 7: work seed stitch to marker, slip marker, work stockinette to marker, work seed st to end.
Repeat these two rows until five stitches remain.
Next row (RS): k1, s1-k2tog-psso, k1.
Next row: begin making i-cord with these three stitches. Make i-cord for about 7 inches, or until long enough to tie under chin.

Repeat this process on the other side of the hat for the left ear.

FINISHING
Weave in ends. The hat must be carefully wet-blocked to make sure that the brim does not curl up and the i-cord is all lying evenly.

The Recipient looking very much like the D-Man himself!

Works in Progress

Now that the top-down Arwen has been shipped off to its recipient, here's what's been cooking Chez Looking Glass in the last few weeks.

First things first, I have been doing a LOT of reading, of medieval lit, criticism of medieval lit, and more medieval lit. Three classes in medieval English literature, plus picking up a colleague's Canterbury Tales class while he's out sick, has led to a veritable onslaught of Middle English. I suppose it won't be long until I am blogging like this guy.

The fair isle yoke sweater continues to progress, having been divided for the sleeves. At a gauge of about ten rows an inch, however, it is moving along mighty slowly. To stave off boredom I have cast on for a number of other projects as well:

My Halloween costume: yes, this is the beginning of a Gryffindor vest. I'm knitting it in Ella Rae Classic Wool, which is certainly on the scratchy side but still very pleasant to work with and a steal at something like $4.50 a 200+ meter skein.

A pseudo-secret project. In Knitpicks Swish DK, which has been good in an economizing way. It has stood up to some ripping-out, which bodes well for its wearability, I think.

Another sweater for baby Andrew, also in Swish, in one of their lovely new heather colors. Question about this one for you loyal readers, though, if you can eyeball from the arm buds and neck size what the finished sweater's size will be: is the car just too small? It is proportional to the buttons I used for the wheels, but in proportion to the rest of the sweater it seems absurdly tiny. That could be hip, I guess, but it would depend on proper motif placement. Should I rip it out and make the car bigger, and give it intarsia instead of button wheels? Should I rip it way back and place the small car higher? Should I say, "this is a sweater for a one-year-old who will spill mashed peas on it the minute he puts it on, so stop your neurotic questioning and finish it"?