Baily Cardi all knitted up

Cue drum roll, please. I'm about to reveal the sweater that has consumed the last seven weeks of my life. That seven weeks is gone, but at least I've got something to show for it--a cabled delight, knit from the prize-winning fleece of an alpaca named Bailey.

Not bad for seven weeks if you consider I kept up with all my usual daily tasks, plus a little sock knitting on the side. I suppose this cardigan represents a summit in my knitting progress, one that I have worked toward for a good while. It's a sweater I have planned from the moment I found the hand-spun yarn in the A Paca Fun Farm booth at the 2007 Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. After I determined I had 1600 yards of a light-weight yarn, probably a dk weight, I eventually selected a pattern from Beyond Wool by Candace Eisner Strick. (I recommend Beyond Wool; I've knit two of the patterns and both are good.) My sweater will now join the ranks of completed projects for this pattern on Ravelry, and there will be two of them!

For a long time I thought I was going to be the first. I added the pattern to Ravelry over a year ago, and was happy to check back and discover that Maddie had posted her completed sweater. Maddie's is knit to pattern. Mine, of course, is modified.

I thought I had gauge, but I didn't. Determined to complete this project I had dreamed about for so long, I modified the stitch pattern, substituting a twist for the lace between the cables. That snugged it up, but hid a lot of fabric. This sweater will stretch out easily to about 48" wide. Relaxed, it is only 32" wide and a comfortable fit for my medium (36") frame.

I did go down a needle size for the cable portion, from a 5 to a 4 (now you know why it took 7 weeks). I wish I had thought to use a size 3 for the border. It does have peplum tendencies, but the weight of the alpaca makes it hang well when it is buttoned.

Speaking of buttons, I'm not omitting a button shot this time. I found cute little buttons at JoAnn's. They are quite shiny and hard to photograph, but I love them. I decided to use nine of them, one at each pattern repeat in the button band. That's nearly twice as many as recommended, which dresses it up a bit. Plus, I can be sure it won't gap between buttons.

The pattern included detailed instructions for the most intricate 4-stitch buttonhole I've ever seen. It had a fabulous finish, but proved to be too big for my larger-than-recommended gauge and smaller-than-recommended buttons. I made up a two-stitch buttonhole that worked well enough.


This close-up doesn't portray the sweater color very well, but it does provide a good look at the buttons.

I had thought I'd get brass buttons, then settled for a gold button embossed with small black squares, ones that I returned in an instant when I found these shiny little ones.

My button hunt added a week to the project, one that I happily filled with finishing my spring socks and starting yet another sweater--one with more, and more fancy, cables than this one! I'll be blogging about those projects soon (I've already taken the photos) and will be starting another sweater and another pair of socks.

I'm relieved to have the urge to blog again. I found that I lost interest in blogging while I was working on my lovely brown cardigan. It thoroughly satisfied my knitting interest. There is nothing better than a great yarn, a good pattern, and the time to work them up into a happy result. Now that it is done, though, I'll go back to blog chasing and vicariously viewing the projects on Ravelry.

Cross-knitting

This is an in-progress "after" photo:

After much re-calculating, knitting, ripping and re-knitting, there's a sleeve on my cardigan-in-progress. One sleeve. The second one is still on the needles, but it is underway. The pattern calls for a sleeve width of 17" at its widest. Not needing that much ease, mine is about 4" narrower. That means I completely redesigned the sleeve cap. While I was knitting the sleeve, I concentrated on a couple of design decisions--when to stop increasing, and how to adjust the sleeve cap decreases to account for 26 fewer sleeve stitches. I should have concentrated on my knitting, instead. Almost to the sleeve cap, I looked down and saw that I had mis-crossed the cables on a row about eight inches earlier.

There was nothing to do but rip back and correct all of those crossings, then knit back up to the cap. I'd say I was cross, but that would be both a bad pun and an understatement. At least reknitting the sleeve improved my plan for the increases. Now I just have to do them one. more. time. To make sure my calculations were correct, I sewed the first sleeve in and checked the fit. I have to make sure. There's just something about me and sleeves that leads to small disasters.

There's another disaster afoot (oh, how punny!), and it is not all my doing. Recently, I decided that knitting two socks at almost the same time is better than the usual one-at-a-time method. (I prefer to knit socks cuff down on dpns, so I just knit one leg, put it on a holder and knit the other leg.) Since my latest sock yarn purchase came as a 380 yard hank, I divided it into two balls when I wound it so that I would have a separate ball for each sock. I remember, vaguely, that I might have wound the second ball twice or even more. The process of winding, weighing, winding as needed to get two equal balls of yarn was complicated. The second ball of yarn might be wound in the opposite direction from the first. A flub that would partially explain this:

My socks are two different colors! The first one is gray with bits of green, and the second one is green with bits of gray. The whole time I was knitting the first one, admiring the colors and the fact that they weren't pooling, I never suspected the second half of the hank would be so much more saturated with green. I probably made the difference more obvious when I started the second sock from the opposite end of the hank. I have thought about ripping it out, but I really like the green one better. Maybe I'll have enough greenish yarn to knit a third, more matchy sock. Three sleeves, three socks (well, at least two and a half), why not?

Color variations aside, this is really nice yarn.

Smooth, silky (that's 30% seacell), with enough merino to hug. Such a nice sock, pretty sock, sweet sock. Too bad you don't have a match. (I'm sure the dyer didn't realize what happened with this skein. Some things you just can't predict until the yarn is knitted. I just made the problem worse by knitting the socks from opposite ends. I keep thinking how nice the effect would be in a shawl or scarf that would get progressively greener from one end to the other.)

I took special pains (after three rips and reknits, it was rather painful) to align the cuff pattern with the leg pattern. I'm doing the same on the heel. I've seen it in other patterns, a "cohesive" approach to sock knitting that makes the cuff, leg, and heel appear more harmonious and interrelated. Rather simple mods to the Spring Foward pattern, changing the ribbing on the cuff and heel, did the trick.

Springing the knitting forward

Quite simply, I'm sold on hand-knit socks. After wearing nothing but for the past couple of months, my feet are both healthier and happier. However, the season is getting a little too warm for wool socks, spurring me to see if I can produce socks that I can wear into the spring.

To this end, I've bought blends--one wool with sea silk, and two wool with bamboo. That should take me through the next few months of sock knitting. Above is the wool with sea silk (Red Rocks Fiber Works' San Diego in the color, New Aspen Tree). I'd swear this yarn is greener than that in the photo, but the plant's color looks correct. Although it doesn't dominate the skein, there is gray in the yarn. I assume it is named for the gray bark and green leaves of a young Aspen.

At the first, I didn't like knitting with the San Diego. It doesn't have the elasticity of other sock yarns and made my hands a bit sore. I wasn't too crazy about the Spring Forward pattern, either. I struggled with modifications immediately, reknitting the change from cuff to pattern twice before I got it right. By now, both yarn and pattern have grown on me, and I'm happy with the result, at least for the leg. The instep, with its fewer stitches, may warrant a simpler design.

Athough I had to learn to enjoy the Spring Forward sock pattern, I was immediately amused with knitting it over the same weekend that I had to spring forward all my clocks. That's been a two-day project. I think I've changed over a dozen clocks so far, but I'm not done yet. Clocks on appliances, clocks for decoration, gift clocks, award clocks--it's clock city here. This weekend also gave me an opportunity to try out my recently completed spring-green scarf. While I'm not too crazy about it with the spring coat,

I really like it with my greenish shirt, a combination that looks good under my camel jacket.

While I'm springing forward with these two knits, I'm balancing them by continuing to work on my brown alpaca sweater. Having finished the body, I decided to give it a bath prior to knitting the neck and button bands.

The results were satisfying. A light blocking, without a lot of tension on it, made it about two inches wider. It will fit, but due to the twists and cables, it will be form-fitting. It seems that the drape and elasticity may compensate for the lack of waist shaping. The sleeves are all I have left to knit, but even finishing them as quickly as possible won't beat out the Spring. I won't get much wear out of this knit until next fall.

Doesn't matter. Knitting this yarn is such a treat, any wearable result will just be a bonus. The 100% alpaca is so soft, so smooth, so plush, it is pure pleasure moving through my fingers. When I purchased it at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, I thought the seller told me that it was hand spun by Jo (or was it Joe?). If so, I am thrilled with my first experience with hand-spun yarn.

Whether it is hand-spun or not, my imagination is inspired by visions of the spinning process as I knit. The first skein had a good bit of vm, making me pause frequently to try to pick out the little bits of straw remaining, and providing me with thoughts of the forage and bedding Bailey the alpaca enjoyed. The next skein had a few spots that were loosely spun, making me curious about the spinning--did her attention wander, or was she joining lengths to even out the yardage? The third skein had two spots where a ply had broken--was it a problem in the ply or just a little extra tension? All are such pleasant little scenes to envision as I knit.

In spite of these few problems, the vast majority of what I have knit thus far has been expertly spun and plied. If I ever take up spinning, I'd be thrilled to produce yarn half this good.

Oddities along my path

Travel time has allowed, as usual, both sightseeing and knitting. There's been a lot of travel time for me in the past two weeks. As a result, I've nearly finished the body of my brown alpaca cardigan, in spite of having to rip out the shoulders multiple times. (Between mis-reading the pattern, mis-crossing a couple of cables, and mis-judging the size of my shoulders, it was a wonder the soft hand-spun yarn survived.) Thankfully, shoulders are small pieces and it only took a couple of hours on a couple of days to correct the errors.

Betwixt and between, I've snapped a shot of a little disagreement among the species:

Taken on the edge of town, among a group of mule deer bucks. The magpie was climbing all over the deer, picking around in his fur. I suppose it was a bit annoying. Everytime I tried to get a shot of the bird on the deer, the buck shook his head and chased him off.

A longer trip offered me the chance to walk around the southern woods, where I found a nice fungi specimen.

It wasn't until I got close enough to photograph it that I realized it was being swarmed by some type of gnat or fly. They were buzzing all around it like bees around flowers. It's the obverse of the typical pretty garden scene, I suppose. Creepy, but interesting.

The warm weather down south has inspired me to finish my spring scarf. It finished up quickly, especially since the yarn was limited. I'd like it a bit longer. However, since I suspect acrylic content in the mohair and know there is acrylic content in the cashmerino, I do not expect the usual blocking miracles. I'm always curious as to whether an acrylic/wool blend will respond to blocking and have documented the process. Before, it was about 36" long and quite curly.

After, it is about 45" long and flat.

In a day or so, I'll unpin it and see. It will probably curl back up, but it might be a little longer and straighter. In the meantime, I've got to figure out what I can wear with it. I have a light green shirt, but it is not exactly the shade of either of these two greens. If it doesn't work, then what? Navy? Brown?