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Completed: From A to Z Cardigan

I feel like the knitting of this cardigan took forever, but it was really only about 2.5 months. Crazy!

This particular project is a little special to me because I started it right when I put in my final notice at my old job, then I got a huuuge chunk of it done while I was in Chicago, and now it’s been my saving sanity since.

The main reason why I haven’t knitted it up as quickly as the others is just TIME. I never feel like I have enough anymore! I guess every adult feels that way, though, huh? 🙂 Once I realized I was not getting back those 1 hour lunch breaks (and let’s be real – working from home means NO LUNCH BREAKS EVER, EAT WHILE YOU WORK !!!! haha), I just let myself manage what I could manage. Which usually meant a full 15 minutes of knitting, at the tail end of my lunch. This equates to about 10 sleeve rounds (oh, don’t look at me like that, there were 30-50 stitches per round. very small!).

Once I hit that, I finished fairly quickly! Yay for me taking my own advice 🙂

Anyway, pattern talk time! This is From A to Z by Andi Satterlund. A little different from what I usually knit – the construction is bottom up, with knitted-in pockets and a few bits of intarsia for contrast, plus that monogram at the front (it’s duplicate stitch, not intarsia. FYI!). I used Valley Yarns Northamton worsted weight yarn for the main color, and the contrast is leftover bits from my Central Park Hoodie.

The pockets on this cardigan are SO COOL. They are knit with the body – meaning they aren’t seamed on separately. It was hard for me to wrap my head around first (honestly, I had to email Andi and ask her for help, and she was very prompt in her response!), but once I got going it was pretty easy. The top stripes are intarsia – my first intarsia, ever, and while it’s not terrible, it could use some improvement. I still have problems with holes where the colors join (which you can’t see because, duh, I sewed those shits right up), but it’s a start!

Part of the reason why this took so long was because it was sooooo repetitive. Stockinette can really take forever, especially at the bottom where it’s the widest! Once I got to separating the tops and then adding the sleeves, I finished this up fairly quickly. In comparison, anyway.

(I was really horrified when I saw this pantyline picture, until I later realized that those lines are caused by the ruffles in my undies. JUST SO WE ARE ALL CLEAR)

I plan to wear it closed, but it looks good open, too!

I made the XS and had no pattern alterations. This is what I love about Andi’s patterns – they fit me perfectly as-written! Can’t argue with that 😀

I LOVE the monogram. As with my intarsia, my duplicate stitch could reeeeally use some work as it’s definitely a Monet. It doesn’t look so great up close! But from far away it’s not so bad.

Ugh, sorry for all the pictures. I’m just really proud of how this cardigan turned out!

Like the varsity sweater of my ~dreamz

Told ya that dupe stitch was lacking. OOPS haha!

Here’s the back of the pocket, in case you were curious about the construction. I created the pocket by making kfbl stitches and pulling the new stitches to a holder, then knitting the pocket lining separately, then picking up each stitch along the side as I knit the bottom of the cardigan. I hope that makes sense! It’s pretty genius, in my opinion, glad I had a chance to try it out!

I’ve plumb run out of things to say, so I reckon that’s it! Ravelry notes are here. Next knit project – Owls! I have some lovely grey yarn for that and I’ve already started swatching 🙂

Oh, and just in case you were curious – my shirt says “I Listen To Bands That Don’t Even Exist Yet” (because it’s hilarious, that’s why) and I made my hairbows myself:)

One last thing – the giveaway winner! Let’s see who the random number generator picked today….

Congratulations PoldaPop! Keep an eye on your mail, you’ve got a Sugar Plum headed your way!

Thanks to everyone who participated!

Tags: cardigan, completed, From A to Z, giveaway winner, knitting, sweater, winner winner chicken dinner, wool

Comments 48 Comments
Categories completed projects - new, crafty things that are not sewing

Completed: The Peacock Eyes Cardigan

23 Sep

Who else out there has a sewing or knitting kindred spirit? You know, someone who is pretty much always on the same wavelength as you when it comes to projects, whose blog or Ravelry queue is prime for lurkin’ because it means you’re totally about to find your new favorite pattern without actually discovering it yourself? For me, that’s Jo. Seriously, her Ravelry favorites are one of my favorite things to look at on the internet because I love basically everything that she loves (also, when I opened that link to embed it in this post, I discovered ANOTHER cardigan pattern that I need. Dammit, Jo!). It seems like every time we chat about what we’re working on, it’s something creepy similar. I love having a knitting twin!!

See? I spied her Francis, Revisited sweater and SHAMELESSLY ripped it off as soon as I got my hands on the yarn. No hate.
Wish I could have ripped off her amazing hair, too, but I guess life doesn’t work that way 😛

So we decided for our next projects, we’d embrace that twinsy-ness and try to channel each other’s wavelength… the wavelength being bright green, obviously, since we had both been independently thinking about buying yarn in this color. We weren’t planning on finishing at the same time (one thing I’ve learned is that you can’t really rush knitting!), but somehow it worked itself out anyway. So here’s mine – in brilliant kelly green, my new favorite color of right this second.

This is the Peacock Eyes pattern. Lots of my favorites rolled up in this one – top-down, once piece, fingering weight, pretty lacework. Hell yeah!

I bought the yarn for this sweater back in August, when I knew I would be having surgery and lots of couch-time as a result. I decided to treat myself to something special, and, whooo boy, this stuff is special all right. The brand is Vice and it’s a blend of merino, silk, and cashmere. It feels just as amazing as is sounds, and the color is incredible (don’t let my shitty pictures fool you – it’s bright Kelly green, y’all).

It was also really really expensive – like $70 for 2 skeins. Ok, I guess that’s not *that* expensive, but it’s the most I’ve paid for sweater yarn to date! Totally worth it, though. I enjoyed knitting every single stitch of this cardigan. It was like angels on my fingertips or some shit.

If you clicked over to the pattern link, you’ll see that my cardigan is much more cropped than the original pattern, as well as having shorter sleeves. I had to change a couple things up to get my yarn to work with the pattern as I didn’t buy enough – two skeins meant I was about 100-150 yards short of the suggested amount, and I didn’t want to buy a third skein soooo I improvised! I’m not a huge fan of long cardigans, anyway, so this worked out – although in retrospect, I may have cropped it too much. Oops. I’ll still wear it, though 🙂

I really love this style of cardigan. I think the lace peacock eyes are so pretty!

It looks good unbuttoned, too – which I’ve already tested this theory, wearing it last week before I sewed the buttons on. Ha! It just looked toooo good with my outfit, is the thing.

Since the cardi is pretty shrunken with a good amount of negative ease, the button bands really don’t like laying completely flat – see in the picture? I hand sewed seam binding to the undersides so at least the actual button holes aren’t trying to pull open (ugh, I just hate the way that looks, sorry), but there is still a little bit of pulling. I am happy with the way it fits, though.

I feel like I should point out the new piece of jewelry in my septum – well, I guess it’s not really new, it’s been there for over a month. It’s just a retainer; I got it so it could be removed during surgery, but I kind of like it so I haven’t changed back to the silver horseshoe. My mom hates it. She says it looks like I have a staple in my nose, haha. What do you think?

One other thing, I wore this dress because 1. It looks awesome with the green; and 2. I wanted to show y’all that I did fit my puckery bust darts. Of course, you can’t see them at all so obviously this is a moot point, but, you know. Just so you know.

One more back shot, because I can!

I do have one question for the knitter pros – see how my button band does not align with my bottom ribbing? No matter what I do (and I’m extra careful to pick up the stitch at the VERY edge of the ribbing when I start the band), I can’t get it to make a straight line. Any tips on how to fix that?

I didn’t have any green petersham ribbon to sew to the button band like I normally do, so I used rayon seam binding. It does not exactly match – it’s teal, the sweater is green – but it complements. I sewed my button holes on as usual (and stuck a piece of silk organza underneath because my machine wanted to eat that rayon) and then stitched it on the sweater by hand. It’s not as solid or pretty as the petersham would be, but it works!

The buttons are vintage, a gift from my sister-in-law. They are a perfect match for the yarn color!

This is a shitty picture, but it shows the true yarn color. Told ya – kelly green 😉

I guess that’s it! Full Ravelry notes are here. Now hop over to Jo’s blog and check out her green goddness… she went with the same brilliant green, but with different pattern (omg amazing)(yes it’s already in my queue).

Who’s your crafty Kindred Spirit?

EDIT Almost forgot to mention this! I’m taking a quick, last-minute trip to Chicago this weekend and would love to meet up with some sewing friends for fabric shopping and eats! I sent out an inquiry on Twitter and we’re cooking up some plans right now, but if you did not see the tweet and would like to join – just send me an email! We are looking at either Saturday or Sunday (the 28th & 29th).

Tags: cardigan, completed, green, Jo, knitting, Peacock Eyes, sweater

Comments 54 Comments
Categories completed projects - new, crafty things that are not sewing

Completed: Audrey in Unst

26 Aug

My knitting has been OFF THE CHAIN lately with regards to how productive I am. I don’t feel like I’m knitting any faster or even more frequently than usual, but I’m averaging a finished piece every month and a half or so. My ultimate goal is to replace all my cheap/pilled acrylic RTW sweaters with beautiful wool handknits, so I like to think I’m making good progress here 🙂

And here’s my newest one! Isn’t it pretty?
(I know these pictures are awful and washed out; I tried using my camera on “auto” for this photo set. Um. NEVER AGAIN, holy shit).

This pattern is Audrey in Unst. It’s been in my queue forever – I actually started swatching it with the purple yarn that eventually became Peggy Sue. The pattern calls for DK weight yarn, but I could NOT get gauge with such a heavy yarn (I’m a loose knitter), so I set the pattern aside and made, well, Peggy Sue.

Two sweaters later, I was ready to try again. I’ve been very good about stash-busting for the last few projects, so I treated myself to a new fancy yarn from my local yarn store. This is Malabrigo sock yarn – a merino wool in a light fingering weight. Again, I know the pattern calls for DK weight but since my gauge was all crazy (and when I did get the stitches small enough, they were so tight that the fabric felt stiff), I took a leap of faith and sized down in both yarn and needles.

Spoiler alert: it worked!

I still consider myself a relatively new-ish knitter, so please don’t take my word for gospel, but I assume you can go up or down a yarn weight as long as your gauge swatch matches that in the pattern. I had the same number of stitches per inch, even though my yarn was lighter and I was using size 2 needles, and my cardigan fits perfectly. Which is even more impressive to me, since this sucker is knit bottom-up – which means I couldn’t try it on as I went. I’m so daring, y’all.

This pattern was very straightforward and easy to follow, although I gotta say – I don’t like how she wrote some parts of it. When doing repeat rows, she doesn’t give you an exact number of rows to do, or a finished measurement, so at first I was kind of guessing and hoping I was following along correctly. Think like: “repeat decrease row every 4th row one time, then every 7th row five times.” Usually a pattern will follow up with: “… for a total of 39 rows.” I like to follow patterns that hold my hand through the process, so I didn’t like that. But, you know, minor complaint.

I knit the size 32.5 for everything except the waist and the sleeves, which I did in the size 30.5. This was pretty easy – the pattern gives you stitch counts, so once I got to the waist shaping, I just continued decreasing until I got to the stitch count for 30.5. When it came time to increase, again, I followed the stitch count until I had the same stitches for the 32.5. I wanted my sweater to be very fitted and it is exactly that!

I love how it looks open.

Fingering weight might be my new favorite yarn weight. It feels so dainty to knit up on tiny needles, and it feels SO NICE to wear in this heat! Not bulky or hot at all! Well, ask me again come winter, but for now – fingering weight FTW!

It does feel drapey and stretchy, which makes me slightly anxious and gives me flashbacks of cotton yarn stretching out, but I took these pictures after wearing the sweater for an entire day and the shape is still nice. That’s wool yarn for ya!

Isn’t the yarn such a pretty color? It’s slightly variegated – enough for visual interest, but not so much to take away from the design of the sweater.

I love the lacework at the yoke! So much fun to knit!

The twisted rib too foreeeever, but it does look nice.

I tried to get a good picture of the buttons, but it was difficult. They have an argyle design etched into them. I bought these specifically for the sweater at last month’s flea market – they were kind of expensive (they’re from the 20s-30s and the guy tells me they are vegetable protein), but they are perfect so I had to.

I guess that it’s! Full Ravelry notes are here!

Tags: Audrey in Unst, cardigan, completed, fingering weight, knitting

Comments 75 Comments
Categories completed projects - new

Completed: The Marion Cardigan

5 Aug

I should probably first confess that this cardigan has been a finished object for over a month now. Oops! In fact, I’m nearly done with my next knitted project. It’s just hard to bring myself to take photos of a wool, worsted weight cardigan when it’s 95* outside, ya know?

But anyway, here she is – my newest cardi and and Andi Satterlund‘s newest pattern offering, the Marion!

This was SO MUCH FUN to knit, guys!

Marion is a lovely little cropped, 3/4 sleeve cardigan, knitted seamlessly from the top-down in almost entirely stockinette. There is some fun cabling around the v neck to add a bit of interest (both in looks and during the actual knitting, ha!), but it is an easy, fast knit. Well, for me, anyway. I finished it in just under a month!

I think everyone knows about my love affair for Andi’s patterns, but let me just repeat – I LOVE her patterns! I love the construction, I love the fit, and I love the finished pieces! Every time she releases a new pattern, it immediately goes into my queue.

This is a straight size small, with no alterations. I did size down my needle to a 6 (I find that I knit pretty loosely!), but everything else in the pattern was knitted as written. Going forward, though (because I WILL knit this again… maybe in a lovely grey alpaca? Ooh!), I will probably adjust the length of the sleeves. They hit me in a weird spot when they’re not scrunched, I guess I have short arms? Whatever, not a big deal.

The yarn is from Sonja, a little destashing prezzie she gave me while I was in NY. I actually have a LOT of this stuff left over… I think the sweater took maybe 6 skeins, and she gave me 10. I may have to dream up a matching hat and scarf, yeah?

The yarn is Knit Picks Wool of the Andes. I found it very similar to my beloved Cascade 220, but with a little less pilling. I just love this color – it’s the perfect not-quite-cranberry-not-quite-harlot red. It’s also VERY warm. This will be nice in the winter, I guess!

Oh, who am I kidding – it’s fucking freezing in my office these days. I’ve been wearing this a LOT!

The only thing that was a bummer about this pattern is that the cabling looks really weird until it’s actually blocked. That’s why I didn’t show any progress shots – the cables were all lumpy and weird and it just wasn’t pretty enough to photograph! I did give this a proper block – soaking and all – and the cables bloomed out and now it’s basically perfect.

I’m so happy with how they turned out 🙂

There are teeny cables on the sleeve ribbing, too!

Here is how it looks unbuttoned. I don’t think I’ll ever wear it like this – I like to keep my stuff closed – but I thought I’d show y’all anyway. You probably noticed that I didn’t stabilize my button bands with petersham this time. I was planning on it – I even bought some cranberry red petersham ribbon – but the way the buttonband is constructed was going to look really weird with ribbon sewn on half of it. Anyway, I tried the sweater on and the button holes don’t gape at all, so I just sewed my buttons directly on there and called it a day.

Also, here is a picture of Amelia judging me.

And that makes 10 sweaters for me! Fuck yeah, I love knitting 🙂

Tags: cables, cardigan, completed, knitting, Marion, red, sweater

Comments 46 Comments
Categories completed projects - new

Completed: the Peggy Sue Sweater

1 Jul

I knitted another sweater!!! Ok ok… I actually finished this over a month ago, and since then I’ve knit a whole ‘nother sweater. But let’s take this one ~~day~~ sweater at a time, shall we? 🙂

This is the Peggy Sue (oh yah, I’m so creative with my project names, ha!). You probably notice that it does differ slightly from the pattern picture – I made a couple changes (some intentional, some “oh well I done fucked that one up”).

For starts, I knit this in a smaller size than what I should be wearing – the XS, which is for a bust 30. I decided to do this after measuring a similar cropped sweater with a fit that I liked. Since the pattern calls for no waist shaping – it just goes straight down in a tube – I also added a few decreases to pull the body in to 24″ at the waist (again, my waist is not 24″ – but the copied-sweater has those measurements!). These are the changes I made intentionally.

Unintentional changes: Well, for one, the ribbing. It doesn’t come up nearly as high as the pattern is written! That was actually an accident – the pattern has you knit in straight stitch until 8.3cm or 3.5in. Being an American, I saw the 8.3 and assumed it was inches, so I merrily knitted myself 8″ of fucking stockinette. Double-checked the pattern as I was coming to the end, and realized they mean centimeters. WAH. Rather than rip all that shit out, I just drastically shortened the height of the ribbing and called it a day. I kind of like it better this way, I think it’s more flattering!

My other unintentional change was swapping out the buttons for snaps. I planned on sewing buttons – I even put in button holes on the button band (which you can baaarely see), but I managed to skip one, somehow. How? Lord knows. Anyway, my chosen buttons didn’t fit in the holes and since there was one missing (right between the bottom button and the third from the bottom – again, HOW DID I MISS THAT??), I just opted for snaps. It’s fine.

Anyway, I am pleased wit the fit! It’s nice and shrunken, and looks good whether the snaps are fully closed, partially open, or totally open…

See? 🙂

Anyway, this was as fun pattern to knit! The body is stockinette, with raglan sleeves (which means no wrapping for the sleeve caps, fuck yeah). The button band is moss stitch, and the ribbing involves some funky cabling. I likey!

I’m a big fan of this yarn, which was a gift from reader Holly, who offered it after I posted up my big knitting fail. She actually sent me a bunch of really sweet emails filled with great knitting advice, and the package she sent me was full of amazing – in addition to the yarn, there was fancy chocolate. Actually, those chocolates are the sole reason why I even eat chocolate now. I’ve always thought it was hilariously underwhelming (give me a good vanilla-flavored anything, any day of the week), but now I realize it’s because I was just eating shitty chocolate. Imagine that! This led me to try Nashville’s own local chocolatier, Olive and Sinclair, and a longtime romance has begun.

Oh, right, I’m supposed to be talking about this yarn! I don’t actually know what the yarn is specifically, brand-wise, but it’s a gorgeously soft merino and bamboo superwash. It’s somewhere in the DK-weight realm (although I compared it to some of my sport weight and I think it might be closer to that?). One thing that I didn’t notice on the skeins, but is apparent in the sweater is that there are some subtle color gradients going on. I LOVE THAT! I don’t care much for heavily variegated yarn – it’s just not my jam, sorry! – but the subtleness of this is just gorgeous and gives the sweater so much dimension. Love love loveee.

You can really see it here! Ahh, so pretty!

Per usual, I finished the button bands with petersham ribbon to keep them from stretching all crazy. I actually started to make a tutorial on how to do this, but I found it difficult to get a good picture and anyway, it’s literally just hand-sewing petersham ribbon to the back of the knitted band. So.. there’s your tutorial, I guess HAHA.

To block this, I just laid it on a towel and saturated it real good using a spray bottle. After my last fiasco with superwash, I didn’t want to risk it growing all weird!

I don’t know how much I can really call a sweater “summer appropriate” when I live in a climate that has regular 100*+ days, but this is probably the closest I’ll get. The fibers and light yarn weight are much cooler than my usual wool worsted weight sweaters.

Oh, and since a couple people asked – here are some pictures of the dress I’m wearing!

It’s vintage, probably from the late 50s/early 60s, based on the construction and style. I picked it up from the flea market last weekend for a sweet $30. It just *barely* fits me – like, I cannot gain any weight at ALL hahaha. It’s also pretty see-through, but I wear a slip under it and that works! Actually, this is the first time I’ve worn a slip under my clothes, I think. Lord, the majority of y’all must be rolling your eyes so hard at me right now haha.

Anyway, I guess that’s it! Full Ravelry notes (spoiler: there ain’t a lot) here. Thank you again for the yarn, Holly!!

Now to muster up the strength to pull on my second sweater and take pictures for that. It’s one of them worsted-weight wool ones, ugh 😉

OH, I almost forgot – I owe y’all a giveaway winner. Random Number Generator saysssss (dum dum dummm)….