Behind the Curtain

Steeking Suspicion

Markers placed so I know where my sleeves ans steeks start and end.

Firstly, I want to thank everyone on their suggestions and input on interchangeable circular needles. You have all given me something to think about. I'm leaning toward getting a set for myself, though I want to see what projects I have lined up for this summer. If they all use needles I already own, I may just wait until next season to indulge. Or perhaps this is even something I can request as a holiday present? Hmmm...

I've started on the sleeves/arm holes of my Highland Vest (as I am calling it), but not after ripping back some. You see, this pattern calls for you to knit it flat when you reach the armpits. I went ahead and did this and then realized two things: A) I hate knitting flat on circular needles and B) My guage is very different between flat and in the round.

To be fair, I was aware about my gauge difference, I just thought I fixed it. Nope, I surely did not. So, I ripped back and did some research into steeking. I know this technique is commonly used for colorwork, but I really wanted to avoid knitting any part of the vest body flat. I did some calculations, rewrote the latter half of the pattern and have picked up the sleeves and neck using the bizarre steeking calculations I came up with. I do hope it works, but if it doesn't I can always rip back to before the steeks and redo the vest as the pattern is written. If it does work, I'll happily share my mods with you all.

1948 Westinghouse Ad

In non-knitting news this Saturday is Record Store Day! I will surely be visiting my local record shops and adding some new music to my current collection. The album I'm most looking forward to picking up is Vulture from The Hollows. I haven't heard a lick of this new album, but if it is anything like their first one, I'm sure it will be awesome. I'm also excited about the Numero Pop-up Shop happening at The Empty Bottle. Are you going out for Record Store Day? What releases are you excited about?

Knitters Choice

Knitting has pretty been all I do in my spare time lately, in the hopes to get my vest done by next month. I've been trucking along nicely, but the other day I took time to flip through a knitting shop catalog while drinking a rye on the rocks and began to consider a large purchase. See, that catalog was Knit Picks who has a fancy interchangeable circular needle system I've been eying for a while.

I like the idea of having one set with infinite possibilities for any knitting project that will come my way. I am a little turned off by the fact that their needle sizes, for the interchangeable system, do not go any smaller than a US4. I also have a fear of plunking down $90 for a huge set and then not liking the material I chose (wood or metal, I'm not keen on the acrylic ones). They do have a trial kit for $20 that I may get.

I'm aware there are other interchangeable systems out there, like this Knitter's Pride set and I think even Addi has one. (It seems that all brands don't go any smaller than a US4.) I feel a bit at a loss as to two things:
A) Is an interchangeable set needed or even worth it?
B) If so, which set is worth the $$$?

Do any of you have an interchangeable set? If so, what do you think?

Knittily yours,
Kathy

Knit 1, Knit 2

Knit 1
I finally finished Donovan's holiday sweater, which means I am allowed to to a knit for myself. Actually, I cast off Donovan's Broadcast Sweater sometime in February, but I didn't get around to taking a photo of her in it until last week. She was kind enough to put on the sweater when it was 85 degrees out, so lets all thank Donovan for sweating for a few minutes so I can snap her in my handmade knit.

Things went much smoothly the second time around knitting Erica's Broadcast Sweater. Although, I think you can tell in the right photo that one arm is just a wee longer than the other. When telling my grandmother about this boo-boo, she responded "Well, that's how you know it was made with love!" Adorable, granny.

Knit 2
Of my very optimistic "to knit" list, I decided I really only had time to make myself the Plain & Simple Pullover. I decided to knit it up in Berroco's Ultra Alpaca Fine in the color Salt & Pepper, which is a nice medium gray. I was thinking of going with something a bit brighter, but since this is a vest, I wanted to maximize the outfit combinations I could wear with it and thought gray would be the most flexible.

I'm hoping to have this done before we leave for Scotland, as I'm thinking this would be a perfect layering item for the trip. (The average temp for while we are there is 65 degrees.) I'm a bit further along than the photo above shows and have decided to do some waist shaping. I'll let you know of all my mods after I complete the project.

Knit 3?
IF I have time before our trip, after I finish the above vest, I'm going to try to finish-up my colorwork mittens. I'm about 80% done with them, but last last 20% is always the hardest, is it not?

Colorwork

I'm still working on finishing-up Donovan's holiday sweater, but I am trying to keep myself motivated on colorwork at the same time. It really isn't my cup of tea, but with this awful weather we've been having, my hands have been begging for some thick mittens.

For those of you in a similar colorwork rut, here is a good video about how to keep track of which row you are on in your chart. I find this the most annoying aspect of colorwork. Somehow I find lace charts much easier to follow.

Waxing Bottles

In December, we strayed from our normal beer brewing to do two special mixtures: Cranberry Mead and a Xmas Porter. Yes, the Xmas Porter is beer, but we made a special flavor by using fresh plums and lovely holiday spices like cinnamon and chocolate. (The painting I used in the label design for the mead is Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer's "Eve,” 1896.)

The mead was a step in the complete unknown for us, as we've never made any. It stepped into super experimental when i decided to combine two different recipes to make what we ended up bottling. Mead needs to age for a minimum of one year and tastes best after five, so I won't be able to see if I did well by this recipe for a good long while. That didn't stop us from making the bottles for our two experiments fancy.

We decided to wax the caps and necks of our special holiday brews, and the process was much easier than I was expecting. We followed these instructions and decided to double-dip the necks so that it wouldn't show the ridges of the bottle caps as much.

They all turned out lovely and we completed two cases of bottles in about an hour/hour and a half, including the time to wait for the wax to melt. I wanted to experiment with placing a seal, like with an envelope, on the top of the cap, but we decided against it this time around. Perhaps the next time we wax our home brews.

Knit Next

Image from BBC: Primary History [source]

I have some high hopes for my knitting in the next 5 months. See, we are going to Scotland in May for our (belated) honeymoon and we're going to need some warm items during that trip! With that in mind, here is what I have on my knitting queue at the moment:

 

Cat's Eye Tam [Link | Ravelry]
I'm thinking of changing the XOXO colorwork to the string of pearls design to match the mittens I am currently finishing. I really like the way this Raveler is wearing the hat in the traditional tam slouch and hope that the patterns allows for this style easily.
(Image by Kathy Martin, from the Ravelry project page)

Plain & Simple Pullover [Ravelry link]
I love this vest/not vest pull over. Although, I must admit that it was the collar that really made me fall in love with this pattern. It will make for great layering. (Image from Veera - image source.)

Hat for the husband
I'm having trouble decided on what hat pattern I should knit for C. It will match the Stained Glass Scarf I made for him years ago, so I'm drawn to these two for echoing that design: the Botanic Hat or the Tilden Hat. Does anyone have experience with either of these patterns and can suggest one over the other?

The above is my "reality" list of knitting projects I think I can get done in 5 months AFTER I finish the two mittens I have on my needles and the sweater I promised to knit for Donovan for the holidays (knowing it would be belated). There are definitely other items on my queue that I would love to complete before May (like this headband or this cowl), but I'm trying to keep it all realistic here. Who knows, maybe I'll get on a crazy knitting spree and get these all done in 3 months. Ha!

String of Pearls

I've finished knitting the Soldier gloves and am now waiting to get the right leather or suede to make the palm and finger pads to add grip. Until then, I cast on some mittens for myself to keep me busy. When I say I cast on mittens for myself, I mean I've cast on a project, hated it, ripped it, cast on again, disliked that, and then decided to do another project. Yep, I knit through three mitten patterns before getting to the right one.

The first mitten pattern. See how wide the wrist is? Huge!

I opted to do a colorwork project so that I would have extra warm mittens to keep me toasty as Chicago slides into its rough winter months. I started with Kitty's Chrysanthemums, but they were turning out really really large. On top of that, the charts were a low resolution and hard to read. I decided to scrap that for a pattern I didn't have to make a hundred modifications to and started-up with something else (name now forgotten, sorry).

So, this second pattern, while interesting and well written, just wasn't right for the yarn I wanted to use. I really wanted to knit something up with Knit Picks Chroma, and nice color-transitioning yarn. The detailed design of the second pattern just wasn't doing the color changes any justice. With that I hunted down a colorwork pattern that had a large design and found the Pearl Chain mittens pattern. I haven't seen a project using color variation yarn with it yet, but I'm really loving the way it is turning out with my yarn!

The one on the left is the second pattern I attempted. I am going to rip it back to the wrist band and re-knit it with the pearl design.

You can see the two different patterns in the photo above. I kept the wrist band from the second pattern. I am going to reuse the yarn in the left mitten to reknit into a matching Pearl Chain pair. I haven't completed this mitten project yet, but I have made some mods since I'm using thinner yarn than suggested, making my gauge a bit smaller. I'll write up all my mods when I complete the project.

When I cast on the first mitten pattern, I thought this was my first colorwork project, but then I remembered the Stained Glass Scarf I did a few years ago. Not exactly the same, but still colorwork. I have to admit, I am not a fan of colorwork. I know there are some people who are addicted to it, but I just don't like it. Perhaps I haven't found the right project yet? I don't know why the reason is, but I am much more of a fan of lacework than colorwork. Odd as they both use charts and can get really complicated, but there you have it!

While on the topic of knitting, did I mentioned I knitted yet another Pigeon Post scarf for this dapper gent? Well, it was actually for a friend's pigeon, but I couldn't resist, they are so much fun to knit up!

Traveling Loop

The Broadcast Sweater I recently finished was entirely worked on circular needles, which is a huge change from the vintage sweaters I've done in the past. The pattern calls for 32" long circulars, but I only own the needle size (required for gauge) in 35" length. I felt pretty silly buying a whole new set of circulars just because of 3" difference, so I decided to look into this whole Magic Loop thing.

Off the bat, the magic loop technique looked like it was something close to what I needed, but not exactly. Then I saw a tutorial video for the Traveling Loop method and was super happy that I didn't need to buy new needles. I tried it out and it worked like a charm!

So, if you find yourself with circular needles that are just a shy too long for your project, opt to do the traveling loop over buying shorter circulars!

Broadcast Sweater, Completed

I finally found enough time this month to weave ends and block the Broadcast Sweater. This project was a super quick knit. In fact, I finished it a few weeks ago, but have been so busy with holiday fair and shop stuff that I just didn't have the chance to finish it. Isn't that the most annoying of all knitting disturbances, when you are 98% but just can't finish it? Sigh. It is done now though!

Not only was this the first time I knitted a sweater completely in the round, it was also the first time I blocked a full sweater. (I normally do it in flat pieces, then seam them, which allows for quicker drying time.) Due to the two layers of knit, the cold weather, and my rush to finish, the sweater was blocked in less than ideal conditions. Firstly, the only place I had room to block the sweater was in a tiny desk in my office (because my other larger desk was completely covered in plastic pigeons). My office happens to be the coldest room in our apartment, so it too FOUR DAYS for the darn sweater to dry. And guess what partially wet sweaters attract? Kitties.

Yes, my kitty jumped and made herself at home on the blocking sweater and moved around my carefully positioned/measured sweater. This led to the shoulders being a little out of whack. The kitty messing with the shoulders led to the sleeves being a little longer than they should be. While it is wearable, I know how the shoulders should be, so I do want to reblock this sweater in the future.

For right now though, it is cold and this sweater is very warm and comfy, so I am wearing it as is. I have folded up the sleeves to give it the 3/4 look it should have. When I reblock the shoulders, I won't need to do this anymore, but I don't really mind folding them either. I probably won't reblock the sweater until after winter though, that way the weather will work in my favor for quick drying time and deter kitties from wet sweater nap time.

The pattern is very nice indeed and I love the sweater. But the next sweater I make, I will not block in a rush!

Pigeon Knits

I managed to finish the Test Pattern Broadcast Sweater over the holiday weekend, all I have left is to weave in the ends and block it! I'm quite happy with how it turned out and am excited to share the final product with you soon.

With this large project our of the way, I was ready for a few small, stash-busting projects, so I decided to knit a dapper scarf for our Pigeon Post birds. I wanted something beyond a typical scarf for my lovely model bird, so I did a three row button hole and added a gold button for a regal effect. I think he looks quite spiffy and he is now part of our holiday decorations.

For those of you who have been lucky enough to be sent a Pigeon Post and want to knit up a little scarf for their bird, here is the pattern:

Size
For LWA Messenger Pigeons, finished measurements at 9.5” long and 1” wide

Gauge
8 sts/9rows = 1” rib stitch

Materials
Rowan Wool Cotton in Navy (DK/8 ply)
US 5 needle
Tapestry needle
Button

Pattern
CO 8 sts and start 1x1 Rib as stated below
Row 1: K1, P1, K1, P1, K1, P1, K1, P1
Row 2: repeat row 1
Repeat these two rows until piece measures 8”, then make button hole.

Make button hole [errata in red]
Row 1: K1, P1, K1, P1, YO twice, K1, P1, K1, P1
Row 2: K1, P1, K1, P1, P1 of the YOs and drop the other YO off the needle, K1, P1, K1, P1
Row 3: K1, P1, K1, P1, K1 through the button hole and let the old stitch drop off the needle, K1, P1, K1, P1
Row 4: K1, P1, K1, P1, K2tog, P1, K1, P1

Continue knitting in 1x1 rib for one more inch (or desired length) from button hole.

Finishing
Bind off making sure to knit the knits and purl the purls.
Weave in ends and sew button in desired location.
Button scarf onto your Pigeon for a dapper look and to assure he/she makes their deliveries toasty & warm!

 [Ravelry page for pattern]

- - -

I had a lot of fun knitting up this scarf, so I'm planning on making a few other little knits for our Pigeon Post birds! I'll let you know what they are as I start creating the patterns.