Anne Marie

My long time (15 years!) Stitch ‘n Bitch knitting buddy is off on a new adventure. As part of it, she destashed some of her yarn and I was the lucky recipient of this lovely Wool/Alpaca blend from Rowan.

Even though I have not been posting as frequently as i would like, it has not stopped me from purchasing yarn, and books too. I will do my best to catch up on all of this in the next few weeks. One of the books that I purchased recently was Worsted – A Knitwear Collection Curated by Aimée Gille of La Bien Aimée. This is a lovely book with several beautiful projects, published by Laine. There are 11 patterns, all by different designers, using Corrie worsted yarn by la Bien Aimee. I love all of the photographs, and appreciate the ribbon page marker attached to the book.

But this project by Andrea Mowry is the one that caught my eye, and it appeared that I had just enough yardage. The sweater name is Andrea.

So I started working on this. Size 8 needles. The pattern is very well written, with several size options. If you are prefer chart reading, which I do, it is nice and clear. If you are a pattern reader, that option is there for you also. My only complaint is that the instructions for the abbreviations BC and FC appear to be missing, unless I missed something, but I looked over and over. They are essentially a front and back cross with a twisted knit stitch and a purl. I think that this would be difficult for some newer knitters. I did not see an errata on Ravelry.

When the traveling twisted stitches meet up, a crocheted bobble is placed.

It has been hot here the past few days, and this sweater is a warm one. Nonetheless, I am progressing along. If I had read the instructions through first, I would have learned that the pocket liners automatically become your gauge swatch, which would have saved me the trouble of the gauge swatch that I tried. I have left the skein of yarn attached to the front right and back, trying to decide if I want to make the armholes a bit larger, they seem like a tight fit. Making them a bit bigger would also have the benefit of stopping the cable pattern at a bobble, which to me feels more finished. The image below is my progress thus far, upside down.

Looking forward to finishing this. It is to the point that it is hard to travel with, so I will need to go back to a pair of socks that I have been working on.

#Worsted

#Andrea Mowry

#Andrea

Birthday Girl

Of course I had to make many things for the 1st Birthday of my Granddaughter.   We were out to celebrate with her and have a birthday cake in December.

I made her a Dale of Norway cardigan.  Everyone should know how much I love the DoN patterns and yarn.  Sadly, when my stash is gone, I will not be able to get the yarn that I love for these projects.  In the meantime, I am loving knitting with it.

That photo is unfortunately a bit fuzzy, but her parents are always putting her in the things that I make for her.  She wore this to the Drs office for her 1 year old checkup.  Apparently the staff was greatly impressed by the sweater.  Myself, I think that the model is far superior.

She will have a bit of wear on that sweater.

The other item that I made for her birthday was this poncho type pull-over with a hood, a bit big right now, but hopefully will come in handy in the future.  Again, another DoN pattern, but this is the Daletta yarn, so a worsted weight.  I love how this turned out, and will post when I see it modeled.

And lastly, a pair of mittens with thumbs for the Colorado winters.  I think that these are the favorite mittens that I have ever made.

The pattern is from Jorid Link’s Big Book of Knitted Mittens.  I made the previously posted squirrel mittens from this book also.  I love the patterns, and have some on the list for myself to make.  If you love fair isle and mittens, I highly recommend purchasing this book.

My Prize

A  couple of years ago I entered a few items in the knitting contest at YarnCon, Chicago’s Indy Yarn fair that has been going on for several years now.  My Polar Bear Sweater was the winner of the best knitted sweater, and won the Best in Show also.

I was so excited, and received several nice prizes.

This sweater was knit during the 2008 Ravelympics.  I knit most of it while sitting at the beach at Lake Michigan, and then knit like a fiend when I got home to the neglect of everything else to finish during the summer Olympics – 2 weeks.  I was really proud of the results, and so happy to win something for my knitting efforts.

One of the prizes that I was to win, and receive later was the knitting book Great Northern Knits.

I must admit, I don’t even know what Twin Peaks is, but was happy to win a new book.  Then I mostly forgot about it.  I was surprised a couple of weeks ago when a package came in the mail, and I knew that I had not ordered anything.  So to my surprise, this book was inside.  They hadn’t forgot about me after all this time!

There are some fun patterns in the book, and I will have to delve into it further at some point:

 

But, what caught my attention was this  sweater, knit at a very fine gauge.  Just my type of project.  This is on the to-do list.

Thanks Great Northern Knits!

Knitting Ganseys

If you read my last post, you know that Gansey sweaters originated in Guernsey, and the name was modified.  Years ago, I took the Gansey sweater class from Beth Brown-Reinsel.  We made a small sampler Gansey, that I still have.

This was at Stitches Midwest in 2002.  At the time I purchased her wonderful book, and she signed it for me.  It was a great class, and I have always wanted to make an adult sized Gansey, but haven’t gotten to it yet.

Photos from the original book:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The book has great History, instructions on how to make the sampler Gansey, and some Gansey sweaters that you can follow the pattern for.  In the intervening years, I have taken at least one more class from Beth on twined knitting.  She is a great teacher. So, when I saw that an updated version of this book was coming out, I was all for it.  This is not the first time that I have purchased a newer version of a book that I already own.  I was not disappointed.

This book is hardcover, the first was a paperback.  This is full color versus B&W.  The photography is beautiful, stunning scenery, and gorgeous knits.  I read this like a novel, something that seems to be more and more common with knitting books.  The history that I have garnered from knitting books is amazing.  This has reignited my interest in making a Gansey sweater.  Of course, I found out that there is still a factory on Guernsey Island that makes sweaters after I got back!  I would highly recommend this book.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I am still keeping my original copy.  Plus it has a note and signature from Beth!

 

Ganseys in Guernsey

This past summer we had a wonderful 2 week trip to Europe which started with 3 nights in Guernsey.  Guernsey is one of the Channel Islands, technically a part of England, but situated much closer to the Normandy coast of France.  We flew into London, and took the ferry the next day from Portsmouth to Guernsey, an 8 hour ride.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Arriving in the beautiful port at Guernsey, we were already smitten.

Why Guernsey?  This question was asked of me more times than I can count.  Originally, our big trip this year was going to be to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.  We quickly realized when we started planning, that due to difficulties getting from one country to the next, we would need more planning time.  Our next choice was Guernsey, Aix-en-Provence and Paris.  I had lived my junior year in Aix, and had been wanting to go back for some time.  And who doesn’t love Paris?  But Guernsey?  Well, it all started with a book that I read, that lead to a fascination with the island.

 During WWII, Guernsey  and the other Channel Islands were occupied by the Nazi’s for 5 years. This is a fictional account of that time period, and how the residents suffered under the Nazi occupation.  After reading it several years ago, and having little knowledge of the island, and none of it’s history, I started trolling the internet to find out more.  What I discovered was beautiful scenery and an island that fascinated me.  That motivated me to have the island high on the “travel to” list.  And, I knew that Guernsey sweaters (later referred to as Ganseys) originated on the island.  As well as Guernsey cows.  Jersey island is right next door with it’s Jersey cows.

We loved our stay at Guernsey, definitely the highlight of our trip.  We stayed at the Ziggurat, and this is the view of the harbor outside of our window.

And the view at Breakfast

My husband is the best at indulging my interests, especially when it comes to knitting.  He found  The Folk and Costume Museum, and thought they might have some of the Guernsey sweaters there.  It was in a beautiful old converted farm.

Dan got his history of the island, and I found Guernsey sweaters.  My photos are not the best, the museum was very quaint, but poorly lit.  What I found really interesting is that they are known for these sweaters, but had no sheep on the island.  All of the wool was imported from England.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The guernsey is the mainstay of Guernsey’s knitting industry which can be dated back to the late 15th century when a royal grant was obtained to import wool from England and re-export knitted goods to Normandy and Spain. Peter Heylin described the manufacture and export of “waste-cotes” during the reign of Charles I. The first use of the name “guernsey” outside of the island ^[2] is in the 1851 Oxford Dictionary, but the garment was in use in the bailiwick before that.^[3]

The guernsey came into being as a garment for fishermen who required a warm, hard wearing, yet comfortable item of clothing that would resist the sea spray. The hard twist given to the tightly packed wool fibres in the spinning process and the tightly knitted stitches, produced a finish that would “turn water” and is capable of repelling rain and spray.^[4]

The guernsey was traditionally knitted by the fishermen’s wives and the pattern passed down from mother to daughter through the generations. While commercially available sweaters are machine knit, the final finishing of these machine-knit parts is completed by hand.^[4]

Through trade links established in the 17th century, the guernsey found favour with seafarers around the British Isles, and many coastal communities developed their own “ganseys” based on the original pattern. Whilst the classic guernsey pattern remained plain, the stitch patterns used became more complex the further north the garment spread, with the most complex evolving in the Scottish fishing villages.^[5]

Mary Wright argues that the use and wearing of guernseys throughout the British Isles for over a century and a half almost justifies the guernsey for qualification as a national costume.^[6] A guernsey from the Folk Museum Guernsey was included in the 2010 BBC project A History of the World in 100 Objects.^[7]

The term can also refer to a similarly-shaped garment made of woven cloth, also called a Guernsey shirt or smock. There are a number of different names for the same garments, for instance Guernsey frock, Guernsey shirt, smock-frock, or fisherman’s frock. Essentially these are all the same garment, with the materials varying based on the purpose for which it is worn.^[8]

There is still a factory on Guernsey making the traditional style sweaters.  I am regretting not visiting that.  We were, however, so smitten with the island that we really want to go back and visit Guernsey again, and Jersey, Salk and St. Malo.

Here are a few more photos from Guernsey:

The walk up to our hotel:

View from lunch one day:

The German Occupation Museum.  This was really fascinating.

English Tailoring Part II

A few years back, I took a class at Vogue Knitting from CocoKnits on English tailoring, and loved it.  We made a baby sweater in that class, which I gave to a friend’s grandson.  I repeated a similar class with her a couple of years later, hoping to hone this process and apply it to more sweaters.  Most recently, I gave Dan yarn for Christmas last year, and have attempted to knit one of CocoKnits top down sweaters for him, I had great difficulty with the gauge, and he has yet to receive that sweater.  I am thinking that this might be a good Holiday project for me…

So, I posted recently that I was working on this Dale of Norway baby sweater, and wanted to do the set in sleeves as the English tailoring method.  I am proud to say that I have completed this, there was a bit of ripping back and experimenting, but I am quite proud of the end result.

The only seaming is a few stitches under the arm.  And, the fit is a nice shoulder.

This sweater has a sweet flower pattern at the bottom.  The pattern called for knitting the fair isle back and forth, but I choose to knit it in the round for those few rows, and steek it.

I also knit the sleeves in the round.  These few adaptations really made this work as a great English tailoring sweater.

Hoping to sew the short steek soon and finish this up.

Julie Weisenberger is a really great teacher and I would highly recommend her classes.  If you are not able to take one of her classes, I highly recommend her new book, which I purchased this past year.

 

Julie also has several great tutorials on her website that you all should check out, regardless of whether you use the English tailoring method.  I am always on the lookout for new techniques that either minimize finishing or give my knitted objects a more finished professional look.

Another book that comes to mind is The “I Hate to Finish Sweaters” Guide to Finishing Sweaters.  This is a great book on sweater finishing, i.e. thinking about how you set up your sweater before you start knitting.  Many, many years ago I took a finishing class, and the instructor recommended this book.  It is a short spiral bound book, and one that I refer to over and over again.  I saw it on Amazon for $36!, but found reasonably priced copies here.

 

This Sweater makes me sad

To be clear, this is one of my favorite baby sweater patterns, I have made several, and have plans for another.  I love the kimono style wrap, which is very easy for dressing babies.

This was made with Baby Ull by Dale of Norway, now Dale Garn.  I have been knitting with this yarn for many many years, it is my favorite baby yarn that I have ever tried, and I have tried many.  The colors have always been so amazingly beautiful and rich, and the yarn is faithfully great quality.  Until recently.  I just heard that they had shifted production of their yarn from Norway to China a couple of years ago.  I have not made a ton of baby sweaters in that time.  Then I was working on this, the brown yarn and the blue yarn were the quality that I have come to expect from DoN.  Then, I was finishing this up last week for a gift, and decided that the lovely grayish purple would be the perfect 3rd color.  Knitting with it, I started to find slubs in the yarn and some poorly spun areas.  Not something that I had ever encountered with this yarn before.  When I looked at the ball bands, the brown and blue were from my older stash, and made in Norway, the Purple was from China; not the same quality.

I still love how the sweater came out.

Here is one that I made several years ago for my Niece Riley.  The colors make it feel so different.

Of course, I needed to make booties to go with this sweater.  This is a free pattern, Christine’s stay-on booties.  I have made these before, they are fun and look like little moon boots for those “Fred Flintstone” shaped newborn feet!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

To make matters worse, I recently read that DoN will no longer be selling to the US market.  I do have quite a stash of Baby Ull (for those few who have been privy to my Baby Ull hoarding), but lacking in a few of the neutrals.  I took care of part of that with a recent order to KidsKnits.

And while I was there, they had all of their DoN booklets on sale so, I added to my collection.

I must say that while these books are nice, they come nowhere near the level of sophistication and color work of the older booklets.  I am happy that I have many of the older ones in my library.

I think that i will stash up a bit more, and morn the loss of the beautiful designs and yarn.  I am hoping to find some North American yarns that can fill the void.

7, 6, 5, 4

No, not a countdown to New Years Eve, but rather a countdown of needle sizes to find the one that works best.

This Christmas I gave Dan 14 skeins of yarn.  A brilliant gift, that gives back.  (Plus I had a $50 Gift Certificate, it was also 20% off, so a great bargain as well).  This yarn has been on my wish list to knit with.  It is Shelter by Brooklyn Tweed, the color is Birdbook (not sure exactly what that means).

The sheep are all American, and it is processed in the US as well.  And soft to boot.  Here is the story of the sheep from Wyoming, and the yarn processed in New Hampshire.

The yarn is  a soft woolen spun :

The distinctive character of Targhee-Columbia wool shines in Shelter, our versatile medium-weight yarn. Shelter is woolen spun, meaning the fibers remain in a lofty jumble that traps air and offers remarkable warmth and lightness. Its two plies are gently twisted to preserve that buoyant quality, so Shelter is a little more delicate than most commercial yarns. Woolen-spun yarns are also more adaptable in gauge, as they can compress to a dense sport weight or bloom to cohere as a gauzy fabric when worked on large needles. Shelter has a dry, soft hand and a faintly rustic nature; woolen spinning sometimes results in slightly thinner or thicker sections, and you’ll find the occasional fleck of vegetable matter that proves our wool is never treated with harsh chemicals. Garments knit from Shelter achieve their full beauty after a wet blocking, as each stitch relaxes and bonds with its neighbors to produce an even, light, plush fabric with a halo. You shouldn’t notice any change in gauge. Shelter is designed to be a workhorse yarn that invites cables, ribbing, textured stitch motifs, open work, plain stockinette and garter stitch. We think it’s ideal for sweaters of every variety, winter accessories, and blankets.

The green tweed is lovely, but I really wanted to make sure that Dan liked it as well, which he did.  Gauge on this yarn says 20 sts/4″ with size 7 needles.  I started with that, but it was so loose and sloppy that I tore it out, it probably would have been good to keep as an example.  Then I progressively went d0own in needle size, I was thinking that eventually the fabric would just become too dense, but it didn’t.

Size 6 was still wonky, with large gaps between the rows.

Size 5 was getting better, but not the fabric drape that I was looking for.

Amazingly enough, size 4 was a perfect fit.  18 sts/4″.

All the time while working these swatches, I was thinking that I wanted to make a sweater using the English Tailoring method that I had learned in a couple of Vogue Knitting Live classes from Julie Weisenberger, aka cocoknits.

I chose the pattern Antonia/Antonio.  This pattern has a gauge of 18 sts/ 4″, a perfect fit.  I was prepared however to adjust the sizing once I got the fabric density correct.  I am not sure who could get the gauge of 20 sts/ 4″ with this yarn on size 7 needles.

The sweater starts at the top and is knit down with no seams. I will add hidden pockets to this, and most likely a bit longer in the torso, as Dan is fairly tall.   A brilliant gift if you ask me, this makes gift giving so much more pleasurable.  Plus I can try it on him as I go.

Procrastination

Many many times I complete the knitting portion of a garment, and it sits waiting and waiting to be finished, mainly sewn together.  Blocking to me is fun, but piecing a garment together is not, and I need to get over this.  Today I sat out all of the pieces for my Batwing Pullover.   I thought for sure that I would do it this afternoon, now it looks like tomorrow.

There are only 4 seams…

Then, I would get to knit the cowl, which looks fun.

Pullover Progressing

Batwing Pullover pieces

All but the collar is knit up on the Batwing Pullover that I started a couple of weeks ago.  Aurora 8 by Karabella is one of my favorite cabling yarns, it is so soft and squishy to knit with, holds the structure of the cable beautifully.  Unfortunately, I have to agree with comments on Ravelry that this yarn is expensive ($10/98 yard skein), and has way too many knots in it.  Someone had to tie the knots, so they know that there are a lot.

Batwing Pullover Detail

I had 20 skeins of this yarn in deep deep stash.  Finding a use for it was exciting, and I knew that even with that amount, I would run short of the yardage required to complete this sweater. While Aurora 8 is still produced, my Turquoise color had been long discontinued.  Searching the internet, I found 2 skeins in a clearance warehouse that I ordered.  There were some on people’s Ravelry pages, but I did not have luck acquiring those.  I did yet another google search this time using the color number, not the name.  Bingo!  I scored, and found a stash.  I purchased 6 skeins, hoping that that will be enough to finish the collar (which is big).

I really want to finish this, but the sewing of the pieces needs to happen first, and I need to be in the right frame of mind, with the right lighting.  I guess that it will not be completed to take to knitting tomorrow.