Train Mittens

My DIL asked me to make a new pair of mittens for my grandson, as he had grown out of those from last season. When we were visiting in November, I asked what kind of mittens he would like, and his older sister piped up: “Train Mittens!”. A search of Ravelry brought up a couple of ideas;

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/rainbow-express—real-train-mittens

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/victors-train-selbu-mittens

But we settled on these:

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/tuut-tuut-said-the-train

While the pattern was free, it was no longer posted. The author said that you would message her for a chart. It wasn’t until we were visiting after Christmas that I finally had the time to work on these mittens. Since I was planning to do them on a train trip with the kids, I needed the chart sooner, so I decided to make my own chart, using this as a guide.

I had a couple of false starts, and needed to change the needle size and the stitch count. But while riding on a long train ride, these were coming to fruition. I used these old mittens as a guide to size up from. All my knitting boos were at home.

First mitten was finished, and I left my handwritten pattern at the house! So the mitten became my pattern for the second one.

Can you spot the difference between the 2 mittens? One has the blue yarn held in front, and one the black. I always knit Fair-Isle with both yarns in my left hand, and only use my right hand if I have a third color. I had never noticed a dominance before. I am wondering if it has anything to do with being on DPN’s as opposed to circular needles. It will also be interesting to see how/if these even out in tension as he wears them.

I made the back and thumbs very simple.

And Voila, finished before we left. I opted to knit the train engine on both mittens, as opposed to a tender on one of the mittens. If I did it again, I would reverse the pattern. When I gave them to my grandson, he put them on and said CRASH as he smashed his two little hands together.

Mostly knit on Amtrak riding through the beautiful Colorado Rockies.

#trainmittens

#daleofnorway

#babyull

Sweetheart Socks

I finished my Sweetheart socks, and could not be more pleased with them. They are so fun and playful. I have not decided yet if I will keep these or not.

I reversed the color sequence to make them a bit more interesting.

There were a lot of ends to weave in! When doing the heart section, I had woven them in as i knit, but it still required some more fastening.

And, there is enough yarn left for some anklet socks. I think that I like the rainbow in this sock using less rows better.

#moonglowyarns

#sweetheartsockalong

Sweetheart Socks

I have been working away on my Sweetheart Socks, but did not finish in February. I used size 1 needles, and 64 stitches. The socks looked beautiful and I love the heart pattern that I designed. I started with small hearts, but they just didn’t look quite right.

I enlarged the hearts and worked with a 16 stitch repeat. One heart open and one solid. On the solid heart, I added an extra row with the open center stitch.

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I knit one entire sock with size 1 needles for the colorwork, top sock. It looked too tight and did not fit well when I put them on. Before ripping that one out, I knit the second sock using a size 2 needle for the colorwork section, bottom sock. I think that it turned out much better.

I adore these colors, and the feet with have solid bands of each color. This has been a fun knit, wish that I had more time for them. I will finish soon.

#moonglowyarns

#sweetheartsockalong

Mittens for Izumi

Last Fall my DIL asked me to make mittens for Izumi. I realized that I had not posted them when I showed the pink mittens in my previous post. I made her a pair of mittens from Annemor Sundbo’s book:

There is a new version of the book out, not sure how many of the patterns are different.

The pattern that I chose was Starfish. It was knit with Dale of Norway Baby Ull (no longer available), and I made each mitten with the opposite main color.

These are warm due to the stranding.

And then, I made her a pair of mittens with yarn from a yarn club. Pink with Purple spots.

I should have known that the pink ones would be her favorite. At least her little brother can eventually use the other mittens. The next mittens will be pink, I have learned my lesson.

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.

 

Lloyd

I finished my poodle mittens about a week ago.  This pattern had been gifted to me on my Birthday a couple of years ago.  I used Dale Tiur.  They are big, but so are my hands!

 

And for the inside of the thumbs, in honor of the coolest poodle ever…

 

To be used next winter, that I will always remember this smiling mug!  I miss him so.

My Turn

The past several months I have been preoccupied with knitting for others, from fingerless mitts for girls weekend, Estonian shawl for Go Red auction, Christmas gifts and goodies for a few special people.  Even though I still have a few projects that are languishing and begging to be finished, I feel like rewarding myself and starting something new, but still using yarn from my stash.  I really had wanted to make this hat, the Baa-ble Hat, by Donna Smith from the cover of this year’s Wool Week magazine, which I purchased when it came out, but for everyone the hat pattern is free via the above link. It was one of the most popularly queued patterns on Ravelry this year, and I think for good reason.

Upon closer inspection, that hat calls for an Aran weight Jamieson’s yarn.  I know that the hat will kit up quickly, and I still want to make it, but I resisted the urge to drive out to a yarn store, or to purchase something online.  It will be coming up soon though…

In the meantime, I pulled out this stash of Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift

and decided that it was the perfect time to cast on for the Sheepheid Tam by Kate Davies.

The pattern has been in my procession for a couple of years, and I do have some Shetland wool of several colors that I was intending to handspan just for this, but will be happy to make the hat out of the yarn that I have on hand.

Next I want to plan a new sweater from some stash yarns, I have a couple of options that I am mulling over.

Tudor Roses Comparison

About 18 months ago I wrote a review of the new Tudor Roses vs the original Tudor Roses, both by Alice Starmore.  In that review, I commented that I was happy to have both versions, for the color changes, and new shaping of the newest version (2013),

and the patterns for men in the original version (1998).

A question was recently posed on that blog entry by Christina, of whether I would say that only the new version was needed.  This prompted me to do a comparison of patterns, and to note which ones were in each book, and any changes.

Looking through and comparing these books has piqued my interest in knitting up one of the patterns, and I must say that it will  probably be from the newer book, as the shaping is more contemporary there, and more to my liking.  There are a couple of sweaters that appear in both books that really appeal to me also.  I enjoy seeing the ones that were reknit being done in a new colorway.  My comparison of the 2 books follows, a simple chart:

TUDOR ROSES COMPARISON

So my answer to Christina who posed the question, would be that I am happy that I own both books.  If your desire is to have a complete knitting library, and you love color work and more complicated patterns, then Yes to owning both books.  And starting at $20 for the older version on Amazon, I do think that it is worth the investment.

As a side note, thanks in large part to Ravelry, many knitting books that are out of print have become very pricey, although that changes as books are reissued.  I have a wonderful library that I have amassed over the years, and keep telling my family that if something happens to me, my knitting books are worth more than my Architecture books!  And that statement says a lot, as that is also a wonderful collection.

The Magical Sweater

When young Franklin was not quite 2, I made this sweater for him, and posted about it here.

Legend has it that it became a favorite one, and was worn for many years on visits to Santa Clause.  One time when his dad took him on the train to visit Mom downtown, he arrived with the sweater on inside out; when questioned about it, the father replied that it looked just as good inside out.  A gift that loved, and worn that much, could not be better.

Well, I could not believe that he wore the sweater all those years.  I intentionally made it big so that it would last a long time, they started with the sleeves rolled up.

Then last week, this photo was in my inbox.  Franklin had just returned from a camping trip on a cold weekend, and this was what he wore, 7 1/2 years later!

How much longer can it go?

Animals

My little animal sweater has been coming along nicely.  The last time that I posted about it, I had only finished the row of chicks.

Quite a bit has been completed since then.

Rabbits:

Next was carrots:

Then some really cute dogs.  These also required a shopping trip, as I just did not like any of the colors that I had on hand.  So glad that I took the extra effort.

After dogs, I really felt that there needed to be some cats, but could not find a good pattern anywhere.  So, I pulled out the little graph book that my husband gave to me for Christmas, and charted my own cat on a wall.

The cats turned out really cute,  They are actually a dark blue, not black.

Here is the complete project to date:

I also ended up ordering more of all of the pink colors, and found one of the old colors at Idea Studio in LaGrange.  A really great store, I have only recently discovered it based on recommendations from friends.  Highly recommended, they are so nice and friendly.  Wish it was closer to me.

Sleeves are next, I think that they will be a little bit tricky.