Triangles Sweater

Most of the tops I knit are sweaters, they don’t open in the front. This probably has to do with my slight fear of button bands and not ever having put in a zip in a knit. However, those fears do mean that I don’t have many things to wear over dresses during Me-Made-May, for example. So in February, I decided to add one more center opening item to my wardrobe. I chose the 5 Naisen neuletakki, Women’s cardigan by Lea Petäjä. It has raglan sleeves and a lace pattern at the top. My version also has some other adjustments, so it doesn’t look anything like the original.

The pattern calls for 2 cm of ribbing at the neckline and then the lace pattern starts. The lace is charted and really nice to follow. I appreciate that sort of geometrical design. When I put it on though, it seemed a bit big, so I stopped following most of the instructions after the lace was completed. There were fewer increases to get to the sleeves and more decreases to get the body to be a bit more fitting. I also wanted to add some fun details to the sleeves, so I made yarnover triangles near the cuffs. Once the sleeves were finished, I continued the body and added another triangle, to the right front only.

By then, I really didn’t like the neckline anymore, so I meticulously pulled out three rows of the ribbing and started ribbing upwards. This means that there are some twisted stitches in the ribbing where I started knitting ‘the wrong way’. There are also some strategic decreases to make the neckline fit better. Once I was happy with the length of the neckline, I started work on the button bands. The top of the button bands have decreases to sort of mimic the neckline. A straight edge there would seem a little weird. Finally, I had to attach the buttons, which took a few days of procrastination to get started, but I got them done! So now I have this lovely black sweater that should go with just about all of my other clothes. Hopefully it’ll get a lot of use!

Gaia in Red

You are by now probably aware that I have a box of projects that I gave up on partway through. Some of these projects have been in there long, others shorter. Today I’ll show you another saved project that entered the box at least two times. It’s a cotton cardigan and the pattern is called Gaia.

Gaia is a free pattern by Kristen TenDyke that features a button closure and a lacy bust section at the front. Originally it has fairly short sleeves and a band of different stitches beneath the bust. Since I don’t generally wear short sleeved cardigans, I lengthened the sleeves. The instructions were fine, it did take me a while to figure out how to increase to the bust, but the knit-along on ravelry helped me out.

I first chucked Gaia in the box when I had the body done completely and one sleeve set up. It was winter and I subconsciously knew I was never going to wear a cotton cardigan in winter and therefore there was no hurry to finish it. I think it again went in the box with both sleeves partly done and it stayed on my ironing board waiting for some anti-gaping ribbon to be installed on the button bands for quite some time too, I sort of chronicled that in the ravelry-project.

When even the model picture shows gaping in the button bands (and only two buttons buttoned), I guess that there is something to worry about. This is the one real negative I have about the pattern, that the button bands gape so much, even after I tried reinforcing them with ribbon. Below you can see the before picture.

There were some really nice matching buttons in my stash that were also the right size, so that made me very happy. I have worn the cardigan a bit since I finished it, you’ll see it in a MMM round up at some point. It’s not perfect, the sleeves have become shorter than intended and there is still some gaping, however, it’s not uncomfortable to wear so it might see the daylight more often.

I have also finished some socks, so you’ll see those soon.

Knitting a Lady

To me, Myrna is a girl’s name. I think I actually know one although I’m not sure of the spelling anymore (primary school seems so long ago..). However, when I saw the OAL posted by Lladybird (here), I couldn’t help but be impressed by the pretty red knit that fellow Outfit Along (hence OAL, I guess?)-host Andi had made and designed. I wanted one, for sure. So I bought it on Ravelry, I believe that was my first time purchasing anything there, and it went well..

For some reason I decided that gray/grey would be the best choice, although I now believe I should have just started a red version. My original Ravelry notes are here, if anyone is interested. I had to cancel on the first attempt because the armholes almost went to my navel. But by sizing down and removing 8 rows where there were no increases or decreases I managed to make something that actually fits, it doesn’t help that my rowgauge is of by about a mile. I like it a lot, although I cannot help thinking about running a thin ribbon through the holes or something.

I learned a new method of knitting sleeves, with short rows already attached to the bodice. I do not wish to return to the old method of having to set in sleeves that were separately knitted ever again. I found I wasn’t dreading the whole sewing sleeves on part, so I’d like to adopt this method as favourite, so far anyways.

The weather on the day I finished this gray thing was weird, one moment cloudy (left) and one moment extremely sunny (right). This made picture-taking even more difficult than usual. But below you can find the front of the thing, and then the front again.

 

Next we’ll see the back with the cute little hole in it, I adore this feature!

Here it is inside and out (I think, I weaved in the ends so I don’t know for sure anymore), you won’t be able to spot the little ribbon I sewed along one of the button bands for stabilisation. In a later picture this will visible clearer.

This is the set in sleeve, I did a good job I think.

Also that ribbon and the buttons I chose. I like how the buttons almost disappear.

I am very proud for actually finishing this thing, and in so short a time period too! Ravelry says I took a month and a half. Of course it helps that the sleeves and the body were short, but I enjoyed knitting this thing on the round needles. I have cast on another one, I’m not sure yet if that will get finished, but I hope so!

 

 

 

 

Update

I’m still knitting, I’ve just turned the heel of the first white sock, and have ‘basted’ together my sweater and am thinking of how to best knit the collar, such that I don’t feel overly exposed and it still looks nice. It fits well, although the sleeves are made for a monkey, and I’m not a monkey. However, if I turn back the ribbing it fits fine (the lazy (wo)man’s solution).

Next to that I’ve been tracing two of my shirts, in order to make them again. Tracing is a cheap way to make a pattern and since you already know how the things fit, it’s easy to change what you want style wise. I’ve even started to figure out how to place the pattern on the bit of stretchy fabric I got a while ago. So I am trying to be productive ‘creatively’, but I find it difficult, to muster up the energy to work after being at school for 8 hours.

For the larp event I am part of I made a pair of enormous pants. I could fit in the one leg, and my friend could fit in the other (it was quite funny). So while I feel fairly useless, I may actually be doing more than I think. Let’s hope I can keep up with doing some work!

Fronts Fronts Fronts Fronts Fronts!

Sing the title and you’ll know what I mean. I have finally finished the fronts of my cardigan! Yay!

I know it’s the start of the new year and people tend to make ‘achievement’ lists of the past 366 days, but I refuse to do that. After all, nothing really changed between the 20th of December and now. The passing from the 3rd of January to the 4th is equally special as from the 31st of December to the 1st of January. Maybe I’m wrong. If you want to see what I did this year you can look in Finished projects, it should all be sorted there.

Back to the cardigan. I still need to make the collar thing, which involves picking up and knitting, something I’ve never done before, but youtube is very helpful in this. However, I think I should first iron or press or something, the side on which I need to pick up those stitches, because right now it’s impossible. It doesn’t help that the yarn is black, and I barely see the v’s that I should pick up. I tried and frogged (?) it about 4 times before I gave up and went to sleep. However, in theory I could now put it together and wear it. It should look something like this:

Although it should then be attached together, buttons added, with a collar and without all the loose threads. Still it’s starting to come together and I’m quite happy with it, it seems to fit without being overly enormous on me.

So now onto the collar, I can possibly wear this thing during this winter!

Experiment

I have been planning on making a coat for a while now. Since, you know, it’s winter in my part of the world. I found this pattern in a magazine that was available in the Netherlands and it’s this one. Now, I wanted to test it out before I cut into the wool I have. I still had 2 metres of this strange yellow knit fabric, and I needed a warm top of some sort. So I put 1 and 1 together and ended up with this:

It closes with hidden snaps (the buttons are not functional). The pattern in the magazine started at size 36-38, which I figured would be slightly too big, so I retraced all the lines approximately one size (so 32-34) smaller. When I cut it and sewed it up, I still had to take it in at least a cm on all seams, but now it fits quite nicely. There are inseam pockets in the side seams.

I’m quite happy to have it finished because now I am allowed to start something else (or I should really finish one of the other projects I have lying around). All in all though, I think this pattern will make a suitable coat, although I might make the one with the standing collar, as that seems warmer and more closed up than this version. Still, I’m happy with it. On to the coat, or so it seems!

Oh, and I wish you all a very happy and joyous 2013, may it be a crafty time!

Cardigan 2

I’ve also started working on my cardigan again, the black with white stripes one. I’ve finished to sleeves a while ago although they are not sewn yet. (I tried them on by tying all the ends of the white bits together in little bows)

See, those are my sleeves, I still need to futz with getting them sewn up and stuff, and getting rid of all the loose ends, but I’m happy with them so far.

I have also started the fronts now, I’m knitting them in tandem so I know for sure that they’ll be symmetrical. I’ve also knitted my first buttonholes, ever! Ok, it may have taken several viewing and reviewings of youtube clips and ripping out (frogging I think it’s called?) and starting over but I did it. Admittedly, the bottom one is crap, but the two others I have finished so far actually are not too shabby, if you ask me. So now I just need to finish it, preferably in time for like.. January or February, you know, Winter.

Anyways, here are the buttonholes and fronts. The green thing is my monsterbag in which I currently store the whole knitting business.

 

Projects; always nice to see some progress!

Busy

I’ve found myself a summer job. I clean the homes of old people who cannot do it themselves anymore. So for 4 weeks now, and one week more, I hop on my bike every morning and afternoon and work for 2-3.5 hours at a stretch. Vacuuming, cleaning bathrooms and toilets, making spider webs go away etcetera. It’s been quite a lot of fun actually. The cleaning itself is boring, but the conversations with the people are really nice.

I have found out that there are two things that connect practically all old people together.. They all have barometers and orchids, and are generally offended if you do not want a cookie with your tea/coffee (they also do not approve of drinking just water, it’s got to have flavour). If I’m not hungry I feel like I’ve upset their whole day by not wanting the food they offer. Still, I’ve enjoyed myself, some people I like better than others (and can hear me better).

With all that work (5-6 hours a day), I’ve felt quite busy. Although, really, I’m not very busy, I have all nights off so I should not complain. I’ve knitted a little, my sleeves now have 8 stripes, with the ninth being the next two lines, and I’m supposed to have 14 I think, so I’m at least halfway done now.

Well that was project 1. Project 2 is a medieval type dress for larp (inspiration) that I’m putting together using a light fabric with brown and silver swirls for the bodice and front, a dark brown for the skirt and top of the sleeves, and a lighter brown for the bottom of the sleeves (the fabrics were perfect, but there was only 3 and 2 meters left of them). I don’t have that pattern but I’m trying to make it work by adapting other patterns and some divine inspiration (or just normal inspiration really). It’s going quite well, although the light fabric is printed really really off grain, so I’m having to do some strange damage limitation. When it’s finished, I’ll try to show that. The personal deadline for this project is September 6th.

So it’s one more week of helping old people, then school again. That in combination with attempting to finish my projects, and all should be well. Now, further with the second project, since its deadline is closer. Enjoy the creatives too!

New Project

I’ve got holiday right now, a break from school, which means that until I find a summer job, I’ve got a lot of free time on my hands. So I decided, it’s time for a new project! I was looking around the internets and found this. Another vintage, uploaded, free knitting pattern by the wonderful Liz of zilredloh.com. I decided that, taking into account the time it took me to finish the last one, I should start another cardigan now so I could possibly wear it this winter.

So on to the window pane cardigan, although I’ve made some changes. I fail to knit at the correct gauge thingy so I’m just knitting at my normal gauge and hope it fits, the last one I made was with more stitches and way to big, so I hope that this one with less stitches but the same yarn will fit better. Also, I’ve omitted the vertical lines and made the contrast colour two rows instead of one. I’m not sure what to do with the collar, I might omit it or modify it, but I don’t particularly like the one on the picture.

I have finished the complete back panel and the ribbing and one pattern on the sleeves since I started 2 or 3 weeks ago. I found during my last cardigan that I hate knitting sleeves last because I think that the thing is already almost wearable. This time I opted to do the back and then the sleeves and wait with the fronts, because they are the most exiting (I think). Anyway, this is my progress:

What you see is the yarn in the left top and bottom corner (a white and a black one); to the right in the middle, the sleeves to be, at the top the printed pattern and the second black yarn and to the right the completed back panel. I know it’s long enough, I’ll have to wait to find out if it is wide enough too.

So the only thing to do now is finish it. I think I should set a deadline .. eh .. what would be reasonable. October. I think I’ll try to finish this thing before October, that should be attainable, right? Right?

Well I’m off to knit me some more sleeve!

FINISHED!!!

Yaaaay!!! It’s finally done.
I have succeeded in knitting a cardigan! *dances around all happy *

You might not recall when I started this whole project. Neither did I, but I looked it up on the blog and the first mention was here. That’s September people. It’s now May, it basically took me 8 months to finish something that other people can do in days. I know this because my mum knit herself a sweater in the time it took from my due date to my birth (approximately 18 days), 22 years ago. I was in a kind of thrift shop today where I found really nice buttons with sailing ships on them. My mum doesn’t like them very much, but I’ve really fallen for them.

Here’s the button:

It’s a lot darker in real life as you’ll see from the next picture.. The finished cardigan!

Yes this picture was taken in the bathroom. It was eleven at night when I took it and that’s the only room with actual bright light.

You might notice that it does not very much resemble the actual pattern it was based on, which is this one:

This is because there was much too much space under the arms and it wasn’t even close to fitted. Furthermore, I felt uncomfortable with it being open so low (and it looked weird) and the arms are a lot longer than on the picture. The pictured length makes my skin crawl as it is both too short and too long for what I like. Thus with my changes I have now one finished cardigan!
(I’m so proud of myself for sticking with it even after all this time, go me!)

I don’t think I’m going to start another humongous knitting project soon, but this sure was a learning experience and at least I got a nice blue cardigan as bonus.