Tag: jumper

Knitting

New Kids’ Sweaters

Iris Rose

Hi!  It has been a long time since my last post.  Life sort of got in the way of everything else and I had to step back for a bit.  I never stopped crafting and have a bunch of things on the go.  I have been working, mostly, on building up my stock for fall craft sales which may or may not go ahead.  I do enjoy what I am doing so if it is may not it is not a problem.

Mostly working on kids’ sweaters, I have made significant gains in what I have on hand.  I wish that I were a more accomplished photographer and then I could stock my Etsy store.  Stay tuned to that because miracles can happen!  Here are a few of the little, and not so little, sweaters that I have been busy with.

 

 

I had a bunch of fuzzy yarn similar to Caron’s Latte that I have had in stash for a while and wanted to use up.  I used the Latte that I had and remembered this stuff from my ebay binge of a few years ago.  There was only enough for one sweater of each colour but I managed to make a large dent in the stash, yippee!

 

Next time I will show you a little blanket that I knit with Caron Cakes yarn (sensing a trend here?) that I bought and stashed in 2016.  I found an error in colour management about halfway up that I ignored until I got to the end and now I don’t like it.  I am going to attempt to change it without ripping out; wish me luck!

I hope that you have a lovely crafty week and remember to be kind especially in these difficult times and please wear a mask in public to help save those who are not able to fight off disease as easily as you can.

Yarn, Knitting and Crochet

Finished!

Iris Rose

I started this cardigan last year (I think) and hated the neck edging that I had made. The sweater is machine knit, sideways on an LK150 hobby machine.

I knit it with Hobbii’s Twister which is a colour changing yarn. Twister is sold as a gradient but the colour changes are a bit abrupt resulting in stripes. I used a sideways method (one cake for each front and back) so that the stripes run up and down instead of across which is so unflattering to my body type. Rant here: Take note all of you buyers for plus size women; we want to be flattered not stuffed into a larger version of a garment that looks good on a size two. Don’t get me started on fit! Just because we need a garment wider doesn’t mean that we need it proportionately longer with a huge neckline and shoulders hanging down to our elbows. Maybe spend a few moments looking at real people.  Rant over and moving on.

Anyway, back to my cardi, I put this naughty sweater in time out on a shelf under my sewing table and, every once in a while, remembered it was there, took it out, got mad at it again because of the neck edge and stuffed it back.  Finally last month, I ripped off the neck edge and I do mean ripped, leaving a ragged and not very nice edge to deal with. No loose stitches but not pretty so back into time out it went.

I decided to hand knit ribbing and attach it in the same way as cut and sew on the machine. The overlapping stocking stitch edge covered the ragged bits nicely and I finally am happy with it. It is big and boxy and very soft; a perfect it’s cold in here cover up.  Yay!!!

Thanks for looking and please, have a happy week with lots of yarny goodness coming your way!

 

Yarn, Knitting and Crochet

Pattern Buying

Iris Rose

What it is about patterns that turn us into collectors? Is it the beautiful photos of lovely yarn made into something that best shows off the reason why we couldn’t resist buying the yarn to begin with? Is it maybe that we just like to consider the possibilities of new projects or do we like to connect with other crafters by participating in their work?

I look at patterns almost daily and use them as a source to know what finished projects are trending in order to keep my own work relevant. A number of years ago I would download and print whatever caught my fancy until I had an enormous pile of patterns that I knew I would never make. Talk about a tree waster! I have wised up a little since and just download those that I know I will make and have the stash to use for the item. I still have a big digital library but am gradually going through and ruthlessly deleting.

Having said all that, I still lust after the new and beautiful and do treat myself to the maybe someday stuff once in a while.

One of my favourite places to find patterns is garnstudio.com. This is the Drops website and, although the patterns are translated from another language, there is a large selection of patterns for all types of knitting and crocheting. My only caution is that you read through the pattern completely and make sure that you understand it all before you start. This will save you some heartache later, experience talking here.

There is, of course, Ravelry too, a great place to buy and store all the lovelies. When I need some inspiration, browsing here almost always gets me started. Most of what I buy are toy patterns with the occasional, I can’t live without, shawl thrown in.

Have fun looking for that special, I have to make it, pattern and I hope that you have or can find the perfect yarn to go with it.
See you next week and I wish you a fun week filled with pleasant company.

Yarn, Knitting and Crochet

Cardigans

Iris Rose

I missed you last week. Did you miss me? I lost my temper last week about a couple of things and just didn’t want to spew hate out to the world. I am over one thing but still mad about the other, the one I can write about and hopefully amuse you with.

I have been working on three cardigans at once. Crazy normal, eh? FYI, eh is Canada speak for don’t you agree. I machine knit, on my standard gauge, a pretty black cardigan that FITS!!! And is almost done except for the final blocking and sewing on the buttons. It has been in this state since last weekend and I keep playing a computer game or checking out Facebook or reading or, or, you know how this finishes.

I machine knit a cardigan with Hobbii Twister yarn on my midgauge that I was really excited about finishing. I didn’t machine knit the bands as I don’t have a ribber for this plastic bed machine. I opted for garter stitch bands which turned out great until I knit the neck band. Oops! My decreases on the second side of the neck front somehow became undone in a very messy way. It looks like the stitches dropped on every second needle, but I didn’t see this until after it was all put together. I fixed up the stitches and knit a doubled band to cover the repair. It worked but….. The band looks terrible. I was just going to leave it, but I know that I will never wear it and it FITS!!!! Guess what I am doing this weekend.

The one I had a temper tantrum about is a hand knit top down cardigan that I started a couple of months ago and has been languishing in my basket. I question my sanity in choosing a top down pattern. Why did I think that this was a good idea? I keep getting mixed up on which side the button holes go on even though I got the first one right. Every so often I panic that they are on the wrong side and have to turn my work around and visualize the finished piece. It is making me crazy. I have no way of knowing if it will fit and panic about that. Yes, I did make a swatch, but this is going to be named my doubting cardi.  This guy says everything will be okay.

I have knit kid’s sweaters this way and love the no sew part. An adult size though is a whole nother story. To top it off, I was just about half way down the body and found a mistake twenty-six rows back. I ripped it back, knit about ten rows and back it went into time out. Hence the mad. I have put my temper back into its place and hope, no I will, have more for next week.

Have a great week and happy crafting.  Kindness to you all.

Knitting, Yarn, Knitting and Crochet

To Err Is Human

Iris Rose

I didn’t get my ordered yarn in time to finish my Twister cardigan. I should be able to pick it up tomorrow and, hopefully, get to work on it this weekend.

I am working a craft sale tomorrow with the Springbank Creative Arts Club at Amica Aspen, 10 Aspenshire Drive SW, Calgary. If you are in the neighbourhood, please drop in a say hi. There is no admission fee and parking is free!

Maybe I need to reassess my completion date for the cardigan. I just may need an extra day or two.

Do you ever make mistakes in your crafting? Dumb question, I know, we all do. I am talking about those real doozies that make you want to cry but are so obvious that you have to laugh first.

I machine knit a basic black cardigan this week, an item that my wardrobe is lacking. I finished all of the pieces, carefully blocked them and laid them out to sew together. I thread my needle and, what, what is wrong with this picture? I forgot to reset the stitch size on the second front piece after knitting the ribbing! Good thing is I have a bunch of the yarn left. Bad thing is that the yarn is acrylic and, after a light steam blocking, this piece can’t be frogged.

I sat down yesterday and knit the correct size.

I published a blog on my old website about fixing a mistake in a lace sweater that I hand knitted. I made the back longer than the front with one too many repeats of the lace. I managed to save it after carefully picking up the stitches and unraveling the extra repeats then grafting it back together to finish it to the right size.

I think that there is some good information in this post and I hope that you will scroll back through time and have another look at it.

I knit myself a really lovely cardigan in a beautiful yarn. I joined the shoulders with a three needle bind off, knit the band around the front and neck and sewed in the sleeves. I pinned the sides together for seaming and, much to my great distress and using every curse word that I know, I found that I had repeated the first lace pattern at the beginning (bottom) of the back piece twice and only once on the fronts. I got ready to toss it into the garbage or at least a corner to gather dust but I just liked it too much to not try to repair it.

I have removed the bottom of a sweater before and reknit it down to increase the length but only in stocking stitch and never with this pretty a yarn.

I gathered my courage and here’s what I did. I left the sweater sewn as far as I had gone because who wants to undo hand sewn sweater seams. That almost never works out for me.
I used a contrast colour in a pale yellow so that I could still see it but not have any bright or dark fibres left when I removed it and, picking up one side of every stitch, threaded a life line through my knit stitches two rows above the last lace repeat that I wanted to keep. I then place two life lines one row apart on the two rows below the first row of garter stitch that bordered the lace pattern.


Next, I took a very deep breath and cut between the life lines. Yes, I cut the bottom of the back off. Working on the bottom piece, I picked out all of the little bits from cutting and, carefully ripped back to a couple of rows above my life line. I picked up the stitches with a circular needle, made sure that my count was correct and unknit back to the last knit row that ended the one lace repeat that I should have stopped at the first time around. I used a contrast waste yarn and worked two rows in stocking stitch then cast off to hold all of the stitches securely.


Putting that piece aside, I then used my circular needle and picked up one side of the bottom loop of each stitch between the two life lines on the top piece of the back. I used two life lines here as I wasn’t sure how the loops would hold when I picked up the bottom of each stitch. I then ripped back to the needle, used waste yarn and worked the same two rows of stocking stitch and cast off.


Now, to put the two pieces back together, I worked from the wrong side with a really long length of yarn (because I didn’t want to have to try to join in the middle) and grafted the loops from the bottom to the loops from the top piece. I checked to make sure that all of the stitches were included and ripped out the waste yarn from both pieces.
Success! My lovely sweater knit with the lovely yarn was now repaired and the fronts matched the back.

 

Thank you for reading and I hope that you have a great week filled with yarny goodness. Drop in to the sale if you can.