Frank, the Never Ending Sweater

I have a sweater THAT WILL NEVER END.

As anyone who reads this blog (or follows the podcast will know, I've been working on the sweater, Everybody Knows, using my lovely handspun, Frank since October 2011.

I've been having issues with this whole project -- not issues with Frank the Fleece or the actual pattern itself. BOTH are wonderful. But I have had logistical issues that have been either my fault or circumstances beyond my control

1) Not enough yarn because I decided to change the pattern I wanted to knit. I had enough for the old pattern, but not Everybody Knows. I spun enough for the body of the sweater & the collar, but didn't have enough for the sleeves.

2) 11/8/11 - 1/15/12: I spun more for the sleeves, and began knitting the sleeves.

3) 2/28/12 I "lost" one skein of Frank and was 6 inches away from finishing both sleeves. I thought I had to spin more

4) DH FOUND the lost skein, YAY

5) I discovered the armscye of the sweater is too big (that's the sweater armhole). Consequently, I have TOO much fabric around the armpit when I attach the sleeve and it bunches when I put on the sweater. I had to figure out a way to resize the armscye.

6) 3/11/12: The sleeves were too big. I derped and increased too much. I had to rip back 6 inches on both sleeves and reknit with the correct amount of increases

7) When trying to fix the armscye, I had an issue with a cat and clawss. Sufficed to say, it was ugly, and even my LYS sweater guru said..You need to rip back and reknit.

8) I rip off the collar. I undo the shoulder joins. I RIP back the right front panel to the armscye. I reknit. I rejoined the shoulders.

8) I figured out an ingenious way to fix the armscye of the other arm by making a reverse "gore". Essentially, I knit a small piece of fabric that I then grafted on that made the armscye smaller. Because it's garter stitch, you can't realy see the extra fabric.

9) I reknit the collar, then ripped it back 2x over because I didn't write directions on how to do a mandarin collar like I did the last time.

10) I attached the sleeves 4x over, because I HATE attaching sleeves and it's never a pretty thing.

And now, I'm FINALLY in the home stretch. I've attached the grosgrain ribbon to the button band, and I HAVE BUTTONS for it.

It's not going to be the prettiest sweater I've ever knitted, but it's nice and warm, and very servicable.

Finishing a Sweater: Hikers Waistcoat

As most knitters know, it's often times very hard to find buttons for a sweater that would match its look. Often times you find buttons that are a perfect fit immediately, and sometimes, you have to look around for a while.

So, while I was looking for wood buttons to go the Hikers Waistcoat (Ravelry Link / website link), I added the button bands for the sweater. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any grosgrain ribbon that matched the colorway, so I dyed some 3" wide white silk ribbon to a golden hue, folded it in half, and sewed white twill ribbon to add some stabilization.

Then I handsewed the whole thing for the buttonbands.

Eventually, I found an Etsy store in Europe that had some excellent handmade buttons for a very good price. Her feedback was pretty positive, so I was pretty confident in purchasing from her store.

So, I ordered Plum Wood buttons with some of the bark still on them. They were about the size of a dime. I <3 them.

Here they are spaced on the sweater.

I used some embroidery thread that matched the buttons, and sewed them on to the sweater.

Just When You Think You're Done....

Sometimes, things conspire against me. Or at least that's what I tell myself to cover up my poor planning skills.

Take my Frank Sweater for instance. First, there was the never ending question of whether or not I would have enough yardage to finish the sleeves.

Then, it turns out that I had JUST enough to finish both sleeves (and yes, I did finish both sleeves) and with some yardage left over.

But now, I have another problem -- the armscye of the sweater is too big (that's the sweater armhole). Consequently, I have TOO much fabric around the armpit when I attach the sleeve and it bunches when I put on the sweater.

Luckily, I only put one sleeve on and tried it on before doing the other sleeve.

Now, I have to figure out a way to reduce the size of the armhole by at least two (2) inches. I have an idea but I'm not sure if it'll work, but even this problem might be too much for my current skillset.

I might need to go to my LYS and solicit the help of the knitting gurus. However, I don't have the time to go down there until next weekend.....which means Frank will remain undone for another week.

Maybe I should keep him as a vest? *sigh*

Saved!

Sometime yesterday, DH found my errant ball of Frank! It had falled behind & underneath a storage bench that we have in our office. It was in a plastic bag containing:

• a ball of Frank
• a half full weaving bobbin of singles
•  my test skein when I was initially trying to determine how to spin/ply Frank

(The photo doesn't do the size of the ball justice.)

DH was quite proud of himself. He had heard me bemoaning my fate with Frank (a seemingly never ending saga of spinning, knitting....finding out you're short yardage, then spinning, knitting....finding out your short yardage....) He left it on my desk to find when I got home.

I awarded his good deed with much lavish affection. Then I proceeded to finished the last 3" of one sleeve last night. I still have plenty left for the 3" of the second sleeve., which I will finish today.

Sometimes Magazines Do Not DO Justice to Knit Wear

Yesterday, a friend and I went to Imagiknit, a wonderful LYS in San Francisco. I still don't have much of a yarn budget due to a huge car repair bill, but there's no charge for window shopping.

My friend, D, is a person who loves yarn & fiber, but doesn't want to knit or crochet (as her mother kinda turned her off to the craft) -- I'm working on remedying that situation. We wandered the store and I explained some things she was curious about (what is "wool" versus alpaca, and what micron count meant)

At one point, I looked up and saw the samples that had been knit for the store, and saw this sweater vest (Ravelry Link) and PROMPTLY fell in love with it. (The store sample did NOT have the fringe on the shawl collar).

I tried it on...and it fit beautifully, and my friend, D, said, "Oh, that is SO You". The cables were beautiful. The yarn used was Lana Grossa -- a 4 ply cable ply bulky yarn (merino/cashmere) in a dark charcoal grey, and it was soo soft, so luscious, and the cable definition was simply Amazing with this yarn.

The sales girl tried to look up the pattern, but their inventory said they didn't have the magazine in stock (of course, right?), but another helpful sales clerk FOUND said magazine on a table (it was mislabeled in their inventory).

When we flipped to the pattern page, I was pretty shocked.

1. the photo of the cabled sweater was TINY. You could not get a good look at it.
2. there was FRINGE all over the shawl collar (the sample did NOT have the fringe)
3. in the already tiny photo, the fringe covered up all of the lovely cabling so you wouldn't have known about the cabling
4. it was in an awful sky blue colorway

From the Lana Grossa Website.

This is how approximately "small" the photo was in the magazine

Myself, D, and the sales clerk looked at the photo, looked at the sample, looked at the photo...and we all said "Wow". We all thought the photos sucked. This magazine was oversized and the product photo was 1/4th the size of the page....in a corner and easily overlooked. I would have EASILY passed over this pattern had I been flipping through the magazine on a whim.

If the store didn't have the knitted sample, I would have never known about this wonderful sweater.

Sufficed to say, I bought the magazine with the pattern. However, I did NOT buy the yarn -- that will have to wait until I have a yarn budget again....although I am tempted to just spin for it....

Yup. Definitely Short on Frankie

I'm definitely short with Frankie. I was hoping beyond hope, but knowing deep down that I was going to be short.

* I have 3-4 yards (if that) yarn left.
* I have 3 inches left on both sleeves (6 inches total).

I tore apart my Stash area looking for that "missing" ball of Frank. I couldn't find it. At one point, I was pretty damn sure I had it. Then I was just "sure". Because, I WROTE down EXACTLY how much I had on my blog & my Ravelry page.

Now I don't know if I dreamt the whole thing, then dreamt walked/typed onto Ravelry AND my blog about this extra skein that I had. Either that or the gremlins took it...or somehow in the night, Frank the sleeveless sweater got up, took the ball and hid it (which would be difficult without sleeves).

So, I'm pretty sure I had to have dreamt the extra skein.

But, watch...after I spin up another 3 ounces of Frank, wash, and thwack the yarn, the missing ball will turn up. *sigh*

Short on Frankie.

Don't you hate it when you THINK you have one more skein of yarn left...in fact, had totally blogged about it too. But then, for the love of all things alive, you CANNOT FIND THAT SKEIN.

Meet the ever growing sleeve, and the diminishing ball of yarn.

As of this photo, I have 6" left on BOTH SLEEVES. I’ve been knitting 2 sleeves at a time using 2 cakes of yarn. And that above is for one sleeve. I might be able to use the other end of the 2nd cake and knit both, but I’m pretty damn sure it won’t be enough.

I might need to spin more. GAH

Two Cons in Two Weekends -- Stitches West 2012

I'm going to do my con reports slightly out-of-order, because I don't want to put any spoilers for our recorded podcast.

Stitches West was awesome. Sandy, myself, and Amy went only for one day, but we had fun. We had a lunch before going to Stitches West, which afforded us
a) a much better & cheaper lunch than convention hall food
b) actual good fuel by which to go peruse the many fine wares & designs
c) missing a great deal of the crowds

My budget for this year's Stitches was nominal -- mostly due to a blown head gasket & valve from my car, but I digress. I had a little bit of spending money, but it had to be on things I ABSOLUTELY LOVED. Luckily, Sandy & Amy were there to keep me honest.

We had a plan for walking around the whole convention floor so that we could see everything. At one point, we came across this kinda cool / kinda creepy yarn covered mannequin at Lion Brand. When I showed DH the photo later, he said it was the yarn monster who steals the 2nd pair of your socks from the laundry.

Yarn Golem

I much preferred their argyle giraffe. (Sorry for the sideways image)

Anyways, both Amy & Sandy found tons of yarn and had bags full of shopping. Me? I desparately wanted Tess Kitten yarn (an-omg-so-soft cashmere/silk blend) but none of their stock was in a color way suited to me. *sigh*. As aforementioned, both Amy & Sandy kept me honest, as I really REALLY wanted the yarn.

I simply had a few choicer picks, including a special order from Abstract Fibers (cashmere & silk) in the Malificent colorway -- I'll spin my own cashmere silk in my colorway instead!

We caught up with a bunch of friends who were there and talked yarn & fiber. It was a most excellent day!

Black Hills Gold

I had 166 yards of handspun yarn that I loved, but I didn't know what to do with -- I had enough maybe for a hat or a cowl or something larger if I mixed it with commercial yarn.

• 60% merino
• 30% bamboo
• 10% firestar

The PurlGurls at Purlescence yarns suggested I tried weaving with it. And they helped me match it with some lovely Cascade Venezia sport in a green/bronze color. It matched perfectly. It was a color I would not have picked, but I was surprised at how well it went with the handspun.

The resulting fabric is thusly:

Jury Duty Knitting

I recently got called to jury duty, and went through the selection process two days earlier this week. While I think the jury system is an integral part of our legal process, the jury selection process itself is loong, boooring, and tedious.

I spent nearly two days just sitting around and waiting. While waiting in the jury selection room, we could work on our laptops, eat, drink, and generally walk around, but when you got into court? Well, no reading, all electronics MUST be powered off, and no drinking or eating.

Luckily, as a knitter, this could be turned into one long knitting session, which I did, punctuated by a answering emails or trying to do some work on my laptop (during the first day at least). (This was not to say I wasn't bored, but being confined to a single seat for a good 6 hours of a day w/o the option to really leave is...difficult.)

There were a few iffy moments when I was worried I wasn't going to be able to knit. They have you put your bags through an xray machine, and they xrayed my bag twice, but did not ask to search it.

Then at one early point, the baliff/deputy asked to see how sharp my knitting needles were (Knitpicks harmonies), but I did say about as sharp as a pencil. Luckily, he left it at that after feeling the tips.

Despite my complaints about having to go through 2 days of jury selection, I got a lot of knitting done. I had walked into the courthouse with half a body of a sweater.

I came out with nearly a finished sweater body (I have 2" of ribbing left on the body because I forgot the smaller needles for the ribbing), and 3/4ths of a sleeve. This includes some ripping out of about 2" of sleeve because after trying it on (during a break), I realized that I needed to modify the decreases as the sleeve was a bit too tight.

Overall, not too shabby.

Dye Job

I had some left over Blue Moon Luscious Silk Singles from my Mondo Cable Pullover. It's a lovely shade of red (brick or tomato).

As much as I loved the yarn, I was "done" with the color of the yarn. I could have traded the yarn, but decided to just simply overdye the yarn to a color more to my liking.

So, I got out my Jacquard dyes (Fire Red + Jet Black) and my dye pot, and set to work.

And the resulting yarn was a lovely shade of burgandy.

Spinning Teeswater

Alright! Enough about weaving or knitting or dye'ing. How about a little spinning?
Yes, I still spin, and in fact, HAVE been spinning.

I have two projects on two wheels.

First up, I started spinning Gretta again. Can I say how much Love spinning her woolen?

She's going to end up such a lofty fluffy yarn!

I'm also spinning up some Teeswater that I got from a shephardess in Oregon.

Unfortunately, I discovered the roving I had purchased had basically felted together. They told me it would be as simple as unwinding it. It was more like tearing felted chunks.

I sighed, and had my LYS owner look at it to see what could be done. She told me that we needed to run it through the drumcarder in order to save it, and even lent me the store drumcarder. So I did -- DH help me tear chunks off the roving, then we ran it through the carder. It took 40 minutes to pull 8 oz of roving off the cone it had been wrapped around.

But, then it came out cloudlike, soft, and utterly spinnable.

Eventually, this will be a 4-cable ply. I'm currently spinning this with a short-worsted draw because it's so fuzzy.

I tried to spin it woolen, because the prep was woolen, and I didn't quite like the halo it was developing. The teeswater staple length is sooo long that it's really easy to do either woolen or worsted spinning with this fiber.

I'll have to write up more about Teeswater at a later date.

Hats Hats Hats

I've been on a slight hat kick lately.

My Coach Yeti's hat

Gray & Green Scrap Hat --- made with left over green & grey yarn from a variety of projects. Apparently, I've been buying more apple / acid green yarns

An EZ Tam (based on the Elizabeth Zimmerman tam instructions)

A Noro Stocking Cap (although, I did finish this at the tail end of 2011)

Hawaiian Tartan

When I started weaving the Hawaiian tartan, I knew I wanted something to wear for the Highland games. So, I went looking for the Hawaiian tartan pattern, and found this webpage that not only had the colors, but also a thread count (albeit on thinner cotton thread) (so I extrapolated and created a spreadsheet with the thread count.)

The colors represent Hawaii and are as follows:

the Blue represents the ocean and the sky

the Green represents the islands' plant life and foliage

the Brown stripe shows the distinctive red-brown earth in Hawaii

the Red & Yellow represent the fire and lava that formed the Hawaiian Islands, as well as honoring the Hawaiian Ali'i (Royalty)

Here's the warp:

And the finished piece. It measures about 6" long and 12.5" wide. It'll serve as a sash for the Highland games.

I used all Cascade 220 yarns, including a Cascade 220 blue tweed as it had all of the other colors in it. (Here's my Ravelry project page).

More information about the Hawaiian tartan is here.

My pattern version of this tartan is on Google Docs as a spreadsheet.

I've also found the California state tartan on Wikipedia, along with the thread count. I might have to make this in the future as well.

Yeti Hat

Last week, my Coach Yeti asked to commission a beanie hat from me in a steel-grey, after seeing many of the FO photos I've posted in my social networking sites.

As this is my COACH...the man I've had the longest relationship with (over 15 years), there was no way he was commissioning me to knit a hat for him. This was going to be an out-right GIFT to him. He told me his head size (a whopping 7 3/4 hat size = 2XX = 24" circumference)

Luckily for him, I had just recently finished another hat (a tam) and wanted another simple project to work on (in between the sweater). Luckily, I had a ball of yarn the color he wanted that would knit up into a soft squishy hat.

During knitting group this past Saturday, I cast on about 116 stitches (for his large head) -- fully intending to make the the Koolhaas hat by Jared Flood, but after I got 2" into the ribbing, I realized that the ONLY ball of yarn that I had was ONLY 98 yards (50g ball). DOH!

So, I dug around in my Stash and found an even darker grey Cascade 220 in the same weight that was left over from a variety of projects. I changed the Koolhaas idea into Turn a Square (also by Jared Flood)

I would stripe the two different greys together. And to make sure it would fit him, I tried it on DH's head, who only has a 23" circumference head, so if it fit him (a teeny bit loose), it'd fit Coach Yeti.

I finished the hat on the bus to work today and wove in all the ends.

Finished Objects Wrap-up For 2011

Okay, I realize that I'm a bit late on the subject, but here's some of the crafts I completed in 2011

Weaving Bug -- I don't think so!

Well, I don't think I've caught the weaving bug 100% --- I'm not going gangbusters --- but I officially picked up the Ashford 24" rigid heddle loom December 30, 2011, and I've gotten 4 weaving projects done.

My first project was the simple tabby scarf in red/black marl yarn.

The second project was an experiment in colors and width. This is 22" wide and 3 feet long.

The 3rd project was an experiment in plaid (which got sewn up to make a carry-bag for the different rigid heddles. And yes, I cut my woven fabric with scissors down the middle....). This was 18" wide and 1.5 yards long.

The 4th project was a houndstooth scarf in acid green & black tweed (not that the tweedy parts showed up in the finished scarf

And the most current project is a Hawaiian tartan plaid that's a wider scarf / sash that I can wear to the Scottish Highland games.

Here's the warp

And lest you think I'm ONLY weaving, I've finished a pair of socks for myself. And actively on the needles, I've got a cabled tam, a cashmere sweater, AND I've spun up & plied the last of Frank so I can finish up the sleeves on a yet another sweater (that I haven't posted about yet).

So, no, if I had the weaving bug, I'd ONLY be doing weaving projects.

Right?

New Year of Crafting

Work's been keeping me super busy as of late, and while I've had time to craft, I haven't had time to blog as much. If you're keeping up with the Geek Girl Crafts Podcast, you'll hear most of what I've been doing there.

The latest piece of news is that my sweet DH decided to get me a loom for the holidays. Yes, a loom. After I said that I wasn't planning on weaving anytime soon. Apparently, he'd been listening to the Purlescence Girls too much.

It's an Ashford 24" Rigid Heddle Loom. The Purl Girls helped me do my first warp, and here's the finished product, which is a 9" scarf, which uses the same Cascade 220 red & black marled yarn as the warp & the weft.

It's really pretty, but after a while, I got very bored weaving it, as it was the same pattern repeatedly.

In addition to the loom, he got me the book, The Handweaver's Pattern Directory. So after I finished the scarf, I flipped through it, found a 2-color tabby pattern I liked, and started warping.

The warping was relatively easy, although I had a slight problem when running the top yarn through the middle bit of the heddle (I missed one) that I didn't realize until I started weaving...ah well....

It's actually working out relatively well, and I will take the mistake as a learning topic.

I figure that I can use some of my extra stash that's been sitting there unused for a while (esp. the Cascade 220) and play with the loom.

So far, so good.

I will make an attempt to get the last of 2011's projects up onto the blog.

Bootcamp Knitting

My daybreak has become my shuttle & meeting knitting. Recently, I spent 2 days in a "bootcamp" training that lasted 8 hours each day. There was a lot of power point presentations and rather dry lectures on technology, development processes, example code, etc.

It was boring, but informational.

I took the time to knit on my daybreak. I got quite a bit done on it.

Using Cascade 220 Venezia Sport

Unfortunately, progress on the Daybreak slowed down after the meeting (not to mention the rows got longer and longer with each stripe, and it became my shuttle knitting. So I get about 1.5 hours each day to work on it while I ride the shuttle to work.

Now, I'm down to the last few inches with all of the purl ridges. Hopefully, I'll have to done before Thanksgiving.

Adventures in Machine Knitting

So, yesterday, I finally picked up the knitting machine from the repair shop, which was a mini-saga. If you listen to the podcast, you'll have heard the story. Sufficed to say, everything's working now.

So, when I got it home, I grabbed our workhorse table, clamped it down, grabbed some left over yarn (Cascade 220), and set about making some test swatches.

Worsted weight yarn is about the "thinnest" this machine can do unless you want a loose weave. As it was, the weave for worsted is also pretty loose, but nothing that I can't live with in anything I'd make on this machine.

I also played with changing color. As seen in the photo, it ain't bad. It's stockinette stitch only, so it "curls" in on itself, but nothing that a good washing & blocking won't fix...or a crocheted edge.

I also figure that since its Cascade 220, I can felt the yarn just a little bit to tighten up the weave, and it won't harm the overall end product.

Why am I using a knitting machine? So, if you listen to the podcast, you'll know that my Viking wanted the Doctor Who scarf from Season 18 (the red outfit with the red scarf). I am NOT about to hand-knit a 20 foot scarf by ANY means as it takes TOO DAMN LONG -- ask anyone who has knitted one -- but a machine knit one? Sure it won't be "exactly" like the original (the original was a garter stitch scarf, and this is stockinette, but honestly...who's gonna care outside of the Doctor Who police?

So after a few test runs where I made some mistakes, learned some things, then I started in on the Scarf. After about 10 minutes of putzing, I had this:

Overall, the machine is a *blast* to use. It is relatively easy to use, and everything goes by quick! After playing with the machine for several hours, I had ~8 feet of scarf, and had gone through nearly 1 skein of every color. I have one more skein of every color, and am going to need to pick up about 2 more of each color.

It was nice to see so much progress after a few hours work. This would have taken MONTHS to do by hand.

Not to say that I didn't have any problems. I made some minor mistakes, which were easily fixed, and some BIG mistakes that...while fixable took a LOT of time to fix.

1) always make sure you have enough yarn for a row. If you don't, everything comes off the machine, and you have to carefully put everything back on carefully and tear your hair out. If you're unsure if you have enough, then you don't have enough so SPLICE in another skein!

2) MAKE SURE THE WEIGHT is on before you even start. Otherwise, it drops stitches of the needles.

3) move the weight every 10 rows. It helps with the tension.

4) When you move the weight every other time, double check the following:
a) no other needle has moved into position. Otherwise, you increase a stitch, which can be corrected easily by a K2TOG.
b) make sure that no stitch has accidently dropped. This is also easily fixable since it's just like regular knitting, but a PITA, because you're looking at the reverse side of the stockinette stitch.

5) Small color changes are a PITA, because you have to snip the yarn in order to do a small color change, unlike hand knitting. This makes for a LOT of loose ends to knot & weave into the scarf.

Overall, I could see making a bulky-weight blanket for just around the house or something similar...or making something nifty to just felt and cut out squares...after all, different tools provide different uses, and the knitting machine is no exception. But I'm not going to be giving up my needles anytime soon.