Category: knitting

I cast on for a sweater in October but it has more refined techniques than I’m used to–I had to learn the tubular cast on and was working on doing German short rows along with the dreaded “at the same time” increasing on both knit and purl sides and…it was just too much for my work-fried brain.

So I made a super-easy hat with leftover yarn from my last chunky sweater.

This was a free pattern from Purl Soho and it took about a week. It was perfectly mindless and gave an excuse to buy a giant faux-fur pom from JoAnn (always a plus). It also got me hooked on big chunky yarn again: I bought more to make another sweater from Good Night, Day and that one is flying off the needles.

Earlier in the year (a lot earlier, like February), my nephew asked, “Karen, can you knit gloves?” Because I like to be honest with him, I told him that making individual fingers was beyond my skill level but that I could indeed knit fingerless gloves. He thought about that for a little bit and then asked, “Can you knit me some fingerless gloves that are blue with a green stripe?”

Reader, of course I did.

The body of these are in Lion Brand “Basic Stitch” acrylic because he reported that the scarf I made him “was a little bit itchy.” (The green stripe is leftover Wool-Ease from that project–no complaints about the itchiness yet.) The Basic Stitch yarn is marketed as anti-pill, which seemed like a good feature for little kid gloves. I just did a Ravelry search for a suitable pattern and found this one for free.

He’s the only kid in my life and now that he’s not a baby, I don’t make many things for him (because he has his own style) but wow is it gratifying to make things for small humans. He was thrilled.

I finished the sweater I talked about in December from the pattern company that’s taking over Instagram: The Moosonee Sweater by Good Night, Day. I LOVE it: it’s super-stylish, it worked out beautifully, and it didn’t take me exactly one year like my last sweater.

I used cheap yarn because I wasn’t sure I’d like the bulk of the sweater, but I do! I’m not sure how the Lion Brand will wear, but this was such an enjoyable knit I wouldn’t mind re-creating it in the future.

Because of my yarn choice, I went down a needle size so I added in a few extra stitches to account for that. I also made the turtleneck an inch shorter because I hate it when they brush my chin, but I think it throws off the designer’s perfect proportions a little bit. (Still love it, though.)

That’s two successful sweaters in a row for me now. Could it be that I…knit sweaters I actually want to wear now?

I hope it doesn’t feel tone deaf to just hop back into projects and sewing and knitting. To me, it’s one of the ways I’m going to remember my mom: She taught me how to sew, she taught me everything I know about style, and she was always interested in what I was working on. The day before she died, she was asking what I was knitting and I showed her the new project and showed her these pictures of what I had just finished. She studied them and said, “That turned out so nice. You’ll get a lot of wear out of that.”

She was right, of course.

Details:
Cline Sweater pattern by Julie Hoover
Shepherd’s Wool yarn by Stonehedge Fiber Mill (“Storm” colorway)
Yarn purchased at Blazing Needles January 17, 2018
Sweater completed January 17, 2019

(PS, I was able to seam it up just fine, thanks to this tutorial)

Since we last saw my Cline sweater, it’s been mostly seamed up (I followed Other Karen’s construction notes to check the sleeve length) and I got the neckband knitted. That meant it was finally ready to try on and see if this thing I’ve spent a year making will even fit.

Reader, not only did it fit, I can’t believe I knitted anything so nice. I said a year ago that I’d try this complicated (seamed) pattern because everyone said the details were so nice–and they ARE!  That folded neckband is beautiful. The shape and proportions are going to be great.

I’m pretty blasé about sewing any more–of course I can make complicated things that look really professional–but I’ve never been a very ambitious or successful sweater knitter. So the “I made this?!” feeling is both unusual and pretty great.

I’m making something for my nephew and the yarn can’t be itchy, so I ordered the rainbow of Lion Brand Wool-Ease that I posted last Monday. While I was checking out, I threw in 6 balls of the Wool-Ease Thick & Quick to make a super-fast seamless sweater for me (or, the opposite of my Cline sweater, which is now seamed but still needs a neckband, longer sleeves, and another wet blocking to see if the sleeve caps unpucker or if I have to re-seam them).

I was pondering the Knitatude “Beginner Raglan” for my bulky yarn when Karen Templer posted about a pattern from Good Night, Day–the “Moonsonee Sweater”

As Karen said in her post, “Every detail is just right — the yoke depth vs body length and sleeve proportion … they just work. And the way she’s styled them here has my name written all over it.” INDEED.

I have to finish my nephew’s knitting but I’ll be starting this by the end of the month. Another year, another sweater directly inspired by Other Karen. That’s not creepy at all, right?

I knit something besides a sock, from a kit, inspired by Instagram, and I might be a little too old for it? It’s a lot of lewk, but I had fun knitting it.

The story? I saw an Instagram ad for a We Are Knitters scarf kit. I had taught the 20-year-old at work to knit and she was crazy about their stuff, but they always seemed like an odd combination of remedial and aspirational to me.

I loved the scarf but the full price kit seemed expensive for what you got. Then, of course, I got another retargeted Instagram ad for 40% off and I thought, “Fine, we’ll see what this is about.”

The wool is really nice, the branding and packaging were great, but the instructions were a little sparse. It didn’t matter in this case since the lace pattern was so simple, but if I were a 20-year-old and their marketing had convinced me I could just knit a sweater, I would be frustrated.

The pattern itself is a simple a diagonal lace stitch, but the diagonal means you’re not going to get an even triangle. (It’s so big that you have to bunch it around your neck, so I don’t think that matters, but just FYI.)

And you can see I didn’t do the fringe–one, because I was ready to be done with it, and two, because nothing starts to looks more chewed-up after one wash than fringe. (I got the pom-pom idea from, ahem, Instagram.)

I bought this yarn over a year ago with the plan to work on some socks for me during the Big August Vacations. I did just that and, since there was a lot of driving/knitting time in Yellowstone, these are done and might be the fastest socks I’ve ever made:

The pattern is your standard 64-stitch sock and the yarn is self-striping, from Must Stash Yarns. I find the colorway name–“Kama Sutra”–really cringeworthy, because 1.) there is nothing erotic about handknit socks and 2.) these are CLEARLY Rainbow Brite socks :