The Great Baby Sweater Adventure

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Rayna

Fact the First: I have been wanting to learn how to knit a sweater for a while now. Not necessarily because I think I will ever do one for myself, but just because it might be a handy skill to have, especially since a couple in my building is due to have a baby in the next month or so.

Fact the Second: I do not learn new skills from reading. I wish I did. It would make my professional life so much easier and it would save me money. But there you have it. I love to read, but I am a visual learner. I used to think this was some sort of shortcoming on my part, but DH took a test when he started college to determine what sort of learner he was, and it turns out that some people just learn differently than others. Imagine that.

So I figured that once I got around to actually preparing to knit any sort of sweater, I would take a class, and a few Saturdays ago, Kate Atherley was teaching “Top Down Baby Sweaters” at The Purple Purl. She also made me into a sock knitter, so I signed up and off I went.

Class Work at the Purl

Turns out, top down sweaters are really not that hard after all. In class, Kate taught us the basic construction and got us partway through the sample size. This was the end result:

Sweater! (Teensy though it may be!)

Notice the quarter for scale. I am not entirely happy with how the underarms turned out, but I am hoping it will get better with practice.

My first real baby sweater will be a test knit for Meghan Jackson, in fingering weight, and if it goes well, it will be a gift for the aforementioned couple in my building. If I had a lot more baby-friendly DK or worsted weight yarn, I might try Puerperium or One Piece Baby Sweater, but I suspect I will do the test knit first. I guess I had better decide soon!

FO: Armour Road Socks

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Rayna

I really, truly love knitting socks. This is mostly amusing because as a brand new knitter, the first time I went to the Purple Purl with my friend, Liz, she was knitting on a pair of socks and I shook my head in utter confusion. “Why”, I inquired, ” would you put SO much time and effort, not to mention money for expensive yarn, into something you are going to wear on your feet?” Total insanity, I thought. Clearly, knitters be crazy.

Then I took Kate Atherley’s top-down sock class and I was hooked. This was great fun, completely portable knitting especially where plain stockinette or easy patterned socks are concerned, and most importantly, unlike scarves, hats and cowls, I wear socks every single day from October to April or so. So having many of them…not a bad thing.

The only thing about fingering weight socks? Sometimes, they feel like they take for. ev. er. So a while ago, I was poking around in Glenna C.‘s Ravelry shop, and I saw her Armour Road Socks. Socks…in DK weight yarn. A few little cables to break up the monotony and I had been wanting to learn cabling without a needle anyway. How perfect!

So I bought the pattern, debated between multiple skeins of DK weight yarn in my stash and chose a skein of Tanis Yellow Label DK in Plum, which I had purchased at the Purple Purl during their 5th Birthday Sale in November. I tell you, this is instant gratification for sock knitters. I have small feet so I knit the smallest size. They were on the needles less than two weeks, and had they been my only WIP, I am certain I’d have had them done in seven days flat.

Armour Road Socks in Plum

I inadvertently soaked them overnight, and when they dried they were lovely and soft and squooshy, and are perfect in my boots. Love them! Can’t wait to finish my next pair!

Pattern: Armour Road Socks by Glenna C.

Yarn: Tanis Fiber Arts Yellow Label DK in Plum. This colourway is nice enough but knits up a bit muted and “dusty” for me. I don’t love it.

Who Was It Made For? Me!

Were There Changes Made To The Pattern? None. Followed along exactly.

Did I Learn Anything New? Cabling without a needle – HUZZAH! My membership to the Fraidy Cat Duo has been revoked!! (Long story.)

Anything Else? No.

Would I Make Another?: Not only would I, but I have them on the needles already, this time in indigodragonfly Superwash DK in Monster Mash. Once those are done, I am casting on a pair in indigodragonfly MCN Sport (which is also a DK weight but with cashmere and nylon – YUM!)

Unexpected Outcomes

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Rayna

Last summer, the lovely and talented Kate Atherley put out a Twitter call, looking for knitters to test knit for her new accessories book. At that point, I had taken Kate’s sock knitting class and I had even test knit for her before, so I thought it might be fun. I sent her off a message, volunteering to knit for her and I got back a surprising response: “Do you think you might want to knit a sample to be photographed for the book?” I was agape. Me? Knit for a book? I was honoured that she even asked and I responded that I would love to.

And then, almost immediately, the inevitable “imposter syndrome” set in. “What if I am not good enough? I am not a real knitter. What if the item I knit is not fit to photograph?” (I know…what exactly is a real knitter, anyway? And I have knit socks, lace, and so many other projects that this is a completely ridiculous train of thought, but there you have it. As anyone who knows me well can attest, I utterly lack self confidence.)

Because of Kate’s deadline, I was afraid to commit to socks, so she offered me her fingerless mitts to knit. Perfect….sounded like something I could do. I knit them up, and nervously sent them back to Kate, and hoped they met her expectations.

Fast forward to December, and the release of Knit Accessories. I leafed through it at the Purple Purl, and there were my mitts, beautifully photographed. (Photography is one of the things I really want to improve upon.) Kind of exciting when you have never had anything you knit print before. I was pretty thrilled and more than a bit proud.

This morning, Kate tweeted a new blog post. Knit Accessories has been reviewed, and quite positively I might add, by Vogue Knitting magazine. So excited for her! So I take a look at the photo of the review, and would you look at that? The pic they selected to run with the story….my mitts.

Photo Credit: Kate Atherley

Something I knit is in VOGUE KNITTING! I understand that the pic was probably just the right size for the space or something, but I don’t care. I might be unreasonably pleased with myself.

Spinning Wednesdays

Posted on March 1, 2013 by Rayna

What? What do you mean it’s not Wednesday? RIGHT! My brother was in town on business from Vancouver on Wednesday, and I was so happy to get to see him and have dinner with him after not having seen him in 14 months, I forgot to post. So this week, Spinning Wednesday has been postponed until Friday!

Last weekend, I broke my (albeit short) spinning hiatus. I had been dreading spinning, because I was trying to spin a particular braid of BFL and it was not going well. This braid was one I tried to spin on my spindle last year, and frankly, it was a bloody nightmare. I was sure it was felted. Matted and clumpy, and I could not seem to get a decent amount to spin, and when I did it just looked bad. After my very experienced friend Val examined it and determined it wasn’t felted (hey – I was and still am a newb – what did I know?) I was hell bent on trying it again.

Well I did…and I am done. To make a long story short, life is too short to drink bad wine, knit with bad yarn and spin with fibre that makes you want to rip your hair out, especially when one has a lovely stash of some 40 other lovely braids from which to choose.

So I tossed it and went stash diving…and located a lovely braid of Bee Mice Elf Superwash BFL in Plum that I purchased in a destash from Jacqueline, the woman who has contributed most, in several ways, to my fibre stash.

So the braid started out at the beginning of Saturday night’s hockey game, looking like this:

Photo taken by Jacqueline/Soxcrazed on Ravelry

By the end of the night, half of it looked like this:

One of two singles

And by mid afternoon on Sunday, the whole thing looked like this:

My first 4 oz skein of yarn!

Now, when I say it’s 4 ounces, it’s actually a touch less, because I had a few yards left in one single, and I Andean plied that, so it sits separate from this. I have also figured out that I am underspinning a little, because I have seen the twisted mess that results from overspinning, and I think I am overcompensating in the other direction. The biggest issue with that is that when I need to pull the single through the orifice because it has flown out of my hand, if disintegrates and I fight with getting it back. As a result of these little arguments, some bits of fibre may have ended up in the trash. But overall, it’s pretty much the whole braid.

I was pretty proud of this skein – I ended up with 130 yards, which is safely in the bulky-ish range, although I have not measured the WPI, which I should. I gave it a soak and it looked more like it was thinner and more even than anything I had previously spun. Then it dried. When it did, it fluffed up again, and now to me, this looks almost exactly the same as the last fibre I spun, which truthfully is a touch disappointing, as I want to be getting better.

But I keep reminding myself that it will take practice and I need to be practicing more consistently. Right now, I am in the middle of multiple knitting projects and with it being winter, hats and DK weight socks have taken precedence over spinning. But I know I should be spinning daily, even if it’s only for a short time each day, so that I can improve.

I will get there.