Saturday, January 12, 2013

Royal Blue

The poor Flashy Cardigan is still draped over the back of the couch, waiting for me to sew on its buttons.  In the meantime, I've started another cardigan, a royal blue one which has been waiting years to get on the machine.  Sometimes when I am at loose ends and can't decide what project to start, I just grab a skein of yarn and knit the ribbings by hand for whenever I get around to that sweater.  At the start of this year, I had two sets of ribbings stuck in a bag in the sewing room, a lemon yellow set and the royal blue set.  I have a really pretty pin my daughter made for me that has royal blue beads on it, and I wanted a plain V-neck cardigan to highlight the pin.  I just did a search for royal blue on the blog and see that these poor ribbings have been languishing in their bag since 2009.  Not anymore, though.
The sweater parts are all knitted and ready to assemble. I had the navy blue yarn all ready to go, but I happened to see the ribbings and decided to do that sweater first.  Now that I have done one darkish blue sweater, I'll have to put the navy away until after I knit a brighter color.  Wouldn't want to do two dark blues in a row.  This sweater is the Modified Raglan I drafted, and it will be interesting to see how it fits.

There is some medium gray yarn in the stash, and some leftover mustard yellow yarn, so maybe I'll try out a round yoke design with the main body gray and the patterning in yellow.  So many ideas to try.

UPDATE:  I finished this up and tried it on.  It looked pretty horrible on me especially the experimental neckline design.  The next time my daughter came over, I had her try it on, and it looked very good on her.  Her shoulder line is more square than mine so her frame held up the swearer in a more flattering way.  I gave it to her and she took it home for its first wash.  She said that it softened up nicely the way most Red Heart yarns do.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

African Flower Square: No More Hexagons

Well, this works up very nicely and is easy to do.  This is the square version from the video online:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r8g1tq8VU0

The only difference is that I started with a Ch 5 circle instead of the magic ring and 7 sc called for. I'm going to have to try the magic ring method some day. I must have watched that video 5 or 6 times, writing down what she said so that I could write out instructions for myself.  Here's what I came up with: 

Version from video:
Make magic ring and 7 sc.  Close Ring with a SlSt
2nd rnd:  Chain 3 for turning chain, 1 dc into same place, ch 1,  (2dc, ch 1) in each stitch around and close with slst.  Should be 8 pairs of dc.

Change Colors:  

    In a gap between dcs put (3 ch, 1 dc, ch 2, 2 dc, ch 1) and after that first one do (2 dc, ch 2, 2 dc, ch1) in each gap. Close with sl st.  Should be 8 petals.

    With same color for next row, in first ch 2 space put (ch 3, 6 dc, ch 1),  then in subsequent spaces put (7 dc, ch 1).

Change Color:

  Start in the middle of a petal, make 1 turning chain, then 1 sc in every stitch, make long stitch down to between the 2 dcs of previous row between the petals.

Change to Frame Color:

At a notch, make a Ch 2 turning chain,  sk 1 st, 1 hdc, 3 sc, 1 hdc, sk 1,  2 tr, ch 2, 2 tr (all in the same place), sk 1,  1 hdc, 3 sc, 1 hdc, sk 1,  1 hdc into notch, sk 1, 1 hdc, 3 sc, 1 hdc, sk 1. Another corner:  2 tr, ch 2, 2 tr  and continue around.

Last row:  Chain 2 for turning chain, 1 hdc into every st until corner.  
 Corner = 2 hdc, ch 2, 2 hdc.  Continue around in this manner.   

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Enough Yarn!!


It was a close call, but the Flashy Cardigan sweater is nearly finished.  I have to sew in the ends and sew on the buttons.Sorry about the blurry photo, but the charge on the camera died right after I took the picture.

Here's all the yarn that was left (those balls of yarn are teeny tiny):

The best part of this project was trying out the newly drafted raglan sweater pattern.  It looked great when I tried it on, a first for me and raglan sweaters.  I've already done a Version #2 pattern in which the front raglan seam is moved forward a bit so that the top of the sleeve is wider and slopes down towards the front.  I think this is called a Modified Raglan, but I'd have to look that up to be sure.  I could really use a navy cardigan, so that will be my next project.  Not an exciting color, but so useful.  But first, I have to finish up this one.


Monday, January 7, 2013

Enough Yarn?

Nearing the finish line and am half done knitting the last sleeve.  Strangely enough, I might just have enough yarn.  I usually use the regular skeins, which have about 364 yds, and I can get a 3/4-length sleeve cardigan out of three skeins, but these leftover skeins have less yardage because the yarn is variegated.  The variegated skeins have about 280 yds.  Multiplying this out, my usual cardigan takes around 1100 yds, and I should have almost exactly that out of the 4 skeins of variegated yard.  I'm afraid that one of the skeins was a partial skein, though, so it will be a close finish.

I redrafted my set-in sleeve pattern (self drafted) to have raglan sleeves because I was just so tired of setting in the other sleeves.  I did try a raglan sweater on once and it didn't look that great on me, but I am hoping that the lowered neckline and shorter sleeves will help with that.  We'll soon see.  What I'd really like to do is adapt the pattern to have a round yoke because there are all sorts of pretty things you can do with that shape.  I'd probably knit all the stockinette portions on the machine and do the yoke patterning by hand.

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Turquoise V-Neck Pullover

 This pullover was pretty fast to knit and is much more of a turquoise color that didn't show up well in the photo.  I'm trying to replace my collection of worn-out sweatshirts with some nice pullovers to wear around the house, and this is the second one.  The first one was a fuchsia U-neck with lace borders, but I wore it to a tea party, and it just came out of the wash.  I'll have to find it and take pictures of it.
 The closer view shows the V-neckline.  I usually have just one center stitch, but by the time I got to the neckline division, I had an extra stitch from who knows where, so I just incorporated it.  The next picture shows the side seam with the increases and decreases to give it a more fitted shape.  The yarn will calm down and flatten out when I wash it, and the increases and decreases will not show much. This sweater also took three skeins of Red Heart Supersaver at a total cost of about $7.50.  Not having any buttons keeps the cost down, too.
Right now I have the multi-color sweater in progress on the machine.  This is the yarn leftover from the afghan I made, so I thought I would make a very bright, flashy cardigan.  My daughter says that if I hurry up and finish it up, I can wear it to Stitches, and she will be able to see me across the vast market auditorium if we get separated.  It looks like I might not have enough yarn, though, which is how things usually work out for me.  I try to use up extra yarn and end up buying more.
Can you see the cookie tin behind the the center post of the machine?  It was given to me by a friend at the office who was from the Philippines.  It has a circular hole in the top that exactly fits the yarn cakes produced by my yarn winder, and keeps the yarn from moving around while the machine pulls the yarn from the center.  So if you are lucky enough to have Asian or Filipino grocery stores near you, look for this product, because the tin is great, and the cookies are tasty.