a super colorful sweater body
Each Wednesday, I post little snippets about what’s happening, and what I’m working on.
Super quick update today, because the only knitting I worked on all week was my crazy colorful sweater.
Last week I was at the waist, transitioning my colors, and hoping all of the colors would work together.
I think the colors worked out really well together – even though this wasn’t the original plan.
Unexpected. In the best possible way.
it’s been a week of crafting mishaps
Each Wednesday, I post little snippets about what’s happening, and what I’m working on.
My crazy colorful sweater is coming along. It’s pretty slow going, and there was a bit of a hiccup when I realized I had vastly underestimated the yardage I needed (by about half) because I miscounted the number of rows I had to the inch. Luckily, I found more yarn, and I’m transitioning my colors now, so all should be ok. Fingers crossed.
And then I tried on my purple sweater and decided I hated how the neckline was sitting, so I cut it off, wound the yarn back up, and am going to re-knit it.
But at least I’m working off of the correct row count for this sweater.
So as sort of a consolation prize for the sweater mishaps, I cut the fabric for my first Archer button up shirt, and started sewing it together.
Unfortunately the fabric slipped, or wudged, or something while I was cutting (I mean, it’s not like I was being super careful) and the stripes don’t quite match at center front. But I’m making it anyway, because a) I want the shirt, and b) I’m planning for it to be an over-shirt anyway, so it’s not like I was going to wear it closed very often.
Once the shirt is all sewn together we’ll see how “off” the stripes actually are, and we’ll also see if I still don’t care.
At least there was a consolation prize for the consolation prize.
Two skeins of absolutely lovely yarn arrived from Toil & Trouble! I’m working up a new design in it, and I can’t wait to start knitting with it! Yay!
(But I’ve held off winding the second skein until my week of crafting mishaps comes to an end – just in case.)
PS. If you’re in the US have a fabulously wonderful Thanksgiving. And if you’re not in the US, have some pie anyway.
Knitting my “Boring Black Sweater”
I have a love-hate relationship with basics.
I love wearing them.
I hate making them.
This creates a little bit of tension in my self-made wardrobe.
I’ve talked a little bit before about the disconnect between what I love wearing, and what I love making. I love making really complicated & technically challenging, colorful & intricate & interesting things, while I love wearing basics – tank tops, jeans (they’re coming! – eventually…) and straight forward stockinette sweaters.
Sewing basics is pretty boring.
Knitting basics is a nightmare of boredom.
But a nightmare that’s kind of worth it.
I’ve dubbed this sweater the “Boring Black Sweater.”
It’s a solid black, basic pullover, knit in stockinette stitch, in lace weight yarn on a US size 4 (3.5mm) needle. Which, if you don’t knit, is tiny yarn on a not-so-tiny-but-certainly-not-large needles, in a very basic knitting stitch.
The yarn is “Forest Hills” from Cascade in color #3 “Anthracite” (black). I love this yarn for shawls. But I wouldn’t really recommend it for garments because of how much this sweater is pilling.
The pattern is a basic, yoked pullover, worked from the top-down, with a wide neckline, and turned hems on the sleeves and body.
Knitting it was really boring.
It was so boring, in fact, that I knit the sleeves too way short. And once the sweater was all done I cut off the cuff, picked up the stitches on the sleeve, knit a couple more inches, and graphed the cuff back on.
Even so the sleeves ended up being bracelet length, which isn’t what I had in mind, but works fine.
Even though it was kind of a nightmare to knit, I love this sweater. It works with just about everything in my wardrobe, and is the perfect thin layer to wear under or over something.
From now on though, I think I’ll stick to sewing, instead of knitting, my basics.
