Big Bloke Sweater

In a moment of weakness some time ago 'im Indoors expressed a liking for some yarn we saw in Yarn LLC's New Haven branch (Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Super chunky in a lovely deep red). I grabbed up every ball of it they had while he was still enthused, without telling him it wasn't enough for the sweater he wanted it to magically turn in to, and rushed home to e-Bay where I found more of it. The dye lot was different but when the batch arrived it was clearly good enough if worked in carefully.

Since I am trying to try something new with each project this one was to be knitted from the top down. I tracked down a top down raglan calculator online and starting doing gauges in the round, which took far longer than the more usual square, but since the pattern would be knitted in the round was necessary. Having settled on 6.5 mm needles (my gorgeous Harmony circular set came in to use) I did the required sums and cast on.


Things went well at first. The yarn is a pleasure to work with, despite every single ball having a knot in it, and with the size of needles things went quickly. Having got some inches past joining up below the V of the V-neck I finally compared it to a favourite sweater of the big lad's, rather than trying it on him, and confirmed it was far too big. Major frogging.




After a big drink, got knitting again and it was definitely worth all that ripping. I've got to end of body and have left it with the ball of yarn attached for the moment - don't want to commit to a length yet. It's pretty heavy and I think the whole thing may well stretch once it's in use, so the top-down technique's ability to be shortened may well come in handy.

The first attempt at a sleeve was slightly wrong. My initial decrease at both ends of every third row was making it too narrow too quickly. More frogging. Alternating between fourth and third seems to be working well. At this rate he'll get a hugely warm sweater just in time for the height of summer.

A-Type Knitting

Since my local Stitch 'n Bitch group will stage an intervention if I make one more Koolhaas hat I decided to try Dizzy, which looked reasonably cool and did not require a cable needle. I had made real headway when I noticed an error some way back. Unpicking the section proved impossible so I frogged it to the relevant row and started again.

On the next attempt I got to within a few rows of the shaping for the crown of the head when I realised there was an error again and frogged back more than halfway.

This time I got a few rows in to the shaping when I realised that there was a fundamental error and had to frog right back to the band. I had made a mistake on the first or second row, which had resulted in a very nice pattern, but it wasn't the one I was supposed to be doing and the shaping would never work.

Finally I got it right and it was pretty easy. Sadly, I don't like it as much as my mistake and I have no idea how to replicate the error. Ah well.

As for the Big Bloke Sweater for 'Im Indoors, that's another tale of woe but I'm too weakened by disappointment to blog it yet.

Beaded Hat From Hell

Lovely idea, pain in the posterior to do. Can't wait to finish this and try it again sans beads.

I'm getting some grief from 'im Indoors about the total lack of sweater for him. I have the top-down pattern, I've done the gauge/swatch three times, in the round no less, and have got the exact tension as given on the yarn's wrapper. All that's left is to amalgamate the two, since the pattern calls for far finer yarn and consequently more stitches and rows per 10 cm square than this chunky stuff will do. I hope to just use the pattern as a rough guide to how to make something top-down and get it right by constantly trying it on my big lad. I suspect his enthusiasm, such as it is, for the whole thing will fade when he has to try it on over and over again.

New hat, new skill

Yesterday I finally cast on for my first Odessa hat. I'd bought the 6mm blue tiger's eye beads online (from Artbeads.com) and then found a wool/silk mix yarn to go with them (from Yarn LLC in New Haven). Threading the 150 beads onto the yarn was more fiddly than I'd hoped, since the holes in the beads aren't big, but I managed it without too much swearing. Having tracked down the right size 16 inch double end (from Gotta Knit on East 34th in Manhattan) and pushed the beads further up the yarn it took me three tries to get the first couple of rows done. Kept losing track of where I was in the k3, p2 rib.

Now that I'm three beads into the pattern it's getting easier, but pushing those beads up every time I want to do a row is a pain I shan't repeat (unless I can find beads with far wider holes in them). Shame, since the knit part of the pattern is lovely. I'll definitely make a non-beaded version or three.

When this one is finished I can cross beading off my list of new things to try in the knitting sphere. I've been knitting for so long but really stuck to very plain stuff - clothing in stocking stitch/stockinette or cabled mainly. Felting was fun and I'll do again. Lace was fairly addictive too. Next on the list is a top-down sweater.

Latest Koolhaas

Koolhaas number two is safely completed now and I love the pattern so much I immediately raided the stash and cast on Koolhaas number three in Rowanspun Tweed. I had made a large sweater for my husband in the yarn years ago, neither of us ever really liked the look of the finished object but the left over yarn (of which there was a suspicious amount) has been calling for use ever since.

The finished hat (in man's size) is huge. Why? Not because men's heads have suddenly grown but because I made the rookie error of not doing a gauge/swatch in the new yarn. I may be forced to either felt it (which wastes all those lovely stitch details) or frog back to a woman's size. My practical husband suggests wearing it with the edge rolled up, which actually looks pretty good.

So naturally I have started on Koolhaas number four now, in Patons Classic Wool Merino, dark grey. I made a My So Called Scarf in the brown variated colourway and loved the fibre. The hat is for my brother the architect living in the Netherlands, since the pattern is based on the work of a Dutch architect.

Hat

The first Koolhaas hat is finished and I'm pleased with it. The second one is not going so well, due to a mixture of arrogance, inattention and over-optimism.

There was some yarn left over from the ball I was using for the first hat, which I made in the woman's size, so I decided to make a man's size one. By the end of the ball it was clear that there would not be enough to finish at that size. Around the same time I realised I'd skipped a row about half way through the piece. I'm not quite A type enough to frog it back to the error and re-knit, but close.

I'm also trying to work out how to start the shaping for the crown at an in-between size, which means doing it half way through an eight row repeat. I'll cobble something reasonable together eventually, but at the moment there's a lot of frogging going on.

Koolhaas

Started the koolhaas hat, designed by Brooklyn Tweed and inspired by the Seattle Library, the architect of which was Rem Koolhaas. It went on the needles a couple of days ago and is going well so far, slightly fiddly but not difficult. I sent a picture of a finished one to my half-brother the architect and he now wants one. Apart from anything else, it's a small project that can fit into a bag, or even a pocket. As a result I think it may be one I have a version of on the needles much of the time from now on.

Meanwhile I am nearly at the end of My So-Called Scarf #4. It is probably long enough already and will just need crocheting round the edges to finish it. I have yarn for another few of these. Obsessed, moi?

The wool/silk cabled sweater I've been working on since, oh, around 2005, needs an inch more on the neck at most. Other than that it's finished, sewn up and everything. I'll be brave and wash it after I cast off the neck, and see how it ends up.