Incan inspiration

  When we were in Peru several years ago, I acquired some beautiful weavings including this bag.

The quality of weaving and natural dyeing in Peru is amazing. As a former weaver, I am in awe of the weavings they create with the simplest of technology.
   Starting in Peru, I acquired the questionable habit of buying a ball or two of alpaca yarn in colors that appealed to me whenever I found them. This is probably the silliest way there is to begin to design a sweater. Finally I chose yarn from my stash and knit a sweater for myself combining stripes and waves. The wave motif is very common in Peruvian textiles and easy to transfer to knitting even though it's far less detailed than in fine weavings.

    I used bands of wave patterns and for my larger motif I designed a double wave inside a tilted rectangle.

   Many of my sweaters evolve as I knit them. For example, I often decide what to put on the sleeves once I get there. Instead of doing all kinds of math to figure out the sleeve decreases I lay out a sweater I like and put the new sleeve on top of it. Then I do my decreases to make it the same shape. As I knit the first sleeve I record what I do so I can make the second sleeve the same way.
   As I was sitting around admiring my handiwork on my almost completed sweater, I noticed a big boo-boo on the front where stitches in one row went astray. You can probably see it right away. (In this picture it's on the top wave band on the right side.) How did I not see that when I knit it!? Perhaps I was watching TV.

Fortunately there was an easy way to fix that with duplicate stitch.

Now I could show the front in public without being embarrassed.

I used steeks for the arm holes and the front band. After I cut the front steek I picked up stitches and knit the bands and their facings. Anything other than a zipper would have interfered with the pattern on the front bands. I found a company on-line that sells lightweight separating zippers in a plethora of colors so I was able to buy one that matched my band color very closely. Mr. Rududu drilled some small holes in that heavy plastic part at the bottom of the zipper so I could sew it down by hand.
  The sleeves are slightly inset for a better fit. After setting aside a few stitches for the underarm, I added my steek and decreased a stitch every other row for a couple of inches on each side of the steek. After grafting the shoulders, I cut the steek and picked up stitches around the arm hole. The sleeves were knit down to the cuffs and finished with a facing, as were the collar and bottom band. Purling two rows before the facing makes for a very neat edge. By the way, I started the sweater with a provisional cast on and added the lower band after I had decided what the bands would be like. All part of my "method".
  Most people use patterns and I've heard that people who design their own sweaters generally plan them out in advance. These people lead far less exciting lives than I. Failure to plan ahead can lead to exciting trips to the local yarn store in search of something very specific.  Perhaps the ladies at the yarn store wondered why I hadn't just bought all the yarn specified in the pattern. Wait a second. What pattern?

But now I do have a pattern. I'm so smitten with the feel of the alpaca and the lovely colors available I plan to continue collecting colors and some day I will turn to Peru for more inspiration.

Procrastination points

   One of my personal guidelines is that if I finish a project that has been subject to procrastination, I give myself extra points. I'm not sure what these points are good for but it's a lot more fun than beating myself up for taking so long. I just finished a Fair Isle sweater that I started a 17 months ago. I hereby give myself lots of points!

   The pattern is my own. I first tried out the colors and flower pattern on a tam. I love trying to mix in a few surprise colors like the rust and a bright dark pink. I prefer shading effects in the two color ribbing.  

  I decided to make the sweater as a rather fitted cropped jacket. This is the first Fair Isle sweater in which I have I shaped the arm holes so the sweater is a bit sleeker. 

 The knitty gritty: The yarn is Jamieson and Smith two ply jumper weight knit on 2.5 mm needles (US 1.5). To figure out the armhole shaping I referred to Alice Starmore's Book of Fair Isle Knitting and found a sweater using about the same number of stitches as I needed. The body was knit with steeks for the armholes and the front. After knitting the body and cutting the steeks, I picked up stitches around the arm hole for the sleeves and knit down until the sleeves were long enough for me. The front bands and cuffs were knit on 1.75 mm/US 00 needles and have facing knit on size 1.5mm/US000 needles. Maybe that's why the closer I got to the end of the sweater, the slower it seemed to go.

Six secrets of a non-swatcher

  I am about to reveal a shocking knitting secret. I don't always swatch. In another post, Favorite Fair Isle tips, I wrote about the importance of swatching. Yes, we all know that "To save time, swatch." Well, I just don't think swatching is that much fun. More power to you if you like knitting swatches and I have one friend who actually claims she does. I prefer the feeling of creating something useful and in some ways I'm both impatient and lazy.
  Basically, swatching is done to find your gauge or to test color combinations. However, both kinds of swatching can be minimized and sometimes eliminated. For example, if you knit socks, knit them from the toe up and add stitches until the foot fits. You don't need to swatch at all.
Non-swatching hint number 1: Knit socks from the toe up. If necessary, you can pick a stitch pattern after you know how many stitches you will use.

   I have knit some very successful garments without swatching. My Nether Garment has at this point been viewed by over 30,000 people on Ravelry. The greatest honor I have received as a knitter is that my version of the Nether Garment was included in the commemorative re-issue of Elizabeth Zimmermann's The Knitters Almanac. The beauty of the project for me was that it called for no swatching because the garment itself was a rather large swatch. Indeed, when I am designing new Fair Isle projects I often get it out in search of a pattern or color combination to inspire me. I needed to guess how many stitches per inch I would get and I did that by measuring a previous project, such as a hat. Then I cast on for the ankle. After a couple of inches, I tried it on to make sure it fit. It did. As I knit the garment I occasionally tried on a leg to make sure it was staying on track for size. I spread out my hoard of Shetland yarn and grabbed colors as the mood struck me and selected patterns as I went along. It was the most fun I've ever had knitting.

Non-swatching hint number 2: If you hate swatching, find a favorite yarn. I have a couple kinds of yarn that I use over and over. Measuring an old project is usually as accurate as making a new swatch and often more so. Just be sure to record the size needle you knit projects with.
Non-swatching hint number 3: Pretend you aren't actually knitting a swatch. Guess the needle size based on the ball band and knit a hat. It will fit someone. Measure its gauge. It's not a swatch, it's a useful hat. Or knit other  small objects such as mittens or a small bag. Purses are easy, but should be lined with fabric to prevent sagging.

   A very good reason to swatch is to check color combinations. However, the more colors you use, the less important this is. A garment I made without swatching my colors was my Blues and Oranges vest.  Before I went to Costa Rica for the season, I made a pile of beautiful cool colors (blues and purples) and a pile of beautiful warm colors (reds, oranges, and pinks). I didn't even decide to use the triangle and slanting lozenge patterns until I got to Costa Rica, I just knew I would use some small repeating pattern. I used pairs of warm and cool colors and tried to not repeat any color combinations, although each color appeared in many different bands. In between, I used the same two row pattern of rectangles in the same two colors. The only part I swatched was to choose the ribbing colors.

 

Non-swatching hint number 4: If you use enough different colors and patterns, it's going to look good. While I tend to use bright colors, you can do it with muted colors too. If you use lots of colors, your garment with go with lots of things.
   I repeated the same strategy with greens and purples for my Motmot in the Forest vest although the vertical pattern repeat is longer. It has bands of vertical lines, checks, and diagonal lines.
Non-swatching hint number 5: Use a limited number of patterns and a dominant color or two to unify a garment.

By the way, in the dumbest ever of my knitting mistakes, I didn't notice that I knit the vest on a needle smaller than I usually use until I was ready to cut the steek. I ended up cutting up the sides and adding panels to make it large enough to fit me. Proof if ever there was one that swatching for gauge isn't always necessary if you are willing to go to great extremes to fix a problem. (Non-swatchers are more creative, sometimes out of necessity.) I don't recommend this method as it can add a lot of stress to your life when you discover a garment is radically the wrong size.
Non-swatching hint number 6: If you really screw up with your gauge, it might be possible to fix it with bands. Sometimes I have made wider bands in the front to compensate for a vest that came out a little smaller than expected.
   So if you love colors, I encourage you to make up a game plan for a garment, get a whole bunch of colors you love and just dive in. It's unbelievable fun. And by the way, if you have any other non-swatching tips, please let me know.

From the knitting archives: an old friend

  My very first stranded sweater is still one of my favorites.

In the early 80s (!!) I decided to knit myself a Norwegian sweater. There was a local yarn store called the Yarn Stua that specialized in Norwegian yarn. I had always loved my father's dark blue and white sweater from Norway. From what I understood, women's sweaters were traditionally mostly white or a light color and a dark navy sweater was for men, but I don't live in Norway and I loved the color so that's what I bought. I got a big bag of yarn and an informative and now out-of-print Dover book from 1974 called How to Knit Your Own Norwegian Sweaters. Even at the time, some of the photos looked dated. It was the hair. It's always the hair, isn't it? However, the sweaters have a classic look that has stood the test of time well—especially compared to many sweaters of the 80s.

   I cast on and knit diligently. I was used to worsted weight yarn and it seemed to go very slowly on those 2.5mm/#1 needles but I found the developing pattern kept me interested in a way that knitting in monochrome didn't. It was the beginning of a lot of stranded knitting.  I had never knit a sweater in the round before and this was my first sweater with a steek. A knitting friend had to come over and help keep me calm when I cut the steek. I survived to cut many another steek.

  What I love best about this sweater now is the wonderful sheen it has developed by being worn and worn. I had to replace the cuffs once but otherwise it soldiers on; the elbows don't even look dangerously thin. I don't wear it as much these days because I have so many sweaters, but it holds a special place in my heart for setting me on the road to many adventures with stranded knitting.

The Knitty-gritty: Knit in Peer Gynt by Sandnes Garn, a DK weight yarn from Norway. It has now become easier in my area to find Dalegarn Heilo, an equivalent weight yarn. 

Button happiness

A popular Irish blessing begins "May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back." I have a new blessing for knitters of sweaters: 

May your buttons always be evenly spaced. 

I've always found that very challenging, until I discovered this phenomenal tool: the SimFlex Expanding Sewing Gauge. 

Believe me, the rather hefty price felt completely worth it the very first time I used it to space some buttons and button holes. Even using the metric system rather than our ungainly system of inches and fractions thereof, I always had problems with the arithmetic of spacing seven objects evenly.

    With the help of my handy tool, I have finally finished my Mayan Dreams sweater by sewing on clasps. (If there's anything I dislike more than getting spacing even, it's making buttonholes.) I will make buttonholes if I feel the sweater demands them but these clasps from Schoolhouse Press are just so lovely and go so well with this sweater. 

The nitty gritty: The sweater is my own design and knit with Kauni Wool 8/2 Effekgarn in color ways ET and EZ. I needed to edit out some light grey and dark turquoise yarn to get the amount of color contrast I wanted. Start time to completion was one and a half years—it lay dormant for quite a while. I finished it just in time for some lovely crisp autumn weather and I have found it a joy to wear.

Fear not the steek

One of my Unfinished Objects (UFOs) has become airborne again. One reason I put it aside is that before I could continue, I had to take my scissors to it. Cutting into something I've spent months knitting still makes me nervous even though I've done it quite a few times. However, I no longer hyperventilate (much).
 A steek is a vertical set of stitches that are inserted in stranded knitting as a place to cut later. Since my Mayan Dreams sweater is to be a cardigan with sleeves, I had a steek the entire length of the front and steeks on each side beginning at the underarm.

 The advantage of a steek is that one can knit around and around, always looking at the right side of the pattern. Doing a complicated two-color pattern back and forth would be mentally challenging as the pattern is difficult to see on the purl side.  (Interestingly enough, most Peruvian stranded work is done from the purl side so they probably would think I do it the hard way working from the knit side.)
  Many people sew along each side of the steek with a sewing machine before they cut it. Some add a crochet chain before they cut to stabilize the edge. But since I am very lazy, I do no preparation. This works for both Shetland yarn or the Kauni yarn I am using for this sweater because these yarns are so sticky they don't want to unravel. I proved this to myself by cutting a swatch and pulling at the edges. It's also the method recommended by Alice Starmore. By the way, I am so pleased that Alice Starmore's Book of Fair Isle Knitting has been reissued by Dover. It's the best book I've seen for both techniques and inspiration for Fair Isle knitting. Considering that I paid $24.95 in 1988 and the list price is again $24.95, it's quite a bargain.

I always make my steeks in alternating colors. That is, one stitch of color A, one stitch of color B, and so on, repeated until I have 8 or 10 stitches. Having these narrow columns of color makes it much easier to see where to cut. Once I have measured many times to make sure my armhole is the right depth, I cut. I am very careful that I am only cutting one layer of the sweater by holding some fingers under the top layer. In the picture, I'm using embroidery scissors but you can use any sharp scissors.

In the above picture I have paused to admire my neat cutting. After I cut the steeks I grafted the shoulders and picked up stitches around one of the arm holes. I pick up every row for 3 rows and then skip a row.  (Most people have stitches that are slightly shorter than they are wide.)

Now I am knitting down on the first sleeve. Later I will trim my steeks to be two stitches wide and sew  them with stitches on the inside that make Xs over the raw edge. This is an example on my Obsession sweater, also knit in Kauni. I've worn it a lot and washed it a couple of times with no problems with raveling.

  Using steeks is a technique well worth learning if you want to do Fair Isle or other stranded knitting.