Woo hoo! A new fo!

I FINALLY finished the Lace and Cables Capelet from VK Holiday 2006! Yay! Here's a picture of me modelling it.
Looks nice, no? Here's another one that I took modelled by a chair.
The cables come out much better in this one. And now for the wannabe-artistic shot.
The pictures of the capelet modelled by me were taken using the timer function on my camera, where I would line up the shot, press the button, and run into place for the shot, so they're not the greatest. Anyways, here are the deets:

Pattern: number 4 from Vogue Knitting Holiday 2006, Lace and Cable Capelet
Yarns: the black stuff is Rowan Yorkshire Tweed Aran, the red stuff is Christmas Market Hanpaint, called Kolibri, a handspun wool hand-dye which you can look at here.

Pattern mods and notes:
The charts, downloaded from the VK website were large and easy to follow. This pattern uses simple lace and cable patterns, so I did not break a sweat at any point, except for the collar. I ran out of yarn, even though I had purchased more than 100 yards of the listed yarn requirement. And I didn't knit way too loosely, my FO blocked to the exact pattern measurements. So I had to swap in a much narrower cable for the collar. All things considered, I think it looks OK. Also note that in the picture, the capelet is shown held closed by a button, but button/buttonhole instructions are NOT in the pattern! So I winged it. And I was annoyed by the vagueness of the blocking instructions, only the depth from the back neck to bottom, and length across the bottom are given, but no measurements for the shoulders. I have wide shoulders, so I stretched the shoulders out a fair bit, because pre-blocked, they didn't sit at the right place.

Yarn notes:
I really liked the Kolibri, and I would definitely buy again, but the colorways are a bit bright. I definitely wouldn't buy it again without a specific project and yardage requirements in mind. Also it is VERY soft.

Now for the Rowan Yorkshire Tweed... where do I begin? There were bits of twig and hay, oh, every 6 inches? I'm used to picking out some vegetable matter in yarn because of my preference for the rustic and hardy yarns, but frankly this was ridiculous. Especially for a formerly higher-priced wool. Now it's discontinued so you can get a deal if you look for it, but in my opinion it's NOT worth it. Comparing this to the more reasonably priced Kilcarra of Donegal Tweed, this yarn is thicker. And coarser, less fun to knit with, but I suppose that depends on the colorway, as some dyes process the yarn more, and make it softer. I have noticed that some colorways of various yarns are softer than others. But this stuff was fairly hard on my hands. And, though many of you already know this, I will say it again, DON'T SEAM WITH THIS YARN. As I was weaving in the ends, it would come apart very easily. Luckily this capelet was worked in one piece, so no seaming.

General comments:
I don't think this number will be particularly easy to wear, becase it tends to slide back, and then the shoulder shaping is in the wrong place and it looks weird. I'm also not happy with how the lace looks. I think that for such a thick yarn (worsted/aran) there should be more openwork. Or the lace parts should be worked on larger needles, but then stitches would have to be picked up for the yoke. Luckily the variegated-ness of the yarn makes up for the lack of visual interest. I could have blocked the lace out more, but I didn't want to overstretch the cables. Also, I'm not a fan of the bobbles. In hindsight, I should have left them out. In short, this project reminds me of why I don't usually make VK patterns, even though I love to look at the pictures. The finished piece looks GREAT in a still-life, just not on me!

Ivanova

More yarn misadventures

Last week I reported my frustration at running out of yarn when I wasn't even halfway through the collar from Vogue Knitting's Lace and Cables Capelet (Holiday 2006). I was very tempted to throw it in the stash box and ignore it for several months, but Thrace urged me to find another cable panel and complete the darned thing. I followed her advice, and perused my numerous stitch dictionaries, and settled on "Mr. Ziggs" from the Vogue Knitting Stitchionary Volume 2: Cables. (Aside: I would hardly call it the "ultimate" cable stitch dictionary as the sub-title implies, but there are some unusual ones in there. I think that's why I chose Ziggs, it's not your usual aran-style cable. And what's up with the names?) Anyways here it is...
Not so bad... I think it goes OK with the style of the capelet. Here's a closeup.
Now for the misadventure part? I made it across the back, and I have MAYBE 5 yards left! I'm working a cable that's less than half the width of the original collar at its' widest point and I still don't have enough yarn! Waah! This truly sucks. But, I know what Thrace would say: "Finish the damn thing and be done with it! And enjoy it because summer is at best a month away." Okay I'm paraphrasing, but you get the picture. So tonight I'm going to rip rip rip, and probably knit on a plain as can be twisted rope cable (or something along those lines) that's no more than 10 stitches wide, and finish the darned thing. In a fit of frustration, last night I charted AND knit another celtic knot cable, which I'll be posting next. Harrumph.

Ivanova

Grrr...

So here I am, finishing the collar on the VK Holiday 06 Lace and Cables Capelet, and I realized that I'm not even at the halfway point, illustrated below with the yellow line, and I'm going to run out of yarn!!!
Here's what I've got left...
I apologize for overexposing this picture with software, but you can really see that I have less than 50 yards here. Grrr... and, to make matters worse, THIS IS MY FIBER INSURANCE! I had 150 yards of FI, and I'm not going to make it. This SUCKS. There are 2 things holding me back from getting another ball, and just finishing.

1. I don't like the collar. The cables are poofy and sloppy looking. I like my cables smaller and neater. And it's really no fun to slip 8 stitches onto a cable needle, hold them to the front/back, knit 7 off the left needle, slip one purl stitch onto the left needle and wrench needles and yarn to purl it, then wrench the cable needle to the knitting position and then knit them. Yuck. Very nerve wracking. I now know I'm NOT a fan of the 15 st LC or RC.

2. I will not have more yarn taking up room in the stash.

So what am I going to do? I have to rip the collar, and re-knit it. I could do a simple seed-stitch shawl collar, which is easy and won't use too much yarn, or I could knit the collar up to the point where many stitches are added to turn the giant horseshoe cable into left and right twist cables, and not increase, keeping the giant horseshoe cables as they are. But I will probably still run out of yarn with that option. Or I could put it on hold till I get myself an instructional book on how to knit neat collars and cuffs. Any suggestions on that? I hate it when commercial patterns don't give accurate yarn quiantitites!

Ivanova

Stash-busting

I know it's practically summer (over here anyways), but I finally figured out what to do with some gorgeous yarn that's been sitting in the stash for too long.
It's Lorna's Laces Bullfrogs and Butterflies in the Black Purl colorway. I originally wanted it to be a lacy and cabled cardigan from the Holiday 2005 issue of Vogue Knitting, but I just couldn't get gauge. So I shoved it into the stash, and thought about it from time to time... 'could I get gauge today?' was the thought always running trough my head. Well, I give up on that idea (do I really want a cardigan with a worsted/aran weight yarn knitted on US11 needles? ) when I saw this ad in the Holiday 2006 issue of Vogue Knitting.
Click on it to make it bigger - that cardi is BEAUTIFUL and well suited towards handpaints because Alchemy Yarns of Transformation make beautiful handpainted yarns. [Sidenote - I don't think scanning a magazine ad is copyright infringement, because I included all the info in the ad, and, well, it's an ad. It's meant to get people interested in their product and I'm posting it for free. If I'm wrong, let me know and I'll remove it.] So I checked out the company's website (not having written down the name of the pattern) and I couldn't find it! Later, with the ad in front of me, I found it. I did not recognize it (the Naturalist) because the picture on the pattern was crap. Look at it on their website, or here. Click on the link for the Naturalist Cardigan and you'll get a bigger picture.

Same cardigan, same yarn, but it looks totally sloppy and unsophisticated in the picture! Why did they do that? I wouldn't buy the pattern, looking at THAT picture!! To be sure about the style I googled it and came up with a non-modelled picture form the designer's website. Here's the flickr picture. Again, it looks clean and sopisticated. So I'm going for it, but with only 2 inches of ease, and not the 4 or 6 modelled above. Even the sleeves look too big on her! Now I'm using a different yarn at a different gauge so I'll make it up myself, but this isn't IP theft, because frankly, no one can own the idea for a raglan sweater with waist shaping and seed stitch hems, collars, cuffs and buttonbands, and I may make it a v-neck. It looks sort of like a v-neck in the ad, because the top buttons are undone, and the scarf obscures the neckline, but I think I like it better anyways. But I won't cast on until the fall, so that's all for now.

I've gotten pretty far on the lace and cables capelet:
I knitted an applied i-cord on the right side, and have started on the collar. the number of stitches increases rather quickly, so it will be wider the area decreased by the v-neck shaping. I hope it looks okay, because I'm thinking about using a similar style of collar on an original project, and I have a lot to learn about collars, and finishing techniques in general. So I'm going to knit as the instructions indicate and hope that it all works out in the end. Note that I added the i-cord to tie in the black yarn with the red handpaint, it's not in the instructions. I'm thrilled about the placemet of the double decreases in the pattern, because it makes the capelet shoulder-shaped! Cool!

Ivanova

Spring is finally here...

...so capelet season is rapidly approaching! I pulled the Lace and Cables Capelet (from VK Holiday 2006) out of my UFOs basket, and started knitting the cables chart of the piece. Here's
a pic of the progress so far...
I think it's enormously wide, and not very long, but I suppose blocking will rectify that. And I'm liking the way the black Rowan Yorkshire Tweed looks with the mystery handpaint, so I resisted the urge to pick up 2 more hanks at the Easter Market. The burgundy flecks in the tweed pull it all together, so all's good, I hope. Here's a bad detail shot.
Now I'll probably put away the sweater knitting soon, and concentrate exclusively on lace for the summer months, so I have to balance the easy and hard lace projects, as well as the lace gift
(that will be unexpected by the recipient) and other knitted gifts. Woof! Too much! Must decrease the stash!

Ivanova

I'm seeing red...

in the red lace and cables capelet!
I think I gravitate towards the color red. Since I've started knitting (2.5 years ago!) I've made Kiri, Lotus Blossom, Shedir and the mystery project using red and burgundy yarns. I see any dark red yarn, and I think of what it could be knitted into (like the dark red Donegal Tweed I've been eyeing on eBay). Finally we've had some actual sunshine, it's like spring out there, so I snapped a few shots of one of the front halves of the Lace and Cables Capelet from Vogue Knitting Holiday 2006. I pinned it to the bed to have a better idea of how it will look when it's blocked, and I'm pretty pleased with it. Here's a detail shot...
Usually I'm not a fan of bobbles, but these are 3-stitch 2 row bobbles (not including the finishing row), so I've decided to keep them in. It's a simple enough chart to follow, though I put in stitch markers in a few arbitrary places to keep track of where I am in the pattern. And it's useful to know how to yarn over into a purl stitch properly, because there's a fair bit of that going on here, and it took me a while last year to figure that out. As we all know, to y0 into a knit stitch, you hold the yarn like you're going to purl, and then wrap the yarn over the needle and knit. To yo into a purl stitch, I used to do the opposite: hold the yarn like I was going to knit, then come over the front and purl. Wrong! (It actually dosen't look wrong, but it's not so easy to work on the next row). You're supposed to hold the yarn like you're going to purl, but wrap once before you enter the stitch, then make the purl stitch. You get more open yo holes that way, and it's easier to work on the next row.
As I mentioned earlier, I don't have enough of the Christmas Market yarn to finish, so I bought some yarn to complete the project from eBay. I'll never find that stall again (until maybe next Christmas), so I figured some black Rowan Yorkshire tweed (color Darkly, now discontinued) would fit the bill. Here they are together, and I think it's going to work. The tweed has some rusty and reddish flecks, so they'll go together. The way I have envisioned it, is that the lace will be red, and the cabled parts (the part where it joins at the shoulder and the collar) will be black tweed. Then, to resolve the color discontinuity, I will probably do a crochet chain with picots edging to tie it all together, so to speak. I figure I'll either look kind of like a Victoriana-inspired goth, or a clown. Either way, I don't care.

Ivanova

Stash-busting

This was the most recent addition to my stash, purchased at a booth from the Christmas market in town. I fell for the semi-varigated red colorway, and purchased 3 hanks, totalling about 660 yards. I really should have bought a fourth, but I felt a little guilty about buying something for myself, when I was supposed to be shopping for friends and family. Needless to say, I'll never find the vendor in the next 10 months. The vendor also pulled out a gorgeous blue colorway, after the red was gone! Oh well, maybe next year...
Isin't it pretty? It sortof feels like the Manos aran weight that I have fondled in a former LYS, and bought for a friend. Similar softness, slightly thick-and thin single ply, and strong scent of vinegar. All I could get from the non-english speaking saleswoman, was that it was 100% wool, of which variety I have no clue. When I saw it, I wanted it to become this:
the Shetland Triangle Shawl by Evelyn A. Clark from Wrap Style. The original was made fom a lace/fingering weight cashmere, and I knew it was a bit risky to swap in an aran weight and size up the needles, but I figured it could be done, and that I had enough yarn to make a shoulder shawl/scarf thing. I swatched it, and it looked bad, like a puckered up egg carton. I then knitted a few chart repeats of the Swallowtail Shawl from Fall 2006 IK, also by Clark. I thought it looked OK, but the thought of making nupps, and doing a p5tog with this stuff made me cringe. Here's a craptacular photo that I took before deciding to frog.
It's kindof hard to see the lace, but blocking would have helped. After I knit those 2 repeats, I put it on hold for faster gratification projects, where I could see good results before blocking. I mean, who would want to knit for weeks, only to block and have it not turn out the way that they had hoped? So, after seeing the beginnings of a lace and cable capelet from the Holiday 2006 issue of Vogue Knitting on tweeding along, I was inspired. Here's a picture from the magazine preview.
I figure that this is the one for this yarn. It was designed for a worsted/aran weight yarn (Nashua Handknits Creative Focus Worsted), and the recommended needle size is .1 mm smaller than the needle I thought looked best for this yarn and a lacy pattern (the Denise US 10 is 5.6 mm, while a 'standard' US 9 is 5.5 mm, go figure!). I've knit a few rows, and so far so good, but not enough to photograph well. So, I found a winner, and I can get this lovely yarn out of the stash! The only problem? I'm about 220 yards short of the pattern requirements. I figure I can do the lace in the nice bright variegated market yarn, then do the cabled yoke and collar in a dark solid wool. I am clearly not opposed to mixing textures and colors in a project, and I share Carter's opinion that cables and variegated yarn don't always work well together. The color can detract away from the texture. There are exceptions, though, so this is not a hard and fast rule for me.
The other problem? I don't have the stash I used to have before moving because I donated a serious chunk of the stash to Thrace. So I have no solid dark colored worsted/aran weight yarns in the stash that would go with the red! I *could* go to the LYSs and see what's available (this isin't breaking the KFYS rules, because you're allowed to buy exactly enough to complete your project), but after surfing their web pages, I decided that I really wanted a black tweed. In comes eBay to the rescue! A discontinued black Rowan Yorkshire Tweed at bargain basement prices and free shipping. So my first stash-bust is a success in principle.

Ivanova