A Review of Fifi

I finished the Fifi sweater from French Girl Knits last April. It is made from Rowan Calmer. I have been very pleased with this sweater. I wash it in the machine on cold and dry it flat. The yarn color is fading a little, but it still looks nice. I really love the soft feel of the yarn and the way it holds up. It is still smooth and nice looking and elastic. I would love to knit with it again. The sweater itself is still very nice. If I were to make it again I would probably do a couple rows of K1P1 rib at the neck to avert the rolling. I don't know enough yet about top down raglans to know if there is a solution to the slight bunching at the underarm. The sleeves seem to need to be a little smaller overall. I also probably should have knit it a little longer. I wear it with a shirt underneath because otherwise my tummy shows. Most of my skirts sit a low on my hips. This sweater is one of my greatest knitting successes. I wear it quite often and it is holding up well.

A review of the Apres Surf Hoodie

I have been thinking about something which I see very few(if any) knitting blogs do, which I would find extremely helpful, and that is review a sweater after it has been worn (or not worn) for a few months. I have knit many things which looked cute in the pictures I took right after I finished it, but don't get worn for a variety of reasons. So I am going to try and review a few of the FO's I completed this year. The Apres Surf Hoodie was my first choice, possibly because it took me a long time to knit it and I tried to be careful to knit it correctly. I bought the yarn for this from a lady at the Black Sheep Gathering in Eugene in June. Her Ravelry name is sweetodie, and her business is Sweet Grass Wools, in Helena, MT. She was also at the Flock and Fiber Festival in September, and I wore this sweater to show her how beautifully it came out. (Due to good design by Connie Chang Chinchio, and good yarn more than knitting skill!) The yarn was called Panda, and I have found a couple different yarns registered on Ravelry here and here, and here too. It is one of those yarn bases that is dyed by many indie dyers, but I can't find what I think is the right one from Sweet Grass Wools on Ravelry. Anyway, the point is, I swatched, and I knitted the sweater with a bit of positive ease as was recommended by the Interweave Knits staff (or the pattern writer). The sweater was beatiful, and it fit pretty well, but then it started to grow, the sleeves inched out over my hands, and the body grew at least three inches, possibly more. The other problem was the hood, it pulled the sweater down at the back, so I had folds of sweater fabric hanging at my waist. It also slid off my shoulders all the time, which was really irritating. I would put it on in the morning, and then a couple of hours later I would take it off and put on something else because it was driving me nuts. Finally I decided to try and shrink it. I washed it in the machine, (cold, delicate, with wool wash) and put it in the dryer and dryed it all the way to dryness..and it worked, it didn't felt (the wool part of the yarn is superwash) and it shrunk quite a bit, which is perfect because the lace pattern is really stretchy and now it fits again as shown in the photo. There are a few less than perfect things, the i-cord bind-offs on the sleeves and hem pull them in a little bit. This creates a little bunchiness there. The i-cord bind-off on the hood and neck rolls, so it looks like a rolled stockinette edge, but excessive blocking only temporarily combats this, so I have decided to live with it rather than fight it.

The yarn is starting to be a little fuzzy and pill, which is surprising, because I think it was intended to be sock yarn, I would have expected it to be tougher than that!

Anyway, please leave a comment if you find this sweater review helpful, or if you do a sweater review yourself. I am trying to choose a new sweater project, but I really wanted it to be something that I can wear and wear so your sweater reviews would be helpful for me.

The hat show

Just for those of you who are following the very slow progress of the Aran Sweater, I now present the back. Yes, after months of very sporadic work, I finished the first piece while in Florence for Christmas. (Oregon coast, hotel with one wall of windows, unimpeded view of the ocean.)

I have also been addicted to the Foliage pattern from Knitty. I made two from my handspun yarn. (A beautiful BFL roving dyed by Dicentra Designs). Here is Alexa's. (The white peeking through is the lining I put on hers so it wouldn't itch her forehead) And mine, arm out photograpy.

And my sister's Christmas present..(also arm out photography.)

A newly discovered cowl, and another present finished.

This is something I made about a year ago from some my first yarn spun on a drop spindle. It was a BFL roving from Dicentra Designs, and I love the color, I meant it to be a headband type thing, or a sort of hat with a ponytail hole. This year, it turns out that it is a cowl..excuse the self-photography. And I finished another Montego Bay type scarf, although I altered it quite a bit due to different yarn.

I actually cast on 21 stitches and used 5 stitches for the edges instead of the 7 stitches in the pattern. I used a number 6 needle, and I can't remember what the yarn is called.

I took it to Ravelry knit night at Border's and no one else was sure what it was either. I think it is some cotton rayon blend, with one of the plies being a shiny one and the others more dull. I keep thinking maybe it was called Twist.

Alexa's doll is a wonderful model, she holds still and smiles nicely for as long as I need. The scarf is my mom's Christmas present, but I think I am safe because she never looks at this blog.

Alexa's Yoke Sweater

I finished Alexa's Yoke Sweater from Reynolds Yarn. I saw the sample sweater at Fiber Nooks and Crannies and fell in love with the yoke. The cables are so awesome, they decrease from being 6 stitch cables down to two, and thereby carry out the yoke shaping. The Hopscotch yarn is really neat too, a sort of underspun single thick and thin stuff. Very soft, superwash 100% wool. The sleeve striping here is different than the pattern calls for, they used two different colors and only one stripe of each, but honestly I didn't want to buy that other ball of yarn, so I just used one other color and did Fibonacci stripes, 21 rows, 13, 8, 5, 3, 2, 1..

Alexa isn't really into holding still for photos. I also made the sweater a lot skinnier. Alexa is a very thin girl, so I knit the 12-18 month stitch counts and approximately four year old length. I didn't separate the yoke and make a little flap for snaps either. I just skipped the final decrease round, and bound off loosely (I used the K2tog, transfer back to left needle, K2tog etc.-although I am not completely sure this bind off is significantly more stretchy than the basic bind off.) It goes over her head quite easily.

This was my first bottom up seamles sweater, and I really enjoyed it. I am hoping to make more in the future. I grafted the underarms instead of binding off and then sewing up, and they look good.

I am really please with how the sweater came out, but the pattern is awful. There are a lot of errors, I have detailed them in my Ravelry description, so I won't include them here.

So I finished the body of the Montego Bay Scarf, and I tried and tried to get a really nice photo showing the way the stitch pattern shows off the yarn, but I can't do it justice. Trust me, it's beautiful. I didn't have enough yarn to do fringe, so I am working on a buttoning arrangement. I'll show you how it looks when I get it worked out.

The aran sweater is coming along slowly. It feels lovely, and the cabling is beautiful, but those two side panels that move one stitch cables are time-consuming and tedious.


And here we have my current addiction. The Yoke Sweater I am making for Alexa. I have never knit a sweater bottom up, seamless before, but it is really fun. The pattern is irritating. Apparently no one proof read it, so there are errors, which I will detail on Ravelry. However, this mindless stockinette in the round is exactly what I need right now.

There are so many other things going on in my personal life right now that I don't want to think about my knitting too much. They are good things..I started swimming for exercise, and I can swim about 80-85% of a mile now. I am just beginning to lose a little weight which is really exciting. We are working on paperwork to adopt a second child, from Ethiopia! I am trying to figure out ways to help Alexa achieve some of her physical therapy goals. Anyway, busy in a good way, but busy nonetheless. Thanks to the two of you who read my blog now and again!

I am doing my homework

Today I finally had enough of sweaters that don't fit. I have been storing several sweaters in my under bed boxes that just plain don't fit for one reason or another. There is the cardigan that I knit from Pima Tencel that expanded drastically, so now it looks like something for the saggy, baggy elephant. There is the Molly Ringwald sweater, that I knit in a smaller size to accomodate the tendency to sag, which worked in the horizontal direction, but now the armholes are too tight and the straps still slip off my shoulders. As I put these into the resale/donation bag today I vowed to not make that mistake again. So-I decided to use the sleeve of the sweater I am making for Alexa as the gauge swatch. I am making her the Yoke Sweater from the Reynolds Kids book (#82467). I tried to add this pattern to Ravelry, but I don't know if it worked, since I can't find it. I am hoping it is just pending some sort of editorial approval. Also I can't find a picture of this sweater online, so I can't link that. The LYS had a sample sweater that I loved, and the yarn, Reynolds Hopscotch was so soft, I just had to take it home with me. I made the sleeve striping different than the pattern, (Fibonacci stripes!! fun!) My gauge at this point was 5.5 st/in and the sleeve is 11.5 inches long with the end rolled. I just washed it, and now it is drying on top of the dryer. This is my new resolution, not just to knit the gauge swatch, but to wash it and dry it, and maybe even hang it for a day or two to assess its proclivity for growing. (My Apres Surf Hoodie is a couple of inches longer than it was when it was a newborn!)

No more wasting yarn and frogging whole finished sweaters. I am currently pondering frogging the Pimlico Shrug because I just don't wear it. It is really big and baggy, and I don't look slender and waifish and stylish in it because I am not slender and waifish..

Resolution #2: Follow Wendy Bernard's recommendations for choosing your projects wisely. In other words, evaluate whether this sweater fits your lifestyle and your wardrobe. Choose things similar to those store bought sweaters that you wear frequently. I am a mom, I was dishes, I do laundry, I cook...I need to be a little more realistic here about what I will actually wear. In fact I am thinking about scrapping the Backstage Tweed Jacket project for those very reasons. It is really beautiful though..opinions anyone?