A Bluestocking Knits

Whew!

I was relieved to see the Winter 2007 "Interweave Knits" yesterday.  Was beginning to worry that my IK subscription would suddenly go the way of Vogue Knitting, with far too much "hip" stuff.  I just don't do edgy.  While the Tilted Duster on the cover of the Fall issue was fascinating in construction, I personally could never pull it off -- otherwise, the Tangled Yoke cardy was the only thing I was even remotely interested in.  (You can take the girl out of the library, but you can't ... oh, never mind.)

But there are in fact four projects in the new issue that have caught my eye.  (All photos from here.)

Pam Allen's Refined Aran Jacket.  Love this, love it backwards and forwards and maybe even upside-down.  Get in the car, girls, we're going to the yarn shop!

Jess's Gansey, by Elizabeth Lovick.  (The pdf pattern is available only if you sign up for the Knitting Daily newsletter.)  The model isn't helping the sweater much, I'm afraid -- and it doesn't fit her well at the armholes -- but I like the idea of tweaking the gansey shape.

This one --

really speaks to me for some reason, possibly just because I get such a kick out of Old Shale.  It's Cathy Payson's Brushed Lace Cardigan.  I'm not sure about the colors, so I would probably do something more boring, I mean subtle, like shades of grey.

This, on the other hand, Eunny Jang's Ivy League Vest, is wild in the best possible way.  Again, tweaking the shape of a traditional garment.  I've had a hankering for colorwork lately, too.

Now, if only the new "Getting More Hours Out of Your Day" magazine would arrive!

Thoughts on Klaralund

"K" is of course for Klaralund.  This sweater, from the Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton Book Two, was one of those patterns that I mulled over for some time, not sure at all that it would work on me, but impressed with its classic simplicity.  I have to say, that despite my not being a wispy little thing like the model in the book (nor the photos turning out the way I imagine that I look), it's actually a rather flattering design, and I'm very pleased with the results.

I'm still not quite sure what I think of Silk Garden.  It has a curious now-soft-now-scratchy texture, and there is of course the infamous vegetable matter to be dealt with.  I was lucky this time in that all of the colors were present in each ball, but in the past I've been frustrated to find that the knots seem to jump quite a distance in the color sequences, usually skipping my favorite one.  In this batch, though, the problem was of thick/thinness, in that the wool far too often wasted away to almost nothing.

I usually broke these sections and spit-spliced them -- in Silk Garden's favor, it splices wonderfully.  I just don't think that that should excuse the poor quality of the yarn itself.

On the other hand, Noro's famous colors were much in evidence.  I've marvelled before that just watching the colors change is fascinating -- I loved the surprise, too, of knitting in the evenings in artificial light and finding out the next day what the colors had done.  I meant to not fiddle with the sequences and changes too much, although I did towards the end when the colors almost lined up -- I don't seem to mind the asymmetry, but the just-slightly-skewedness was hard to bear!

 

But Klaralund, that's what I was talking about.  Very long, very wide sleeves do not often work for me, and so I decided to shorten and narrow those famously long and wide sleeves a bit.  The sleeve measurements as given in the book are somewhat deceptive, though -- I was sure that 26 1/2 inches would be too long and 16 inches far too wide, assuming also that the weight of the Silk Garden would pull them even farther.  I initially worked the sleeves to 11 inches long to the underarm and starting at 13 1/2 inches wide at the cuff, but this proved to be in fact too short, and so with only a twinge of regret -- for one of the sleeves had taken a day of only slightly obssessive knitting to work -- I ripped out both and worked them again, taking off only about 3 inches from the original length, about 25 inches total, and 1 1/2 inches or so (6 sts) from the width at the cuff.

(Check the errata page here for corrections for a number of the patterns in this book, and additional sizes for Klaralund.)

"K" also stood for "Kristin Lavransdatter", which I watched while knitting much of Klaralund.  (It's three hours long! good for almost a whole sleeve!)  The book is one of those that I should like, having so many of my favorite elements -- the Middle Ages, high language, Norwegians -- but I just can't seem to get the hang of it.  The movie hasn't helped much, I confess.  The story is, briefly, that Kristin, the rather willful daughter of a farmer/landowner in 14th-century Norway, falls in love with a knight and has a passionate affair with him despite her father's wishes that she marry a neighbor's son.  I was rather surprised that the movie lets us know at the very beginning that not only do Kristin and Erlend eventually marry, but that by then their affair has already been consummated, although this does give the story an air of inevitability, if not "happy ending".  It might be that now that I am a parent myself I felt much more sympathy for Lavrans, Kristin's father, whose goodness shone through this film for me.  The characters I should have liked (I assume, not having read the books) I often didn't -- Kristin's so-called childhood sweetheart pulls one of those "if you loved me, you would" manipulations that irked me no end -- I wanted to smack him.  Simon Darre's only fault seems to be that he is not Erlend Nikolaussøn, but then I cannot for the life of me see what is so attractive about Erlend himself.  He is dull and stoic and dumps his mistress (who left her husband for him) and takes up with someone else's bethrothed.  Not the best catch, frankly.  I found the two main characters so flat and uninteresting that I was easily more interested in the parents' relationship, impressed with the subtlety and depth that the actors brought to their roles, and in the crippled sister, wanting to know more of their stories.

   

So, well, I was so unsatisfied that I had a sudden craving to see "Babettes Gaestebud (Babette's Feast)" afterwards.  Alas, not starting with "K," but a wonderful movie nevertheless, filled not only with affection and gentle humor but with much deeper layers of meaning than I ever got from "Kristin Lavransdatter".  The story here is that two elderly sisters, the daughters and heirs of the pastor of a stoic religious sect in a remote part of 19th-century Denmark, find themselves taking in as housekeeper a political refugee from Paris, the Babette of the title.  After some fourteen years with the sisters, Babette, whose only tie with her former life is a lottery ticket, wins 10,000 francs and decides to spend the money on a celebratory feast the sisters plan to hold in honor of the hundredth anniversary of their father's birth.  The film has many delightful moments -- the look on Babette's face when one of her new employers shows her how to make ale-bread is alone worth the price of the movie -- and when you know Babette's backstory, it makes the moment that much better.  But it also has some very philosophical things to say, and the characters evolve, unlike Kristin and Erlend, who seem miserable throughout.  Martine's erstwhile suitor -- not to give too much away, I hope -- says early on, "I am going away forever, and I shall never, never see you again. For I have learned here that life is hard and cruel, and that in this world there are things that are impossible," but by the end of the film this has become, "I have been with you every day of my life. You must also know that I shall be with you every day that is granted to me from now on. Every evening I shall sit down to dine with you: not with my body, which is of no importance, but with my soul. Because this evening I have learned, my dear, that in this beautiful world of ours, all things are possible."

I Spy

I spy with my little eye --

-- something beginning with K.

Thoughts on Dad's Favorite Slipover

My dear husband, who has an internal thermostat roughly equivalent to the Sahara Desert, was puttering out in the garage one late night last winter when he came in slapping his arms and saying, "Honey, I need a sweater!"  This took me so much by surprise that it was some time before I could actually pick up some needles, but here it is at last.  It was meant to be a Christmas gift, although the bronchitis that we all came down with after Thanksgiving delayed the finishing by a couple of weeks -- it wasn't so much that I didn't feel like knitting (although there was that at times), it was that David was sick too, and therefore home and underfoot, and it was meant to be something of a surprise.

He wanted something warm, but not as warm as a full sweater; his only requests last winter were that it be "plain" and "blue".  Regretfully, I had to set aside my dreams of cables or even relatively sober Fair Isles, but these I hope to carefully insinuate into his wardrobe in time, and I was still happy to spend some hours poring over vintage British patterns, delighted by their equally vintage captions.

"Trim and smart because of its extreme simplicity."

"For golfing, gardening or just 'pottering around.'"

As Yorkshire Tweed is, alas, discontinued, Rowan recommends Rowanspun 4-Ply or Scottish/Harris Tweed 4-Ply as substitutions.  Rowanspun 4-Ply, Yorkshire Tweed's previous incarnation, can still be found in some quantities.

"Every man needs a slipover!"

The shaping of this slipover is based on the vest chart given in Ann Budd's extraordinarily useful Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns and on a number of vintage patterns.  Dad's Favorite Slipover, which will shortly be available in the Original Patterns album in the sidebar, is a men's V-neck sleeveless slipover with traditional shaping, sized to fit a 37 (42, 46, 51) in. / 94 (106.5, 117, 129.5) cm chest.

Thoughts on the Pearl Buck Swing Jacket

The Pearl Buck Swing Jacket is a wonderful design -- simple and classic.  It comes together easily, and requires only a bit of care when blocking and piecing together to look very elegant.

The Jaeger Extrafine Merino is beautifully soft on my skin.  The elderberry color is lovely, too, full of depth and drama -- it looks rather more purple in some lights, but usually tends more towards the burgundy with purply-blue undertones.

(Julia, who is usually so camera-shy that she is pouting in all of her school pictures this year, decided that this time she did want her photo taken, and so she refused to move out of range, and in fact climbed into my lap for quite some time.)

The pleat at the back is the most unusual thing about this jacket, but the half-diamond edging at the front and the back yoke worked from side to side are also subtle but interesting details.

I made a minor adjustment to the length of the sleeves as follows: in the first decrease section (at the lower arm), instead of 11 plain rows between the decrease rows, I worked 13, giving a total of 14 rows for the shaping, worked 5 times altogether.  At the "continue even" section just before the beginning of the cap shaping, I worked 12 rows straight, and the piece measured 11 1/4 in. instead of 10 1/4 in. as given.  This kept the stitch count on the needle the same as in the instructions, but added about an inch to the length.  I could just as easily have worked an extra inch straight at that last section before the start of the cap shaping, but this would have made the bell-shape end lower down, and I wanted to extend it closer to the elbow.  (The bell-ness does not show much after blocking.)  If I'd thought about it ahead of time, I might have added an extra inch to the length of the body, so that the sleeve/body proportions would have been the same as in the original -- as it is now, after I lengthened it, the sleeve is just a smidge shorter than the body, and would look a bit better if it was about two inches.  This is a minor quibble, though!

It is also very comfortable, partly from the lovely merino, but also the shaping and fit.  Ten out of ten!

Swing Jacket Monday

Beth writes, "Another crazy busy week - I'm only just finishing up the second sleeve.  Then on to the real business, I'm going to tackle the back."

As for me, I finished knitting on Thursday night, and started sewing up on Friday!

I actually have not had much experience in putting together a fitted garment -- in fact, I'm wondering if this is my first one -- have done drop-shoulders before, and the raglan-like sleeves of the top-down style, but nothing like these beautifully rounded ones.  I was a bit apprehensive, and so I got out my old Vogue Knitting reference for reassurance.

I found it much easier to sew in the sleeve cap before sewing up the sleeve and side seams, rather than sewing the sleeve and side seams first as the pattern says.  I speak from experience, having done the first sleeve cap first (the way that VK recommends), and the second cap after the straight seams just now -- it was considerably less awkward doing that curved seam with the sleeve flat, so that I could hold the two pieces together more comfortably and smoothly.

While I doubt that sewing up will ever be my favorite part of knitting a garment, I must admit that I am more interested in it than I ever was.  I took a great deal of pleasure in watching the way that the mattress stitches went from loose ...

to snug with a single smooth pull on the working yarn.  (It's almost like the way an invisible zipper pulls the two sides together.)  I did have a lot of trouble with matching the lengths, and frequently ended up with about half an inch more on one side at the end of a seam -- on average, I think I did each seam three times -- and so I started putting in markers to match up as I went along, usually four on each long seam, so that any extra length would be distributed more evenly.

I also used a safety-pin version of Vogue's and Knitty's marker method of picking up stitches along the curved neckline, dividing the length fairly evenly by 10 (for the 97 stitches -- a.k.a. almost-100 -- to be picked up).

For those who, like me, are still fairly new to mattress stitch, I found myself dropping into this hypodermic position -- oddly enough, it was quite natural, even though I have never actually inserted a hypodermic needle.  It felt much easier on my wrist than holding the needle in the usual manner, since I could aim and scoop up a stitch simply by moving my thumb, instead of my whole wrist.  It wasn't always possible to do it like this, because of the way that some of the pieces fitted together, but it was helpful, and so I pass it along.

I sewed in the twenty-seven ends -- would have been twenty-nine, but I knitted in two of them along with the collar -- last night while watching "Jericho" and "Rosemary & Thyme", two, er, rather disparate mystery series, the one grim and hard-boiled and the other a more typical English "cozy" mystery, light-hearted and not terribly demanding. 

Pictures, as they say, to follow!

Swing Jacket Monday

We have a new face in the knitalong this week, Bec of Glamorouse, who writes, "I'm feeling a bit of a fraud that I'm yet to cast on, but somebody has to be last, right?  My last hurdle is that I'm still waiting on my Bendigo Wool Mills colour card to get yarn (Suse's recommendation and I trust her completely on this one!) but I have the needles, I have the pattern, and I'm returning to my normal job today after three months of an extra-demanding project so hopefully I now also have the TIME to knit!"

As for me, well, I didn't think I had the time this week either, since my choir had not one but two performances of Mozart's Mass in c minor, involving numerous trips both "home" and "away" for rehearsals, and the concerts this weekend.  This was more than a bit of bother, but on the other hand I had Mozart in my head all week, and that can't be bad. 

Now, I can't make any particularly educated statements about the Mozart effect one way or the other -- but I wouldn't be surprised if this time it was just the adrenalin --

as I finished both of the sleeves this week, and everything is blocking.

Pass the Chibi!

Swing Jacket Monday

Beth says, "I've finished the yoke it's blocked and on gauge - hurray! Half way up the 1st sleeve and like you, wondering if I'm liking how big the cuff is.  No pictures yet - I hope to post something this week.  I've just had one of those weeks where everything hits at once."

Fern says, "Not much to report from me although there's a gauge swatch in my near future. I took a class a few weeks ago about knitting to fit properly and part two is in two weeks. At this one we come in with gauge swatches for projects we plan to make and we'll get a little help in tweaking the pattern as necessary to fit us specifically. So I'll be knitting a gauge swatch for the swing jacket. Who knows, I may be casting on before month-end."

Shelagh writes wearily, "This is remarkable, but true, my yarn is still backordered."

Here is another view of the Interweave Knits Swing Jacket --

this photo is from Two Swans Yarn.

This week, I reworked the right side, which I decided not long ago that I'd somehow miscaluculated, ending up with an armhole that was much longer than the second one.  While I was knitting, I finished listening to an audiobook I'd impulsively picked up at the library,

an excellent reading of the novel by "Poirot" himself, David Suchet.  His own voice is quite unlike that which he adopts as Poirot (I once saw an interview in which he declined to come out of character, as it took him so long to get back into it), a rather calm, rich baritone instead of Poirot's soft, almost whispery tenor, and the voices he uses for the other characters, including the women, are equally varied and effortless -- except, I must say, that for Col. Race, Poirot's sidekick for this particular novel, who has I thought an extremely annoying upper-class-twit voice ("Bwing hew to the smoking woom immediately!") that only distracted from the easy brilliance of the others.  I'd read this book before, many years ago, but am much more familiar with the delightful 1978 movie with Peter Ustinov as Poirot -- was rather disconcerted for a while at how much had been changed for the movie, but not terribly surprised, as I'm sure it's difficult to pack that much story into two hours -- the audio version runs to eight and a half!  Many of the characters in the book were dropped entirely, such as Mrs. Allerton and her son Tim, and others, like Rosalie Otterbourne and Miss Bowers, were merged with lesser characters to streamline the story.  I think that Suchet's Poirot is brilliant, though, and so I am equally happy with this audio version (except, as I've said, Col. Race, which to Suchet's credit didn't even sound like him!).

But the swing jacket, that's what I was talking about.  I worked the first sleeve yesterday -- yes, you read that right.  I cast on for it Saturday night while David and I watched "National Treasure" -- I had to pull it out, though, as I was so busy watching Sean Bean -- excuse me, I mean paying attention to the complex storyline, that I accidentally picked up the long tail I'd left for sewing up the sleeve later, and began knitting with that, so I had to start again.  Being stockinette, it goes very quickly, even with the cap shaping.

I pinned everything together this morning for a fitting.  The weather has been very grey these past few weeks, and so I wandered around the house rather gloomily, trailing long streamers of yarn like a madwoman.  The gloom, I hasten to add, is due to the weather, not the swing jacket, which is coming along nicely.

This is the sleeve width as written for the 44 in./112 cm size.  The sizing I think is not terribly generous -- this is five inches of ease on me.  The garment tends to hang open about 5 inches or so, just as in the IK photos, which means that most of the ease, as might be expected in a swing jacket, is towards the back.

The shape of the sleeve is somewhat deceptive.  It looks fairly straight when laid flat, as below, but on an arm the weight of the knitted piece make the bell shape much more obvious, as you can see in the photo above. 

If the weather stays this dull, I might even get to wear the jacket before autumn!

Swing Jacket Monday

Beth has been having computer problems, so she hasn't blogged for a while, but has been using the time to swatch -- "I've finally gotten pretty close to gauge - I should probably be doing that needle switch off thing that you are doing to get it perfect, but I'm far too lazy and forgetful.  I liked Suse's idea to start with the yoke since it's the smallest piece, so that's where I'm at right now.  Hope to have some pictures soon!"

Suse writes, "Nary a thing to show off.  Son #3 requested a handknitted jumper as it's coming up for winter here.  Why do the children's needs automatically come before the mother's?  I don't know, all I know is that I have temporarily abandoned Pearl Buck (sadly) and have done the back and two sleeves of a 7 year old's jumper.  In a very similar colour to my Pearl Buck, so at least we'll match when I finish both."

Again with the social life chez Bluestocking!  It's making my head spin.  We had a cousin's wedding on Saturday -- Laura was the bridesmaid.  This photo, from when she was trying on dresses, is especially poignant for me, as the dress made me aware of how fast she is growing up, and the way she is sitting shows how much she is still six.

So, well, I didn't get much knitting done this weekend!

Swing Jacket Monday

Beth writes, "I've finally bought my yarn!  It's Dalegarn Hauk in a pretty shade of olive.  I really wanted to buy some gorgeous Jo Sharp DK in a color called glade, but it was twice the price, couldn't justify it.  I'm swatching right now and pretty pleased with the yarn - I hope to post a picture (at least of my yarn and swatch) soon."

Suse writes, "I've finished the yoke, and am working my way steadily through the first sleeve.  No pics this week; I'll try and do better next week."

As for me, I cast on for the first sleeve a while back, and after only a few rows wondered if I should make the sleeves narrower than written.  I am, I'm afraid, one of those people whose sleeves drag in whatever happens to be around to have sleeves dragged in.  (Is this a mommy thing? am I just more susceptible now that I have small children in the household who leave messes around for me to drag my sleeves in?)  The sleeves are much wider than they appear in the IK photographs, due to the way that the model is holding her arms.  The easiest way to do it is, of course, simply eliminate the sleeve shaping, by casting on the same number of stitches needed at the point where the sleeve cap shaping begins.  But would this alter too dramatically the lovely swinginess of the garment?  I'm still pondering ....