Newborn Frog Sweater

This is actually a recent project - I only finished it about a month ago!  I started it after we got home from the hospital with our new baby, born at the end of March.  It was an easy and quick knit, and turned out great!  The yarn is Malabrigo Rios, and it was wonderful to work with and looks fantastic in the finished sweater.  I think it will hold up well, too - it's a pretty firmly spun yarn.  

The pattern is TinCanKnits Harvest in the smallest size.  I lengthened the body a bit, but not the sleeves (and I wish I had lengthened the body a bit more, because my babies are long and skinny).  The sleeves are the perfect length.  This pattern is awesome - it's free, and like all TinCanKnits patterns it includes an unbelievably wide size range, from newborn to very large adult.  I included the optional buttonholes, and closed it with buttons from my button jar, salvaged from some worn out item of clothing that I can't remember.

2019 State Fair Entries

I entered four things in the state fair last year, and won two ribbons! 

The item I was most proud of is the little striped sweater I made for my toddler.  I used one skein of Cascade 220 Superwash (the charcoal grey) and about one and a half skeins of Liberty Print worsted, which is apparently now discontinued.  The sweater was inspired by one made by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (the Yarn Harlot) several years ago - this is the second sweater I've knit based on that one.  The first was a cardigan I made for my niece when she was a toddler.  I pretty much winged the pattern using the raglan recipe in The Knitter's Handy Book of Top-Down Sweaters.  I put a little bit of care into starting the sleeves at a point in the skein that would give the stripe sequence some continuity across and down the sweater.  I'm pretty thrilled with how it came out, although the sleeves are a bit long and the bind-offs are kind of tight (I very nearly ran out of the grey yarn).  It didn't win a ribbon - the comment from the judge was that the bind-offs are too tight (true) and that the seams were messy (which I can't figure out, because the sweater is seamless).

The other item I finished last year was a blouse in lovely Lovely Liberty of London lawn, which I've never managed to photograph.  I started it at the end of summer 2017, right before I got pregnant with my older son.  I finished it at the beginning of summer 2019, just in time to enter it in the state fair.  I still haven't worn it very many times, because I got pregnant with my second son in summer 2019, and it will probably be a while before I can wear it, because it's not compatible with nursing or pumping.  I'm really proud of it, and will try to get a blog post about how I made it up at some point (with some photos of it on the hanger).  It didn't win anything, either.

The two items I won ribbons for were much older - the rules of our state fair don't say you have to have made the item in the last year, only that it can't have been entered in the state fair before.  My blue Washi dress won a 2nd place ribbon in the women's dress category, and my Deep in the Forest shawl won an honorable mention in the lace shawl category!

Newborn Sweater

I made this tiny sweater for a friend's baby daughter, who was born in October.  I had every intention of knitting it quickly, but in the end finished it just before Christmas and finally managed to mail it out today. 

It's the smallest size of Baby Tea Leaves, knit in Ella Rae Lace Merino DK.

Process-Oriented Knitting

Since my baby was born a year ago, I've really been savoring my crafting time.  So I'm not upset to have frogged and re-started two knitting projects in the past week.  It also helps that I don't have a time deadline on these projects, so I can just enjoy the knitting process without rushing.  The first project is this striped raglan sweater.  It's a pullover version of this cardigan that I made for my niece a few years ago, and my intention is for it to fit my son this coming winter.  I've been really enjoying the knitting, and was very pleased with myself for learning a new technique for jogless stripes!  Unfortunately, it was coming out way too big (which didn't actually bother me, it will fit at some point), and I ran out of the grey yarn before I finished the first sleeve.  So I frogged it, and I've started knitting it again in a smaller size.  So far, I'm enjoying it just as much the second time.

The second project is a pair of Skew Socks in KnitPicks Felici self-striping yarn.  I started the toe, got several rounds in, and then noticed that I'd done the Turkish cast-on wrong.  I have now ripped it out and restarted.  I don't mind re-knitting this small bit of toe so that I'll have a nicer pair of socks when I'm done.

Sheepie Sweater

I knit this sweater for my baby last Spring - I had it all finished except the button plackets before he was born, and I finished the plackets and sewed the buttons on sometime in June.  (It was pretty much the only knitting I did between when the baby was born and the end of the Fall semester.)

I used Melissa Kemmerer's Sheepish Little Sweater Light pattern and Cascade Heritage sock yarn that my mom had leftover after knitting me a pair of sheepie socks for my birthday.  The only major change I made to the pattern was to add a button placket along one of the raglan lines - I got the idea from some sweaters that the Yarn Harlot had knitted for her nephew many years ago, and I'm really glad I did because otherwise the neckhole would have been way too small to get over the baby's head. I think I did make some modifications to the pattern having to do with gauge and size, but I can't remember what they were at this point.  I think I tried to aim for finished measurements in the 12 month size, and that worked out pretty well.  The sweater has fitted him this fall and winter, although the sleeves are still too long.

I'm really proud of this sweater, and I had planned to enter it in the state fair at the end of the summer, but in my sleep-deprived haze I missed the drop-off day for fair entries.  I was really disappointed, but I'll have to knit something else equally awesome to enter next year instead.

Two Newborn Sweaters

When I made last year's Christmas sweaters for my niece and nephew, I bought three balls of worsted weight yarn for each of them, and each sweater used two full balls plus just a bit of the third.  When I finished, I had a good brainstorm about what would be a good use for about 200 yards of superwash worsted weight yarn in each of pink and yellow, and I hit on newborn sweaters!  I picked out a free pattern on Ravelry that would be good for any gender - Olive You Too.

I made two almost exactly the same, and finished them in February.  The pink one is for a friend's daughter and I made it exactly as written in the pattern. 

The yellow one is for my baby (who is expected to be a boy), and the only thing I changed was the buttonhole placement and number of buttons - I thought the buttons grouped at the top were a little bit on the girly side.  If you're paying attention to the photos, you'll notice that I also crossed the cables the other way on the yellow one - that started out as an accident, and when I noticed half-way through the sweater I decided to make it a design feature rather than ripping out to start over.

This project was very successful!  It used almost all of the leftover yarn (and the buttons were from my button jar), and my friend's daughter looks adorable in her sweater.  I'm excited for my baby to wear his!

Pattern:  Olive You Too by Taiga Hilliard Designs
Size: 0-3 months
Yarn: Yalley Yarns Superwash Worsted, about 200 yards per sweater
Needles: 4mm
Started/Completed: January 2018/February 2018
Modifications: None for the pink sweater.  For the yellow sweater, I crossed all of the cables the other way and made five buttonholes evenly spaced along the button band instead of four buttons all near the top.

Maternity Sweater

My big winter knitting project is done!  After multiple years of infertility, we are expecting a baby at the end of May, and one of the first things I did after my first ultrasound in October was to buy yarn to knit myself a maternity sweater.  It took me a while to get started, because I was worried about how my pregnancy might turn out, and then I got distracted by Christmas projects, but I finally finished the sweater a few weeks ago.  In these pictures, I'm 34 weeks pregnant.

The sweater has button plackets on the sides and sleeve cuffs.  I added a fifth button to each side, because odd numbers are more visually pleasing, and I was worried that the button plackets wouldn't come up high enough on my belly for them to really be functional - they're designed to be worn open at the end of pregnancy, to create more room for the belly.

At least so far, I prefer the sweater buttoned all the way down.  And, I really like the buttons I found.  It wasn't easy to find 16 matching buttons!  I think the brass-colored roses give it a nice, slightly dressier touch, and they're really cute.

The sweater is knit in 2x2 rib, and it's super stretchy.  It's really warm and comfortable!

Luckily (I guess?) we've been having a late, cold spring this year, so even though it took me so long to finish my heavy wool sweater, I can still wear it a bunch before the baby is born.

Pattern:  Mommy Snug by Kate Gilbert
Size: 20.5" bust circumference, to fit 39.5" bust
Yarn: Cascade 220 Heathers, color 8011 (an oatmeal grey), 6.5 skeins
Needles: 4mm
Started/Completed: October 2017/April 2018
Modifications: I added a 5th button to each of the side plackets, which made the plackets taller (but I kept the number of rows in the sweater below the short-row belly shaping the same as called for in the pattern).  I worked a second set of belly short rows - in hindsight, this really wasn't necessary and the short rows are a little high on my anyway, but the sweater fits fine and is comfortable.  I knitted the sleeves in the round (from the end of the button plackets) and lengthened them significantly.  Instead of working a hemmed neck edging, I followed a project I saw on Ravelry and worked an i-cord neck edging.  

Handmade Christmas 2017

Wow, this post is late!  I didn't plan to make very many Christmas gifts, but somehow I ended up making a bunch anyway.  This quilt was for my Grandma, and it was a team effort with my mom.  We had given Grandma the fabric and pattern for Christmas two or three years ago, but we came to the conclusion that she was never going to sew it, so we decided to do it for her.  It was relatively quick (two weekends), and fun to do together!  It came out great, and Grandma loves it.

I've done Christmas sweaters for my niece and nephew every year so far (although last year I made a flannel shirt for my nephew instead of a sweater), and I kind of thought last year was going to be the last year - they're getting big, and the sweaters are getting to be more of a production.  But then I hit on the idea of a ballet wrap sweater for my dance-obsessed niece, and I couldn't not do one more year.

I used free patterns and used worsted weight superwash wool from Valley Yarns (the Webs house brand).  They were fun to knit, and apparently were a hit with the kids.

Earlier in the Fall, I knit a pair of socks for Robert for Christmas.  He loves them, but has dubbed them "the betrayal socks," because I knit them right in front of him without telling him they were for him.  He assumed they were for me, and was surprised that I was knitting myself socks in a blue tweedy yarn.  He tells me that he resisted the urge to ask if he could have them - he did it so well that I hesitated a bit to wrap them up for Christmas, because I wasn't sure if he liked them!

And lastly, I made a few Christmas-y kitchen things for us.  I took two fat quarters of Christmas-y fabric I bought for this purpose in Fall 2016 and finally made a set of four holiday napkins for our dining table.  I also knitted three Christmas dishcloths.  One of them made its way into my mom's stocking, and we kept the other two for ourselves.

Old man sweater

This is the last of my Christmas gift knitting ... finished in April!  Robert had been wanting an "old man sweater" since Christmas 2015, when I made an olive green cable cardigan for our nephew, who was then six months old.  I wanted to knit one for him, but I wasn't quite sure what he wanted, and I definitely didn't want to knit him something he wouldn't like.  When the Interweave Knits Winter 2017 issue showed up, with a feature on sweaters for men, I was excited, and with Robert's cooperation, I mashed up two of the patterns in it to make this sweater for him.

He decided he wanted a pullover, not a cardigan, and we agreed that a shawl collar was required.  This would point to the Donegal Sweater, but he thought the collar poofed out too much at the back of the neck, and he wasn't wild about the stitch pattern - he really wanted cables.  He did like the cable panel on the back of the Belfast Cardigan, although he didn't like the overall fit or styling on the model.  So I replaced the decorative panel on the Donegal Sweater with a slightly adapted version of the cables from the Belfast Cardigan (the stitch counts were only off by one, so that was pretty easy).  I measured a ready-to-wear sweater that he wore a lot last fall and winter to choose the size, and then I started knitting.

Unfortunately, I started with the wrong size needles, so I had to re-knit half of the first sleeve when I didn't get gauge, and I was also knitting or sewing several other things for Christmas, so I ended up wrapping one and a half sleeves to put under the tree on Christmas morning.  I finally finished the sweater in April, and Robert loves it!  He got to wear it several times before the weather warmed up too much for wool sweaters, and every time he wore it he eagerly reminded me that I had made his sweater!  The fit is pretty good - the sleeves are a bit long and wide, but that certainly hasn't stopped him from enjoying wearing it.

Pattern: Donegal Sweater, with modifications
Size: 47"
Yarn: Valley Yarns Northampton, Color #50 Medium Grey, 100% wool, seven skeins
Needles:  US6 for ribbing, US9 for body
Started/Completed: December 2016/April 2017
Modifications: Replaced the decorative stitch pattern on front and back with cable panel from the Belfast Cardigan.  Reduced height of the the back neck shawl collar

Wowligan

This is the first of the handmade Christmas gifts I made in 2016.  A wowligan for my niece, who turned 3 last fall and loves animals, buttons, and the color yellow.  This yellow sweater has 12 owls and 27 buttons.

I bought the worsted-weight yarn before I settled on the pattern, and it is significantly heavier than what the pattern calls for, so I had to wing it on the sizing.

The circumference ended up being 24", and although I haven't seen her wear it in person, from pictures it looks like it fits.

The biggest problem I had was with the buttons that fasten the sweater closed - I forgot to do a thread shank when I sewed them on, and they were way too tight.  I couldn't even get the buttonholes around them, so I cut off the buttons and re-sewed them.  They were much better the second time, but there still wasn't really enough room between the buttons and the button-band.  Next time I'll try to do better ....


Pattern: Wowligan
Size: 24", but I used the stitch counts for the smallest size
Yarn: Rowan Pure Wool Worsted (100% superwash wool) in Buttercup, 2 skeins
Needles:  US size 8, I think
Started/Completed: December 2016/December 2016
Modifications: Used worsted rather than sport weight yarn.  I used the stitch counts for the smallest size and the length measurements from one of the larger sizes.

Grey Cardigan

I finished this cardigan at the end of October. This is the only picture I have of me wearing it, and I already don't remember many of the details of making it.  It's a perfectly good sweater - not quite as dressy as I imagined, but definitely work-appropriate.  Since I finished it, I've been wearing it about twice a week.  After washing it several times, it's a bit shorter and wider than I would ideally like, I think the sleeve caps are not quite tall enough, and it biases a bit toward my left as I'm wearing it.  I'm machine washing and drying it, even though the yarn ball band says to hand wash and dry flat, and so far it's holding up well except for the fact that it shrank quite a bit length-wise.  I was pretty disappointed with the way it shrank, since I had intentionally made the sleeves long so they would cover my wrists, and now they're just a bit shorter than the sleeves on my long-sleeved button-down shirts.  I guess it's a good thing I didn't knit them to the length specified in the pattern!  The next time I wash this sweater, I'm going to try hanging it to dry, to see if I can get some length back.

I like the pattern, but I was pretty frustrated with the pattern instructions.  I'm pretty sure there was an error in the pattern instructions for when to start the lace bib chart for size L.  I emailed the designer to ask for clarification, asked a question in the "Need Help" thread of her ravelry group, and sent her a ravelry private message - and I never received any kind of response.  Obviously I figured it out and knit a sweater I'm satisfied with, but I really think that a paid pattern should have better support.

Pattern: Trellis
Size: L
Yarn: KnitPicks Lindy Chain in Ash (70% linen, 30% pima cotton)
Needles:  I don't remember.
Started/Completed: February 2016/October 2016
Modifications: I don't remember any, except that I fixed what I think was an error in the pattern instructions for when to start the lace bib chart for size L

Knitting this Summer

I didn't post much this summer, but I did knit!  I've been working intermittently on my navy shawl, and I knit almost a whole sweater:

I'm excited to have another (hopefully) presentable sweater to wear to work and church.  And I'm worried about running out of yarn.  I started with eight balls of yarn, and I have just under two left.  All I have left to do is the second sleeve and the i-cord edging around the front edges and neckline.  I'm steeling myself for the possibility that I may need to unravel my (machine washed and dried) swatch to finish.  We'll see how it goes.

A finished Lofoten!

I finally finished this sweater a few weeks ago, and I'm SO happy with how it turned out. I've been wearing it all the time and getting compliments on it everywhere I go.

It fits perfectly, although the colorwork band at the bottom of the body does pull in a bit.  I did a tubular 2x2 cast-on for the bottom edge of the body, which was a new skill for me.

In addition to the challenge of the colorwork (which I'd never done on this scale before), the sweater has SEVEN steeks!  I'd done a steek once before, on this sweater for my niece, but there was only one and I sewed the stabilization stitches using my sewing machine before I cut it.  For this sweater, I hand crocheted the stabilization stitches.  I was really, really nervous about the steeks, and especially how to secure the cut edges at the sleeve caps and armscyes, but it all worked out.  I used a tutorial by Kate Davies and one by Elinor Brown and found them both incredibly helpful.

Pattern: Lofoten
Size: 36"
Yarn: Knitpicks Wool of the Andes Sport, from a kit
Needles: US5 circulars and DPNs
Started/Completed: February 2015/March 2016
Modifications: I think I lengthened the sleeves and maybe the body, too, but I can't quite remember.  I measured a RTW sweater that I like to choose the lengths.

CMS/Colloquium knitting

I started a new project in CMS on Thursday: a Trellis Cardigan in Lindy Chain yarn.  It is not the same Trellis cardigan that I recently knit for my nephew!

I want a new dressy-ish lightweight cardigan.  For years, I wore plain cotton cardigans from Land's End.  I had a navy blue one and a magenta one and loved them both, but eventually they wore out.  I currently have a yellow cable cardigan from Eddie Bauer, but I don't love it.  It doesn't seem to have enough body, so it just droops in front, and I can never seem to get the shoulders to sit right.  Since I can knit more sweaters than I need, I decided to try to knit the sweater I really want to wear.

I'm not sure that this yarn is the best choice for this sweater, but I'm going to give it a try.  I didn't knit a swatch, but I'm thinking of doing that before I get too much farther, just to make sure I'm knitting the right size (although the projects I found on Ravelry noted that gauge didn't change much after washing).

Handmade Christmas Part 2

I made Christmas sweaters for my niece, who is 2, and my nephew, who is now 7 months old.  The one for my nephew is the 12-month size of Trellis, heavily modified for symmetry and to reduce seaming.  The yarn is Berroco Vintage, which I didn't really love knitting with.  I chose it because it's the right weight, it's machine washable, and it's only 40% wool (which means it's 60% synthetic, hence the not loving it) and for a while it looked like my nephew was going to have really sensitive skin, so I didn't want to knit him something 100% wool that he might be allergic to. Also, I really, really do love this color green.  Robert really liked the finished sweater, and tried to request one in his size.  He might eventually get one, but probably not any time soon.

For my niece, I used the kids raglan recipe from The Knitter's Handy Book of Top-Down Sweaters.  I knit the smallest size.  I was inspired by this sweater (knit by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee several years ago).  The colored yarn is Liberty Wool color #7864.  I loved knitting with this yarn.  The grey yarn is Valley Yarns Charlemont, held double.  I found these cute little star buttons that I think are perfect for this sweater.

I really kind of want a sweater exactly like this.  Too bad I already have a lot of sweaters (and plans for more sweaters that aren't this one).

Here's a picture of the back of my nephew's sweater.  It's symmetric, which makes me happy!  The one thing I'm not in love with about this sweater is the seam at the back of the collar, which is visible in this photo if you look closely.  The instructions said to graft it, which I did in stockinette after spending over an hour researching grafting in seed stitch.  Turns out a true seed stitch graft isn't possible.  This was highly disappointing to me, but I can't think of any solution.

We also received a few handmade gifts, including this succulent sitting in a knitted felted succulent sweater.  Isn't it adorable?

Being a mathematician improves my knitting

I am a mathematician.  The fact that I am a mathematician shapes the way I think, and slips out when I tell my mom that she doesn't need to worry about my apartment flooding because it's at a local maximum, or how I have a special appreciation for the non-simply-connected geological features at Arches National Park, or in my knitting.  Lately I've been noticing how my mathematical ways of thinking are helping me knit this little cable cardigan (Trellis from Knitty) for my nephew.

Modular Arithmetic: This particular cardigan has an 18-row cable pattern that repeats several times beginning with row 9 of the sweater body, while at the same time you knit a buttonhole every tenth row beginning in row 5.  So I know that I need to put a buttonhole in row 5, 15, 25, 35, and 45.  I want to start counting my rows with row 1 of the CABLE PATTERN, so using the new numbering system for rows, I'll be putting buttonholes in row 7 (this is the second buttonhole), 17, 27, and 37.  Then using modular arithmetic (also known as clock arithmetic) I reduce those modulo 18 and work buttonholes in rows 7, 17, 9, and 1 of the CABLE PATTERN. For me, this is much easier than trying to keep track of one count for the cable pattern and another for the buttonholes - instead, I just track everything in terms of the cable pattern.

Symmetry:  If you look closely at my photos in this post and compare them to the photos in the pattern, you'll notice that I changed some of the cable crossings.  Many mathematicians care a lot about symmetry (non-mathematicians care about this too, of course, but we're trained to notice it wherever we can).  This is a case where I think the pattern-writer was wrong.  If you imagine a vertical line going down the middle of the back of the sweater, in the center seed stitch column, and think of reflecting one side of the sweater across that line, you would get the other side of the sweater.  This is called a reflectional symmetry, and it makes for a much more pleasing image than what is written in the original pattern, with all of the large fancy cables twisting to the "right" and all of the little cables twisting "left."  I fixed this so that the two large fancy cables on each of the front and back twist toward the center, and each of the little cables twists toward the large fancy cable it frames.  

Braids:   This one doesn't really improve my knitting as much as add to my enjoyment.  My research is in knot theory, which is closely related to the study of mathematical braids. Every knitted cable is a braid; in this sweater, each of the fancy cables is a two-strand braid, and each of the little cables is a four-strand braid.  Referring back to symmetry for a moment, the mirror image of a braid is its inverse, so in this sweater we see braids paired with their inverses.  It makes me so happy when my work shows up in other areas of my life!  I'm so glad I'm a mathematician - if I wasn't, I wouldn't be able to properly appreciate this little sweater!  

Re-knitting.

I feel like I'm not making any progress on my knitting lately.  I seem to be knitting everything at least twice.  This is a sweater for my nephew.  It's going to be a Christmas gift.  I knitted almost the entire body in the car on the way to and from our vacation in August ... and I'm going to rip it all out to start over.  August was way too soon to start a Christmas gift for an infant.  This is way too small.  I'm going to start over with the next size (or maybe two sizes) up.

This is my second attempt on the second sleeve of my Lofoten sweater.  I knit the first sleeve twice, too, and then I didn't think to mark which of the two sets of increases (for the two times I knit the first sleeve) was the correct one.  So of course when I got ready to knit the second sleeve, I followed the wrong one.

This first sock picture was my second (maybe third?  I can't quite remember) attempt at stripey socks.  Then I tried it on, decided the leg was too short, and ripped it back to the top of the heel because it was also kind of gapey at the back ankle and I didn't want the leg to be half ribbed and half not.  

Here it is now.  I'm much happier with it, and hopefully on this one I can replicate it on the first try when I get to the second sock.