Video: Every Sweater I've Made - Episode 2

 

It's that time of the month again ... where I tell you about sweaters I made years ago lol. This time I'm talking about my:

• Ishnana
• Agatha
• Florist Bolero
• Chuck
• Endearment

I'm giving the whole rundown of each - what it was like to make, if I liked the pattern, what yarns I used, and how much I wear them. Click below to watch this month's episode :)

FO: Chuck Sweater

This project started due to a very unfortunate oversight - I forgot my knitting bag at work on a Saturday and I had no project to work on the following day. Not only did my knitting bag have my project at the time (the sleeve of the Susan Shaw Cardigan) and the instructions for the other sweater I was working on (the Belladonna Cardigan), it also contained my notions bag which has the jump drives I use to hold my entire knitting pattern collection that isn't printed out yet. So I was at a standstill with all projects I was actively working on and I couldn't even pull up the file and see the pattern info. This meant that I needed a project pronto and it had to be one that I already had printed out. I had printed out the Chuck pattern and earmarked it to use this yarn a week before, but I went with the Belladonna instead. Lucky me! I grabbed the stuff and started working on yet another sweater.

This is only my 2nd ever pullover style sweater I've made. Living in Florida, I don't tend to need that level of warmth all day very often, so I've just stuck to cardigans that I can take on and off as needed. I've always liked the design of the Chuck sweater by Andi Satterlund though, and I was just in the mood and decided to go for it. 

This yarn has been in my stash since May of 2014! Almost 10 years! I ordered it as a contender for the Myrna Cardigan when that pattern was released and Andi was running a knit along. I ordered this color thinking it would be a bright, grass green color. When it arrived, I was immediately disappointed. The green has much more of a yellow tone to it than I was thinking based off the color on my screen. I went with an undyed yarn for my Myrna (which I also ordered with this yarn and also don't like, lol) and this yarn just sat in my stash all this time because not only was I mad at the color - I also only ordered 3 skeins. At the time I was just going by the recommended yarn requirements for the Myrna, which are admittedly low because that sweater is cropped and short sleeved - but this means I didn't really have enough to do a lot of the styles that I would have liked to use this color for. In the end, I went with this pattern because I know Andi's patterns are good for squeaking out a sweater on limited yardage. 

The sweater itself was very quick to make, even with a few hiccups and alterations as well as finishing a fingering weight sweater at the same time. I made the whole yoke area that Saturday and Sunday only to realize that my shoulders were twisted. I knew it felt weird to knit, but I just kept knitting and told myself it's the way it was laying on my needles. Nope! I had to unpick the picked-up stitches at the shoulder, twist them the right way, and then graft them back on. This is completely invisible from the outside and looks great inside too, so I was pleased it was a fairly easy fix. From there I just knit and knit until joining at the underarms and got about 3 inches down the body before I realized another mistake. Andi's patterns always come out very wide on my shoulders, so I decided to try out knitting a smaller yoke size and then increase to my usual Medium at the bust. I started knitting what I thought was a Small at the shoulders, but I forgot to double check how many numbers over from the first I should be knitting for that size. Turns out I was knitting an XS the whole time and the increased to a S. I tried it on at that point just to see if it could be fudged, but the underarm stitches were visibly stretched out and I knew it would bug me. SO I ripped back. Then I noticed a mistake in the cables I had known about and just decided I didn't care and it was just a few rows above where I had pulled back to, so I pulled that out as well. In the end, I went back to above the bust itself and sacrificed about 5 or so inches, lol. Good thing I enjoyed knitting this pattern.

This is a very potato-chip style knit because the cable pattern has you just wanting to knit one more row. I really enjoy knitting cables and I seem to forget that after each project, so I really enjoyed the actual knitting of this - way more than the Belladonna cardigan with multiple lace charts to keep track of. This pattern because pretty mindless pretty quickly and it was just what I needed. When I knitted 2 repeats of the center cable as the pattern is written, I knew it looked very short so I tried it on. I accounted for the extra 16 rows of ribbing at the bottom, but it was still comically too short. I have a long torso both above and below my bust, so I'm used to lengthening Andi's patterns a bit. This was made it more of a design choice though. You have to do an additional 30 rows for that cable design and I still liked the cropped look. I didn't want this to go lower than my natural waist. I knit the 3rd cable repeat and thankfully it worked out fine. I shortened the ribbing at the waist to 12 rows simply because I was at the end of my 2nd ball of yarn and wanted to get the sleeves as long as possible. The length of the body could be just a smidge longer if I'm honest, which made this a bit difficult to style. Now I just need to make a dress that it can go on top of :)

The sleeves were an absolute breeze. I'm not sure if it's just that I haven't knit any of Andi's patterns in a long time or if I really have gotten that much faster at knitting, but I was able to complete each sleeve in just 2 days - I night to make the sleeve cap, the next night to knit the rest. At this point I was working with the remainder of just 1 ball of yarn, so I weighed it and split it into 2 equal sized balls just to make sure they were identical in length. I was fully expecting them to be much shorter than the pattern calls for, but I was able to knit the full sleeve length just shortening the ribbing by 3 rows. Crazy, right? I got this entire sweater EVEN WITH EXTENDING THE WAIST out of just 3 skeins of yarn. I'm still pretty shocked about it. Something about knitting a size smaller for the shoulders must have compensated for the length I needed to extend body length because the pattern says it should take 680 yards for the full size Medium. I used 660 and had just scraps left. Kind of a knitting miracle, that.

All in all, I'm really happy with this project. The fit is great - even the shoulders and the length - so my alterations worked. I finished just a few days before December, so the green color lends itself to that festive vibe even though it can still be worn all year (unlike last year's Christmas sweater which is limited to just that season). This yarn is finally used and I had just exactly enough. Those are all such big wins that it almost doesn't matter if I even get to wear this much, lol, which in reality I may not. Even if I only wear it a few times, this was a very fun project to knit and I just love how it turned out.

Summary:

Yarn: 3 skeins of Cascade 220 in Palm - $18.13

Pattern: Chuck by Andi Satterlund

Time: 1 month

Total Cost: $ 18.13

WIP Wednesday: Re-Learning Machine Knitting & Balancing Me Makes

This week has been quite busy for me! I had a few vacation days left from work that I had no plans to use before the end of the year PLUS I lost my voice and it still has not come back yet for weeks, so I took some days off so that I could literally not speak at all, lol. I used the time to clean out my horrifying garage and let me tell you - it was a full 2 day event. It's become so bad because I never have multiple entire days that I can just pull everything out and get it done, so even though my body is questioning my life choices, I'm so happy to have it in a better state.

Knitting-wise, I finished my Chuck sweater on Sunday, so I have picked up the Belladonna again. I find I just really don't enjoy the actual knitting of this cardigan only because of the amount of focus the multiple lace patterns that are so similar require. I keep messing up and having to tink back and that's annoying to me. I like to just have something be straight forward and easy to tell where I am - it doesn't have to be "simple" because I love lace and cables and whatnot, but these charts for some reason are just giving me a hard time. Anyway, I haven't really had much time to knit that because of my Christmas knits. 

I tried using my Sentro to make baby hats, but I just don't have the right sized machine to make it work right. I decided to knit a panel instead of a tube on the 48 pin machine and then I would just seam it to the size I needed, but even that kept messing up and I just decided heck with it. I will use the Sentro to knit the bigger kids hats, but I will knit the baby and toddler one by hand. They're so small, it's no big deal, you know? So I cast on my first one Sunday night.

For the scarves, I want to try making one on my Babylock knitting machine. This machine is made for larger yarns like worsted and aran, so I plan to do the same style as the Sentro one I made last week and compare them. If this one comes out better then I will redo the yellow scarf on this machine. I don't mind some imperfections, but the yellow one has a bunch all in the most prominent area when it's worn (of course) and it just bugs me. It's been a really long time since I used the machine though, so I'm having to watch the Meet Your Bond videos by Cheryl Brunette on YouTube to learn how to use the machine again. I'm going to do the scarf 50 stitches across and then seam it up into a tube, which will make my duplicate stitch plans easier too because I can do that before I seam it up. Hopefully this is quick and easy and I can slap these out without so much frustration as I had from the Sentro.

And in sewing, I made 2 mock ups of the New England dress and cut out my official fabric! It's a good thing I toiled this though because I had to add 2.5 inches to the bodice pieces. I know I'm long waisted (it's one of the reasons I wanted to sew my clothes because store bought dresses always hit me way above my waist), but this was a bit excessive even for me. I'm blending from a size 40 at the above the bust to a 42 at the waist and down. I could have even lengthened it by another 1/2" but I forgot when cutting. Hopefully the top still can blouse out a bit. I cut this out of some medium weight black linen and I'm very excited to get sewing on it. I've just been so tired at night after all my manual labor that I haven't quite felt up to the task. I also have quite a few things I want to get made - like a brown skirt of some kind so I can wear it with my recently finished sweaters. Will this happen this month? I'm honestly not sure, but it would be really nice to have more bottoms to meld things together better in my wardrobe.

So that's my craziness this week! This was all while still doing Thanksgiving and making broth and canning it, lol. Never a dull moment around here. What things are you working on this week? 

WIP Wednesday: Christmas Knitting Begins

Man, the holiday has me with a backlog of posts :/ I have been plugging away at various projects, but I just haven't sat down to write about them. Silly, right? I promise after this week, things will become regular again. 

After finishing my Susan Shaw cardigan (which you will see soon), I picked up my Chuck sweater. I've been dutifully knitting just that sweater in the hopes of finishing it with enough time to wear it as a Christmas type sweater even though it's not a Christmas sweater. The color gives it the right vibe. I tried the sweater on after finishing the 2nd cable repeat and it was kind of comically too short. I actually looked at a bunch of other people's projects to see if I had done something wrong because mine was coming up so short, but I just have a long torso. In truth, I have a long yoke - the area between my bust and shoulders is longer than "standard" it seems. It's something I have to correct for frequently, but this left me with a dilemma. I liked the look on other people with the cropped length, but I was going to come up too short or a lot longer than that. In the end, I decided to just go for my natural waist. I did 3 cable repeats and then did 12 rows of ribbing to conserve yarn - adding to the length has now greatly lessened the length of my sleeves. I'm on the neckband now and then I will divide the remaining yarn for the sleeves. Hopefully this one is finished soon!

I've also started cranking out Christmas gifts - literally. This year I'm using my knitting machines to make scarves and hats. I tried with the 48 pin Sentro first knowing I could pull out the big legit knitting machine if that didn't work. I spent Sunday evening cranking.

I kept rolling the scarf up underneath the machine to prevent drag and the donut I got close to the end was pretty comical.

This is my finished first scarf - well the cranking is finished. I'm still on the fence about it. The first half went great, but there are a bunch of tucked stitches and irregularities on the side above the black. I'm trying to decide if this is fine or if I want to rip it out and do it on the Babylock machine.

So I'm now a scarf making machine until Christmas time. I have several items to make as gifts and I'm hoping that this helps me get them all done :) I'm also still mentally working on sewing, but I haven't actually sewed anything this week, lol. Whoops. It's a crazy time, folks. I hope to get back at that after Thanksgiving. Maybe then I won't fall asleep early every night.

Have you started holiday gift making yet? 

WIP Wednesday: Emergency Sweater Cast On

What's a knitter to do when you go to grab your knitting on Saturday night only to realize you left it at work because someone moved your knitting bag away from the rest of your things and you just grabbed from the usual place when you left? And not only does your knitting bag contain your sleeve you were knitting but also the instructions for the green sweater you started last week, your good needles set, and your jump drives that contain literally your entire collection of knitting patterns on them so you can't even open up the file on your green sweater to pick up where you left off? So I've officially cast on a new sweater project, lol. 

As mentioned two weeks ago, I've had the Chuck sweater on my radar, so I happened to have already printed out the pattern when I was trying to decide which project to cast on, meaning I had it ready at my disposal. I decided to use the 3 skeins of Cascade 220 in the pal colorway that I bought in (no joke) 2014. I was so disappointed with this yarn when I bought it because I was expecting more of a bright green color. I was also very cheap and I only bought 3 skeins, which is not exactly enough for a sweater, particularly not a cardigan like I would usually want to make. But for whatever reason I almost can't understand why I disliked this color? It's a lovely green, so the only real explanation is the missed expectations. I also never really expected myself to want to knit the Chuck sweater because I never wear pullovers, but when I realized this yarn might be the perfect amount for this design now that I'm a smaller size and that this winter will likely be much colder than ours have been recently, I decided to accept this perfect match from the knitting universe and just make this project. I couldn't bear to face a full Sunday - with church and rehearsal and a concert - without a knitting project. I managed to make most of the upper back on Saturday night, Then Sunday I made the shoulders and front to just before the underarm when I finally noticed this:

I had twisted the shoulders when I started the front! I knew it was laying funny, but having only ever made one other pullover sweater in my life, I just thought it was how it was supposed to sit at the neck. Nope. 

I didn't want to undo my whole Sunday worth of work, so I decided to experiment with unpicking the shoulders. These were originally seamless, so I was kind of riding blind at what t unpick I think I undid a row of knitting on one shoulder, but when I grafted them back together with duplicate stitch, you really can't tell.

Sunday night, it looked like this :) All was well Monday morning, I joined the body at the underarms and now it looks like this:

So I now have 3 full sweaters in the works, which I try not to do. I like having one thinner yarn sweater and one thicker yarn sweater going at one time so I can switch by my mood, but I do typically have a few other projects going - maybe a shawl or a pair of socks or something - which I don't have right now. I'm trying to mentally be fine with this many sweaters, but it's hard, lol. I like the boost of seeing real progress on a project and then the boost of finishing it. With my knitting time now spit between an 3 projects instead of 2, I will not get that boost as quickly. Ah, well. I'm very much enjoying knitting this new sweater - much more than the Belladonna if I'm honest. I always enjoy watching cables grow.

I am also determined to finish my Susan Shaw cardigan soon. Last week I pulled out the sleeve a few times to figure out the width issue and I think it's looking good now. I have the sweater itself on my dressform waiting for me to finish the sleeves and then it will be done :) Then I already have the next project ready to take its place, lol.