My latest sweater is finished and I am so thrilled! I've been wanting to make this since the pattern was released last April and now I finally have one of my very own :) This is the Rose Street Cardigan by Syndey Crabaugh of Squid's School of Vintage Knitting. I adore her patterns and this one struck me immediately.
The body of the sweater is very simple - just basic stockinette with a ribbed yoke on the front and back. This made the body incredibly fast to knit. I made mine up in Knit Picks Stroll in the Duchess Heather colorway that I grabbed on sale over 2 orders (I bought 6 before seeing this pattern, then bought 2 more when I knew I wanted to use it on this pattern) and it worked just beautifully. This is one of my absolute favorite yarns, so I always love using it.
Here's my Ginger Rogers pose to show off the best part of this sweater - the fantastic sleeves! They are long bishop sleeves with a simple lace detail and I adore them. I knitted my sleeves flat through the whole cuff before I realized it was written to be knitted in the round. Oops. I was not going to redo the cuff, so I just knit them both flat and it worked out fine.
I'm also thrilled that Syndey's newest pattern (The Four Seasons Dress) includes a written description for setting in the sleeves. This was my only hang up with making this because I can never remember how to do the puff and I had a hard time finding her video on Patreon. The written instructions worked fantastic (and if you are a Patreon member of hers, you automatically get access to both of these patterns, so it worked out great).
As per usual, I backed my button bands, and this time I filmed a tutorial on how I do this - so if you are interested, check My YouTube Channel next week for that. I used my usual rayon Petersham ribbon and some pretty vintage buttons. I did have a little snafoo - I miscounted my button holes, so I had to add 1 more button that did not match. I got as close as possible from my stash and put it at the bottom, so I think it blends in well enough that no one will notice but me.
And that's my Rose Street Cardigan! I love how it turned out. It is comfy and cute. I just wish it was colder so I could wear it more often before the end of the year. I have also made a YouTube video review about this project if you prefer to hear the deets in that way :)
The past few weeks has seen a lot of knitting on my Rose Street Cardigan, and it is almost finished :) I managed to finish knitting the sleeves, which I knit flat kind of on accident. I completely knit the ribbing on the first sleeve before I realized the sleeves were meant to be knit in the round. Whoops. Not a big deal though at all. I currently have the sweater and sleeves blocking and then I will be sewing it all together and I will have a finished cardigan! Just in time for it to be 90 degrees on the regular, lol.
While my Rose Street is drying, I decided to start my next project - the Dalloway Blouse, which is also by Sydney Crabaugh. I've had this in mind to make for a while, and I realized how hot it is now so I decided to just go ahead and make it up. This is a vintage Jiffy pattern from the 1920s, so I'm hoping it will go by very quickly. I'm making it up in Silk City Fibers Bambu 7 that I grabbed from Lion Brand on sale last summer. This is the Persimmon colorway and I have 2100 yards of it, so you will probably see it in something else later as well. I know this swatch photo isn't great, but I got gauge and I'm excited to see how this knits up.
I've also been working on a bit of sewing for my next YouTube video where I'm chopping up a knit dress to make a Vera Top, so stay tuned for that if you are interested in the process. I have filmed the beginning of the next several videos, but they will take a bit longer to have a complete project. So I'm trying to figure out what kind of videos I can put up while I work on those. Any subjects you want me to talk about? I'm open to suggestions!
So that's what's going on 'round here lately. Anything new and exciting going on in your making? Let me know!
Well, it's been a while as I've been trying to get my bearings with my you tube channel, but rest assured that much creating has been going on in the background even if I didn't post about it here. I've got the body finished as well as both front yokes. I'm on the back yoke now and I've run into a snag. Narrow shoulders strike again - the directions tell you to knit until the back is the width of your measurement between your shoulders (mine is 12 inches), but I've reached the point I should be changing to ribbing and I'm still at 16 inches across. So I know I will have to rip my entire back yoke back to the beginning, but I'm trying to decide if a triple decrease every other row will be good enough to get me down to the 12 inches. So this has been in time out for the past few days as a result.
In the meantime, I've started the swatching for my next sweater. I've wanted to make the Audrey in Unst pattern by Gudrun Johnston for like a decade. This past Black Friday, I bought some Wool of the Andes in the Knit Picks sale in the Blackberry colorway just for this project. I swatched on size 5 needles like the pattern suggests and I have gauge, so I will be casting this on soon. Do I need another purple sweater considering I am knitting one at the same time? lol No but I like this color and design and I just want to make it. So there.
I'm also working on a new project for the Crochet Flip challenge with Shannon Talks Yarn on You Tube. The idea was to take a thrifted item and jazz it up with crochet in some way. I talk all about my plans for this challenge in my latest You Tube Video. I'm using Curio 3 crochet thread from Knit Picks in this bright, springy palette to make an Irish crochet neckline detail. I'm at a point where I'm almost finished with the motifs, but I'm trying to decide what shapes I should add in the spaces I have left. Also, so I like that open flower on the right? I can't decide. But once I decide and make a few more tiny pieces, I will be able to get this officially assembled and done. I'll be unveiling that in a video later this month.
In sewing news, I've finally buckled down and completed the sleeves - one is totally done except sewing the buttons on and the other just needs the hand sewing done for the cuff. The final steps are to set the sleeves in and hem and I'm hopeful I will get this cracked out in the next few days.
So the dress is looking like it's almost done and I can't wait. Never mind that I had to blur the background in my sewing room because it's such insanity. Just look at the dress, lol. I'm trying to get this finished quickly so I can move on to my Sew Frugal plans from that video as well. Here's hoping I can make that happen!
This past week has held a lot of moments to make things work. I sailed right through the stockinette section of the Ishbel shawl by Ysolda Teague, but then I kept having problems getting the lace to line up. I seriously started the lace and undid it about 4 times. Ugh. It had to sit in the corner for about a week and think about what it had done, but last Friday I was determined to get it worked out and by Sunday it was smooth sailing. Now it's finished, so you will see this one soon.
My Rose Street Cardigan is also moving right along, but that ribbed bottom edge feels like it's taking an absolute age, lol. I knit ribbing as a necessary evil - dang English style knitting. This has become the perfect mindless project to grab when I'm on a video call or something else that I need to pay more attention to something other than a knitting chart, and as such I am sailing right through the body of this sweater faster than any other fingering weight project I've ever done, which is pretty cool. I'm already about to start the neckline decreases.
I also started my Chrystanthemum frutescens Socks back on Valentine's Day and they've proven to be a bit of a challenge as well. That picot edge, while cute, is easily the fiddly-est cuff I've ever knitted in my life. I managed to get it done and move onto the lace, but pretty much immediately my counts were off. Now I'm trying to decide if I frog back the lace section and start again or just keep moving forward.
And on the most momentous news - I actually sewed something! I'm now closer to having an actually wearable New England dress. I had got to the point of adding the zipper on the side about a month ago and tried it on to discover the extra 2.5 inches of length I added needed to be removed. I still don't understand how I was so off - I did a mock up and everything. But I just could not get in the mood to unpick a serged edge in black linen fabric, you know? Well, I finally buckled down last weekend and got it unpicked, made the changes, and installed the lapped zipper. I'm now onto the sleeves, which feels like a bit of a miracle considering I started this project in November. I'm ready to get this done so I can actually sew other things again. I'm having a time where I look in my closet and wish I had different things than I do, so I really want to start making those things a reality. I just won't allow myself to change projects until this one is finished not only because it's the responsible thing to do, but also because my serger is threaded with black thread and I don't want to change it back for this dress, lol. Sewists will understand my struggle. So I'm hoping to finish this dress this week and then move on to some of the other things I would like to be wearing.
And in completely different news, I am trying to grow flax in my back yard! I got the idea from Engineering Knits and since I got a spinning wheel I figured why not give it a go? So this is my flax bed I set up a few weeks ago and it's coming in pretty well.I'm just hoping it doesn't get too hot for it too soon.
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