FO Friday: Zest Cardigan

Front side

It’s finally, finally finished. I can’t believe it! It feels like I’ve been working on this cardigan forever. Ok, that’s not exactly true, but a lot has happened to me since I started the project on May 30, which is probably part of why it took so long 🙂

From the front, mostly unbuttoned

For the concrete details, this is the Zest Cardigan by Jennifer Thomas (Fern Knits). Jenn was gracious enough to gift this pattern in a contest, and I was lucky enough to win it! I immediately bought the requisite amount of yarn for the 38″ cardigan: 6 skeins of Knit Picks Palette in black. I ended up barely dipping into the 5th skein, but that could be because of my tight gauge. I don’t know 🙂

Back- over the shoulder!

As a yarn choice, Palette worked out OK. It is definitely a workhorse yarn (as the price suggests), but, occasionally, I would split the plies with my sharper needles as I was doing the lace or cables. And black was probably not the best color to choose, as it made it a lot harder to see.

Detail of the lace on the sleeve

There were a couple of different mods on the sweater. For the “purposeful” mods, I changed a couple of things. First, instead of doing seed stitch in between the front and back, I did a 1×1 ribbing. I was slightly afraid that going up to the 38″ would be too much for me, so that would pull it in a little. Turns out I didn’t need it! I changed a couple of other minor things, mainly shortening the sweater to make it fit my petite frame.

From the front, buttoned

Now for the not so on purpose mods. I didn’t realize until after I finished that I would probably like buttons running all the way down the front, and that there would probably be enough extra material (because I had gone up a size) to use the button band for this, instead of creating the loops called for in the pattern. I grabbed some cheap buttons from Hancock Fabric (and when I say cheap, I mean cheap) and tried my hand at afterthought buttons. I think they ended up OK, but I’m just slightly afraid that they will get bigger the more I wear the sweater. I guess we’ll see. Beyond that, the buttons aren’t exactly even (or placed well), so they gape. At this point, I would just rather wear it with only the top buttoned then do the math to fix this.

Detail of the cable on the back

The other accidental mod has to do with the cable detail on the back. I started this portion while on an airplane (only me), so I ended up totally messing up the chart. I didn’t figure it out until I had completely finished the cable and had done a couple of repeats of the lace. By that point, I was so tired of the cables (black fingering weight cables in airplane light? BAD IDEA) that I didn’t feel like frogging. It came out OK, I think. Besides, it’s not like I will see it very often.

Flat detail of the cables on the back

There’s not much more to talk about this sweater. I’m really excited to finally have a hand-knitted transitional sweater. I’m sure I’ll wear it a lot…as soon as the weather drops down from 89 degrees.

All folded up. C’mon, weather, don’t let it be this way for long!

For more FO Friday posts, check out Tami’s.

WIP Wed: Still working on the socks

I am so close to almost being finished with these socks that it’s not even funny. I literally have 9 rows of 1×1 ribbing and a sewn bind-off left. That’s maybe an hour of work. I can feel it. It’s going to happen. By the way, they’re Pillars Socks made in Candy Skein Yummy in Arctic Mint, converted to Toe-Up.

Ok, I’ll admit it: this is the first sock. The second one is downstairs by the TV. So far away!

I also put some time into my Zest Cardigan yesterday. In the morning, I stopped by Hancock Fabric for buttons. Did I mention to you guys that Hancock is around the corner from my apartment. It’s a good thing that the best yarn they have is Wool-Ease, or I would be stopping there every morning on my walks. In the end, I decided on cheap (really cheap- 70 cents for 6) black buttons. They blend really well with the sweater and are light enough to not warp the fingering weight lace at all, which is pretty good.

Buttons!

I tried to make afterthought buttonholes, tried being the operative word. I don’t know how well they’ll hold… I followed a couple of tutorials that I found after a google search. I had looked in a couple of the knitting encyclopedias in the library (you know, the ones that are so big they would probably make a shelf collapse), and they had surprisingly little information about them. Even Principles of Knitting didn’t have more than a short entry. Still, I think they ended up working out. I’ll make sure to get pictures for Friday!

Buttonholes. I’m afraid they’re growing…

For more WIP Wed. posts, check out Tami’s.

Wip Wed: Olympics Edition

mmmm

I have something pretty stupid to admit to you guys: I just spent an hour and a half in a doctor’s office, and I did not bring a single thing to do. Not the book that I just picked up from the library or the second sock that I have just started. Nothing. And what is even worse? After waiting that long, I literally saw the doctor for a grand total of 3 minutes when he renewed my prescription. It was just a horrible way to spend a morning. In consolation, I stopped at Dunkin on the way back and bought an unreasonably large Medium iced coffee (coupon for any coffee for $1!) and will enjoy it for the next couple of hours 🙂

Zest

After giving the coffee a couple of minutes to set in, I began the process of taking all of the pins and wires out of my sweater and picking it up off of my blocking mats. I’ve been watching the Olympics (women’s gymnastics on the floor, volleyball, and everything nice in life) while sewing up the side seams. I was going to continue to do the button loops, except I just remembered that I HAVEN’T BOUGHT ANY BUTTONS. I’ll have to find some- probably something really simple to not take anything away from the wonderful lace. Maybe in white? Would that pop too much? What do you guys think? I’m always really hesitant when I pick out buttons.

Striped Socks

Also, remember those socks that I cast on while the sweater was blocking? Well, I finished the first one in a record two days (admittedly, they’re only anklets and I’ve spent plenty of time glued to the TV) and I will probably start the next one soon. I’m going up to school with my mom to check out some things in the apartment, so that’s 2 hours of knitting time in the car, and probably more from traffic.

Cast On Monday

Over the weekend, something magical happened. On Sunday afternoon I finished the yoke that would never end. I was so excited by this, that (after awkwardly trying on the unblocked lace sweater which was, of course, too small) I blocked my Zest Cardigan right away. Go me!

closer up

You may notice that one of the sleeves is shorter than the other one. I’m a little concerned by this- they both used the same amount of repeats, but something about the angle of how I was blocking them on the floor made it a lot harder to get length out of one than the other. We’ll see what happens when they’re finished- I can always re-block it!

Just a toe

In order to give my hands something to do while the Olympics are on and the sweater is still blocking, I’ve just cast on a quick pair of socks. This is just the beginning of a toe. I only have one skein of Knit Picks Felici, so I guess they’ll just be anklets. Although with my small feet, they’ll probably go up past my shoes a little.

Felici, already halved

Felici is an incredibly soft self-striping sock yarn. I just looked at the label, and it’s 75% superwash merino and 25% nylon, so that explains it. I’m using the Moonlit colorway, which is stripes of purple, violet, blue, teal, and lime green. I have no idea how it will look, so it’s probably best that they will be safely tucked into my socks! I took the time to half the skein with my teeny-tiny yarn scale. The measurements aren’t exact (there’s one ball of 25.1g and one of 24.3g), but it will probably be a good indicator of when to stop. In any case, I’m using the smaller ball first, so I won’t have to do too much ripping!

WIP Wed: Zest Cardigan, Part 4

Well, it’s been over a month since I last talked about my Zest Cardigan in any depth, and the end is in sight! With the crazy-ness of my internship I didn’t exactly have a lot of time for knitting, but in the last couple days I’ve been watching the Olympics nonstop, and knitting for most of that time. As a result, I’ve gotten through the entire second sleeve! It’s a bottom-up raglan worked in mostly 1 piece, so this morning I had the chance to join all of the pieces together. I used my Knit Picks interchangeable needles for everything, so putting everything together was pretty easy. I would just unscrew the needle from the part I had been knitting from and put it on the next part, using those little end things to keep myself from losing any stitches. Pretty painless, considering how badly it could have gone. Right about now, it looks something like this.

Back of the sweater, including the cable panel in the middle and the mesh lace everywhere else

I apologize for the strange pictures, it’s storming outside, so the light is a little spotty, and this is all my camera could do. I do assure you that the Knit Picks Palette that I am making this out of is BLACK, not charcoal or some other shade of grey. I promise. Did you notice that the cable panel on the back is looking a lot like arrows at this angle? I wasn’t planning that AT ALL- this mainly comes from me trying to do tricky knitting on a plane. It’s still not as awesome as the cables on the original pattern, but its a lot better then I was expecting- yeah me!

from the side- you can actually see how this is going to be a sweater!

Anyway, that’s about all I have to talk about. I’m going to go jet off to watch some beach volleyball (which I didn’t know was so fun to watch- I’m such a big fan now!). For more WIP Wed. posts, go check out Tami’s.

Enticed By Something New

So it’s Monday morning, and  I just spent what feels like the entire weekend working on my Zest Cardigan. Ok, to be honest, it was probably on a couple of hours. I’m at the part of my first sleeve where it’s just the one lace, lace, lace pattern for what feels like miles. Can I confess to you that my gaze is wavering? I’m usually a pretty monogomous knitter, so this is definitely a change for me. And it’s not even acceptable wavering to something completely different, like socks.

Candy Skein May Colorway of the Month- currently screaming to be made into a shawl

Oh no, I’m still on the lace track. And it’s not even complicated lace- I have a design idea in my head. Right now, I think that it would be a really nice gesture to use some of the Candy Skein Yummy that I won. More exposure for an indy-dyer is a good thing, right? I was being all zen about this yesterday, but then I realized that if I can get the pattern knitted and written up quick enough, I still have a little over a month until submissions are due on the Knitting Pattern a Day Calendar Contest. I’ve already put one design in- maybe I should try for a second? I guess we’ll see how motivated I am to wind the skein once I get home!

WIP Wed: Zest Cardigan part 2

In the past couple of days, I’ve gotten a couple of chances to work on my Zest Cardigan. It’s gone from this:

The last time I talked about this was almost a week ago, and it has grown so much!

to this: (in just about a week)

forgive the horrible pictures…I’m on vacation and I don’t really have anywhere else to take it. Plus, it is so hard to take pictures of black yarn!

For those of you just tuning in, the pattern calls for fingering weight yarn, so I’m using Knit Picks Palette (100% Wool) and US 6 needles (up a size to accommodate for a pretty tight swatch). I actually won a copy of this pattern in one of Jennifer’s blog contests way back in January, and I bought the yarn right after that. It’s been sitting in my stash all this time, and now that it’s summer I want my light and airy summer sweater to wear, thank you very much! (You know, I think that I’ve finished almost all of my big projects a season behind this year. Oh well. Next year I’m going to have some delicious sweaters to wear!)

I don’t even know if you can tell, but this is a close up of the stitch pattern.

I think that I may have accidently skipped a lace row somewhere along the way; there are 2 lace rows per pattern repeat, and I’m somehow counting an odd number even when I know that I’ve finished the pattern, which is a problem because this part is worked flat, and the lace rows are worked on two different sides of the knitting. Long run-on sentence made short: I’m not too worried. The lace should stretch out considerably when blocking, and I was going to mod the sweater to be shorter to fit my more petite frame anyway.

For the most part, it’s a pretty zen knit. The repeats are fairly simple, and the rows are long enough to really get into the rhythm of the work. Still, I was a little concerned about the fact that the whole bottom half of the sweater is worked in one piece without seaming. Ok, to be honest, this post from Sally Melville (knitting legend/god/everything that I want to be in the world) was what really had me concerned. But then I really got thinking, and my 100% wool is pretty darn hardy. And if I’m going to stretch and pull lace, at least I don’t have to worry too much about seams not lining up or a strange dense bit in the middle of a light and airy sweater. It’s going to be good. I know it.

Chrolla Hat

Oh, and if you are at all interested in test knitting my Chrolla Hat, click on over to the Free Pattern Testers forum on Ravelry and take a look. I really, really liked how this turned out, and I’ll have some more great FO pix to show you on Friday!

For more WIP Wed. posts, check out Tami’s!

Zest Cardigan, Part 1

I finally got the chance to start on my summer sweater the other day. Of course, it’s the sweater that I wanted to wear during the summer, but it will probably still be wearable well into the fall 😉 Plus, the fact that it’s mainly made of lace will probably make it a good summer project. In case you were wondering, it’s the Zest Cardigan by Jennifer Thompson, better known (to me) as Fern Knits. Way back in January she was generous enough to gift patterns to several of her blog readers, and I was lucky enough to score a copy of Zest. Needless to say, I grabbed 6 skeins of Knit Picks Palette (100% Wool) in black within the coming weeks. And then they all sat in my stash. Finally, finally, finally, that sitting is over!

What my Zest Cardigan will hopefully look like, snagged from the ravelry page (link above)- I hope that’s OK, Jennifer!

I’ve decided to go up a size to the 38″ so that, hopefully, I’ll be able to make closures for the whole cardigan, not just the bust area. I don’t usually like how that style looks on me, so I’m going to try to do buttons all the way down the front. Just in case that makes it too big, I’m going to sub the seed stitch that goes between the fronts and the backs for ribbing to pull it in a little bit. Besides that, the only mod I’m making going into the pattern is to shorten the bottom of the sweater by about an inch- the finished measurements are just a little too long on me. (Btw- her measurements are fantastic. She has info for everything you could think about modifying, PLUS there is a different size every 2″. No more trying to decide between 3″ of positive ease or 1″ of negative!) Oh, and I had to go up a needle size- my swatch was just a tad too small, so now I’m using a size US 6 instead of US 5.

My progress. It’s as small and insignificant as it seems 🙂

For now, though, I’m in seed stitch purgatory. It’s a seamless cardigan, but it’s worked from the bottom up. That means I have over 200 stitches in fingering weight for each row…ouch. Luckily, I’m almost done and should be able to start the lace soon! Unfortunately, I’m going away for most of next week, and we’re flying. I think I’m just going to bring along a much simpler pair of socks than tote around the whole sweater. And then, after that, I start my full-time summer internship. Basically, this sweater is probably going to be in the works for a while. But I’m still really excited about it (let’s see how long that lasts)!

And it came!

The package from Knit Picks came in yesterday afternoon. There is so much to talk about! First, there are needles…

US6's- I've already used one to replace my broken one!

This is a new pair of US6 interchangeables. They’re replacing my old pair, which came with my sampler. For some reason one of the 6’s won’t screw all of the way on. They’re usable, but the stitches sometimes get stuck and the fabric will bunch up if I don’t pay attention. This will make working on 6’s much less painless!

honestly, who could resist this photography?

Next comes the book. I added Coastal Knits to the cart, and I am so glad that I did. Of course, I had seen bloggers gushing about it all over the place when it first came out a couple of months ago. In case you haven’t heard of it, Coastal Knits is the brainchild of Hannah Fettig and Alana Dakos (each from a different coast…get it?). I fell in love with the Rocky Coast Cardigan and added the book to the list of things that I must get. Looking through it, I am so glad that I did. Each pattern comes with gorgeous information about the location that inspired it (and that the photography is from), plus it includes some great information on the authors and their favorite indy dyers/yarn producers. It’s such a stunning book, and that’s before I even mention the patterns.

I love how the locations match the patterns.

I know for sure that I plan on making the Rocky Coast Cardigan with the Plymouth Galway Highland Heather that I frogged from my old Garter Yoke Cardigan, but I think I’m going to have to add the Tangled Yoke Cardigan to the list of prospective sweaters. It’s hard not to fall in love with a pattern when it is so beautifully presented. I also love the  Rustling Leaves Beret…add that to the queue, too!

yarn to the left, design to the right...any ideas what it is?

Now, to the yarn. This Wool of the Andes Sport (100% Wool) actually came separately. I submitted a pattern proposal to the Knit Picks Independent Designer Program and they chose to take it! Instead of financial compensation (that comes when someone buys the pattern, just like when you sell on ravelry), they provide you with yarn support. I’m buzzing away on the sample, and after the pattern is written I will be looking for some test knitters!

sweater!

Next, I have 6 skeins of Palette in Black. I’ve been goggling the Zest Cardigan ever since I won a copy of the pattern from the author, Fern. It’s wonderfully lacy and open, and I bet it will be a great transitional sweater for the Spring. And I don’t have a black sweater, yet, which is SUCH a problem. Black goes with everything, after all!

it's just a wee bit lighter than it seems- sorry, it's way too rainy and gross for a good picture!

Finally, there’s one skein of City Tweed Heavy Weight (although it’s a worsted weight yarn…) for my Bobsled Mittens from Beyond Toes. I am in pretty desperate need of a new pair of mittens, and I’m excited to try out this new blend (55% Merino, 25% Alpaca, 20% Acrylic). Hopefully they’ll be snuggly warm! The pattern is pretty interesting- it almost looks as if it is knit on the bias. The solid colorway should highlight that, and the tweed will add just a bit of interest without distracting from the awesome design.

Basically, I’m so excited that the package came in because now I have everything I need for almost all of the projects that I’ve been eyeing for the rest of the winter. Of course, classes have started so the knitting will probably slow. Still, I’ve been craving another cardigan on the needles ever since I finished Livingstone, and hopefully I’ll have one!