FO: Dark and Stormy

So 5 years ago I posted about swatching for Dark & Stormy, and somehow it was never blogged about again, which is sad because I love this sweater! In fact I loved it so much that I started wearing it before buttons, and it never did get them. After 5 years maybe it is time to admit that this sweater is as complete as it is going to get.

Back detail

Front view

Pattern: Dark and Stormy by Thea Colman

Yarn: Reynolds Odyssey (discontinued) in color 404 lilac

Yarn Supplier: Windsor Button (closed)

The details on this one are fabulous. I love the slight shawl collar. The shaping is perfect for me. It was fun to knit. I made it in one of my favorite yarns (sadly discontinued). There is a lot to like!

My major modification besides the lack of buttons was to follow KnittingSuzanne's instructions for modifying the collar pick up. They were really helpful, and I would recommend this modification to other knitters as well.

Lilac and Lady's Slippers

A while back I had a desperate urge to cast on a sweater for myself. Fair enough, it has been five years since the last one. Wait, seriously? How did that happen? Well I guess I don't knit a whole lot of sweaters to begin with, so fair enough.

So I dug around in my stash of sweater yarns. (I know right. Why do I have a stash of sweater quantity yarns if I don't tend to knit sweaters. It is inexplicable.) I have been wanting to knit Dark and Stormy for ages, so that was what I had in mind as I looked through my options.

From the shrine of precious yarns, I found a bag of Reynolds Odyssey (discontinued) that I had bought from Windsor Button during their closing sale. Odyssey is one of my favorite yarns, so why not make something that I can wear all the time and actually get to enjoy it. 

The color is called lilac and is made up of many shades of soft purple, pinks and greens. From a distance it reads as a soft grey mostly, but I like the depth the color shifts add.

I worked on yesterday's daily sketch while Chiquita worked on her homework next to me on the couch. Earlier in the day I had kept putting away this image, thinking I should do it some other time. Ultimately like the lilac sweater, I realized "Why? What am I waiting for?"

mechanical pencil on cardstock

I had originally been planning to work in colored pencil, but when I took out my sets I was displeased with my options for pinks. They will definitely be used soon though. I am itching to work with color.

So far these sketches have all found homes, but I will probably end up running out of names from my postcard-art form. If you haven't already and are interested, please drop me an address for a random small piece of art.

Presto Chango

As previously mentioned in the post about the Nottingham hat post, a dear friend was having her first child this year. I knew immediately that I wanted to make her a baby sweater. This was made a little less of a no-brainer since we did not know the gender of the baby, but I wasn't too worried. This baby is fortunately to have parents who aren't super hung up on cultural gender expectations.

So I poke around at Ravelry, and I found this fantastic sweater idea. Not only does it work around that whole baby-mess thing (the fronts are replaceable so you can use a different one if it gets wet or dirty), it also lets whoever is dressing the baby have the option of changing what it looked like.

Pattern: Presto Chango by Valerie Wallis (free pattern)

Yarn: Adrienne Vittadini Dianna in color 183

Yarn Supplier: Lettuce Knits (appears closed)

Needles: US 8 - 5.0 mm & US 9 - 5.5 mm

There was fierce button debate, as to color choices that might sway the audience one way or another regarding expected gender, but I love the sour apple green ones that I went with in the end. They even make the sweater color seem more reasonable.

The complete sweater picture here is shown with a panel that uses the cable from a dna helix scarf (free pattern). Baby science!

This panel was the original one that came with the pattern. I like the leaf-like motif, and I think it would be fine on either gender. I figured if anyone was bothered by it for a boy they could always just not use it though.

I not only did this quick stockinette panel, but on the way to Maine I knit a final cabled panel (not shown) that coordinated with the Nottingham hat. Why did I not remember to take a quick photo?!

Anyways, the hat and baby sweater were well received. In fact this well-loved baby is apparently being born into a creative and crafty community. I was really impressed by the skill and breadth of techniques seen in the gifts at the baby shower, from knitting and crochet to quilting and needle point.

Betty Lou Lace Cardigan

This summer the birthdays of my two nieces are coming up, to-be ages 1 and 3 respectively. So I wanted to have something handknit for the youngest, since has tended to get a lot of hand-me-downs from her sister. I wanted to make something just for her.

Pattern: Betty Lou Lace Cardigan by Kristen Rengren
Pattern Source: Vintage Baby Knits
Size: 12-18 months
Yarn: Rowan 4 Ply Cotton in color 129, Aegean
Yarn Supplier: Wild and Wooly in Lexington, MA
Needles: US 2 / 2.75 mm
Modification: omitted pom poms, made tie on the left

The original pattern had pom poms on the ends of the ties, which are absolutely adorable. I just couldn't convince myself that they would hold up well in cotton with frequent machine washing, so I skipped them.

I have been wanting to make something from this book from the moment I started seeing it reviewed on-line. Seriously, it is full of amazingly cute patterns for both girls and boys, but then I have always had a fondness for vintage patterns. And this book makes it super easy, since everything has already been translated into modern knitting terminology and needle sizes.

I adore this pattern, but it seems to run big. The sleeves are meant to be about 3/4 length based on the pictures on the model, which seems about right when looking at the stretchiness of the cuff, the lengths and circumferences. Due to the tied-closed construction though, you could use it on a younger child and let them grow into it. This last point is really excellent, because although I made the 12-18 month size and the gauge is correct, it could almost fit my older niece!

Stripey Sweater

Salvbard has been traveling a lot more often to China for business. During a recent trip, he called me very excited as one of his Chinese coworkers' wives there was expecting a son. Could I make something? Sure, I love making baby stuff. I am always at a bit of a loss of what to make for baby boys, though. After flipping through a couple of baby pattern books on the shelf though, I had a plan.

Pattern: Nautical/Matelot Jacket by Lesley Stanfield
Pattern Source: Adorable Crochet for Babies and Toddlers
Hook: D / 3.25 mm
Yarn: a bunch of stash leftover fingering weight
Button Supplier: Windsor Button
Modification: stripes in different colors, hdc rather than sc

I absentmindedly changed the whole sweater to half double crochets rather than single crochets when converting from British abbreviations to the American ones. I really liked the finished fabric though, which is not as stiff as it would have been in the sc. (I believe the pattern described it as "sturdy.") Since the hdc is taller, that meant a little extra math to make sure that the deccreases happened at the right frequency.

I really like the concept of this sweater, but the proportions are really, really weird. After it was done, I looked up the measurements for different sizes, and the chest circumference is really huge, while the widest point of the sleeve is a little smaller than I would like in something like crochet which is less stretchy. Also the pattern has you seam the sleeves so that the cuff must be rolled up. This is fine (though I wish I had realized for the selection of color sequence), but it never tells you how long the finished-folded-back sleeve should be nor how long the cuff should be. Annoying! Fortunately the Craft Yarn Council of America has that information online here.

The pattern calls for this pattern to be a simple, classic two-color affair. For whatever reason the idea of doing it in all different colors sort of tickled my fancy though. Plus it makes it a great use for all those little bits of leftover sock yarn that you might not have enough to do much else with. The result was a lot more fun than it had any right to be.

Also the buttons on this sweater make me absurdly happy. I couldn't find 5 that matched that I liked for this sweater in the giant box of buttons at Windsor Button, but I like the whimsy of all different ones.

Final verdict: cute concept, but I would go with different proportions next time.

Silk Garden Sweater

Knit from the top down, I took advantage to use every last yard of this yarn that I had (6 skeins, 816 yards). This yarn had been sitting in my stash since about 2006 (I found the postmark with the yarn). Then it only took a week exactly to finish, since the Noro is a lot of fun to knit. And now the sweater has actually been finished since March. Apparently the knitting is the short step in this process.

Yarn: Noro Silk Garden Lite in colorway 2023
Fiber Content: 45% Silk, 45% Mohair, 10% Wool
Yarn supplier: Carodan Farm Wool Shop
Needles: US 4 - 3.5 mm
Pattern: Margot by Linden Heflin
Size: XS with modifications

Modifications: (You knew there would be some right?)

In order to maximize matching, I set aside two balls that clearly had well matched color repeats. I knit the yoke, and then worked the sleeves so that I could fudge the color sequence best with the rest of the yarn if I needed to. Then once that was done, I knit the body. For the whole sweater I made sure that whenever I added a new ball that I chose an end that would blend color-wise so there would not be a hard transition.

I know I used a different number of increases in the yoke, but I just kept trying it on until it was as big as I wanted it. Similarly, I added a lot more waist shaping than the original pattern, changed the length of the waist section, and added slightly more more increases for the hips than there were decreases for the waist. Slightly less ease on the bust is after all more flattering than on the hips. Also sleeves were lengthened and given some shaping after the elbow.

The beauty of this sort of knitting is you can try it on as you go and customize for your body. The result? One of the most wearable sweaters I have knit.

Elvin Bride Nearing Completion

Sorry there has not been much blogging this month. I have been frantically knitting my Elvin Bride (of the green swatch) in hope fo finishing it by the end of the this month. Here is where I am as of this morning:

Almost done! Somehow this project didn't get it's fair share of WIP posts, perhaps because it doesn't go together in an intuitive way and doesn't look like much most of the time.

Little Red Sweater

One of the challenges in the HPKCHC last month was to knit something that was made from at least 50% plant fiber. Looking around my stash (well virtually anyways in Ravelry), I noticed that I had 5 skeins of Cascade Pima Tencel that I had bought years ago to make a sleeveless top. Looking closely at the yardage though, I was sure I could get a small sweater out of it, especially if I was willing to have half or 3/4 length sleeves.

Pattern: 3-Hour Sweater
Yarn: Cascade Yarns Pima Tencel
Yarn Supplier: WEBS
Needles: US 5 / 3.75 mm & US 8 / 5.0

Modifications: You know there had to be a bunch, right? Especially since it was (loosely) based on a vintage 1930s pattern.

I cast on 134 stitches in the round, rather than the smaller suggested number and in pieces. I also used a smaller needle size than suggested because of the "paparazzi effect" many Ravelers had complained of when using size 10.5 needles.

I extended the bottom ribbing to for from the beginning of my hips to the start of my bust, then switched to stockinette just before starting the arm holes. I changed this to have a scoop neckline instead of the one suggested in the pattern. And rather than using a set-in sleeve, I adapted this to have a raglan shoulders by using a crocheted provisional cast-on for the sleeve stitches. This also allowed me to knit the sleeves last, making them as long as possible with the yarn amount I had.

The result is a very fitted sweater that I could try on all along the process to make sure it fit the way I wanted it too. It also, not surprisingly, took significantly longer than 3 hours to make. Totally worth the time though, it was still very fast!

My only complaint was that the yarn, which is lovely and soft, not to mention an amazing color, produced huge amounts of fuzzies that are now covering basically my entire house. My girlfriend who lives with us even found some in the shower one morning, even though the sweater had not ever been in that room. Washing it helped, and putting it in the dryer by itself helped even more. I still don't trust it enough to wash it with other things yet though.

Green Swatch

Swatching before starting a project? Who is that, and what have they done with Omly?

I am seriously considering making Elfin Bride by Jennifer Stafford, but there is a lot of knitting done on the bias so not only stitch gauge, but also row gauge is important. (It is a really neat construction if you have a moment to flip through the gallery.)

Plus this is sort of like knitting from my book stash, which is always a good thing. How can it only be sort of? Well, the author includes pictures of this sweater in Domiknitrix, but they ran out of time in space to put the actual pattern in. So this pattern is available for download at the website (linked above) with a password from the book.

I has been quite a while since I finished knitting an adult sized sweater, yet I have a couple of sweater quantities of yarn in my stash. I would like to be finishing more than one a year until I run through the sweater-quantity stash.

Hoody for Chiquita

Looking at my stash recently I was struck by the fact that I have a few sweaters worth of yarn that I just "save", often indefinitely, in favor of smaller, "safer" projects. So this year I am hoping to take another look at these yarns in the hopes that inspiration will strike, like it did for this one.

Pattern: Knitting Pure & Simple #232 Children's Hooded Tunic by Diane Soucy

Size: Child's 8-10
Yarn: Interlacements Oregon II Worsted
Needles: US 8 / 5.0 mm

This is a pattern that I bought years ago, knowing it would be perfect for Chiquita. Since she is at the largest size now, it was time to use it before she outgrew the pattern! And I am so glad I did. She loves this pattern, especially the hood. In the last year she has really been developing her own style, but this is a hand-knit that still seems to have a place in it.

I had two minor modifications to the pattern. One was to have a slightly smaller chest circumference due to gauge. As Chiquita tends towards the bean-pole side this was perfect as long as I kept the lengths for the most part. I also shortened the sweaters the length of the front and back flaps, though, as they really were excessively long. As it is, you can see it still has enough length to be considered tunic-style.

My only complaint was the fact that the no row-gauge was given, but the number of decreases to be done on the sleeves as determined by "until it is x length". Usually I do a quick row conversion to let me know how often to do my decreases, but here there was no way to know how many decreases to do! I just sort of fudged it until it looked good, though, which seems to have worked fine.

Also many thanks to all the people who stopped by to help me figure out my mystery yarn last week. With your help and some research time on Ravelry, I was able to identify it! I hadn't used this yarn before, and I have to admit I love the colors even if there seems to be a fair bit of excess dye.

28-10 Cotton Smile Cardigan

Yay! Remember my 10 UFO challenge? I am done! Keep an eye out the next couple days as I get them documented to share them here. In the meantime I have already started something new, something that I have been fantasizing about for weeks.

It has the moderately awkward name of 28-10 Cotton Smile Cardigan (direct pdf also available). But the pattern is total love, even if it is in Japanese. (It is charted out though, and does not seem to require any knowledge of the language.) The question is, however, why am I always attracted to out of season patterns?

Unfortunately I can't participate in NaKniSweMo (Ravelry link) since it is a crocheted sweater rather than a knit one, but given the fine weight even with crochet being slightly faster, I suspect it will take about as long as a worsted weight knit sweater.

House Sweater

Although I have started a whole bunch of projects, the only one that I have been working on recently is my house sweater. I am hoping to be able to attend Terminus, so that added a bit of a deadline for this project.


It is moving along well though. The body is done. The sleeves are half done, and after I finish them and sew them in, I will need to do the neck. Given that I know the sewing in will take me a little time (both for blocking and for me to fiddle with sewing up the set in sleeve), I will need this time to finish up and to work on the house robes that I am re-drafting.

Little Pink Sweater

When I was originally asked to maybe make a few preemie garments, the one item that was specifically requested was a small pink sweater. Digging through my stash I realized that I didn't even own any appropriate pink yarn though.


Pattern: Preemie Angel Shell Sweater
Hook: E/3.50MM
Yarn: Red Heart Baby Soft
Modifications: added a row of sc to front edges, skipped the flower

Fortunately my local independent craft store was having a back-to-school sale that included yarn. I am not usually an acrylic user, but several sources have now told me that it is the preferred fiber/material for hospitals, which makes sense its ability to wash and dry hotter to kill the most germs.

Green Guernsey Sweater

What kind of Slytherin Prefect would I be if I didn't help dress my niece in green handknits?


Pattern: Infant Guernsey Sweater (Silver Creek Classics Pattern Number C-451)
Size: newborn
Yarn: Knit Picks Shine Sport in Grass
Supplier: Knit Picks
Needles: US Size 6s
Button Supplier: Woolcott and Co.

This pattern is actually the first sweater pattern I ever followed. I will leave it at the fact that this one came out significantly better than the first, which suffered from twisted stitches and poor finishing.

This took *exactly* 2 skeins of the Shine Sport, which had been in my stash so long that it was before Shine came in any weight other than sport weight. I finished the sleeves (2 at once) with less than a meter left, which I then used to sew on the buttons.

I already gave this one to my sister since I didn't want to miss any of the time that it would fit. They don't stay newborn size for long! (Notice the strategic gender-neutral color to make it more easily used by which ever gender baby is born next.) And since this is made of a cotton/modal blend it is perfect for the evenings which are just beginning to get cool.