My Sewing Space

I was quite taken with Joji Locatelli's Lemongrass when I first saw it. I liked the split sides, the simple cable down the front and the turtleneck. The heavier gauge appealed to me also - faster to knit and a warm, cozy sweater in the end. I went with one of the yarns recommended in the pattern; Malabrigo Yarn Twist in black. I loved this yarn and would like to knit another sweater with it. It is soft and squishy and not at all itchy. Sometimes even soft wool yarns in a scarf or turtleneck start to really bother my neck by the end of the day, but this one doesn't bother me at all. So good. The only modifications I made to the pattern were very simple ones. Length was added to the front and back, but not equally - the back is longer than the front. Since I think loose sleeves on a sweater easily look sloppy, I went down a needle size for the sleeves. I like a substantial turtleneck and I have a long neck, so I added a whole lot to the neck, knitting the first half o...

I knit this sweater for my daughter more than three years ago. It was just a wee bit big for her at the time. Finally, it fits. Mostly. Overall, it is not a great fit - too wide everywhere. But, if I wait until the width is right, the length will be far too short. That's the story for everything I make this girl - start with a small size and add a whole lot of length. I'm not adept at altering knitting patterns yet (and was really clueless three years ago). So why have her wear it if it isn't a great fit? Because I can't let a hand-knit sweater just go without wearing! Maybe that's crazy. But that's me. I actually think it looks better on her than it does in the picture, but still not great. To make it wearable, my daughter needed some coordinating clothes. She initially requested a jumper to wear with it, but I didn't find any fabric that I liked for a jumper. Instead, we went with a peasant-style skirt and surplice top. The skirt is the Can-Can Ski...

It was cold here today (-26C when I took the kids to school this morning- brrrrr!) but I stayed warm inside working in my sewing room. Back in July , I started knitting a cardigan for myself - Rosamund's Cardigan by Andrea Pomerantz from the Fall 2009 issue of Interweave Knits . I finally finished knitting it while we were away for Christmas and today I finished the finishing - refining the shape and sewing on buttons, hooks, and eyes. Now I am happy with it. Before today, I wasn't sure about it. While I was knitting, I knew that I was going to want the sweater to be longer than what the pattern said. But, I added the length at the very bottom (the sweater is knit from the top down) when I should have added it in between the waist decreases and increases. It resulted in a sweater that had a shape very different from my own. Ripping out half of the sweater didn't sound appealing to me (remember that it took me six months to knit this!) so today I decided to try steam...

It's been awhile since I had a post about knitting.  That's because there hasn't been much knitting going on. I did these dishcloths sometime in the spring: Good instant gratification knitting. I did most of them on a trip to visit family and they're all for me. The one that is second from the left was started and half finished during an 80 minute wait at the border crossing into the US.  It was just me and the three kids and it was the only thing that kept me from jumping off the bridge. Knitting is soothing. Then I finished these: I started them last September.  I finished one and had a couple of inches done on the second and completely lost interest. When I needed some mindless knitting for another road trip, I picked it up and am happy that they're finished. There is some serious ladder unattractiveness along the top of the foot, but still, I'm going to be happy with them. The yarn is hand-dyed and the colors are really amazing.  I will enjoy weari...

I finished my Owls sweater and I am so happy with it.  I mentioned before that I've never knit myself a whole sweater before, but after this I think I'll do it again and again and again. I'm happy with the fit.  The right sleeve looks shorter in the picture above, but they are actually the same length.  Knitting in the round does have some disadvantages, but for this project I really liked being able to try it on to check the length both in the body and the sleeves. Blocking really helped with the shaping in the back.  The increases and decreases created some strange lumps and bumps that flattened out nicely.  Blocking also helped smooth out the owls a lot.  I have been frustrated before by yarn that relaxes a lot during blocking - enough to even change the gauge.  This yarn ( Cascade Ecological Wool ) didn't do that at all.  I kind of held my breath during blocking really hoping it would come out the same size.  I was r...

I finished the Wonderful Wallaby for my older daughter. It felt like I was working on this for a long time. My daughter was very uninterested in having her picture taken with it on. It does fit pretty well, but I could have made it bigger - or longer, anyway. The sleeves are about the right length right now, so there isn't a lot of room for growth. All of the details are the same as my younger daughter's sweater, seen here . The buttons are from NY. I bought these thinking I would use them on younger daughter's sweater and then at the next shop I found some I liked better. I think they work pretty well on this sweater. Now on the needles: some interesting socks (for me). More about that later...

It's finished! The details: The buttons aren't a great match, but I'm using them anyway. I like them, I had them, and they were expensive. This is as good of a use as any. I bought them in NY and I didn't have the yarn with me to match, so this was as good as I could get. The pattern calls for garter stitch at the edges of the pocket and ribbing at the hem. I changed both of those to seed stitch. I altered the placket, also. As written in the pattern, the placket doesn't overlap - it's just a slit with a garter stitch border. To make the placket this way, I cast on five stitches on the underside, knit them in seed stitch throughout and then sewed it to the upper layer at the base of the placket. Knit buttonholes are always ugly, aren't they? These are just yarn-overs that I stretched out a bit during blocking so they would work with the buttons. The pattern suggests grafting the top of the hood together. Hello? Grafting 27 stitches? No thank you. I did a thr...