theraineysisters knitting and so much more

Have you been watching the sports news lately?  All they are talking about here is the play off game tomorrow between the Seattle Seahawks and the Minnesota Vikings.  The game is in Minnesota tomorrow at 12 noon, in an outdoor stadium.  The expected temp will hover around zero, with brutal wind chills.  Our winter has been mild, but last night the temperature plummeted and tomorrow will be worse.  Great day to watch the game in front of a roaring fire on the couch!!

I will be travelling next week for work so I am planning what to bring…knitting that is!  I have a sweater I am working on that is in the “acres of stockinette” phase which will do for mindless knitting:

It is Carol Sunday’s Old Town.  Her designs are exquisite and wonderfully written.  It starts off fairly complicated and then settles into mindless.  Here it is shown in all its unblocked glory!

I am knitting it up in Shibui Baby Alpaca, color Trail.  I got it for a steal because the color is being discontinued.  It would not be my first choice but I couldn’t pass it up!   Now I love the color.  I thought the gauge would be slightly bigger and therefore I could make a size or two smaller.  Nope.  My gauge ended up the same so my first try was too small.  I had done a lot of knitting and had to start over.  🙁

I may also bring a lace shawl but I haven’t really gotten that far.  I ordered a Kindle from Amazon, too (finally getting on board that train!), so I can read on the plane if it’s too claustrophobic for knitting.

Today is eldest daughter’s BD, so we will have to brave the elements to go out to eat.  Yippee!! 😉

I had a wonderful holiday (crazy busy, but that is the nature of the beast!), and topped it off with an authentic Korean dinner at my eldest daughter’s apartment.  We enjoyed homemade mondu and bulgogi, Kimchi soup, and a bunch of other things whose names I couldn’t hope to spell!  I remember the first time I entertained at my first apartment — served salad out of empty margarine (or whatever!) containers because I had no dishes.  Laura has no silverware…we ate cake with spoons.  Her birthday is this week so you know what I will be getting for her!! 😉

I wanted to let our loyal readers know about a brief promotion I am doing on Ravelry for my It’s Not About the Hat and Surrounded Afghan patterns.  They are both discounted 25% through January 8, in honor of the new year.  No code is needed.

It’s Not About the Hat

Invisible Stranding is for 2-color stranded knitting, and allows you to carry yarn across any number of stitches without catching the floats. There are no puckers and the other color does not show through. It is ideal for Norwegian sweaters and other stranded projects.  The pattern includes complete instructions, as well as youtube videos demonstrating each step of the technique.

Surrounded Afghan

This design forms a continuous edging on all sides as you go: when you’re done, it’s done.  Surrounded can easily be resized for any width or length.

So, if you haven’t bought these already and are interested, now is a good time to dive in.  It’s back to work on Monday.  Holiday time is over.  Is that the good news or the bad news??

January 8, midnight — the promotion is now over.  Thanks, everyone!

Hope your day is special in whatever way you choose.  We are planning family gatherings both today and tomorrow.  “Boxing Day” will be spent at Susan’s, with Sally and most of the family in attendance! 

Happy Holidays from Susan and Sally, The Rainey Sisters!

Santa brought Yuki a stocking:

As I said a few weeks ago, I’m a big fan of Shibui yarns. (I only wish I got a discount for promoting them!) I finished yet another project in Shibui recently and finally took some not so great photos of a great pattern.

Truss is a tunic designed by Shellie Anderson for Shibui Knits. Her version has a deep thigh high split, but I toned mine down. It’s knit holding one strand of Maai with one strand of Pebble. Maai is a light chainette type yarn spun from 70% merino and 30% alpaca. Pebble, the same yarn I used for my Leigh, is a tweedy blend of recycled silk, merino, and cashmere. By itself, Maai is very stretchy. Combining it with Pebble reduces the stretchiness and produces a cozy, plush feeling fabric that feels wonderful against the skin.

I made a very few small modifications to the pattern.

I made the side seam longer. The slit in the original is very deep — thigh high. I decided that wasn’t the best look for me. I added the sleeve stitches by knitting across a provisional cast on. That gave me live stitches so instead of a sewn seam at the bottom of the sleeves I was able to do a 3-needle bind off. Finally, I cast on a small number of extra stitches for the ribbing and then decreased in the first row of stockinette so the ribbing would hang straight without needing to be overly stretched when blocked.

P.S. I live, as many of you know, in Washington, DC. Right in the city. Here’s who I saw outside my window this morning.

P.S.#2 Robin, below, said the fox was brave to chance it in the big city. But we live near a large park that runs down through the city to the Potomac and we’re in a residential area that doesn’t feel urban. We have deer, lots of birds (hawks, pileated woodpeckers, various songbirds), squirrels of course, raccoons, and even the occasional coyote. There is one large buck who frequently walks down the middle of the street. Hard to believe that we’re in the city.

Well, actually TWO FO’s!!  I just finished a great shawl that seems to have its light hiding under a basket: Borderline by Nicole Montgomery.  What appealed to me about it was both the gradient colorwork and the bobble thingies at the edge.  The bobble thingies remind me of a shawl that my daughter owns that we have both really liked.

The pattern is very well written.  The shawl shaping is a NO HUMP crescent!!  I will use her shaping technique in the future for a great no hump shape.  The shawl is wrinkled slightly because I wore it yesterday and garnered many a compliment!!

I used my Fiberstory Fave Sock Gradient Set (purchased at The Yarnery) with the addition of a very dark full skein at the bottom edge.   Because the number of colors and yardage differed from the yarn used in the pattern, I had to adjust my row counts to accommodate.

I was a bit “crochet challenged” by the bobbly bits, but finally managed to do them.  You make all 50 and then attach them.  The first one I tried took an hour!!  After some trial and error, I restarted and did all 50 in one day.

My other FO is a cute little thing that is a great gift idea for this time of year.  It is called certifiable (why I don’t know!), and is a small hoodie that serves as both a gift card holder and a Christmas tree (or generic holiday) ornament:

This pattern was also very well written and just so darn cute.  Made it in one evening!!  I wonder why there aren’t more projects on Ravelry??!!

And now it is FO, FO, FO!

Kmkat mentioned that she thought the pattern was expensive at $5.  That is a personal choice, but to me it was worth it.  It was very well written and set up for minimal printing.  She detailed the pattern line by line.

Well.  I finished my Waking Tide and wore it last evening to knitting group.  Kathy W. already commented on it.  It turned out the way I planned.  I had not planned on it making me look like a bus.  BUT, that is not necessarily the sweater’s fault!!  😉

I added buttons to the side “seams” and made the back a little longer than the front.  I also made it swingy so it would not be a fitted pullover.

I added ribbing to the edges as well – I thought there needed to be more “weight” on the hems and I wanted the sleeves to fit better.

All in all, I would say it is a very wearable sweater, though not real flattering.  I don’t care too much about that.  I was looking for something to throw on when I did errands and this will certainly serve that purpose!!

PS — Anya asked if you could add the lace panel to a plain sweater  (written by someone else) to avoid the sizing issue of the yoke.  That is how the original was designed.  The body and sleeves were fine.  Lace does have a different gauge than non-open type stitch patterns, so you might have the same issues.  Maybe you could do separate gauge swatches to see how many sts to remove.

Sally and I both want to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving.  We will be spending the day with our families. 🙂

Waking Tide
At my knitters guild presentation, I talked about ripping things out when they did not work.  “‘Tis better to rip and reknit now than regret later.”  At least, that is my philosophy.

Boy, was that put to the test with this one!!

I have never been so disappointed in the amount of extra effort needed to make a pattern work.

First, I jumped onto the FREE Waking Tide bandwagon because I thought the sweater was cute (and still do).  I bought the identical yarn and color for the same reason (though my color looks very little like the original).  Once I decided to embark on the sweater, I bought the pattern so that I could have the final version with corrections and project photos.  There were no changes that I could see and no photos.  Every time I needed to look at a picture, I had to go into Ravelry.

I made several mods to the body of the sweater, which look very nice.  One change was to add the sleeves after the yoke so I could make sure of the length.  Another was to center the lace motifs, which I believe should have already been done.

I got to the yoke making a size 44 inch (17 lace repeats).  I noticed that on most projects the yoke ruffled because there were too many sts.  So, I decided to be smart and remove 2 YOs from the top of the lace pattern (34 sts decreased).  I took out 2 additional sts so my stitch count would match the next size down.  I thought I was brilliant.

It did not work!  Still way too ruffley.

So, I ripped it out back to the armholes (!), and removed the 36 sts at the beg of the lace panel (which gave me 15 lace repeats instead of 17).  I still removed the 2 YOs at the top of the lace work – another 30 sts decreased for a total of 66 sts removed.  I also went down a needle size.

STILL NOT ENOUGH!!

So then I ripped back to the top of the lace panel and removed 60 sts this time (4 per lace repeat).  I now had removed 96 sts from the yoke to maintain the size I was making.  96 sts.

I had to adjust the yoke decreases from that point of course, fudging as I went along.  It now fits.

I have not finished the sleeves or blocked it yet, but removing a third of the sts to get the thing to work is beyond ridiculous, esp since the lower body fit perfectly.  Add the fact that I did not substitute yarn and my gauge matched the pattern specifications, and it makes no sense!

Susan’s Waking Tide in Progress

Someday I will be thankful that I reworked this sucker so many times!!!  And hubby is thankful that we have  snow in our future!  At least a dusting.

PS (11-30-2015): Done and blocking, and it does fit.  I guess it was worth the effort – we shall see once it is dry and the buttons are sewn on.  I added buttons to both sides!!

Sally shared her cute sweater and now I’ll share what I started at the Knit with Company Retreat.  I fell in love with Olga Buraya-Kefelian’s Suke-Suke Cowl for its striking textural stitch.  I chose a multifaceted colorway in Malabrigo Rios.  It is a rich mix of greens, eggplant purple and browns called Canbombe.

It was actually pretty boring to knit, which is why it took me so long to finish!  The tuck rows took an hour each!   My cowl did not block well at all.  The edges ripple and it seems to accordion and look a little floppy.  All that said, it really looks nice on and I received a lot of compliments.  Rios is worsted weight, so if you have a couple of skeins of hand dyed worsted yarn (~400 yards’ worth) in a stunning color, this may really showcase it!!

Even the inside looks interesting!

All in all I am very pleased!

As a sidebar, I did a speaking gig at the Minnesota Knitters Guild titled Anatomy of a Project: Taking Your Project from Start to Finish on Tuesday evening.  It was really an honor to be asked, especially considering the caliber of knitters in the guild.  Thank you, everyone, for such a warm reception!!

At the Knitting with Company Retreat that Susan and I attended, we got to see and try on lots of knitted models. I fell in love with Leigh, designed by Julie Hoover. I bought the pattern and yarn and cast on immediately.

There was lots to love. Leigh is a simple but classic shape with little details that give it interest: decorative eyelets along the sleeves (which perform double duty as the sleeve increases), a split hem, and small tucks across the back neckline. I added a single crochet seam across the top of the sleeve.

As some of you may know, I’m a big fan of Shibui yarns. Leigh is knit out of two strands of Shibui Pebble held double. Pebble — a tweedy lace weight mix of recycled silk, merino, and cashmere — doesn’t look like all that in the skein. But it’s wonderful when it is knitted up, especially after being wet blocked. I LOVE the texture.

I chose a color named Hedge, a dark grayish green. Or is it a greenish gray? Almost impossible to decide. Either way, it’s a beautiful, subtle color that’s a perfect neutral. Sadly, and I do mean sadly, Shibui has just discontinued this color. Shibui is known for blending their yarns into various combinations or mixes in their proprietary patterns and most of their colors are available across multiple yarns. Hedge, as far as I can tell, was an orphan color. That may be why it was discontinued — no other yarns (e.g., Silk Cloud or Maai or Cima) to blend it with.

I’m glad I found it when I did. Buy it while supplies last. Trust me.

I’ve attached some photos. Both the color and sweater are difficult to photograph. However, I can tell already I will be wearing this one a lot. (The second photo, of the back neck, is probably the truest to the color.)

We knit and sometimes that knitting morphs into something fabulous.  I just finished a scarf that is beyond amazing…Vintage Velvet using Touch Me Due yarn, color Frate, by Muench.  (They also sell regular Touch Me, which does not have a tonal quality.)

Before Felting

After Felting

This short video shows what happens to the yarn once it is felted following the pattern instructions:

I bought the yarn from Jimmy Beans at half price — still expensive, but worth it!!  It looks like they still have a pretty decent color selection.  The pattern calls for 5 skeins, but I used 8 and got a scarf the stated size!  If I was to do it again, I think I would go with 7 and stretch it out more during blocking.

And what happened to all the people who wanted to hear about the retreat?  Not a single comment! 🙁

Response to Suzan who asked how I felted the scarf (did I follow the pattern):
I just followed the pattern instructions and washed it once in hot water (in the machine) – in a zipped lingerie bag.  I dried it in the dryer for a while, but it was still really damp.  It took forever to dry, so every morning and every evening I would pop it back into the dryer for 15 minutes or so.  It FINALLY dried!  At that point I fluffed it in the dryer one more time.  I don’t know that any of that was necessary!