Sometimes, it’s hard to decide what we like and don’t like in a design.  Sometimes, it’s hard to know whether you like something until it’s finished.  In fact, that’s the problem with knitting:  you can spend hours creating a sweater, only to say “Hmm. That was a waste of my time.”

All this is by way of introduction to the modification I made to my Whiteness of the Whale.  I confess:  I liked the design that runs down the back of this pattern, but was ambivalent about the single “scallop” at the rear.  Will this “whale tail” make my ass look like the size of Monstro in Pinocchio? I kept asking myself.  But I kept going.  I finished the body of the sweater a few days ago.  Here is a photograph of Lucy wearing it.

See what I mean? Just.not.sure. I don’t have a photo of me in it, but what I really didn’t like is how it looked from the side. To me, it looked as if I had a droopy tail. My age-related drooping is not really something I want to accentuate.

What to do? I talked about it with Susan, who is also knitting this pattern and had similar concerns about the tail. It was, we decided, fixable. (Keep in mind that this was knitted from the top down, so the bind off is at the hem. Easy to rip back. Otherwise, this whale would be swimming with the fishes.) To understand the fix, you have to understand why and how there is a scallop in the first place. It’s due to the placement of the yarnovers and the decreases relative to each other. When you “pile” the yarnovers on top of each other, but have the corresponding decreases somewhere else, the fabric will bulge where the yarnovers are. That’s the principle behind ye olde favorite feather and fan stitch. So, I needed to place the decreases next to the yarnovers to mitigate the bulge. Fortunately, because the cables in the pattern periodically break up (and “undo”) the bulge build up, I didn’t need to go back too far.

I ripped out about three inches, to just where the last tail pattern started to go straight down instead of continuing to angle outward. (See the photo just above.) I then moved the decreases so that they were just about next to the yarnovers at the center of the pattern. I worked to within two stitches of the first yarnover from the previous right side row. Then I k2tog, k1 (the prior yarnover), yo, p, yo, k1, ssk and then kept working the rest of the row. I left a purl stitch on either side of the tail to help outline it a little bit. Here is what happened:

I am SO much happier with my sweater. Yes, the decreases are now somewhat visible next to the yarnovers in the center of the pattern, but for me that’s a worthwhile tradeoff. Moreover, the decreases were visible before where I had started to work straight, just in a different place, and this way I don’t have the corner that was produced by the curve to straight transition. (Note: If I had kept angling out the stiches as before, I still would have had a scallop.) Instead, the outer curve slopes gently down, and I think it looks more graceful. Susan had initially suggested I try using a central double decrease in between the two yarnovers, but when I swatched several ideas, the central double decrease disrupted the lines of the yarnovers.

It is hard to capture the color of this yarn. It’s closest to the very last picture. Because it’s not blocked, you can see what looks like an abrupt color change near the bottom. That’s because I had lightly blocked the body when I finished knitting it the first time (to check for fit and length), and the new knitting isn’t blocked yet. It will all come out “in the wash.”

…imitation!!

Sally just shared her beautiful Vitamin D so I thought I would also share mine.  “Imitation” is defined loosely: we used the same pattern – Vitamin D by Heidi Kirrmaier – and the same type of yarn – Madelinetosh Merino Light – but the results are very different.

My “D” is striped and long and has long sleeves.  Some of you may recall that I bought some MadTosh at Yarnover:

The colors are Worn Denim and Grove.  I loved the Worn Denim and tried to find 4 skeins so I could knit a Vitamin D – alas, they only had three so I opted for the skeins shown, thinking I might make a 2-color shawl or something.

I found more Worn Denim on Webs, so I ordered 4 and asked them to match them as closely as possible.  The color was NOTHING like the Worn Denim I already had — nothing.  It was much lighter, more variegated and had beige and green tones in it.  I loved it, but it was not the dark denim I expected.  Three of the skeins matched really well and the 4th was too light and much more beige.

I knew I needed at least 4 skeins to make it the way I wanted.  I first tried alternating the lighter skein with one of the “medium” skeins.  It looked very striped.  So.  I decided to start knitting with the three matching medium skeins and hope for inspiration.

Stripes kind of stuck with me, but I did not want it to look unplanned — or like I had run out of yarn and threw in stripes out of desperation (we’ve all been there)!  I decided the darkest skein would look nice striped with the lighter shade.  But the green made it all “pop,” so I ultimately used all of the variations.

The top strip in the picture is actually the body color — the ‘medium’ Worn Denim shade.  Then comes Grove (the green stripe).  Next is the dark Worn Denim — I then used the lightest skein (the oddball) so that the contrast would be the greatest.

I also opted to twist my yarnover increases in the bottom section because I thought there would be way too much going on with the holes every which way in the striping.  I haven’t truly blocked it yet either, but I may not bother.  A light steaming is all I did and that may be enough.

All told I used 4.5 skeins = 1890 yards!  A lot of knitting.  But really worth it.  This one I will wear all the time!!

Grade
Pattern: A+
Yarn: has to be reduced for aggravation!! B+
Fit: A+
Utility: A+

Overall: A+

Addendum — I am watching the Big O-Games opening program and enjoying it immensely…great knitting backdrop!

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve posted. I’ve been working on my daughter’s wedding invitations — a labor of love (in more ways than one). But it has taken up much of my attention.

I realized this morning, though, that I had never shown what I knit with my Madelinetosh Tosh Merino Light in the Midnight Pass colorway. You may recall that is the same yarn and color that Susan used to knit her beautiful Daydreams in Lace. I made a smaller, simpler project: Vitamin D, designed by Heidi Kirrmaier.

As Susan said, Midnight Pass is a difficult color to photograph; the color is very intense but seems to fade in front of the camera. Vitamin D is one of those sweaters that looks better on a body than on a mannequin. (It needs arms.) My daughter tried it on when she was here visiting, and it looked so fabulous on her (especially over her aqua tank dress) that I tried to make her take it home. Sadly, I didn’t think to take any pictures, so you are stuck looking at my Vitamin D on Lucy.

It looks cuter on. I promise! Meanwhile, I am within a few rows of finishing the body of my Whiteness of the Whale cardigan, so I will share photos of that in a few days. I also just bought some yarn to make my own Daydreams in Lace. Inspired by Susan, I decided to go for a bold color instead of the gray I had been contemplating. My choice: Dye for Yarn’s fingering weight (75% merino superwash, 25% silk; 400 meters to 100 grams) in Love Is Poison. The visit to their Etsy shop is worth it for the color names alone.

PS from Susan — Penny asked about MY Vitamin D — it will be revealed shortly!!

I’m ba-a-a-a-a-a-ck!!  And not sure how or where to begin.  It seemed like a very different experience to me this year.  An emotional roller coaster.  Of course, there was the sheer bliss of reacquainting oneself with friends made last year, and the unbridled joy of being immersed in HOURS of knitting every day.  But there was also a somber mood that hung over this year’s Camp for several reasons.

Last year we lost Joyce Williams and her presence was felt at every turn.

The contest this year was “Knitting under the Influence” and it evoked many touching stories (many about Joyce) and the important people who shaped our [knitting] lives, as did the annual “show-and-tell.”

R. moved us with a story about how much she misses her homeland.  S. is a very talented local knitter whose work is exquisite.   I was geared up to see her beautiful work, but instead she told us that health issues had intervened and she lost her knitting mojo.  Completely.  And so it went.

But it was not all sad!!

G. told about his father’s farm and how he is knitting socks for his dad with handspun yarn from the descendants of his own favorite ram (he even had a picture of himself as a child riding on its back!). The winning contest entry was the cutest vest ever — a portrait of Elvis in shadow knitting. WOW — and quite subtle 😉 .

The knitting was truly inspirational and we laughed ourselves silly over dinners and late night knitting.  We forged some lasting friendships and bonded like sisters!  I am already looking forward to Camp next year.

I bought a very tiny amount of yarn (really!) from Jeannette and George of Sun Valley Fibers, which will reveal itself in due time.  And an FO will be revealed this week that I absolutely love.

Kim and I also discovered these — Brigid was wearing them.  Dansko patent leather clogs in a style called Funky Knit.  We both bought a pair on our way home — could not drive to Schuler Shoes fast enough!!  All knitters must own these…

A Final Thought
While at Camp, Kim and I found out that a dear friend from our knitting group, MM, lost her husband quite suddenly while travelling.  We are heartsick and in shock for M. and her family.  M. is one of my favorite people — she loves and supports me in all ways and I am so sad.  M. is one of the pillars of our group and was there from the beginning.  This news weighed heavily on Kim and me, and I really appreciated the comfort that being with the other Campers provided.

M. you are in my thoughts!!

Tomorrow morning I will embark with friend Kim on our second annual Meg Swansen’s Knitting Camp – yay!!

It is such a fun trip — Kim is a great travelling companion!  It is all knitting, all the time (except when we’re eating!).  What could be better?  More to report later…

First, the good news: I have my power back, and we really didn’t suffer as much as some of our neighbors. It is still very hot here in our nation’s capital — it may get up to 105 tomorrow — so I truly feel for those whose electricity is still out. It was a freak storm. Dead calm, and then winds up to 60 or more mph followed by the most incredible lightning I’ve ever seen. But enough of that.

You may remember that in June I got excited about knitting The Whiteness of the Whale, a design by Ann Weaver. My plan was to knit it out of the new linen yarn from Shibui Knits. As I noted in a prior post, the yarn is (in their words) “fine linen strands in a chain ply structure.”

I started knitting. It was a bit tricky because I wanted to convert the pattern into a contiguous pattern (knit from the top down with set-in sleeves knit simultaneously). In other words, I had to think. I started it once, made some calculations, re-started. Yes! It was working! I knit merrily along. And then disaster. Instead of yarn, I had thread.

This went on for several yards. It destroyed my confidence in the yarn, and so with heavy heart it was back to the drawing board. Le sigh.

My new yarn is Astral Bath’s Vesper (70 % Bluefaced Leicester/20 % Silk/10 % Cashmere; 440 yards per 100 grams) in the color Circe, which is a sharp, acid green. (Side note: I was already well underway with my new Whale when Susan finished her Daydreams in Lace. It looks so nice in a bold color that I sort of wished I had saved this yarn for that project. But too late; I didn’t want to start over. Again.)

I am just about down to the waist. The conversion to contiguous worked well. I love the color, although I have never had as much rowing as I am having with this project. Is it me or the yarn? No idea. I do hope it blocks out.

The color in those photos is fairly true, although I think the yarn may have a bit more of a yellow cast to it. It’s very soft, and despite being a hand dye, the skeins are indistinguishable.

So far so good.

Sally was planning on writing a post, but got waylaid from having no power and being surrounded by chaos!  She is in the heart of the storm that struck the east coast this weekend.  They are struggling with record heat and no wi fi!!  Ouch!

So blogging is left to me.  I did just finish a project.  One that I have been working on for months.  Partly because of the scale of the project and partly because of yarn “issues.”  Yes.  Handpaints.  The yarns we love to buy and then love to hate.  My Daydreams in Lace is knit out of my “crack du jour” Madelinetosh Tosh Merino Light in color Midnight Pass — a color that truly eludes capture.

Here is my finished Daydreams.  An amazing feat because it actually fits.  You know how much I hate being photographed, but here I am – bad hair day and all – to prove that it is possible to knit something that fits.  I was worried because it is an unusual garment.  But because it was knit from the top down, I did feel pretty confidant all the way along.  The pattern calls for laceweight and Tosh is heavier, but I did see that some other knitters had used this yarn and their projects were gorgeous, so I forged ahead.

My Mods:
First, I cast on provisionally.  I knew I did not like the 1×1 ribbed neckline, but did not know what I would end up doing.  I finally decided on a 3-row reverse stockinette roll (4 rows with bind off) — after adding about 4 sts per repeat to keep the opening size large enough.

Next, I increased my needle size as I worked the body of the garment: from a US 4 at the yoke, to a 5 and then to a 6 to give it an A-line shape.  On the sleeves I reversed the sizing, going from the Size 4 to a 3 then a 2.

I added the bottom border from the Percy Shawl (free pattern!) after seeing Catherine’s project on Ravelry.  The sleeves were finished in a modified feather and fan of my own devising.

About the yarn: a stunning color, to be sure.  EVERYONE who sees it says, “Wow!  I love that color!”  And it is true.  But as we know, there is variation among these handpainted skeins.  The first three skeins were dead on…very little variation.  I finished the entire body with those three skeins.  Then on to the sleeves.

As I started knitting, I could tell the color was very pale and washed out.  Bummer.  So, I started knitting with my 5th skein to see what would happen: very noticeable line.  As luck would have it, Sally was arriving for Yarnover, so she brought the remaining yarn she had from a project yet to be named 🙂 .  I made her buy it because the color was so beautiful!  The color in her skein seemed much more tonally varied: the dark was darker, the light lighter.  I contacted A Good Yarn in Sarasota to see if they had any more, thinking I could buy a few skeins and see which one matched the best.  They had a new batch (? would it even remotely match the old?) but only give store credit for returns.  Hmmm.  Bummer.  So, I used Sally’s partial skein to transition from the body to the sleeves and then finished the sleeves with my darker skein.  Overall, I think it is hard to see the difference.

So, monkeying around with the different skeins slowed me down a bit.  Plus, I think I did too much knitting.  It is hard to tell how much additional length you’ll get from blocking lace.  I did a LOT more knitting than called for in the pattern (I am the big one after all), but maybe too much.

Grade for Daydreams in Lace = A+
Pattern: A+ (and free besides!) — apparently there is errata but maybe not for my size
Yarn: A (it would get an A+ except for the trials described above!)
Buttons: A+ — Irridescent blue glass – stunning
Fit: A- (I am never 100% sold on how things look on me!!)

I may knit this again in a very different color, and make it shorter — more like a regular sweater length.  I really enjoyed making this.  If you have any interest in it, I say, go for it!!

Just a note: we have not died or fallen off the world.  But, it is summer and things are very busy for both of us.  Hope your first few official days of summer have been splendid.  It has been quite beautiful here the last couple of days and my DH is out there digging in the dirt like a 3-year old!!

So why the title “Quasi-mood-o?” You may recall that I was working on a vest called Vintage Mood.  It is a cute vest with a big problem.  A Quasimoto problem!  Several knitters complained about the hump at the base of the back of the neck.  I myself described this problem when I first posted about the project.  A fellow Raveler read my post and asked me what I had done to fix this.  I told her my plan, though I had not actually completed the repair.  I did so last night and thought I would share it.

Upon examination, my Vintage Mood had  ~3 inches of excess fabric at the base of the neck.  Unfortunately I did not get a picture of the hump before the fix, but you can see a smaller “pouch” here.  I thought through what was needed and came up with a step-by-step solution:

Step 1.
Put on the garment and mark the width of the back neck edge. Count these sts and make sure they are centered to the center back neck.

Step 2.
Pinch the “hump” together to see exactly how much extra fabric you need to get rid of — probably 2-3 inches. Measure down from the collar and mark the row at that depth.

Step 3.
Take the number of sts from #1 above and divide in half. Center these sts to the center back neck.  Place a piece of waste yarn through these sts (I used knitting needles).  The markers in the ribbing above are lined up with the first and last live sts that they will be grafted to to make sure the centers are lined up.

Step 4.
Snip the yarn below the ribbing and place the sts between the neck markers on a holder.  Snip the yarn from the row above the sts on the piece of waste yarn (#2) in the middle — pull the ends out through all the held sts from the center until these sts are held by the waste yarn or needles alone.

Step 5.
Using waste yarn, “draw” outline where the collar needs to be sewn down on either side of the center sts (shown in green below).

At this point I cut the excess fabric down the middle to make it easier to work.

Step 6.
Graft/sew the body of the vest back to the neck — make sure to line up the live sts center to center with the neckband sts. Ease the area that is being sewn to the live neck sts.  I grafted as stockinette on the body sts and ribbing on the collar sts.The distance along the green waste yarn is much longer than the number of sts in the collar would accommodate so I really had to pull it in to make it work.

Step 7.
Machine stitch along the inside edge (along the sewing line in Step 6) and then cut away the excess fabric. When stitching, be sure to stitch down the cut yarn ends from Steps 3 and 4.

Okay, that sounded easy enough…but when I got done, there were little pointy areas located at the spots marked as the neck width in Step 1.  It seems that I should have gone beyond the very back neck, farther into the front.  SO, I just machine stitched little darts on the inside and cut the points away.  At some point you say enough is enough!!

The result?  Quasimoto has left the building!!

PS: Julie asked if I would be able to describe what should be done while KNITTING the vest to fix the “hump” problem.  As I responded to her, I do not have the mental energy or motivation to try to figure out the changes that would be necessary in the pattern to fix this.  I think this is something the designer should be expected to do.  Maybe this is not a problem shared by everyone, but it does seem to apply to many and maybe warrants a re-look on her part…but mine is done and I do not have the desire or will to spend more time on it!!

PS to the PS — check out the comment from Sivani about using short rows to fix the problem.  She put in a lot of detail.  If anyone uses her method, let me know!

PS2: Trudy called me “fearless” but I am not.  This is a very expendable project — if it worked, great.  If not, no big deal.  The outcome did not matter one way or the other.

Thanks all for the wonderful birthday thoughts and wishes.  I really did have a great day.  Last night I went out to a lovely dinner with friends I have known for almost 40 years (play dates were tough in the womb!! 😉 ).  We dined outside, which we really appreciate in Minnesota.  It is a special treat with a small window of opportunity.  They got me the Shades of Grey trilogy — which after the hype, I’m a little afraid to read!!

My husband bought me a new camera for my birthday.  Okay, I bought a new camera and told him it was from him!!

I had a skein of yarn in the store with me and I told the guy — get me a camera that can take a picture of this.  I would show you a picture but I don’t quite have the hang of it yet!  I think the learning curve will be pretty steep for me…

Yes, the wondrous day that only comes round once a year:

SUSAN’S BIRTHDAY!!!

Happy Birthday to my big sister!

It’s the big one we like. It’s true. Susan is my best friend, my mentor, my therapist, my expert on all things mathematical and technical. We talk FOR HOURS on the phone virtually every day. I don’t know what I would do without her.

For her amusement (although I know she has already seen one of these), I am sharing videos of two Star Trek themed birthday cards. Star Trek reruns were one of our guilty pleasures in college. The original series now streams for free on Netflix and I occasionally watch episodes as great knitting tv. Susan and I can still recite some of our favorite lines by heart. “I’m a doctor, not a bricklayer.”

Please join me in wishing my sister a very Happy Birthday. (I won’t tell you how old she is because I am right behind her!)