theraineysisters knitting and so much more

I am not a fan of summer knitting: loose knitting with linen or cotton yarn.  Ugh!!  But, I do like wearing flowy, summer tops so I knit one and started another.

Here is Agave.  Designed by Yumiko Alexander for DanDoh fibers.   It is knit with DanDoh Linen (purchased at The Yarnery), the yarn called for, in color Oasis.  It is blue and green.  NOT blue-green.  It looks like spruce from afar.  Sally is making the same sweater in red.

I worked the sleeve differently than the two options in the pattern.  I picked up the number of sts for the longer sleeve, but then did some shaping and added the lace pattern to the bottom of the sleeve.  Here is the original “flutter sleeve” version:

And the longer sleeve:

My sleeve:

Because my arms are so long, I added 5″ to the length of the pattern’s longer sleeve!  I love this sweater and have already worn it.  I went to Tucson to see Surly’s new vacation home and wore it when we went yarn shopping. 🙂  I’ll get a lot of wear out of it when the weather warms up here.

I also met Yumiko herself at the Interweave Maker Festival:

God, I hate pictures of myself!  Oh well.  In another post, I’ll share what Sally and I made at Maker Fest!!

PS to Sherry: Actually, I did not lengthen the pattern.  There are 3 different lengths: the short one has 5 repeats and the long one has 7.  Sally and I often knit the same things.  We both have great taste!

PS2 to Chloe: Yumiko has come up with so many beautiful designs!

Sometimes I break my arm patting myself on the back…this is one of those times!  I think I’m a genius!  Uh, calm down, Susan.  No one cares!

Sally and I both bought the yarn to knit Structured Loop.  We love the stitchwork which reminds us of mattress ticking!

Structured Loop picture from Pattern Page

We chose Önling No. 1, which is butter soft, gorgeous, slightly fuzzy yarn.  Beautiful to knit with!!  Surly finished hers first, so she was the canary in the mine this time around.  We both decided we didn’t like the ribbing down the side “seams” (top down, in the round, so no real seams!).  If you run the cute stripes all the way around, it creates a serious jog problem.  The stripes consist of color changes, ribbing, garter…you name it!  A challenge, to be sure, but Surly and I decided to go for it.

My first stripe after joining ITR was the larger one. I fudged my way through using all the methods I could muster. It looked just “okay.”   Then a thunder bolt struck!!

Could I use the old, out-of-favor, jogless method where the BOR is moved one stitch to the left on every round?  This method causes issues when done over a great number of rows because who wants the BOR to change drastically and affect other aspects of the sweater? And a weird line appears.  However, this only takes place over a few rows, so I thought it might work.  It’s not 100% perfect, but pretty darn close!

I describe what I did in full detail on my Ravelry project page.  Like I said, it’s not perfect, but it is very easy to do — much harder to describe!  I am wondering if this would work in other situations?  It is certainly worth a try!

Here is an updated picture of my finished Riddari:

And a PS to Sue, who commented about the large size of her own Icelandic sweater: in all fairness, I may have chosen a size that was too big.  So many people knit successful colorwork yoke sweaters, myself included, that I cannot really conclude what made the difference.  All I know is that it now fits perfectly!

PS to Chloe: I wouldn’t call my sweater black, either!  It is the darkest green, blue, blackish, navy?  It is just deep and complex!!  Like the Galaxy after which it us named!