theraineysisters knitting and so much more

March 23, 2012

From Susan — Friday, Friday, Friday!!

Filed under: Updates — lv2knit @ 3:16 pm

Yay! The start of my weekend, since I work 4 days a week. First off, thanks to all of you who have responded ‘in droves’ to our survey — very interesting comments!! We will certainly share our findings and also try to incorporate some of your ideas and suggestions.

I started off the day today with a therapeutic massage for my wrist and things felt “different” — in a good way. I think progress is being made.

Progress or not, I have been doing a little bit of knitting. As Sally mentioned in a previous post, we are both knitting Taiga — a bulky-weight vest with a gorgeous accent of stranded knitting.

As I said, I chose my colors poorly. They went together quite well on the face of things, but the stranding did not show up at all…not enough contrast between the two colors. Unfortunately, I did not take a picture of the original colorwork (doh!) but the colors are below:

Taiga and Yarn

You can see that the colors are kind of cute together. I chose the orange because it matched some of the slubs in the grey tweedy yarn. The choice of orange was a bit “out of the box” for me — funky and fun and not like other things I have.

Well. I crawled back into my box!! After seeing Sally’s DARLING version with the pale green and dark purple, I had to jump on board. The purple is fantastic and I am very pleased. It killed me to rip out my colorwork because my knitting time is so limited and RE-knitting is absurd, but it had to be done.

The pattern has you do the stranding back and forth, which I did the first time around. Annoying but okay. But, no way was I going through that again, so I added a steek for the new color. To add the steek I ended at the end of a RS row, cast on 8 sts and then knit around again. I then added the purple and started the chart. When I finished the chart, I cast off the steek and kept going with the purple. Easy peasy.

Some knitters suffer from “steek anxiety.” I never suffered this ailment. Cutting my knitting never bothered me — even Alice St@rmore told me she had never seen anyone cut their first steek with such glee! I think the reason I am not bothered by cutting the steek is that it marks the next stage in the project — if you don’t cut it, you can’t finish it.

For the steek averse among you, I chronicled my steek surgery in photos (the color is very true in these photos):

001
Steek Close Up

005
At the machine

008
Starting to Cut

009
More…

010
All done!!

I often place something hard, like a book or cutting board, underneath the steek so I don’t cut the wrong thing (like strands from the other side of the knitting!). I didn’t really need it here because of how short the steek was and easy to see, etc. The book is Starmore’s Book of Fair Isle Knitting — a true classic!!

I kept going and finished the front pockets and am now doing the bottom half of the vest. This is supposed to be a quick knit in bulky yarn, but it doesn’t FEEL quick! It is not as easy for me to knit with bulky, chunky, tweedy yarn and large needles.

This project is really cute, though, and actually fits so far. I know people thought they couldn’t wear the bulky knits, calling themselves too “fluffy,” but I am not the smallest cherub in the choir by a long shot and it looks okay. I don’t feel like it makes me look any bigger than other knits.

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Progress so far…

I still have to take it slow on the knitting, but should get this done soon. Maybe I can find a vest that knits itself!

fashion-fail-the-dress-that-knits-itself

Enjoy your weekend and your knitting!!

PS to Renee who said, “The skein of orange yarn looks like there should have been enough contrast next to the gray.” I agree! It looked like it should work. It just didn’t. I think the super tweediness of the gray overwhelmed the orange. It needed a solid, dark color.

9 Comments »

  1. Your vest is fantastic. Another Rainey item that I have to put on my list. But that final vest….uhmmmm. Well, maybe my husband wouldn’t mind if I bought some REALLY nice and expensive yarn for THAT one. Not sure where I’d wear it though. Might be good for one of those “embarrass the children” items.

    Comment by Denise in Ohio — March 23, 2012 @ 5:04 pm

  2. This is going to be so cute. Thanks for the steeking photos.

    The vest and the makeup is too creep.

    Comment by Beverly — March 23, 2012 @ 5:26 pm

  3. I can no longer knit yarns heavier than fingering yarn or I pay a real price in pain. It’s amazing to see you’ve been able to do this beautiful vest, in bulky yarn no less. You must have a very high pain tolerance. I’m trying colorwork for the first time and it’s a lot of fun. Not too hard when you’re using it on socks.

    Comment by Linda Hillin — March 23, 2012 @ 7:53 pm

  4. The skein of orange yarn looks like there should have been enough contrast next to the gray. However, the purple looks beautiful. Looking forward to seeing the finished garment.

    Comment by Renee — March 23, 2012 @ 11:30 pm

  5. Completely agree with you on the challenge of knitting with bulky yarn. And on the fabulous color combination for the vest. The orange would have been fetching, too.

    I guess you wear that last vest when you need a hand around the house…

    Comment by twinsetellen — March 23, 2012 @ 11:36 pm

  6. What a stunning pattern and I love your colour choice.
    To be honest I never heard of steeking, I am more prepared for it now.

    Comment by Kim Sonksen — March 24, 2012 @ 3:49 am

  7. A trick I learned somewhere:

    To check for contrast when mixing colors, take a photo and convert it to greyscale.

    Comment by SuCar — March 25, 2012 @ 4:38 pm

  8. Hi!

    I was looking for something else on your blog and saw your pics of the Taiga – I was involved in the test for it, and although the pattern had you knitting flat, I couldn’t bear the thought of knitting the colourwork flat so I did exactly what you did, and it was my first time of knitting a steek too! I followed the instructions for steeking in a free pattern called Steek This! which is available on Ravelry.

    Anyway – it was so great to see the pics of all the things I did, but did not take pics of! Love the design and your colour choice.

    I knitted mine in an acrylic wool blend which was quite a cheapo yarn, but it turned out fine. I would have loved your tweedy yarn, though…….. maybe another time, if I make it with long sleeves.

    Comment by Ruth — April 2, 2012 @ 8:59 pm

  9. I love visiting your site. You both knit beautiful items, so inspiring! Someday I hope to be able to produce knits like I see here.
    I have never done a steek, but hope to try.
    All your pictures are very clear. That is one of the best parts of this site.
    But tell me about the dressform, what brand is it?

    Comment by Sheryl — April 2, 2012 @ 10:15 pm

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