theraineysisters knitting and so much more

A few of you were asking about the machine made buttonholes on the sweater my mom made.  My first buttonholes were done in the same way: like mother, like daughter, or some such thing.  It made sense to me and actually they turned out okay.  I’m not sure what purists think of this approach!

I made this sweater at least 25-30 years ago.  A co-worker of mine was knitting this Penny Straker design — which is still available – and I couldn’t believe I had found another knitter.  I made the identical sweater because I am so darned imaginative.  To be honest, in those days we didn’t have knitting magazines with fabulous designs arriving at our doorstep.  You had to go to a knitting shop and search through patterns.  It made it much easier to just knit the same thing she was making.  One thing I do remember is that she did not make buttonholes at all.  Her front band was knitted so loosely that she just shoved the buttons through any-old-where.  I think that is one reason I used this BH method — to make sure I HAD buttonholes. 

Here is a close up of the buttonholes:

And the inside showing the grosgrain ribbon:

I still use grosgrain ocassionally on the button side of the front bands for support.  Now I tend to use the one-row bound buttonhole or the very simple k2tog, YO buttonhole, but I do think the sewn method has its place.

The main problem with this sweater was that the sleeves were INCHES too long.  I did not know how to calculate the sleeve length for a raglan sleeve — and my sweater had very deep armholes, which of course added length.  The sweater is way too small for me now anyway! 🙁

 

Am I the only one who feels like summer is so fast paced it is hard to catch your breath?  I am on a whirlwind, let me tell ya!  And knitting is not even a part of it!

Hubby has been working a lot of OT, which puts me into “single parent” territory (a sympathetic shout out to all of you who handle this full time — I will try not to whine ;)).  Knitting takes a back seat when you are driving!

So, I am going to pull out past projects at the suggestion of Marina.  I have nothing new to share, but can’t let the weight of the B::L::O::G fall solely on Surly’s delicate but capable shoulders.

Here is the first sweater I ever made.  I took this walk down memory lane way back in the early days of our blog, but most of you probably missed our early posts.  Please don’t hate me for serving up re-heated blog.

There are so many things wrong with this sweater that’s it’s hard to list them all.  Let’s just say that “buy enough yarn in the same dye lot to complete your project” was advice that fell on deaf and inexperienced ears.  Who knew 100% acrylic was so “dye-lot sensitive?”

I wore this sweater constantly in college:

I was such a little seamstress back then that I used a sewing machine to whip this puppy together (no, I’m not kidding!).   This was my first cable experience and at the end of it I was convinced that I knew everything there was to know about knitting.  Period.  I was a total expert — oh, brother!  “Do not wash wool in the washing machine as felting will occur” was additional advice that seemed to go right over my head!

My mom made this sweater for me in 6th grade.  I absolutely love it:

I like to try and figure out stitch patterns when I encounter something unusual, but I have not been able to decipher this one. 

And just look at the buttonholes — hey, maybe this is why I thought you could use a sewing machine to put knitted garments together!

So Sally and I were exposed to very lovely knitting at an early age.  It seemed like a very normal past-time.  We both started out by knitting sweaters — no scarves, hats or mittens — though of course we branched out along the way.  To this day, I prefer sweaters to all other knitting, and I think that is true of Sally as well (though she did go through that lengthy “shawl phase”).

I hope to get back on the knitting horse again soon — I need my fix! 😉