The new little black Rikke is finito…
Made with Berroco Ultra Alpaca in Pitch Black, 77 grams. I enjoyed making a small, quick, and sure to be appreciated item. 🙂 Some of you may notice that I did not do my own mods to this hat, which eliminate the “seam” at the center back. Laura wanted this hat to look just like her other and sometimes simplicity is best.
PS (1-20-16): I gave this to Laura yesterday and she LOVED it! Perfect fit and the right color…Yay!
I am definitely in the winter doldrums. I just returned from a slog of a work-related trip to Vegas, and could not be happier to be home, even though the weather promises a minus 35 degree windchill tomorrow. Yes, I prefer a frozen tundra to a __________ (I really can’t print what I want to call it!).
Eldest daughter requested some knitting. Resistance is futile. 😉 She wants another Rikke Hat, this time in pitch black. So I bought a skein of Berroco Ultra Alpaca Worsted in Pitch Black (how original!!).
I was worried because the picture looks more like charcoal, but it really is a true black. I have just started it so not much to show.
I took some knitting with me but made little progress. Another reason to be glad I’m home. 🙂 And to see my boys (John and Yuki).
PS — Yep, it is -35 windchill. Bummer.
We are in love with a new pattern. It is called Friday Again, designed by fallmasche on Ravelry.
It makes use of the new (to us) method of “contiguous sleeve” design. With this method, set in sleeves are added as you go in a seamless, top-down sweater. (It is similar to the more widely known method described in Barbara Walker’s Knitting from the Top Down, but it differs in a few important respects.) The sleeve cap is created with an ingenious method of frequent increases along the shoulder line. The resulting fit is fantastic.
Susan’s Friday
Yes, it’s me again!! I hate pictures of myself, but this design has to be seen on the wearer to appreciate the fit. I combined several sizes into one to get a perfect fit. I also added a little edge to the neckline, but it probably was unnecessary.
I used Berocco Ultra Alpaca Light in color Blueberry Crush. Gorgeous color. Gorgeous yarn. So delectably soft!! I love the finished result and plan on making a summery version as well.
Sally’s Friday
I had been looking for a pattern for some yarn since I bought it months ago. The yarn is Silky DK by Viola, a blend of silk and merino. The color: Nosferatu. I absolutely could not resist it.
This photo shows the sweater in progress before I divided for the sleeves. You can see how the sleeve and cap are created by the increases.
A few photos of it on Lucy:
Finally, a rare photo of me. I wore this when my daughter and I went out to dinner in Boulder for my birthday. This is a picture she took on her cell phone, so excuse the quality (and the model). Susan made me post it!
I love this sweater and I love the yarn with one caveat. It seems to want to pill. I may just need to cast on another Friday Again in a different yarn so I can throw it on no matter what day the calendar says it is.
Conclusion
We called this post “Simply Deceptive” instead of “Deceptively Simple,” which had been our first choice. The pattern has such a look of ease about it: stockinette in the round with a slip-stitch detail. What could be easier? However, the method is a bit different and fallmasche’s instructions might be difficult for some knitters to decipher in spots because instead of a more typical “narrative” form, much of the directions are provided in a table format. We called each other several times to double check our numbers. Others have sailed through it, and the technique is not difficult. We both recommend the pattern highly.
PS from Susan — where is the snow indeed!?! Last year we had over 60 inches by now and this year about 15. It is supposed to snow this week, however. Ugh for the commute time but great in other ways!
PS2 from Susan: Nancy asked what I did to the neckline: I picked up sts (stitch for stitch) from the WS through the cast on row and then bound off loosely as to knit (again, from the WS side row — I was working in the round).
PS3 from Susan: Sivani asked, “How did you find the back neck and its fit? Does the pattern include increases at the back neck and if so, did you follow the pattern or find that you had to make adjustments?” Short row shaping is done at the very beginning of the sweater to raise the back neck. It fits quite well, but it is straight across. I think it would be rather complicated to create a dip in the back neck if that is your preference. I’m sure it can be done, but it would be hard for me to wrap my brain around it!
We mean, get The Smart Glove — the second design in our gloves series.
Fun. Funky. Functional. The glove that comes with its own “apps.” This is the smart glove for your smart phone! You will want to wear these every day.
The Smart Glove features a long gauntlet cuff that can be worn three ways — as a gauntlet, folded, or over the thumb to create an extra layer of warmth: like having a glovelet on your glove. It also features an optional “pop top” for your texting finger and/or thumbs.
Sally made her gloves out of Malabrigo Sock in two colors, Solis and Lettuce:
Susan used Berocco Ultra Alpaca Light for her Smart Gloves, which has a larger gauge than Malabrigo. This adaptation is also included in the pattern.
Sizes: Small, medium, and large. To fit hand circumference 6.5 (7, 7.5) inches.
As with all of our glove designs, we have included our ten-page Glove Guide, which provides detailed information on how to get a perfect, custom fit.
This pattern is available for $6 and can be purchased by clicking the “Buy Now” button below or on the right sidebar.
It’s so hard to take good photographs of knitted garments. Susan and I would each like to have a half-mannequin, so that we could get decent pictures. If we lived closer, we could invest in a really good one and share it. But we don’t, and I haven’t had the time to look around to see if I can find one. So, in order to show you photographs of the finished Berry Cluster Pullover, I tried:
1. Hanging it up. It looks okay, but not great.
2. Draping it over a chair. Just no.
3. I flirted, ever so briefly, with modeling it myself. It fits nicely, but I just wasn’t of a mood. So, I asked my twenty-year-old daughter if she would model it for me. She said yes, but I knew the fit would not be quite right. She’s very slender, and her shoulders aren’t as broad as mine. (I said shoulders. Shoulders, people.) It fits me better than it fits her, but I don’t have the cute stomach. So it’s a tradeoff. (And I should have had her change into a smoother under garment. See, we need a mannequin.)
Here is a detail of the hem so you can see the pearls.
In other knitting news, I did start Eris. I have half of the collar knitted. Like Susan, I started with a provisional cast on (the white row you see at the wide end) and my next step will be to pick up those stitches and start knitting in the opposite direction.
I’m knitting my Eris using Ultra Alpaca, which I described here (you’ll need to scroll down a little bit). I think this yarn will be perfect for this project and I am loving how it knits up. It looks rather sad here but I’ve stretched with my fingers and I know it will look much better once it’s been blocked.
Alison — I know you’re concerned about the lightness of the cash soft you’re using. I think you’ll be okay; I might worry a little whether that yarn will pill because it is so soft. That’s the one little concern I would have and some of that depends upon how hard you are on your sweaters.
As for the grey behemoth — my Feather & Fan shawl — I’m still plugging along. Twelve rows left. It will get finished soon.
PS — For Wendy O:
And from the book:
One reason I wanted to finish my Bohus Blue Shimmer is that I needed to start playing with my Royal Alpaca. Somehow, I keep getting shipments of it from The Tangled Skein in St. Peter. I don’t know WHO could have been placing orders for additional skeins on my behalf. It’s a mystery.
After Susan posted about her Berry Cluster Pullover, I was reminded how much I wanted to knit that. As I may have mentioned, I have yarn in my stash — the actual yarn called for — to knit it. But I kept picturing it in my Royal Alpaca. So the question became: Cameo (the dusty pink) or Spanish Leather? I chose the Spanish Leather. The color is not real true in these photos. Although it’s a brown yarn, it has almost a pink undertone to it. It’s very pretty. And it feels like butter. I just started it a few days ago and will finish the back this evening.
Of course, I’m already mentally looking ahead to my next project or projects. I have several head starts I’d like to revisit: Mermaid, Lismore, and my Feather and Fan shawl. But I was also tempted into buying some yarn today. My friend Jennifer and I met for lunch today. Before we enjoyed our Burmese food (which I had never had before), we visited a brand new yarn shop in Hyattsville, MD. It just opened Tuesday. A Tangled Skein is a lovely store and the owners are delightful. (If the name sounds familiar, it’s true. There is The Tangled Skein in St. Peter, MN — the source of all of my lovely Royal Alpaca — and A Tangled Skein in Hyattsville.) There is no website up yet for A Tangled Skein, but there should be one shortly.
I bought — hmmm, this is embarrassing — more alpaca. My new yarn is Ultra Alpaca by Berroco. It’s a 50% alpaca 50% wool blend. It knits at 5 stitches to the inch and comes in 100 gram skeins of 215 yards. I bought this with the Eris zippered cardigan from The Girl from Auntie in mind. I even bought some Wildfoote sock yarn from Brown Sheep (color Mistletoe) to match.
Can you tell I have a thing for blueish-green? ‘Cause I do. I also bought a new sock book from Interweave, Favorite Socks, which is a compilation of many of their sock patterns from back issues. I have ALL of Interweave’s back issues, but I couldn’t resist. It’s nice to have them all in one place.
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