Justifiable Sidetrack (Inishturk#7)

I did not work on the sweater AT ALL this weekend.

A young woman (mid to late 20’s) that my daughters know from the theater learned this week that her mother has cancer.  She had surgery to remove as much cancerous tissue as they could, but is now facing chemotherapy.  This has been devastating to the family, as you can imagine.  I set aside the sweater to knit two “prayer hats” for H.’s mom for when(if) she loses her hair.  I’m about done with the second one and will return to my sweater as soon as my brain fog subsides (I’m undergoing dental “anesthesia”… halcion.  yuck.)  She may not like them or need them, but I hope she appreciates the love and prayer that has gone into them.

How is your sweater going?

Happy Knitting!

2 Weeks (Inishturk #6)

I’ve had a slow start to the front of the sweater. Amazingly, the rest of the world and the rest of my life did not stop because I wanted to knit a sweater! hrmph! I have just finished the first round of the pattern (Sweet 16, as Charity calls it) on the front of the sweater. At this rate, it is questionable whether or not I can get the front done by the 3 week mark. I hope so, but I won’t put money on it!

The Lion Blog has today’s entry for the KAL. Heather shared her charts for this pattern. I won’t start using the chart for this sweater, but I’m putting the charts in a folder so I can use them next time.

So, fellow Inishturk knitters, how is your sweater coming along?

Happy knitting!

Back Completed (Inishturk #5)

Just about to cast on the front!

7 Repeats Completed (Inishturk #4)

I finished 7 complete repeats. I thought 8 would be enough, but now I’m not so sure that 9 will be.

7 complete repeats

So close and yet so far….

From the Combox

I decided to put this here because others may have the same question and the same issues with gauge.  I’m certainly no expert, but I’ll take a stab at answering the question…

Dear BWYA,

I noticed your comments on the Knit Along and I am in need of some help. I have been trying for a week to get gauge and cannot get gauge, I have gone from size 8, 9, 10 10 1/2 needles and I am still not getting gauge. Right now I am on 10 1/2 needle and I am still getting 10 stitches to 2 inches which means I have 20 stitches for 4″.

I want to make the smallest size because I am petite in size….     I am afraid if I do the sweater in 10 1/2 needles it will still be huge, Heather said 16-18 stitches for over 4″. What do you think now that you are so far in the sweater? If I remember correctly I was about the same on 10 needles maybe 6 stitches for an 1″. I don’t want it to be too big!! I appreicate any advice you can give me.

Thanks, your sweater looks beautiful.

Hi, Leslie,

Thanks for the compliment.  I do like how it looks.  If only gauge were easier and if only I knit it in the round….

Your experience was my own.  It got up to about size 11 needles and finally got close to gauge.  It was ridiculous!  I did not like how loose it looked.  Now, I live in Texas, so this might not be a huge problem for me, but who wants a sweater that is so open?  The idea is to keep you warm, no?  I am knitting this sweater for someone who lives in a much colder climate than I do, so size 11 needles were not going to cut it.  Not to mention I think the stitch definition was nicer on the smaller needles.

Anyway…. back to the question at hand.  How many stitches are you casting on for the swatch?  I think 20 – 24 is a good number for this, especially since this double seed stitch slants.  You get a more accurate picture with a few more stitches.  If you’re already doing a sufficient number, then that is obviously not a factor.

As you (and others) saw, there were a few suggestions about how to handle the gauge issue (which seemed quite common) by others at the KAL.  One was to change to wooden or plastic needles.  That is not an option for me because I really can’t stand plastic or wooden needles.  Some recommended using different yarn (wool ease chunky was mentioned a few times).  That might have been possible, but I had to buy the yarn to test the gauge and while it isn’t terribly expensive as far as wool goes, it was $30 and I was determined to use it!

Finally, I realized that I was getting about 75% of gauge, so I decided to do a larger pattern that, at 75% would give about the size I was hoping to make.  That left me with the second to largest size.  This is working out well for me so far, but is is slightly larger than the 39 inches my math suggested I would get.  It is working out to be 40 inches (roughly.)  I am getting about 6 stitches/inch (it’s hard to know if it is 6 or 6.5 on the double seed stitch, but 6 is very close!)  My sweater (unseamed) is measuring just over 20 inches for the back side.

roughly 6 stitches per inch in the double seed stitch

the back is knitting up to just over 20 inches wide

I am quite pleased with how it is turning out with size 8 needles as far as the size and the stitch definition goes.  When I make larger ones, I will add either whole panels or a few seed stitches to make it larger, depending on how much larger I have to make it.

If you can get 6 or maybe even 7 stitches per inch with size 7/8 needles, you could probably knit the 1X size and get satisfactory results (the 2X size would be a couple of inches wider.)  It is important to remember to look to the smaller size on the pattern for length and for sleeve length.  The adjustment is for the width only.

I hope you can find a gauge you are happy with because this really is turning out to be a lovely sweater.

If anyone else has any advice for Leslie, please feel free to leave a comment. (All comments are moderated and will be approved the next time I get to the computer.)

Happy knitting!

One week later… (Inishturk #3)

After a slow start (and restart and restart) I am finally feeling like I am getting somewhere on this sweater!  I had sort of entertained the idea last week that I might get the back done by today, but there is no way.  I have about 4 repeats to go for the back and will not be able to do it all today.  I am now hoping, like my new knitting friend, Hollie, to complete the back by the end of the weekend ~ that gives me 4 knitting days for about 4 repeats.  Definitely doable  ~  at least in normal circumstances.

Today there was a blog post for the KAL.  Heather, the hostess, gave some of her tips for keeping track of which cable/section she is on.  She uses different colored stitch markers and each different pattern, corresponds to that color. That is an interesting approach.

For myself, I would still get lost because of Heather’s other point:    the different cables/braid all require a different number of rows to complete.   Most of us probably noticed right away that  all of the different patterns work evenly into 16 rows, which actually helps to simplify everything.  Still, the only way for me is to just put it in a plain word processing document (which is a slight change from my original half-page on a ring pattern I started with) and put 1 pattern row per page (8 pages ~ I do not have a page to say “knit the purls and purl the knits on the back side ~ THAT I can remember )

Below is a photo of my binder.  The pattern, a pen and a couple of dpns are kept in here (i use dpns for the cable needles).  If you open the picture you will see that there are red tick marks at the bottom of the page.  I add one each time I complete a row so that I will know where I stopped (there is no guarantee that the binder will be found exactly the way I left it, so a mark on the page does me a lot of good!)

And just to show you how special my binder is, I share with you the beautiful artwork of “TheBoy” (our 4 year old) that graces the cover:

One other thing Heather said is that she is working on making a chart for this pattern and will share it next week (along with a chart tutorial for beginners.)  That is a very lovely and helpful idea!

I see that some of the knitters participating in the KAL very wisely decided in the beginning to knit this sweater in the round.  The only adjustment to this, after removing the selvedge stitches, is that on what was written to be the wrong side rows you simply knit the knits and purl the purls with no cabling.  Easy.  Brilliant.  An idea that occurred to me too late for this particular sweater.  Darn.  In spite of wishing I’d done it in the round, I am liking how it is looking!

4 more rows and I’ve completed 5 sets of 16 rows.  Yay!

Happy knitting!

Inishturk (post #2)

The plan was that I would update on the Inishturk sweater on Fridays, but I decided to do an update today, too.

After 2 rounds of the pattern. pardon the image quality. I had to use my iPhone as I can't find the USB for the camera I used to take pics.

This sweater has been slow going.  I had to restart twice.  I am not finding nearly as much knitting time as I would like.  I have only completed two rounds of the pattern repeat.  Now that I am more familiar with the various patterns within the pattern, it is going a bit faster, but it still feels like it is taking forever. Especially when my new knitting friends tell me they completed 5 rounds by midday on Monday!  *sigh*

Interestingly, even though I checked gauge twice (once with 20 stitches, once with 24), the sweater is a little bit bigger than I expected.  It should be fine, though.  I’ll just put someone else’s name on it and drive on.

I also realized that I messed up a small part of the double seed stitch on one side.  I decided to leave it.  I am not going back.  It is on the bottom, on the back, and it proves it was knit by a human!

I am finding that this yarn is not as soft as I would like.  It is definitely getting softer as I work with it, but I can think of a couple of other brands of wool that would better suit my tastes for soft yarn.  When I make another (if?) I will use a different yarn.  You can’t beat the price of Fisherman’s Wool, (I paid $9.50 each for a skein of 465 yard/8 oz) but I don’t know if that is worth it.  Of course, I may get it all done, washed and blocked and find it is better than I expect and change my mind on changing yarn.  Time will tell.

As I looked over the pattern (again) over the weekend, I wondered why the shoulder seams are bound off and then sewn together when they could just be joined with a three-needle bind off.  I would definitely prefer that to sewing 2 more seams! (I wish this pattern was knit in the round.  I may try that the next time.)  I also think that I would prefer to pick up and knit the sleeves rather than knit 2 and seam those.  Do you see the theme?  I really hate seaming.

I’d love to see your progress. Please provide a link to a picture (http://tinypic.com is a hosting site that does not require an account) or
EMAIL ME your picture, along with your name (or nickname) and I will post it here.  (i don’t like spam either.  i have 6 kids, 4 of whom still live at home and homeschool.  I’m not going to barrage you with email of any kind. I am way too busy for that.  your email addy is safe with me.)

Happy knitting!!!

Here we go… Inishturk Sweater

Yesterday, the “official” start of the KAL, I casted on and started knitting the Inishturk sweater.  To get gauge, I would have had to use size 11 needles.  That left me with stitches that are way too loose for my taste.  I decided to keep the size 8 needles.  In order to make a sweater that is close to the 40 inch finished chest size, I have to actually knit according to the 52 inch pattern!

Alas, I made a mistake right at the beginning… one that I shouldn’t have made, having done this so many times before, but still did.  I don’t like tight ribbing around the bottom of sweaters.  The look of the ribbing is nice, of course and it serves to keep the bottom straight and where it belongs, but I don’t like the “sweatshirt look”.  Normally after the ribbing, a pattern will call for an increase before the pattern starts.  Normally, to keep the bottom straighter, I will actually cast on the full number of stitches required for the pattern and rib the same amount of stitches, with the main size needle (in this case, 8).  Normally.  Yesterday, I forgot to do that.  I had finished the ribbing before I realized my mistake.  *sigh*

I had to make a decision… do I rip it out and start over with what *I* consider the right amount of stitches or do I go ahead and leave it and make this one with a slightly tighter bottom? ? ? ?

I can’t bear the thought of starting over.  I can’t bear to put so many hours and stitches into something that will nag and gnaw at me for the entire life of the sweater, because to my mind, it is “wrong”.  The latter was the worse thought.  There was nothing to do but to rip it out and start again.  That made me so mad, I put it down and just left it alone.

Today I will cast on 144 stitches and will start again.   I feel “behind”, but I am hoping that I will be able to eek out a little extra time for knitting today to get caught up.

To make this as easy to follow as possible, here are a couple of things I’ll do or I’ve done

1) USE MARKERS

I  will place markers along the way.  I love to use markers.  The visual/tactile cues are very helpful to me.  I will place them them after the first stitch (selvedge stitch) and then after the next 16 (16 stitches between 2 markers), then after 3, 6, 3, 16, 4, 6, 2, 2, 28**, 2, 2, 6, 3, 16, 3, 6, 3, 16 (right before the very last stitch.)  There will be a total of 20 markers (I think! yes, I’m pretty sure.)

** I realized I had a typo here…
there are 28 stitches in the center braid,
not 24 as I originally typed.
I knew that and was knitting that.
Not sure what is up with my typing fingers!

I also start and finish each ribbing row with 1 knit stitch, so it looks like this:

k1, *k2, p2* (repeat until 1 stitch remains) k1

When I do the front of the sweater, I will do the opposite:

k1, *p2, k2* (repeat until one stitch remains) k1

This way, once I seam the selvedge stitches together, the pattern is intact.

2) TYPE OUT THE PATTERN

When typing out the pattern, I only include the numbers I need for the size I’m knitting.  So I replace “2 (4, 6, 8, 10)” with just “8″

I put the pattern (just the back of the sweater so far) in a 2 column word processing document and repeated it 16 8 times. (a full repeat is 16, but the back is k the p’s and p the k’s, so I did NOT type that out.  Also: update:  I wanted larger type so I re-did my pattern with one row per page and put it in a binder.  Much nicer for my tired, old eyes!) Then I went through and replaced the “Small Cable”, “Cable C”, “Panel A”, etc. with the actual instructions for that pattern, keeping track of which row goes where. I went through and did all of one stitch all at once to make sure I stayed on track, went back and did the next and so on.  Then I printed the pages, cut them in half, punched a whole (and used reinforcements) and put the whole thing on a ring.

To my fellow Inishturk knitters:

How is your sweater coming along?  If you have a blog, I’d love to see pictures of your progress.  Leave a comment and be sure to include the link!

Off to cast on.  Again.

Not just shawls

Rosario at Beads4Prayer has taken up crocheting and is planning to start loom knitting as well.  One of her first projects is a prayer shawl for a little girl in her parish who has been diagnosed with leukemia.  The idea of a prayer shawl is a great one.  It is a gift of love, a gift of service a gift of prayer as well as a gift of the shawl itself.

I find that all of my knitting (which consists mainly of gifts) is prayer knitting.  I get my iPod and pray the rosary while I knit.  I intercede on behalf of the one who will receive the knitting, praying for health, safety, guidance, wisdom and all other blessings and graces that they need.  When knitting for babies and children, I also pray that they come to know God intimately, that they grow in wisdom and holiness and I pray for their vocation and, if applicable, their future spouse.

By doing this, I find that I am spending much more time in prayer, whether it is knitting time or not.  The practice of prayer knitting somehow creates a more prayerful attitude in me that spills over into the rest of my day.  Maybe it is simply because while I thoroughly enjoy the process of knitting and the end results, it turns this from a selfish use of the time God gives me into an intercessory time.  It turns my heart to my fellow man, but also to God Himself.  It builds in me a desire for more time with Him and I find that I pray more and more throughout the day.

Prayer knitting… it’s not just for shawls anymore!

What about you?  Do you pray while you knit?

Temptation

When I determined to be more disciplined in my knitting and to cut back on the number of active projects, I had to put down a few things.  One of them has been calling to me!  I am designing/knitting a felted bag and I really want to work on it!

The truth is that I will be finished with the helmet liner soon and can pick it up then (instead of the baptismal garment) if I want to, but boy am I struggling to resist doing it NOW!

Another bit of temptation that I am fighting is a resolution that I did not write about here… that is to NOT purchase new yarn except for the yarn that I need for some sweaters that I have planned for this year.  Even after my IBOL donations, I still have a large stash and I could probably knit for hours and hours everyday this year and not exhaust the stash by year’s end. . .

. . . and now I see that Paton’s Classic Merino is on sale at Michael’s for only $4/skein ~ retail is about $7/skein.   This is my basic, everyday, go-to, worsted wool.  I use it for a lot of things.   Do you see my dilemma?  It’s almost half off!  How can I resist?  But I must try to.  I really must.  I’ll let you know how I do!  (btw, Lion Brand’s Fisherman’s yarn is also on sale at Michael’s this week for $7/(large!) skein, normal retail is $10/skein.  This is the yarn I am using for [some of] the sweaters I have planned this year.  I am going to get 3 of those, as they qualify as a “justified” purchase.)

I guess that now is as good a time as any to see how I handle the temptation to purchase yarn I don’t need and to knit too many projects at once.  Hopefully, I can pass the “test” at least for today.  I’ll deal with tomorrow when it’s tomorrow.