Finished Knit: Lysa Sweater

Today I am excited to share with you a finished knit!

This is one of the projects I bought yarn from in October, and was what I decided to take with on my holiday to Canada. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but taking up knitting has transformed my travelling experience. Before knitting a long flight or train journey would be seen as something to be endured. Try and numb my mind by watching movies and try not to think about how much longer there was to go. It was all about the destination and how long it was until I got there.

Now, I am a fairly excitable person (as anyone that has been on a trip with me can attest) and the beginning of trips, even weekends away, are often accompanied with me singing "We're going on hoooolidaaay". Even with all of that, the long journeys were still something to be endured.

But not any more, not now I have knitting to keep me company. Instead of a long period of time to be endured and to count down until it ends, these periods of time are now opportunities for me to make massive headway into knitting projects. These days my essential travelling equipment is my current knitting project and a new audiobook. And that's what I did across the Pacific and over North America on my recent trip. If I wasn't snoozing (let's not fool ourselves by calling it sleeping), I was knitting and listening to one of my "stories".

That's how I got this jumper finished in unprecedented (for me) speed, especially since it's an 8 ply rather than 10 ply yarn. I had finished almost all of the yoke on the way there, splitting for the armholes shortly after, and almost finishing the body by the time I got home. So in the last 3 weeks I just needed to knit up the sleeves (which I again did at both at once on one set of long circular needles; seriously, this method is transformative for both motivation and symmetrical garments)

(me looking like a dork trying my in-progress knit on in the plane)

The knit wasn't completely uneventful; it took me 4 tries to cast on. I just could not get the hang of the backwards loop cast on, so ended up going with a long tail cast on like I've used before. I also had a little trouble with the short rows; if anybody has any recommendations for learning resources for short rows, please throw them at me!

This was my first foray into colourwork and I'm happy with how it went. Obviously the design is incredibly simple; simply alternating the two colours, but it gives a lovely effect. I was careful to make sure that my tension wasn't too tight in these sections, as I found it easy to pull the yarn too tight rather than accounting for the extra yarn needed to bridge the stitch of the other colour. However, it was plenty of fun to do and a good first design; now I'm excited to keep a look out for other colourwork designs that catch my eye!

To recap, the pattern is the Lysa Pullover by Hilary Smith Callis, and the yarn is Morris and Sons Empire in 8ply, with the main colour in seascape twist, and the contrasting colour in biscuit. The seascape twist really is gorgeous; from a distance it looks grey but when you look closely it's a mix of pale blue and beige.

I made a few variations to the pattern as I was knitting this up, starting with adding a few extra rows in here and there. When doing my gauge swatch I found that my stitch count was right, but my row count was off; the pattern states 26 rows in 4" and I had 28 rows in 4 inches, so basically through the yoke portion I added about one extra row for every 13 in the pattern.

Then when I got to the body section of the pattern I pretty much made it all up; I checked my measurements against the chart and decided that I wanted to go down a size in the waist, so calculated how many extra stitches I would need to decrease by and over what length (ie my distance from armpit to waist), then calculated how often do the decreases. I also did the equivalent for the hip increases, based on my measurements. After trying on the almost finished body of the jumper I also decided to add a few extra rows to the ribbing around the hips, as I preferred the proportions of slightly more ribbing.



The sleeves were the other place I departed from the pattern. I knew I wanted to knit long sleeves on my sweater, but the pattern came with three quarter length sleeves. So, I measured the length of the sleeves on my Myrna cardigan, as I like the length of those, then I subtracted off how much ribbing I wanted and how much length the colourwork design would add. I also worked out the circumference I would want once it reached my wrists. from there I calculated how often to decrease as I knit the rounds of the sleeves.



In hindsight I knit the sleeves a tiny bit too snug. But really, the whole thing is fairly tight so it's not like I have a lose drapey jumper with tight sleeves. This is a jumper for wearing over not very much, it's not a jumper for wearing heaps of layers underneath it. However, it is nice and slim so could easily be worn with layers over the top of it; swings and roundabouts.

I don't mind, I have plenty of reason to need to wear a merino sweater with only a singlet underneath, for example sweater inside the office, singlet outside at lunchtime, sorted!

Upcoming knitting projects and a request for advice

Having finished my Myrna, and with a holiday coming up pretty quickly (knitting on the plane FTW!), last weekend I pored over Ravelry trying to choose my next knitting project. I eventually managed to narrow it down to 6 options. So on Sunday I dragged the boy to Morris and Sons to look at my yarn options, make a decision and buy the yarn.

After much indecision, I ended up buying yarn for two sweaters and a beanie. I blame the boy for ending up with yarn for two sweaters; he encouraged me to get them both if I really liked them, rather than going through all this indecision again next time. As seems to be my new usual, all the yarn is merino.

"Scarlet Twist" Corazon Sweater
 

This Morris and Sons Empire 8ply yarn in "Scarlet Twist" will be made into the Corazon pattern, a lovely simple lace detail raglan sweater I've had my eye on for a while. Previously I've been concerned that I won't wear sweaters with a high neckline like this one, but after making the Aiken and seeing how much I wear that I don't have that concern as much any more.

"Seascape Twist" and "Biscuit" Lysa Sweater

 

Some more Morris and Sons Empire 8ply yarn, will become a Lysa Sweater, with "Seascape Twist" for the main colour, and "Biscuit" for the contrast. This pattern has also been in my favourites for a while, but I was a little cautious about the colurwork as I've never done it before. However, my knitting confidence is slowly growing so that doesn't scare me too much anymore, the only potential limitation was choosing a nice colour combination. 

As soon as I saw the grey(ish) colour that's for the main body of the sweater I loved it; it's made of a twist of pale blue and beige threads, so it's a really interesting colour up close. We spent quite a while choosing the contrast colour, there were many different possibilities. I didn't want anything too strong a contrast on the pale solid as I was worried how that would look, giving an illusion of footballers shoulders or something. I also wanted to keep the sweater neutral. There was a lovely olive green yarn that looked great with the grey, but I'd told myself that I wasn't going to make another blue or green knit. In the end we settled with the 'biscuit' colour as it complements the beige colour in the grey twist, and hopefully will stand out just the right amount.

"Royal" Aesderina Beanie

 

Lastly, this Manos Maxmia in Royal will become a Aesderina beanie. I'm inspired by Tasia's versions of this pattern to give it a go, and will hopefully knit it up before, or on the way to, my upcoming trip to Canada, so that my softy Aussie-aclimatised head will be kept warm while we're there.

Since buying the yarn on the weekend I've knit a couple of gauge swatches; stockinette for the lysa and the lace for the corazon. The lace for the corazon seems spot on for the pattern. However the stockinette isn't quite right for the Lysa. It has the right number of stitches (19) but the rows aren't quite right - I have 28 stitches over 4" but the pattern calls for 26.

And here comes my request for advice...

Knitting experts; is this different enough to worry about adding extra rows to the pattern or will I be ok? I'm mostly concerned about the circular yoke and raglan section of the sweater, as I'll work out exactly how long I want the body and sleeves of the sweater to be and check the numbers of rows.

I've checked the pattern, and there are about 51 rows in the shoulder section before I split for the sleeves. In the correct gauge this would be 7.85", and in my gauge it's 7.28". I'm currently thinking of just following the pattern as written, knowing that it'll be a little shorter, but figuring that I have fairly small shoulders for my bust size and therefore it'll hopefully be ok being a tad smaller. Does this seem reasonable?

I've not made anything in this kind of style before (circular yoke), so I have no idea how to measure myself to work out the sizing for the shoulder area ... any tips or useful links for this?

Similarly, does anybody know of any good books about sizing (or design) of knitted garments? I've got a couple of knitting books but they're fairly basic and not helpful in this case.

But, to end with something a exciting rather than a problem, I had a little practice with the colourwork design with some scrap yarn and it's worked out really well, hooray!

Thanks for any advice!

Aiken Jumper (plus bonus pencil skirt)

Today I want to share with you another successful knitting project from an Andi Satterlund pattern. This pattern is the Aiken and went completely smoothly and was a very quick knit. In all honesty, it took less time to knit the jumper than it did for me to get around to writing this post after taking photos *looks ashamed*

A testament to the speed of the knit, is that I knit my guage swatch and cast on on Christmas Day, and I'm not sure exactly when I finished the jumper, but it was sometime early February. So speedy!!

 

I didn't make any alterations except for adding some extra rows of ribbing around the waist. Ideally I would have made it a smidge longer still, but this was how much yarn I had and I was too lazy to go buy some more.

I find that the jumpers I have with a high neckline like this don't get worn much, but this jumper has proved to be an exception to that, especially since I adore the lace detail.

The yarn I've used is a merino yarn so is lovely to wear and snuggly warm.

 

Also, the skirt I'm wearing in these photos hasn't been blogged before. It's another Jenny Skirt, and the reason it hadn't been blogged is that when I originally made it (which was who knows how long ago) it was too small. I could get it on but couldn't really move, and certainly couldn't sit down; I'd forgotten to account for this fabric having no stretch.

Anyway, I've managed to lose a little weight this year and now the skirt fits through the hips! Hurrah! However, the waist was too big, so I unpicked the zip and took it in at the centre back to make the waist fit better.

The skirt fabric is a silk suiting that I got from the fabric store. It was interesting to work with. It's very soft and decadent, but fray terribly and holds creases like nobody's business. I wouldn't sew with it again!

Anyway, an incredibly successful jumper and a salvaged skirt. And hopefully my next post won't come at quite such a big delay after my last one.

Finished Knit - Parcel Jumper

Look you guys! I have something finished to share! I bet you thought I hadn't done anything in aaaaages! Well a few interstate flights and some lazy evenings on the couch mean that I've FINALLY finished knitting my Parcel jumper.

I started this one in February (as mentioned in this earlier post about the jumper back in June), but it got put on hold while I was away on holiday in July as I worked on my green Miette then instead, and when I got back I decided to finish that off first.

As I mentioned in the June post about this jumper, the yarn is Merino Gold, which is truly gorgeous both to work with and to wear, so delightfully soft! I'm also massively in love with the teal colour that I chose to use.

The pattern is "Parcel" by Carol Feller, and I picked it because I fell completely in love with the asymmetrical cables. Also my geeky side loves that the cables look like DNA, teeheehee.

Another interesting feature of this pattern is the ribbing; rather than a straight ribbing it's a 'mistake' rib, which took me a little while to get the hang of, but once I 'got' it I discovered that I really liked the look of it.

I made some minor alterations to the pattern to give it more of a nipped in waist, and make sure I had the right size in the bust and hips. These changes were done in the increases/decreases up the sides.

I also spent quite a while working out the length and where to put the decreases/increases to make the jumper just the right length. I didn't want it to be a cropped jumper but also didn't want it to be so long it looked weird worn with things with a waist seam. I compared the lengths of a few of the jumpers I already own to work out what my optimal length would be, and I think I've managed to get it pretty much spot on.

The pattern was fantastic though, the cable chart easy to follow, and the finished jumper is amazing. Sadly I think this pattern is a little too distinctive to make again. But I fully intend on wearing this version to death!

Knitting Update - Parcel Jumper Progress in Pictures

While it hasn't been mentioned around these parts in a little while, I am still knitting. My current project, which I've been very slowly plodding away on the is Parcel pattern; a gorgeous jumper pattern that has asymmetrical cables running up it.

The yarn I'm using is the same type as the one I used for my Whole Wheat Cardigan, Merino Gold, but in a gorgeous teal colour. I've been instagraming pics of my progress intermittently, but I thought I'd share some of those pictures with you here, as seen all in one place they really do highlight my progress...

February 23rd:

February 27th: 

March 4th: 

March 15th: 

April 7th: 

May 7th: 

May 8th: 

May 18th: 

May 24th:

 

June 22nd: 

June 23rd:

 

I'm really loving how it's turning out, but it feels like it's taking soooooo much longer than the other projects I've worked on! I'm slowly getting there with it, having started the first sleeve this weekend. I can't wait to wear it, it should be so cozy! Hopefully I'll finish before winter is over.