sweater Archives - Page 2 of 5

Lucinda January 17, 2013

Owls Sweater Fail [“If You Want to Destroy My Sweater…”]

I have a tale of woe to share, not for the faint of knitting heart.

In the past 17 years of knitting, I have only had three major finished sweater fails, which isn’t that bad, really. The first being the Central Park Hoodie, a sweater that taught me the importance of knitting a gauge swatch – when I finished sewing all of the seams and tried it on, the sweater would have fit an eight year old and I was 19 at the time. The second is a Twinkle Skating Sweater I made out of Rowan Big Wool, and I learned that super bulky yarn and cables are not that flattering or slimming on the human body. The third, which is chronicled below, taught me the a new lesson: knitting a gauge swatch is not enough, it must be blocked as well to determine how the finished product will actually look and fit.

Ready? Here goes…

After sewing the underarm seams, weaving in all of the ends, and stitching on a pair of button eyes, I thought that my Owls sweater could benefit from a wet block to fix some wonky looking stitches. I found a little sample of Soak that I bought at a yarn store last year, emptied some of the sachet into my bathroom sink, and placed my sweater in the basin for about ten minutes while I hopped in the shower. After I got out of the shower and changed, I drained the basin and carefully squeezed out some of the water in a towel – boy, did that thing keep in water! I carefully transported the sweater over to a dry towel on the floor of my bedroom and proceded to lay out the sweater to dry.

But wait a minute – what was going on with my sweater??? My sweater grew three times the size it was supposed to be.

The above picture is a result of my wet blocking. Just in case you haven’t read about my Owls sweater, the yarn in question is Rowan Cocoon, a very nice, very expensive, Merino wool and mohair blend. Not a superwash, mind you, which has a tendency to stretch out and grow. This was wool, which is known for its elastic properties and great memory. What the heck was going on?? I tried to smoosh the stitches together to make it smaller (I have no idea why I thought this would work) but it was no use. I told myself, maybe it’ll shrink up as it drys. So I aimed a fan at it and waited patiently over the next two days to see if there was any change. Nope. In fact, it’s still damp.

Just for reference, the sleeves measure 30″ long and the body of the sweater is 26″. Maybe if I was 6’3″ or had knuckles down to my knees it would fit!

Here’s a before and after so you can see in detail how much the stitches themselves stretched out:

Look at those nice and tidy stitches, that dense knitted fabric. It’s perfect, it’s on gauge, and lovely! Now here’s the after-blocking picture:

It looks like I knit this thing on US 15 needles when I actually used US 11 needles. Wowzers.

There is no way that you should be able to see through that ribbing, and I’m not even stretching it out in that picture. I’d have to wear a tank top underneath this sweater so that my bra isn’t exposed since it’s that loose, and I bet you’d see the big mole on my stomach, too.

So what the hell happened?? I know mohair has a tendency to grow over time; my first sweater I ever made was knit out of 100% mohair and the sleeves kept growing each time I washed it. This yarn is only an 80/20 blend, so it’s mostly comprised of wool. I tried searching on Ravelry to see if anyone else had this problem with Rowan Cocoon and found only one or two people who had tragedy strike, but that was it.

When I told my friends at knitting night what happened to my sweater, one of my friends asked me, with wide eyes and an incredulous look, “Don’t you wet block your swatches?” I sat there a bit dumbfounded since the concept of wet blocking a swatch was foreign to me. I guess I learned my lesson on this project!

Honestly, I’m not that upset about what happened. As I sat there trying to figure out what the heck was going on with my wet gorilla-sized sweater, I said to myself, “huh, that’s interesting. Alright then.” I think it’s due in part to the fact that I wasn’t totally in love with this sweater. I just wanted to finish knitting it so I could move on to another project (which I have, yay) and so I could wear it to Vogue Knitting Live this weekend. If the yarn I used should only be steamed blocked, even though the label says “hand wash,” then it’s just as well that it didn’t turn out right because I’d never make a sweater I couldn’t properly wash, eww eww. And for yarn that’s $16.95 a ball, it better do what I want it to do, dammit.

So a-ripping out I shall now. There’s six balls of expensive yarn invested in this sweater that I am not letting go to waste. I’m thinking a big, in-your-face statement cowl like the Gap-Tastic Cowl on Ravelry.

Hold this thread as I walk away…

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Lucinda January 2, 2013

Renfrew Sweater – Last Garment of 2012!

I’m pretending I’m in Aspen or some other posh, snowy place in this picture. In actuality, I’m at my boyfriend’s condo in northern Mass.

But I did it! I squeaked out one more finished garment for 2012 on Sunday, just to show that it’s possible to make a sweater in one day.

Pattern: Renfrew, view C
Fabric: Wool/nylon sweater knit from Gorgeous Fabrics
Size: 4 graded to a 6 at the waist

In an effort to add more cake to my closet and create more of an Everyday Wardrobe, I reached for my trusty Sewaholic Renfrew pattern and a sweater knit I bought a few months ago from Gorgeous Fabrics. Learning from my first Renfrew, I cut out a 4 for the top and graded it out to a 6 and I like the fit much better this time around – it’s not as baggy fitting.

I was nervous about sewing with a sweater knit, a fabric I’ve never used before, and thought that my machine would chew up all the fuzziness as I sewed my seams, but it went along quite smoothly. What I’m most happy about with this sweater is that I cut it out from 1 yard of fabric. That’s right, 1 yard! The fabric is originally 68″ wide, making it easier than the usual 60″ wide fabric to cut out the pattern pieces, but at the end I needed to get a little creative with my pattern layout.

The bottom band is half the original width – I didn’t have enough fabric for the full length of the band (it’s supposed to be cut on the fold to make a long band go all the way around your hips) so I cut only half of the length, cut that in half, and had two narrow pieces to seam together at each side seam and attach to the bottom of the sweater. I ended up using a zigzag to catch the seam allowance on the inside and prevent the band from flipping out, which you can sort of see in the picture above.

I also stitched around the cowl as well. I loved the double-sided construction of the cowl and appreciated the extra warmth on a cold first day of the new year.

So, the Renfrew pattern has officially earned its spot in my sewing pattern arsenal as a TNT, or “Tried and True” pattern. The fit is great, it’s a cinch to whip up, and it allows for a lot of variations so it doesn’t look like the same ol’ pattern.

Also, what is up with my affinity for making gray colored tops lately?

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Lucinda November 7, 2012

WIP – Owls Sweater

The Owls sweater has been in my queue since 2008 and honestly, I don’t know why it’s taken me this long to get around to knitting it. It’s fantastic! The fact that there are 6,000 Owls projects on Ravelry speaks volumes to the popularity and knit-ability of this sweater – it’s as if as a knitting blogger, I’m obligated to make this sweater!

I splurged and bought this Rowan Cocoon yarn waaaaay back in June when I took a trip out to Webs with the knitting gals. Ah Rowan, how do you always succeed at making crave-worthy yarn? I can tell that this merino wool/mohair blend is going to be warm and snuggly to wear, but boy does the fuzz fly when knitting the sweater. I can see it floating in the air around me and the amount of fibers that stick to me looks as if I had a cat sitting on my lap.

Right now I’m around the underarm and will start the dip for the yoke soon. I can’t wait to get to those owls and start knitting the cabled yoke.

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Lucinda October 23, 2012

Finished Sweater: Carnac

Pattern: Carnac by Army of Knitters
Yarn: Knit Picks Simply Cotton Worsted in Brass Heather
Needles: US 10 and 15
Size: 37 1/4

The impulse to make this sweater resulted from a phone conversation with my sister aka The Stitcherati about our current knitting projects. Almost one month later (could have been faster actually), I had my own version of Army of Knitter’s Carnac and my sister had hers.

Yes yes, I can be quite impulsive…but it seemed like such a quick, instant-gratification knit, something I haven’t had since I knit my Star Crossed Beret in February (hmm, my sister was up visiting that weekend, too). And of course, being impulsive, I didn’t knit a gauge swatch. I just jumped on in with my needles and yarn and casted on the required amount of stitches and knitted away the hours watching Murder, She Wrote on Netflix.

Should have knit that gauge swatch.

It’s not that I’m unhappy with the sweater, but it didn’t turn out how I wanted it to. I was hoping for more of a loose, boho-casual fit shown in the pattern picture. Instead, I got a sweater with shrunken sleeves, a short rise, and very very tight armholes. I blocked the dickens out of it, thinking that the cotton yarn would grow when wet, but it didn’t loosen up as much as I had hoped. Ah well, such are the consequences of impulsiveness. I got used to the tight fit as I wore it during the day, but felt that I kept tugging at the sleeves and bottom of the sweater.

The pattern was clearly written and was an easy to remember pattern repeat that knitted up in a flash. Where I got stuck was trying to figure out how the heck to knit the sleeves in the round on size 15 needles. The pattern never calls for DPNs, just circulars, and I tried several times to get the sleeves going on a 16″ circular needle. I was also too impatient to wait for US 15 DPNs to arrive by mail (do you see a theme happening here?) so I shelled out for some nice 40″ Addi Turbos to try out Magic Loop. After several attempts and throwing my knitting across the room, I finally figured out the technique and finished the sleeves in a matter of days.

I also picked up less stitches around the neck than the pattern called for…about 44 I think? I’m sure that if I had actually gotten the right gauge I would have picked up as many as the pattern said I should pick up.

I guess this sweater was a happy accident, but it was nice to finally finish a major project since my Leaflet sweater almost a year ago. It’s given me the push to tackle another sweater or two – an Owls sweater, which almost seems like a mandatory knit for every knitting blogger, and Andi Satterlund’s cropped Chuck sweater (psst I bought yarn for it this weekend). I wonder if I can whip these off of my needles before the end of the year…

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Lucinda October 1, 2012

Magic Loop Fail.

This post was supposed to be a “look what I made this weekend!” post, but since I’m pretty under the weather with a head-cold, I didn’t feel like getting all dolled up to take pics of my new Renfrew. Instead, I’m sipping a Rum Hot Toddy and wearing my comfy velour hoody and pants (don’t hate on the velour, it’s perfectly acceptable indoor wear. And nowhere else). After this whole thing clears up, I’ll make sure to take pics to share, I’m really excited about how it turned out!

On the knitting side, I’ve made minimal progress on my Carnac sweater due to the debacle of the sleeves. I’ve tried knitting the sleeves on double pointed needles for the cuff and transitioning to a 16″ US 15 circular, but that didn’t work. Before that, I tried to magic loop on a 32″ US 15, the needle I used to knit the body of the sweater, but that didn’t work out well. Thinking that magic loop was going to be the solution, since size 15 DPNs are not easy to find, I purchased a 40″ US 15 Addi Turbo needle this weekend and tried it again. Still not good! It was so fiddly and fussy with a big curling cable getting in the way of me trying to slide around my stitches. I don’t know if it’s the lace pattern which is making it difficult to do magic loop or what, but I really don’t want to break down and order DPNs online, which look to be around $25. I already dropped $20 on the Addi circulars and another $8 on the 16″ Clover circulars. This is getting to be a big needle investment for this sweater.

Maybe there’s some experienced magic loopers out there reading this: how do you keep the tension even between the stitches on both needles? I find that when I finish the last stitch on one needle and slide the stitches around to get the next half on the needle, I pull to tighten up the slack from the last stitch and continue knitting on. But then, when I finish knitting and need to slide the stitches around again to get the next batch of stitches on the needle, they’re too tight to slide easily. If you could follow that explanation and know what I’m talking about, I applaud you.

Oh well. Maybe I’ll just knit the sleeves flat. I’d rather not, since it would be an ugly seam underneath the sleeve with the lace pattern. Or maybe I’ll just suck it up and order some double pointed needles.

I’ll give it one more shot…any ideas/recommendation on magic loop knitting?