Tag Archives: Knitting

So remember how last time I wrote a WIP post I said that I wouldn’t be knitting my Uma Cardigan nearly as fast as Sarah’s Ojai Hooray sweater? Sarah emailed me to assure me that she doesn’t really knit fast, but that she knits a lot. Well I am neither a fast knitter, nor am I a knit-a-lot-er. And this past week has left little time to focus on knitting.

But, I have managed to get some tid bits worked on! Most of this has to do with upcoming pattern and yarn releases, so I’m going to be sneaky and only show you black and white photos.

Here’s a swatch I made for an upcoming design. I really enjoy this stitch pattern! Do you see the mistake? This swatch led me to cast on for the project last night. But with only the cast on done, it’s not very interesting, so I skipped that photo.

The first test knitting sample came back this week! I was so thrilled to see this project! I think you’re going to absolutely love it and I’m already contemplating how I can get enough yarn to make it myself. But the thing about test knitting is that sometimes the pattern isn’t written quite right for what the design shows. This was the case for this pattern. The test knitter made it exactly as the pattern specified and I was completely blinded by how wonderful it looked in pictures that I failed to notice that the ribbing was too long for how it was designed.

So I did a little surgery! The white thread is my favorite lifeline – cotton crochet thread. I cut the last stitch and carefully unraveled it down to the life line and then rebound off. Don’t worry, the pattern’s now fixed (which is exactly why we test knit!) so when you make this lovely pattern you won’t have to perform any surgery. Can you guess what it is?

And I also created some i-cord! And a tassel! For a completely different test knit. I’m not certain that the tassel will make it into the final design. You’ll have to wait and see! What do you think this is used for?

Finally, something I can show you in color! I knit several rows on my Uma Cardigan, though the progress doesn’t really show. Plus, I accidentally added a stitch in the cable section of the Back piece and somehow didn’t notice for four rows! So I had to rip back. And then I promptly put it down, even though I told myself that I needed to fix it so I didn’t forget which row of the cable I was on (7) .

So, what do you think? I’m thinking about doing a series of posts of what goes into making a yarn line. Would you be interested?

Hello friends! Sarah here with an Ojai Hooray Cardigan  update!

In my last post, I talked about picking up for the button bands. Since then I spent some relaxing time knitting an oasis of 2×2 rib!

(By the way, have you ever seen a more luscious green? The more of this sweater I get knit up, the more bananas I am about the colour. Every year it seems like the CSA yarn share dye options are more gorgeous!)

About halfway through the button band knitting, I took a break and knit the sleeves. I’ll explain why in just a minute. First, sleeves!

This sweater is a top down raglan construction. So, the shoulders and yoke are knit first, and then stitches for the body and sleeves are separated. When it’s time to knit the sleeves, those stitches are ready and waiting!

The Hooray Cardigan has shorter sleeves – sort of between bracelet and ¾ length.  I adjusted the sleeve length to fit my actual arm instead of the pattern measurements because I’m really, really short! This was easy to do – I just cut out length from sections without any shaping. Looking at other knitters’ project notes on Ravelry gave me the idea for another small modification: instead of working the sleeves in reverse stockinette, I just turned them inside out and worked regular stockinette. I knit faster than I purl, so it made the sleeves much quicker!

The sleeves also have deep ribbing at the cuffs.

The pattern suggests two different finishing techniques for the sleeve and button band edgings. I chose attached i-cord, which I am kind of bonkers about. It looks SO tidy and clean! I’m especially pleased with the attached i-cord edge on the sleeves, because it’s seamless.

Using a combination of this Purlbee tutorial and this Knitty article, I cast on provisionally, knit the attached i-cord bind off around the sleeve edge, and then kitchenered the two ends of the i-cord together! Voila, seamless edging!

Both sleeves finished! HOORAY!

Now, why did I take a break from the button band? I put it on pause because it was time to add buttonholes, and I like to choose my buttons before I decide on buttonhole placement. That way, I can place the buttonholes based on the size and number of buttons I choose, instead of having to narrow my button choices to work with existing buttonholes.

Here in Victoria, we have the BEST button store, the Button & Needlework Boutique. They have an amazing selection of gorgeous buttons, and I always have a hard time choosing! I very often go with buttons that match the colour of my sweater, but sometimes contrasting colours or textures catch my eye.

I narrowed it down to about five different buttons, some contrasting, some matching, and all made out of different materials.

Matching or contrasting? I think I’ll wait until my next post to show you which ones I bought!

By then, I should have a whole sweater to show you. Whoa.

Sarah hangs out with her cat, drinks a lot of tea, sometimes eats amazing muffins for breakfast and knits as much as possible in beautiful Victoria, BC.

Hello friends! Friendly neighbourhood sweater fanatic Sarah here, with an update on my Hooray Cardigan. If you’re new to this series, the yarn is Juniper Moon Farm’s own 100% cormo wool CSA share yarn! In my last post, I had just finished the body of the sweater. Next to do: button bands!

Not everyone enjoys knitting button bands. When I was a newer, more nervous knitter, I definitely worried about finishing details like button bands. I was afraid that after having spent so much time working on a project, a sloppy button band or imperfect bind off could ruin the whole thing.

These days, I’m more comfortable and confident with finishing tasks because usually I’m the only one who sees what I think are ‘imperfections’. I also trust my instincts a bit more – if I’m not happy with how it’s coming out, I rip it and try a different way.

The first step to adding a lovely button band to a cardigan is picking up stitches. I love picking up stitches, because it’s such a tidy, organized task. It’s also another area where I diverged from the pattern instructions, because your individual gauge and the measurements of the actual garment you have in your hands matter here.

I used this excellent tutorial by Jane Richmond (a Vancouver Island designer!) to calculate the best number of stitches to pick up on each front edge of the sweater, instead of using the number provided in the pattern.

First, I figured out the length of the piece I needed to pick up stitches on by measuring the length of the front edge of each side of my sweater, from top of collar to bottom of body: it turned out to be 24” long on each side (4” of collar and 20” of body).

The button band for this sweater is done in 2×2 rib. So, the next step was to measure my gauge in 2×2 rib – luckily, I had already knit the collar in 2×2 rib, so I didn’t need to swatch! My 2×2 rib gauge was 5sts/inch. In order to have a button band that lays nice and flat, I needed to pick up 5 sts per inch along the sweater fronts – 24” x 5sts/inch = 120 stitches per side!

Once I knew how many stitches to pick up, I used another trick to make sure I picked up evenly along each edge. I divided each sweater front into equal sections using scrap yarn,

and then picked up the appropriate number of stitches for each section: 20 stitches in the 4” long collar section, and 25 sts in each of four 5” body sections.

The Hooray Cardigan has an extra long button band with curved corners that extends along the bottom edge as well, so it’s actually all one loooong row: from the top of the collar, down the front, around the bottom and back up the other front.

I’ll be happily knitting 2×2 rib until my next update, with stern feline supervision of course!

Sarah hangs out with her cat, drinks a lot of tea, sometimes eats cinnamon toast for breakfast and knits as much as possible in beautiful Victoria, BC.