KPP Fair Isle Cardigan Knitalong

Collar Steek Worries

Hello all! I've just joined the KAL, and as I told Penny when I asked to join, I'm desperately in need of some motivation and moral support to finish my Palette Sampler. I've loved all the knitting of it, and can't wait to wear it...but...All that's left to do now is the collar and front steeks, and knitting the collar and button band. And I'm terrified. The straight steeks don't bother me anymore - the armholes went fine - but the curved ones for the collar have paralyzed me. I crocheted one-half of the collar before going away for the holidays. I think it's fine (famous last words, ha!), but it took  a whole long evening of intense concentration, by the end of which I was a quivering mass of very nervous jelly. The thought of doing it again - and making it match exactly! - has kept me from picking up the sweater again since then. I'm working under a tight deadline right now, so setting aside several hours of peace, quiet and good light while I'm awake enough to handle this has also been a problem, and it may not happen right away. But I need you guys to keep me thinking about it, and wanting the sweater, so that the poor thing doesn't end up banished to the closet forever. On a brighter note: I had a wonderful time knitting the rest of it, and I can't wait to play with all these leftovers! The whole sampler set looks scarcely touched, so I'm expecting to make quite a few more things out if it. I've loved every second of playing with all the colors - which was the point of buying this set - so it's already been worth it. I posted about some of the details of knitting it on my blog here and here. I wish I'd thought of altering it for raglan sleeves, as Bess did, although I'm not at all sure I would have been able to pull it off, so I think I'll just watch Bess and learn, so I can do it next time I attack a Fair Isle sweater!

Thanks so much to Penny and Laura for setting this up!

Sleeve Cap Math (very wordy)

This is a cross post from my own blog but it's very relevant.

Oh my dears! I can’t believe I knit an entire man’s Norwegian sweater in stranded colorwork - FLAT! Purling back with 2 colors for half the sweater! As my first ever, learn to knit project!! My stars ... and reindeer! That has to be the clumsiest knitting in the world. What were those knitting editors thinking!?! S’truth, my eyes are bleary with it - and I can barely focus to type.

But let us begin with an effort at explanations, descriptions and directions.

We left our heroine with 16 stitches on the needles at the top of the sleeve cap. The first and last of those 16 stitches are part of the decrease line which really does need to continue on to the bitter end, in the same slant that it has been leaning, with the same stitch laying atop the stitch from the sleeve it’s eaten up. (Forgive the mixed metaphors) Note those decreases, wobbly, but all laying in the same direction and tidily taking up a sleeve cap stitch each time.

Now, I think of those stitches as part of the sleeve, but in fact they are the first and last stitches of the body front and back. That means there were really only 14 stitches left in the sleeve cap. It’s not important for fit. One stitch more or less hardly ever matters in a sweater. But it does mean I had only 7 rows left to knit to complete the sleeve cap, not 8, and that can matter in stranded colorwork.

The first two rows are done in the solid color (Twig) and on the purl row back I decreased 10 stitches out of the center to make the fabric snug in towards my neck. I did this by knitting about 1/3 of the shoulder, then I Another view of the sweater back eating up the back half of the sleeve cap.

K2,K2tog 10 times, then knit the other third. I’ve tried the sweater on again and this decrease is nice enough. I could have decreased 25% of all the stitches and it might have made an even better fit, but I’d have to be careful to do the same on the front and I didn’t feel like calculating the math for that. When the decrease is taken from the center back it won’t matter because that part of the sweater is not matched with the front, but finished off with the neck band. So, I think I probably made the better choice. Look closely and you can see the decreases lean towards the center in both directions.

I have all sorts of circular knitting needles containing the resting stitches of front and sleeve caps and they are a pain in the neck (;>) The wise thing would have been to put the fronts on a loop of nice thick yarn, tied so they can’t slip off. Then I would have put the back sleeve cap stitches on “real” stitch holders that I could clasp shut. The Lazy Gal’s choice just made for more work and the danger, frequently fulfilled, of using the wrong needle to knit any given row. Needles everywhere!

Now. About that wretched purling back in stranded colorwork! Ugh!

First you must understand that I could have knit this all in the solid color and it would have looked lovely and been so much easier to do, with no ends to weave in afterwards. If I had been at a color that was less flattering to me I would have. Instead I was at the delightful tiger stripe yellow and brown. I love that 2 stitch color pattern in all the colorways; love the way it shades, love the combinations the designer chose. I couldn’t resist. But I have only 4 rows in which to put these colors so I chose to do them all in the same 2 colors. I intended to use the mid-range colors of Fawn and Lemon but accidentally picked up Yellow instead of Lemon and now I’ve knit those 2 wretched purl rows I am not ripping back for anything except a bad fit. Besides, it looks nice. Even though the trend in the sweater is from dark at the base to light at the top, that vivid green band balances out the bright yellow.

Anyway, with the decision made to keep up the colorwork I had to face those dreaded purl rows. I am what Bob Kelly, of Skein, in Middleburg,VA, calls a scooper - a Continental knitter. I knit holding the yarn in my left hand, over my left index finger, in fact, and scoop the yarn off the finger with my right needle. When using 2, or even 3, colors I separate them with my middle finger, while still using my index finger as the tension rod, and scoop whatever color I want. I can move rather swiftly on a knit row.

I purl in the Combination manner of scooping which sets up the stitches backwards for the following knit row. I find it as easy to knit into the back leg as the front so I don’t have the problem of twisted stitches. But I can purl the correct continental way of using my tensioning finger to wrap the yarn around the right needle tip properly. It’s just a lot of work so I don’t do it unless there’s a reason.

So. Here I am faced with 2 rows of 100 stitches to purl in 2 colors, changing every other stitch!!!

1. I tried my usual scoop purl. I couldn’t keep the two colors apart enough to select the one I wanted.

2. I tried holding the yarn in my right hand. Oh La! Pick up a color, wrap and purl, drop color. Pick up other color. Wrap and purl. Drop. Do this 200 times? I think not.

3. I turned the sweater around and tried to knit back backwards. Couldn’t do it at all with the yarn in my left hand so I wrapped one color around the right index finger and one around the thumb. This worked. It was excruciating, but it worked.

4. I turned back to the purl side and tried to tension one color with my index finger and one with my middle finger. Couldn’t do it. The middle finger yarn just slid off into space.

5. Still on the purl side I went back to tensioning both yarns over the index finger but when I purled one color I scooped and when I did the next color I brought the right needle tip up between the two colors (who looked like they were trying to make a baby they were so close) and did the proper continental purl, which is basically wrapping the yarn in the other direction (from the scoop direction). That worked only, my left hand grew so tense and stiff it began to ache.

6. So I went back to the knit back backwards technique to rest my hand and in the end I sort of swapped off #3 and #5 techniques to get to the end of the row.

A heck of a lot of trouble, any sane person might say. But it wouldn’t be that much trouble if I had kept it all in a solid color. It would have been no trouble at all, really. And it doesn’t hurt to teach my hands a new technique. It’s only 400 stitches in a sweater of tens of thousands of stitches. It’s important to me to have that set in sleeve fit, and the last few rows are the price you pay to get it. And I really wanted those last bands of tigerish colors. But if you don’t want to go mad with those 400 stitches - if it seems just too daunting - leave off the colorwork. It’s quite easy and will look lovely.

So. One more tip. At the end of every knit row, knit last stitch with the next sleeve cap stitch. Use an SSK, btw. Replace that stitch on the left needle and SSK that stitch with the next sleeve cap stitch. Replace that stitch on the left needle. Turn and start purling back with the first stitch that’s now on your left needle.

At the end of every purl row, P2tog the last stitch with the next sleeve cap stitch. Replace that stitch on left needle and P2tog with next sleeve cap stitch. Replace stitch, turn work, and start knitting with the stitches on your left needle.

If you’re doing this in a solid color, snug up the stitches a bit here. If you’re doing the stranded colorwork, don’t worry if you see any little gap in the knitting. The floats in the back will disguise them and wet blocking will even everything out sweetly.

An opinionated word or two about blocking here. My favorite blocking method is to just wash my sweater, spin it out in the washing machine (with the main gate valve closed!) and then pat it into shape on towels on the bathroom floor. Sooner or later you’ll have to do this anyway because sweaters do get dirty. Sweaters I’ve been knitting, in a house heated by wood, carted about here and there and just everywhere, are already dirty before they’re finished, so a good washing is just what they need. But the best part about washing or wet blocking is that you give all the stitches the same opportunity to even out. My knitting is as lumpy and bumpy as can be while it’s still on the needles. But just you wait till I wet block them. You’ll think I’m a really fine knitter! I’ll show you. I’ll have photos!

Whew. Lots of words. I’m on the last row of solid color knitting on the back, trying to decide if I really want to bother with short rows. I will think about it today, look at the sweater tonight and make my decision then. Whew. What a sweatermath workout!

Good knitting to you all.

Photos!

Hmmm. I posted this a.m. but must have done something wrong since it doesn't show up. All the better, though, since now I have pictures.

I made it through the next colorway!! The last complete colorway, in fact. I have 8 more rounds of knitting to do, but here is where I must divide and knit front and back flat. I haven’t done stranded colorwork from the purl side in, oh la!, not since I was in high school! Well, there will only be only 2 rounds worth of that kind of knitting. It can’t be but so bad.

You can see I got better with handling the color of those decreases as I went on up towards the top. If I still can't stand the little odd color blips when I've blocked this sweater, I can cover them up with duplicate stitch.

Another development popped up to surprise me. When I tried on the sweater last night - to see if the flat, top part of the sleeve cap came at the right place (it did) - I realized that where the knitting ended in the front was a very nice place for a neckband to begin. Oh ho! Ought I to knit a right and a left front and start knitting the last colorband 3 inches in from the center on each front part? Instead of cutting away the knitting in the front, as the pattern has you do? It means even less knitting, even less colorwork in purl. Hmmmm. There would need to be a tee tiny bit of shaping in the front but it’s easy shaping. Hmmm. This is very, very tempting. Too tempting, in fact. So. All that talk about snipping away at fine fabric might just turn out to be moot. I don’t have to.

What I will do is a little short row shaping in the back. And maybe a little in the front. I’m such a sucker for short rows and I can do them in a solid color, at the very last. What else I’ll do is to knit the back first and then do the front pieces just to get comfortable with the short row shaping.

My first progress pic

I'm finally turning my attention back to the KPP cardigan, after a couple of weeks on other projects. Before I really get going again, here is a picture of where I left off. I'm going to work on it for my remaining free hours today.

Now the reason you see my hand and my favorite button (made for me maybe 20 years ago by a dear friend, who is also a knitter and was then my room-mate) is because if they weren't there, this is what you would see:

I followed the "knit when you can" directions posted here for keeping the pattern looking tidy in the rib area. While it looks really nice, the edge is curling like a SOB. If that keeps up after I get some length on it and after blocking, I'll put a crochet band around the back or something so it's no biggie. But it is a small warning to others who might want to try that technique.  And I'm curious if anybody else is getting edge curling.

Closing in on the shoulder seams

Thank you all for your input on the color choice. You are all right. I had several days to look at it, as it pulsed there on the dining room table. I decided. The colors would stay but the math had to be redone. By that I mean I did rip out all the green bits I’d done so far as well as that lovely petal and peach colorwork and started my decreasing every row with the P&P. You see, according to Elizabeth Zimmermann's seamless circular set in sleeve instructions, once you start taking your 4 decreases out of the sleeves, you do it every other row till you’ve eaten up half the sleeve stitches. Then you begin decreasing every row till you have 2 inches of sleeve stitches left knit. At my gauge of 8 st. to the inch, that will be 16 stitches. Then you knit the front flat, knitting the first and last stitches of each row together with one of the sleeve stitches till half of them have been eaten up. Then you knit across to the back, knitting that flat and K2tog-ing (or SSKing) in the same manner as you did on the front till there are 0 sleeve stitches left. I like to do a 3 needle bindoff at that point to join the shoulders. I’ll plan on doing it with a solid color, probably the darker of that last colorway in the color chart.

So. What’s the problem with that? Well, EZ used to knit her sleeves narrower than I like mine. I have more sleeve stitches to decrease. Each row of sleeve knitting is also a row of body knitting. If I had waited till I’d bitten away half my sleeve stitches before switching to bites on every row, I’d make the sweater too long between the shoulder seam line and the underarm. So I started my faster decreases lower down. I don’t have it with me right now but I will sit down with pencil, calculator and paper and figure out the math - at what percent did I make the switch, and offer it up to anyone who might also like to knit this sweater with this different shaping.

I really like how the sleeves are shaping. They curve in nicely as they approach the shoulder line. My inner knitter assures me that I’ve done the correct math. I’ve decided to trust her and knit on with confidence and tell myself the forearms of those sleeves feel a little tight because there is that enormous wad of loose ends to weave in running down the inside. It is about an inch thick, so I’m probably not fooling myself. Happily, this yarn feels nice against the skin, though, so if those sleeves are a little snug in the forearm, I can wear a sleeveless shell or even short sleeves underneath. I made sure the upper arms were wide enough, but I think, were I to do this sweater again, I’d have cast those sleeves on at 25% instead of 20% of the body width (times gauge).

I’m also planning on doing the front neck treatment as written in the pattern: mark a neck scoop, stabilize the stitches and then cut the fabric away. I had not ever read a Philosopher’s Wool sweater pattern, but someone on Knitters Review remarked that their neck shaping is done that way. It’s such an easy way to be sure you’re sweaters are well centered with the patterns lined up. I come from a sewing background and I’ve sewn with some very high end fabrics. It’s always a little daunting to cut into fine fabric but it must be done so one ought to get out the scissors and do it.

My goal is to finish this baby by Valentines Day. The interim goal is to finish up the entire body, including 3-needle bindoff by Wednesday. I used up such a lot of the dark brown (bark?) in the ribbing I’m not sure there will be enough to do the button band and neck band, so I’m going to order some more of it. I’m also going to do a tee tiny bit of button band changing. I’m very tempted to do it all in garter stripes instead of ribbed checkerboards. I’ll do a little swatch before hand, to figure out how many rows of each color I’ll need to do and to be sure I like the way it looks. I can play with that while I wait for my order to come in.

Photos tomorrow and, with any diligence on my part, sleeve math too.

Color Changes and Shoulder Math

This sweater has an overall bluish cast. This makes sense, especially if you subscribe to Bess’ Theory of Blue, which states that in anything artistic, all else being equal, people will like the blue one best. There is, however, a subset of people like me, with yellow or golden skin and green eyes, who, though they too might like blue best, like themselves even more and know enough to Not Wear Blue. Particularly next to their faces.

KnitPicks colors are all very clear and bright. They don't have an olive green anywhere in their entire catalog and only one gold that I can remember. This Pallette collection is all clear colors. And overall, the cool colors dominate in this sweater, though it has enough warm colors to make it work for us yellow skinned folk, with some minor adjustments.

My color adjustment mission was to swap out the baby pink and blue band for a warmer one. I held up different combinations to the sweater till I found one that really excited me - that made my eyes sparkle and my lips turn up in a smile. Petal and Peach. Bingo. I sat by the window watching the snow fall yesterday as I knit away with those two colors, feeling smug and creative and excited all at the same time. I completed that pattern and moved on to the next.

It was at this point I began to grow anxious that I may have miscalculated the math for the shoulders. I always grow anxious at this point - in every sweater except those circular yoke sweaters. I set the sweater aside, spread out on the dining room table, and went to get another sweater to measure it against and when I came back, the first thing that hit me when I walked into the room was that P&P color band. Pow! Right between the eyes! It popped out at me like the proverbial sore thumb; only, it’s prettier, of course. It really is a wonderfully nice colorway. It’s the kind of colorway that will tempt me to make More Purchases of KnitPicks yarn. But is it something that will also give people a headache when they see me in this sweater? Will its pulsing energy slam people in the eyes with A Brightness that doesn’t fit? Will people (including me) think "what’s wrong with that sweater?"

Of course, it just may be me and my picky old Virgo anxiety fussing around because I didn’t follow the instructions, in a pattern I know is wrong for me, even if it was designed that way. Or, like all those lesser astrologers would say, maybe I just doubt myself because I am so critical I am even critical of me! It may just be that I need to look at it a while. Think about it a bit. Stare at it. Decide if that added colorway is just what this sweater needed. And that I did the math, if not exactly right, at least right enough to be able to finish this sweater.

And I enjoy working on it so much I wouldn’t mind ripping out and knitting it again - if that would make it better, make it more perfect. (You really must laugh at that thought)

And I am such an ENFP - one of those people who grieve, instead of rejoice, at completion.

And my dears. I am only inches away from the end. So close. So very, very close.

So. Today will be a rest day from KipFee knitting. Feel free to comment about this color choice if you can see these distinctions on your monitor and have any reaction to it at all - pro or con, since my feelings can’t be hurt about this.

Hi fellow KPP-ers

I started the Palette Cardigan a couple of weeks ago and got up through the first pattern (orange and green, plus the Ash 2-row plain border). I put it down for a while to work on other projects, but expect to be picking it back up this weekend. I'll be posting progress pics in the next couple of days. I'm really glad to meet some others who are working on the same project, and I'm inspired by what you've done so far!

Like Heather I'm on a yarn diet this year - inspired by Bess in that department as well as in the KPP! Just to show what kind of yarn hoarder I am - I bought TWO Palette boxes when KnitPicks first brought it out. What is that, two years ago now?? They hadn't even published the pattern yet, which I bought later when I was trying to figure out what to do with all this yarn.

I'm determined to clear away all the old yarn this year, by working on projects that I enjoy. So far, the Palette Cardigan is working out great in that respect - I'm really enjoying this.

Progress at last!

I'm moving on up the shoulders of my sweater. I've joined the sleeves to the body a la Elizabeth Zimmermann. Then I decreased 4 stitches just inisde the body every round, 7 times, till I had the front and back as wide as my own shoulders.  Then I began decreasing 4 stitches every other round, but now I'm taking the stitches out of the sleeves.

It's tricky doing this in a pattern, especially the 10 stitch pattern. I'm not trying to match the actual pattern since every other row it changes, but I wish that orange stitch were green.

I've set myself some daily rounds done goals because this is the point where my WIPs tend to turn into UFOs:  Minimum 2 rounds on a work day and 6 rounds on a weekend day. Also, I'm going to change the next color sequence from a baby pink and baby blue checkerboard to one of the buff and tan colors. I look dreadful in baby pink and blue and this stripe is entirely too close to my face.

Here's what the sweater looks like now:

And here's what the resident cermaic quail think:

   

I am so excited!

I am very pleased to part of this kal, I am looking forward to all of your expertise.  I am on a self-imposed yarn fast for 2007, as I finally have confronted the hideously massive proportions of my stash. Somehow yarn acquisition turned quickly into yarn hording! Luckily I ordered that yarn for this project before that New Year's resolution. I'll be knitting socks from my stash while I work on this cardi. Thanks for having me aboard!
-Heather aka The A.D.D. Knitter

One Down, Two to Go

Although technically, I think the neckline gets steeked, doesn't it? So, that makes three to go.   Yes, I cut my first steek ever this weekend.  I did a lot of research and reading before, and chose to go with a crocheted reinforcement, following Eunny Lang's instructions.  Here are pictures of the knitting pre-steeking, and then of me crochet up one side, down the other, and finally cut open. 

Oh, one thing I did differently from the KPP FIC instructions, was instead of casting off the body all the way around, I instead knitted to the first armhole steek, cast off those ten stitches, and then once the steek was worked, I did a three needle bind off for the shoulder seam.  My shoulder seam was to be 6 1/2 inches, and I'm getting 8 stitches to the inch, so I knit 52 front stitches to 52 back stitches for the three needle bind-off.  Then I'll bind off the center back stitches, work the remaining 52 stitches before the next armhole steek, bind off those ten stitches, work the steek, then do a three needle bind off for the other shoulder seam.  Then I will continue binding off the center front stitches, since that neckline will be steeked anyway. 

I didn't really do any research before I started the knitting, so the number of steek stitches and the way the color changes were worked in the steek didn't match what Eunny suggested, but it still worked out okay.  Once I picked up the stitches and knitted a row around the armhole, this promptly got cast aside for another project - hopefully a quick one!