vintaged.

Last time I shared with you my experience of setting in my first pair of sleeves. This time I want to share with you Vintage. It’s finished and I am really happy with the cardigan. There are a few things I would change if I were to be starting over. In truth, though, I am content and know this will get worn a huge amount.

The yarn is what makes this cardigan special. Berroco Vintage DK is a new yarn that is 50% acrylic, 40% wool and 10% nylon. Generally, I stay away from acrylic yarns but I have to admit the weight, price point and colours are what caused me to take a change and buy/try the new yarn. I must say, the yardage alone made me look twice. This sweater only took 3 hanks of the Oats colourway and about 0.5 hanks of the Sour Cherry. Amazing. That made it a $30 cardigan – I can’t argue with that! I knit the cardigan up on 4.00mm needles and love the drape of the finished object.

To decide how many stitches to cast on, I laid out my favourite cardigan (bought at Jacob last Christmas in a Large for lots of room and length) and measured it. Casting on enough stitches for the 40” busted cardigan, I just knit and knit and knit … until I was so bored I decided that was enough and divided for the fronts and back.

The buttons are from my button stash and the garter button band matches the original sweater from Jacob.

I have been toying with writing this up and if I do, I will work on that this summer while camping – I will keep you posted. I have 5 sweaters on the go at the moment … 6 if you count the secret sweater. Two of them only need sleeves so I am going to work on them this week and hopefully finish at least one before the end of the month … I hope. Wish me luck!

set-in.

Ever since I started knitting, I have had a mental block about set-in sleeves. If I am completely honest with myself, it is because my first project was the Tilted Duster (which still isn’t finished) and I had a hell-of-a-time figuring out how the sleeves were to be sewn into the armscye. Having sewed much in the past (and continue to), I was annoyed with myself that I couldn’t do it and have basically avoided them ever since. Until now. I decided that 2011 was the year to conquer my fears and learn how to not only seam but set-in sleeves. No more avoiding patterns or modifying them so that I won’t have to set-in a sleeve.

For those of you who are afraid of set-in sleeves just like I was, I used this tutorial from Berroco that was excellent at demonstrating the sewing technique. From Knitty, since I didn’t have a pattern (I have been designing this from the get-go and will share more later), I used these articles (Part I, Part II and Part III) from Jenna Wilson to figure out the math and ensure my stripes would match-up.

This was my armscye prior to sewing up. You can see that I have stripes (6 in total) to match up.

Once I had pinned it and matched up the stripes, I put it on my lovely dress form to ensure the sleeve cap would fit appropriately.

Since this is a granny sweater and meant to be loose fitting (I added 4 inches of positive ease to be body), I decided to use the 3rd method described by Jenna to design my sleeves. I cast off 10 stitches once my sleeve was the adequate length and on every RS row thereafter, I decreased a stitch at either side. The reason why I chose this method (since the others tend to fit better) is because this is a loose fitting sweater and I don’t need a close fitting sleeve to finish it off. For my first foray into sleeves, I didn’t think I needed anything more complicated.

In the final 12 rows, I decreased every row 3 times then skipped a row and repeated 3 times in total (4 rows, 3 times = 12 rows).

Taking the time and practicing a few times, I am really happy with the results. I even took the time to sew on the buttons since this baby is almost finished.

If you are still with me after this longer-than-intended post, I bought a shirt in Vegas back in April that I am knitting this sweater for. I don’t wear any red but I saw this t-shirt and had to have it – but of course I needed to knit something to go with it! My good friend helped to chose the yarn and here I am: Almost done!

Photos are coming once it is dried from washing it this morning.

Onions.

It’s been a while.

I haven’t found my knitting mojo yet but I am steadily working on some projects that have been very gratifying. With the weather finally changing, warming up and long walks through my favourite parks, I’m not sure my mojo will return for a while. There is a sense of peace about that, though. Slowly the yard is being cleaned up and things are coming together in the house. Luckily, no spring cleaning this year since we moved and cleaned out in January. Whew!

Amazingly, I have a finished project to share with you. Before we moved, I was working on this like mad. For a while, I had nothing else to work on since all yarn and notions were packed but I really burned out on it when I started the second sleeve. I felt like there was no end in sight.

I pulled it out on Sunday evening and decided: Win or lose, we were watching the Canucks game (thank goodness we won) and that would give me 3 hours of solid knitting/weaving in ends time. I was not going to quit till it was done! As the third period came to an end, I was washing and laying it out to dry. Awesome, huh?

Amy Christoffers’ Larch Cardigan.

In some ways I modified this a lot and in other ways, I did nothing. Having trialed some different construction methods in other sweaters (namely, Audrey in Unst), I decided to do short-row sleeves from the cap down. This worked really well but I had major decreasing to do through the arms. The result is perfectly fitting sleeves but I’m not sure it was the best technique to use – I would knit set-in sleeves next time.

The detail in this cardigan is what makes it special. The miles of St st for the body with a small amount of shaping for the A-line cardigan is a little tedious but I kept thinking “This is for the greater good of this cardi – it’s just so cute!”

The collar alone makes this sweater-jacket special.

The buttons and crocheted toggles create a classic look (that I absolutely love).

And while tedious, my absolute favourite thing is the picked up hem and twisted rob combo. Absolutely perfect – kudos Amy, well done.

I bought this dress from H&M in Vegas back in April for $20US and loved it. It has a paisley pattern that is difficult to see from the sun’s exposure but the colours in the cardigan are a perfect match so my yarn choice was reinforced again (I had bought the yarn to go with the above t-shirt and scarf). I chose (from Dressew for $1.99) Rowan Purelife British Sheep Breeds DK Wool in Onion. The yarn I bought has been discontinued but I saw that they are bringing this yarn back in a different form, same great organic yarn.

Thank you for sticking with my through my hiatus – have a lovely Spring and happy knitting!

ps. Yes, that’s Charlie in the first photos – he is fully grown now at 17 months. And so much fun :)