Fiber & Friends #4

Possibly the biggest-deal class I did at Fiber & Friends was the Fisher Lassie Cardigan class with Bonne Marie Burns, the designer. What an eye-opening pleasure it was to approach the making of a complex sweater with its designer by your side!

(c) Bonne Marie Burns

The Fisher Lassie is a modern adaptation of the traditional fisherman's gansey design. The Net Loft has been undertaking a major gansey project in Cordova for over a year, learning about and recreating the historical garment for contemporary fishers in a location as dedicated to commercial fishing as the British and Dutch herring towns were in the 19th century. In the days before synthetic waterproof clothing, tightly knit wool was the best choice for keeping warm when wet. Ganseys had special design features to enable vigorous movement, yet were also displays of beautiful textures that showed the knitter's skill and imagination.

Uncredited photo of Dutch fishermen in their ganseys

Bonne Marie Burns designed the Fisher Lassie as a cardigan partly because in modern centrally-heated times we go in and out of warm and cool, and a cardigan is easier to put on and take off as needed. Out of respect for tradition, it is made with a wool yarn, but a substantial dk weight that is still less dense than the traditional 5-ply.

Over the two days of the class, we learned about measuring for size, and how to choose the right size to make based on the amount of ease the garment was designed for, and the amount of ease we personally prefer. Gauge, of course, is a major factor in the size of the sweater that actually turns up on the needles. We swatched carefully and thoroughly, thinking about needle material and knitting location as well as simply needle size. It all makes a difference!

This sweater has a rather unique construction, and it was terrific to have the designer there to explain it in detail. Overall, it is "knit in one piece", but sequence is important. First the patterned two upper parts of the front are knitted. Then the upper back is picked up and knit into the fronts, with the back neck cast on in the middle. When front and back are the same length (and on the same row of the texture pattern!) the armhole bottom is cast on and the whole thing is worked from side to back to other side. Almost as if it were in the round, but you have to stop at the button bands, turn over, and go back around with the other side facing. It's a little more complicated than the average sweater.

Bonne Marie (center) explains some concepts

 We had Bonne Marie's own original to examine up close and personal, which was a great help. In addition to the particulars of this sweater, she taught us some great techniques to use in all our future knitting: a sturdy same-row buttonhole, a pick-up-and-knit that is as strong as a sewn seam, how to sew on a button that will never come off.

Eventually we were fully prepared to cast on for the Real Thing.

Small Things

My next Seven Skeins project is the Stranded Bunnet, but it's not my best work. This happens to me sometimes with Sudoku, too. I go crashing along and then find out when I'm nearly done that I've screwed up back there somewhere and it's too late to find the mistake without erasing/frogging everything back to the beginning.

The gauge or something was off, and it ended up somewhere between a beanie and a slouch. My double decreases were wrong, and they look like rubbish. On only 1 of the 5 decrease lines the Coo color predominated, so I stitched it over with Ptarmigan in order to make it look a little more like the others. Bleh. Still keeps the noggin warm, though.

One of the fun things that happened with the hat was needing new needles. Yes, although I have many many needles of many many kinds in many many sizes, I did not have a set of 4mm dpns. I'm sure this never happens to you, right? So I hie me to my nearest yarn shop and come away with these beauties:

See the points? Half blunt end up, half pointy

Addi Flipstix. One end of each needle is sharp; the other is rounded. A handy feature, but you do have to pay attention every time you start on a new needle that is the way round that you prefer. I think it's delightful that each set is multicolored. I'm not sure what benefit that confers, but it makes them look fun, and just right for knitting the great colors of Buachaille.

But all is not Buachaille all the time. Like a true acolyte of the Yarn Harlot, I get sidetracked by other projects, to wit:  The Fish Bone Scarf from a Morehouse Farm kit.

I bought a bunch of kits from them, and this was one. It was a quick, fun knit, but not a terribly practical scarf. Nice and soft, but too lacy to be very warm, and it needs to be worn as in the picture to display what it is. I made the tail bigger than the pattern said, and added a yarnover eye to make it look fishier.

Also from Morehouse is a kit for their Dinosaur Scarf, which I made into a Dragon Scarf, mainly by making meaner eyes and trying to rig up some fire breathing instead of a flat round tongue. The shaping of the piece is really genius. Except for separate upper and lower jaw, the whole thing is knitted in one piece. Really fun to knit and pretty cool looking.

  Morehouse has designs for lots of animal scarves--alligator, fox, raccoon--a bunch of them are in their book Critter Knits.

Finally there has been enough clear weather and daylight to photograph the Solar System Blanket in all of its glory. (Pause to consider the irony of depending on sidereal conditions.) It was given and, I think, much appreciated, to my friendly local astronomer for Christmas.

Something Fishy

Summertime in Alaska, and the thoughts of the citizenry turn to fish. Look here what's turned up in my FO net---a school of fish!

A fishing family of my acquaintance is expecting a new minnow, and I've long wondered if an adult hat pattern could be adapted to make a baby cocoon, specifically that cute Knitty fish hat that looks like it's eating your head.  What if it could eat a whole baby? Would they name him/her Jonah?

Anyway, here it is:

Not a real baby. It's a stunt double.

The opening is the regular hat size. That turned out to be the diameter of various baby cocoon patterns that I checked out. Then I just extended the body length of the hat and finished with the prescribed taper and tail, adding a little extra to the fins to keep it in better proportion. Now, I know this is a little weird-looking to normal people, but, trust me, Alaska fisherpeople are going to think it's the height of cool hilarity to stuff their darling in a big wooly fish maw to snuggle down for a nap.

But wait, there's more.
The minnow has siblings that we can't leave out. Besides, I've got plenty more yarn!

There's a pink salmon hat for toddler big sister:

Made with a scaled-down version of the original Knitty hat. Thanks so much Emma Lindberg for doing all the hard work!

And we haven't forgotten Big Brother, who looked to be about the age of the kids in the Knitty pattern. For him, it's the original pattern size. He was most emphatic that his hat should also copy the x-ed out dead fish eyes, so here it is, dead fish on yer head.

Details of yarn, etc are on my Ravelry project pages.

Caution: the end of this blog post will install a nasty earworm if you dare to click on the video.  You have been warned.

 

Yum!