A Finished Lassie

The Lassie's done! Actually, she's been done for about a week, but the combination of short daylight and too much to do has made photography difficult. But at last, here she is:

The sweater was conceived in a class at the Net Loft Fiber & Friends event in Cordova AK this past summer.  I had a wonderful 2-day class with Bonne Marie Burns, the designer. Check it out here. It has a novel construction: upper fronts are made first, then the upper back is knitted on with a cast on for the back neck.

Instead of knitting the sleeves after the body was finished, I added the sleeves before I joined the body sides. Knitting on sleeves while flopping the majority of a sweater around and around in my lap drives me crazy, and doing it while the whole was smaller and lighter suited me just fine!

When the sleeves were done, I tried the thing on and discovered that the ridge at the end of the texture pattern hit me in an unbecoming location, so, disappointing as it was, I ripped back to the end of the last repeat and added one more, and that made everything come out just fine. Other modifications were using 2x2 ribbing instead of 1x1, and adding an 8th button and buttonhole.

Here's a closeup of the finished front showing the texture pattern and the super tweedy-looking buttons that are just right for the fabric.

This cardigan has already become a big favorite. It's substantial but not heavy, smooth and not wooly-scratchy, and fits great. It's going to be the one I reach for this winter when the evening starts feeling chilly. Thanks, Bonne Marie and Net Loft!

Fiber & Friends #4 Continued--My Fisher Lassie

If you haven't read the previous post about Fisher Lassie, you need to do it now. I'll wait right here till you're done.

Ok. So.  My own Fisher Lassie is made with Jo Sharp Classic DK Wool in a heathery shade called Ink. I picked the color (a navy blue with grey doing the heathering) because it looked so much like denim, not only a work clothes fabric, but one of my all-time favorites whether woven or knitted. (see weakness for Rowan and other denim cotton yarn)

Once I began knitting those first patterned sections, though, I had a brief freakout about the color choice. A gansey is all about texture patterns, and it was looking like a heathered field of moosh. Pattern submerged in the randomness of blended grey and navy.

Fortunately, when I backed away from the knitting, the texture was unmistakable. It was there! It is visible! But a new mental post-it note for my knitbrain. Absolutely solid colors are the best for textured patterns. I might not be so lucky the next time.

There was also another mental warning embedded here. When it's hard to see texture up close, it's hard to spot knitting errors in time for an easy fix. I had jolly well better get through the patterned upper sections before the summer light wanes, or I will be a crazy lady with a crappy looking sweater next spring. Once the armholes are joined and the texture finished, it's smooth stocking stitch sailing with the sleeves and the remainder of the body.

So here I am just before the Joining of the Armholes:

Armholes were joined, and carefully I made my way to the end of 5 pattern repeats. While spraining my arm patting myself on the back in congratulations, a Wonderful Idea sprang into my joyous knitbrain. Why not do the sleeves now? The entire armhole is waiting and ready. And by making the sleeves now, I can avoid my least favorite part of the knit-in-one-piece sweater. The part where the entire body is done and you have to do the sleeves by tossing this big hot pile of wool around and around in your lap, with associated tangling of needles and yarn.

So, Reader, that's exactly what I'm doing. Tossing a little bolero around and around instead of a full-grown sweater. Putting the main sweater body on spare yarn also enabled a try on of said bolero. Hm. Fit is as expected, but the end of pattern hits not quite at the bottom of the boobage. On the pattern model (refer to previous post) the ridge is somewhere midway between bust and waist. As the sleeves go round and round, I am contemplating doing an extra vertical pattern repeat so the ridge hits in a more flattering place.

Oh yeah, and I found just the right heathery denimy buttons already--See?

Wish I could get the photo to show how well buttons and yarn match. You'll just have to take my word for it.  Navy is fickle to photo.

So round and round and round we go, and where the pattern's gonna stop, nobody yet knows!

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.

Oops! She Fumbles! She Recovers!

Remember when I said in the last post that you can't tell for sure how a sweater will be until you sew the pieces together. Welp, that goes double and triple for the current item under construction. Sewed Sleeve #1 on, no problem. Got sleeve #2 ready to pin and, um, let's just take a look, shall we?

That's #1 in place, fine and dandy. Here's #2:
 

Compare and contrast. One of these things is not like the other. If you said there seems to be a triangle missing from the edge of #2, you'd be absolutely right! This is what comes of knitting the first sleeve as a "swatch", then the body, then the second as an afterthought. You stop increasing too early and end up with two utterly different sleeve shapes. Sigh.

My life flashed before my eyes as I initially thought I would have to frog all. of. the. pattern. area. of. the. sleeve. and do it again with edge increases. And how would it look made with partially shrunken and frogged crinkly yarn and partly with new yarn? Or knit a whole new friggin' sleeve and shrink it?

In the midst of the Slough of Despond (where the frogs live), I realized that this is a gansey. (I know, brilliant deduction, Sherlock, but stay with me.) One of the design features that marks gansey construction is the arm gusset, a diamond-shaped piece in the armpit area that makes for freer movement of the fisherman's active arms. I could make a half-gusset, a triangle rather than a diamond, to add the missing shape! Counting rows and stitches of the missing area, I came up with this:

I sewed it to one side of the misshapen sleeve (easing to account for its non-shrinkage) and washed the whole sweater again.

This is in its pre-shrunken state. Notice color difference as well.

Now what do you think?

According to the trotting horse theory, it's game over and fix accomplished, all within the tradition! Anyway, it's in the underarm area, and anyone who is inspecting my sweater armpits can go sit on a fishhook.

Less Banging, and Some Homework

Not much to see here, folks. The Blaer banging out has slowed to a glacial trudge for sleeve reasons, as explained in the previous post. And when the knitting gets slow, the motivation slows down, too. When I just couldn't stand it any longer, I picked up another project, the one I neglected for my banging-out exercise, the Cornish Knit Frock. Much more gratifying, even the tight gauge ziggy zaggy neck ribbing. And whizz bang (relatively) I had banged out all the knitting of it. Bang into the washer; bang into the dryer, a little hanging about to finish drying, and here it is ready to sew up!

I have unraveled the swatch I shrank in order to have shrunken yarn to sew with, so all that's left is to put it together. I am a bit worried about potential fit. In spite of all my measuring and calculating and swatch-shrinking, the body seems like it is way too long. But the only way to know for sure is to get busy and see what happens.

This is the nervous part of sweater making. You can spend hours of your time and lots of your money, do your very dangdest to get it right, and still be subject to the whims of the yarn gods as to whether you will have a garment you will love, or one that you will give away. This is probably what separates us merely prolific knitters from the ace knitters of the world who can create an exact replica of their vision.

I've also got homework to do. My homework package arrived from the Net Loft in advance of the Fisher Folk knitfest in Cordova in 2 weeks.

There are swatches to make, needles to corral, seaglass to select, bits and bobs to use in my net necklace, and should I take a project of my own to work on in between whiles? There will be a 6 hour ferry ride over. On the 6 hours back, I'm sure I'll be working of my Fisher Lassie Gansey. But excuse me for now--I've got lots of work to do!

Yet More Yarn Yarns

Trawling (appropriate for fisherman sweater, no?) through denim yarn patterns, I think I've found what my ecru Rowan pile wants to be:

The Cornish Knit Frock by Jane Gottelier from the book Indigo Knits. I had a flirtation with the Whitby Sweater from the same book, but decided that in ecru it would look like any old aran, as it would not have the lightening effect that makes the cables stand out when using a colored yarn. Besides, Whitby is in Yorkshire, not Cornwall.

An added attraction is that the Cornish sweater was made by one of the Knitting Goddesses, Kay Gardiner of Mason-Dixon fame, and was done with the same yarn substitution I am using, Rowan Denim for elann.com Den-M-Nit. Happily for me, Kay demonstrated that the shrinkage of the two yarns is the same.

Plus there is the connection to Cornwall. My DH is from there, and we have visited family there many times.

Fisher ganseys are also on my mind because I am happily anticipating my sojourn to Cordova, Alaska this summer for the Fisher Folk knitfest:

I have always loved gansey sweaters, the look of them and their lore. I have knitted a few, and will enjoy knitting more. They are a garment that looks great on everyone, men and women, big people and little people.

And when I'm in Cordova, one of the workshops I'll be attending is an indigo dyeing session. I'm going to take my now-foofed 6 Juniper Moon CSA cormo skeins and dunk them in the pot.

For a while, I was conflicted about whether I should just do them plain indigo, or go for spaced shades of blue, or tie them up to get white spaces in the blue. Wait. Three techniques into six skeins divides evenly--I could do 2 of each! Hope the teacher agrees...