I have a design for the rest of the sweater

 

I knit the cuff of the second sleeve--started it last night and finished up this morning. Since I had to stop at that point, because the next row should have the white color in it, which is the color I am waiting for, I decided to spend some time designing the rest of it.

 

I went on-line and found a free demo of the Sweater Wizard. I really wasn't sure what that program would do, so thought this would be a good way to test it out to see if I do want to buy it. So I down-loaded the free demo and entered the numbers for my size, stitch and row gauge and needle. I think the program did fine printing diagrams and stitch numbers. I could have calculated the stitch numbers required just as easily myself. What is harder is to get the decreases for the raglan sleeve and upper body. Unfortunately the program gave me different numbers for the decreases on the sleeve and the yoke and I want to join all the pieces at the underarm and work the yoke in the round as one piece, so I want the decreases on both pieces to match up. I will have to figure that part out I guess. I will also work the body in one piece in the round with a steek for cutting down the middle to make it a cardigan.

I used my stitch and Motif maker (it's linked in the previous entry) to come up with some designs.

Here's what I am working with at least for now. I may tweak them before I actually get to that part of the sweater.

This is the 2-color border that will go in the sleeve and around the hem of the body and maybe in the yoke.

This one I took from a Gjestal pattern that I have.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And this is the main pattern that will go around the body just below where the sleeves are joined.

And here is the next pattern that will go on the yoke above where the sleeves are joined. Does it look wavy to you? It's an optical illusion.

I used the dark blue to represent the teal color yarn I am working with.

The star pattern that will go in the center back and front, I took from Alice Starmore's Book of Fair Isle Knitting. The rest of that one I made up. It may be too irregular, but it will be a bit like knitting complicated lace patterns where you have to watch each stitch. It's only for 27 rows, so I think it won't be too tedious.

Anyway that's where I am with this sweater now.

Designing a Sweater for Fingering Wt. Yarn

I've been knitting some things, but just haven't felt it was of enough interest to post here on the blog. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to keep doing this. It just doesn't seem to be my thing. I need feed back. If there are only 2 people reading this then it's not worth my time.

 

I bought this Diaketo Diagold yarn in Osaka nearly 2 years ago with the idea of making myself a sweater from it.  I've looked for patterns using fine yarns, but not found much. I bought a book by Ann McCauley.  I like the book a lot and will definitely make a sweater or more from it. The book is Together or Separate.  But I tried doing a gauge swatch for one of the patterns that had a similar gauge to this yarn and it just wasn't working. I decided this yarn needed to be used with another color. I had this other teal colored yarn that was also a hand-wash wool. I thought the 2 would work together.

This photo is my gauge swatch. I have only one skein of the teal (300 yds), so I thought I could also add in some white, which I would have to buy, but that didn't seem to pose a big problem.

 

The lower pattern above came from a book on Setesdal sweaters

 

Setesdal Sweaters: The History of the Norwegian Lice Pattern

by Annemor Sundbø

 

 

 

 

 

 

and I used another pattern from a pattern booklet I have, which I bought in Norway. It was published by Gjestdal.

 

I worked that pattern with 3 instead of 4 colors in my swatch:

I was happy with that, so decided the sleeve cuff would be these two patterns. I cast on 72 stitches for a sleeve on #2 needles and did the 2-color part. I ordered the white yarn, but it will be a couple weeks before it comes in, so I will put this sleeve on a holder and start the second one and then wait till the white yarn comes in. In the mean time it would be good to design the rest of the sweater.

The sleeve so far:

 

Here's how the sleeve cuff would look with the facing turned under:

 

 

And that's really as much as I have now. I'm up to the part where I need the white on this one.

I think the body of the sleeve above the 3-color border will be done in a lice stitch with the white. There will probably be another border near the top and I'm thinking of joining the sleeves to the body and using a raglan construction.

 

I have the Stitch & Motif Maker software, which I use to print up the design for the color work. I'd love to have a sweater design program, but I think those are a lot more expensive and for as much as I would use it, I'm not sure it's worth it to me. I just do this for myself.

 

Any questions?  comments?

I've been tagged

I was tagged by knittingchick. The rules state I’m to list 6 (or 7?) quirky facts about myself. I did that once before and can’t think of 6 (or7?) new things to say, so instead I’m going to list 6 (or7) quirky things I collect. So here they are in random order.

1) Polish pottery. This is the traditional Bolesławiec pottery made in Silesia, southern Poland. The factory is not far from Wrocław, which I have visited several times, but I’ve never been to the factory. It’s abut 50 miles outside the town, I think. I used to buy the mugs one or two at a time from the department store on the square in Wrocław. The last time I was there, they didn't have much, but they are becoming popular in this country. The thing is now they are much more expensive.

2) Tin boxes. I just acquired these without really looking for them. A couple were gifts and some I picked up from my mother’s or grandmother’s stuff and I’m not even sure where the others are from. I keep sewing notions in some of them, but since there is no logical reason to keep any item in any particular box, I never know which one contains what and have to open several to find what I’m looking for. I use some in the kitchen too and for those I do know what they contain.

3) Art refrigerator magnets. We have been buying these in art museums. We only buy pictures of paintings we have seen in the museum. We have a bunch of VerMeers and lots of other artists too. They come from many different museums. They are mixed in with tile motif magnets as well. I’d separate them, but we only have one refrigerator.

4) Cups and saucers. The first ones of these (shown in the photo) were part of my grandmother’s collection. She had some lovely china cups and saucers. I picked out 4 of those that I liked. I have added blue and white ones, which I still use occasionally. They go with my collection of….

5) Blue and white porcelain. My mother-in-law got me started on this collection 37 years ago. She gave me a lovely flow blue platter. It is still my prized blue and white piece. Over the years I’ve added to the collection from almost every country we’ve been in. We have two long plate shelves in our family room that display much of this collection. This cupboard is between the kitchen and the eating area of the family room. I opened the glass doors to make it easier to see the contents of the cupboard. I see I need to realign the cups on the left.

6) Paintings by VerMeer, the 17^th century Dutch painter. We don’t have enough wall space to display all these, so have chosen to let them hang in the museums where we have seen them. This collection is almost complete. There are 35 or36 known paintings by VerMeer and we have seen all but one of them. This is really my husband’s collection and there are some he’s seen that I haven’t, but I’ve seen most of them with him. The one he hasn’t seen is the one that was recently discovered and authenticated (after 10 years of study.) It was purchased by Steve Wynn of Las Vegas. It hangs in his home and is not on display to the public. We keep hoping some day he’ll put it on display and we can go see it. We do have a poster of The Milk Maid in our family room.

7) Dolls. I have 5 of these dolls by Joan Rydberg. She calls them the Wise Women and Men from Wadsworth. Each one is sculpted by hand and is unique. I also have 2 American Girl dolls, and a baby doll, that I played with when I was a child, a Raggedy Andy doll that my grandmother made and a Raggedy Ann that I found and bought to keep him company. She only came with underwear, so I made her a dress and apron. I’m not sure these all count as a collection. Probably only the 5 Wadsworth dolls count, but I thought I’d just list the others anyway.

Now for the tags: I'm to tag 6 more people, so here you go:

My sister, Kathy is building a house near Olympia, WA.

My friend Kathleen is remodeling a house near Olympia, WA.

Lisa has gone a little crazy making jewelry and decorating in Texas.

Carol in Iowa and I share an interest in painting stuff and decorating.

Mary Ruth in Virginia has an amazing talent for beautifying her home.

And Janet in NC has already voted! She and I share an interest in knitting, among other things.

So here are the rules again:

Link to me in your blog

List 6 quirky things about yourself OR

List 6 things you collect

Link to 6 more blogs and pass on the tag.

And remember playing is always optional. And you can change the rules if you want to.

Fall Colors

I've been so busy I haven't had time to update this blog in ages. Well, it just hasn't reached the top of my list of priorities. I've been knitting, rosemaling, traveling, and all the other stuff I do when I'm home. But today I went out and snapped some photos of the fall colors in my yard.

I love how these shrubs turn red in the fall, so here are a few colorful photos I thought I'd share. I pass these shrubs every day on the way in and out of the house, so I do get to see them every day and appreciate them.

 

Here is the pot I planted with painted daisies and petunias in the spring. They have done well all summer. We've had sufficient rain this summer, so I have only had to water these a few times.

 

And here is the corner just below the steps, where I have 3 different Heuchera planted at the base of this shrub. The shrub is Viburnum Alfredo. I think that's the right name. It turns red every year in the fall and has red berries.

  In the summer it has white flowers, which are also pretty. These shrubs have done very well for me. It's funny to see the pictures I took of them the year I planted them, 2002. They were so tiny!

A couple F.O.s and a new challenge

 

An F.O. is the opposite of a UFO (unfinished object) some knitters acquire many UFOs, but I don't. (See note in side-bar)

I have finished the stole that I wrote about in my last post, and I even wore it to the Opera last night.  That sounds so much more elegant than it really is. We went to see Samson et Dalila at UMD last night. It was quite good, with a semi-professional cast. It was sung in French and most of the French was not bad. But here in Duluth, and especially at a university event, no one really dresses up that much.

And before that I finished this camisole. It was made from a kit that I got in April for half-price. The original price was way too much, but it wasn't bad at half-price. This one had to be reworked a couple times, so it took me longer to finish than it should have. I won't wear it that much, because we don't get much warm weather here and it doesn't seem to lend itself to wear under something else. I may try to find a gauze blouse to wear over it though. I have worn it twice, already, so that's really not bad.

And here is the finished lace shawl that I completed in May and gave to my niece, Nina. That's Nina and her grandmother (my mom) on their birthdays. Nina's is May 14th and Mom's is May 13th, so we had a joint celebration for both of them.

Now for the new challenges:  The yarn at left is some Alpaca that I bought also in April. I was working up a gauge swatch to see if I could decide what to do with it. I considered a vest, but felt I didn't have enough to complete the patterns I was looking at.

So instead I bought some more yarn and worked out this gauge swatch. I will be knitting this for the Ravelympics competition. This, for anyone not on Ravelry is an knit-along, where you have to knit the object during the olympics. You are allowed to make a gauge swatch and be ready to start during the opening ceremonies, but not before.

Here is my yarn. My local yarn store (Yarn Harbor) in Duluth is sponsoring this event, so she generously offered us 20% off our purchases for the event. I am going to return the grey yarn, and try a light tan. The grey wasn't working for me-- too dark. Oh this pattern was published in last fall's issue of Interweave Knits. It is called Ivy League Vest. There are several others doing this same vest for the Ravelympics. And there are quite a few on Ravelry who have done this before, so I had lots of pictures to look at. They all look like they turned out great. I hope I'll be happy with mine too. The object is to complete it before the closing ceremonies. I'm not sure I can do that, but I'll try.

A cotton lace stole

I have been working on two knit projects. I just finished one, but don't have a picture of it yet, so I'll make this post about the other one.

This is a lace stole made from a sport-weight cotton. I think it's sport weight. I started a swatch in a lace-weight, but that was a little difficult and then I realized it might work well with this yarn that I had on hand. The yarn is Louisa Harding Jasmine. It is cotton, bamboo, silk and polyester. It has a silver thread or speck in it (probably the 3% polyester) It is quite soft, so I think will make a nice stole for summer.

This pattern is worked on both sides--that is the back is not just purl stitches, but keeps the lace design going. I've never done a pattern like this, but the repeat is only 13 stitches wide and is fairly easy to remember, so it's going fine. I don't have to refer to the pattern instructions any more, so that makes it easier to work on and to carry along. I worked on it on our trip East for the 4th of July Holiday.

Here's a link to the free on-line pattern. Voyager lace stole.

I think it is about 1/4 finished. I need to check the pattern again for the finished length, but I'm not that close. I have 9 balls of the yarn and will probably use all of them. I think I'm into the 3rd so far.

I took another Rosemaling class

I spent 3 days this week in a class with Marlys Hammer, a gold medal rosemaler from Wisconsin. She was a delight to learn from. She paints in acrylics, which is what I use. They behave a bit differently from oil paints and it was nice for me to have a teacher demonstrate in acrylics. Here are some pictures of Marlys and the plate she brought for us to use as a model.  She also brought patterns for the plate. I did a practice plate and one similar to the one she is holding, but I didn't do the border. I was quite happy with how it looked without the elaborate border.

Here's a wide view of the room.

and here Marlys is helping another student.

And here are pictures of my plates:

The one below I did as a practice piece. I didn't use her pattern on this one, but free-handed a similar design.

And here's a detail from the second plate.

The plates still need a finishing top coat, but they often photograph better before they are varnished.