Twelfth Sweater of the Year

I finished my twelfth pair of socks of the year a week ago - another of my own design to use up leftovers with a simple colourwork design:

And now I am working on my twelfth sweater of the year... Okay, I am including a sleeveless top in the category but even so...

I am making use of my new knitting books that I got for my birthday. MIL asked me what I wanted and then said to get them and she would pay for them. So three bargain second hand Harmony Guides including Aran stitches. And then from myself, to make up for Paul's complete fail on my birthday front, I sent off for Ann Budd's new handy book of top-down sweaters and a second hand copy of Barbara Walker's Second Treasury of Knitting Stitches from the USA, which seemed to be most people's choice when the topic came up in Ravelry discussions.

So I decided the time had come to make my own design cabled jumper. I sat down with my stitch dictionaries and chose which cable patterns I would like.

And then I made another spreadsheet... I have to say I have found that a colour chart for the cables is soooo much easier to read than all the standard chart abbreviations for C4B, C5F, RT, LT etc! I have laid it out so that the colour key is aligned with the use of it in the chart and I just have to glance at it to know what I am supposed to be doing.

Although I decided to make this in the round, bottom up I have also been making use of the sweater book for reverse engineering as far as possible my neck and for the sleeve cap shaping. My head has been spinning on the subject of sleeve caps as I decided I wanted saddle shoulders and my chosen cable panel for the saddle was wider than the examples. So the sleeves are being done top down. I am halfway down the first one, and having tried it on this morning I think my adjustments are okay...

Two Twit Twoo

I was very kindly gifted the knitting pattern by a fellow ravelry member to make the popular Owls sweater by Kate Davies a couple of month back. I was originally planning to knit it using Debbie Bliss Merino chunky that I bought on ebay last year, but the pattern said it suited more rustic yarns.

So I broke into a knitting kit of Alafoss Lopi that I bought in Iceland in 1996 - there were 700g of a nice charcoal black which should be more than enough. As it was, being short in arm and body, I completed the sweater in four and a half days using just 550 grammes!

I have ordered buttons from Ebay - cheaper to buy 600 buttons from China than the 38 required for the Owl's eyes in the UK. They should arrive in a couple of weeks time...

And then I decided to go straight ahead and make another one...

I have a cunning plan.

Janet gave me some Icelandic Soft Spun yarn earlier this year - not enough to make a sweater on its own but it is an almost perfect match for the remaining Alafoss Lopi from the kit. It should be enough to make the body and sleeves up to the owls. And then I will finish off the black for the owls which should mean that any slight variation in colour on the top of the yoke/neck will not be noticeable.

Must...Keep...Knitting...

So as I may or may not have mentioned previously I have been trying to knit a mile a month - I did get rather carried away with restocking my yarn mountain last year. Probably why the blog is looking sad and neglected. Not every month has been successful, but my average is slightly over the target.

I have also got quite in to designing more patterns for myself and am really enjoying letting my more artistic side out. Although I still prefer ordered, geometric artistic rather than chaotic, random, abstract artistic, when it comes to making a knitting pattern. I may no longer design computer programs but I still need to apply rules and symmetry - it is in my nature. Colours, however, can range free within the limitations of the yarns I possess...

And it does have a purpose - to use up those pesky oddments, partial and single skeins. Yeah, I could keep knitting scarfs but there really is a limit. Unlike socks and sweaters...

2000 Triangles Jacket

Patchwork Fields Sweater

Interlock Socks

These are my current project. I have just reached the heel on sock number 2.

The thing with socks is that they are knitted in the round. To use colours you need to either knit it all the way round or carry it along the inside until it is needed again. And that can be a pain in the a**e. Especially when switching from one needle to the next - too loose and you get ladders, too tight and you may not be able to get the sock on over your heel.

This pattern is actually very simple. On the rounds with two colours I am only ever knitting two consecutive stitches in the same colour so I don't have long floats and no need to catch the alternating colour down - switching needles is not a problem. And each round slips the colours across by one stitch so no need to twist the yarns. And I am carrying the pattern all the way around the foot and leg.


But for patterns where colour work is only wanted on the front/top of foot... I have been contemplating this for quite a while now... And think I may have come up with something that could be quite interesting and fun... well, if you are a sock knitter.