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Two Track

It looks a bit confusing at this stage.

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This is my Two Track sweater. It's knit in two vertical halves, which are joined with a three needle bind off. After getting past the tricky bits of the first side (there is some cable cast on and a rather unusual pick up of stitches), I decided to go ahead and start the second side. I wanted to make sure I had a good memory of what I had done on the first side and could repeat it.

Next up is lots of stockinette.

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But it's going to all be worth it when I can wear it with my flannel shirt.

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Rainey DK: A New Elliebelly Yarn In Testing

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It's fun to test out base yarns for dyeing.  Fun, and a little bit frustrating at times.  As a small hand dyer, I rely on an unwieldy assortment of sources for base yarns.  It's a pleasure to work with small producers and mills and there are some fabulous, slightly larger suppliers out there who work with hand dyers, as well.  For me, it's been a one by one process over many years of trying different bases out: dyeing them, knitting with them, seeing how they look after they've been washed and worn.  Different bases have their charms and their detractions, so you need some experience with them to come up with your favorites, the ones that are dye and knit-worthy.

The past year has been fun for me as I've been working with a wonderful group of knitters to experiment with the possibilities for some old favorite yarns and play with some new ones. Not every base succeeds, and among those that do, it's a very personal selection of what works for me and which yarns are best for which purposes.  Those of you who've known me for a while know that I have a near obsession with linen.  It last forever and it gets softer every time you wash it.  It's lovely.  It's been around at least since ancient  Egypt (there are tomb fragments to prove it).  And I like to knit with it, particularly when it's part of a blend that softens its feel — knitting with pure linen can be a bit like knitting with string, although I still adore it in this form.

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This shawl, knit in a new base I've been working with, Rainey DK, showed up late last week.  And I'm enthralled with it. Rainey is spun from 50% Alpaca, 25% Linen and 25% Silk.  It's virtues include the softness of Silk, the strength and beauty of Linen and a fabulous halo from the Alpaca.  It has just the right halo, not a "hair everywhere" kind of thing but enough to be soft and a bit rustic without shedding.  Although I can envision shawls and shrugs for Claire Fraser in the Outlander series knit from this yarn, it makes a lovely, sophisticated shawl for today, as well. Rainey, which I'm dyeing in a fingering weight, along with this DK version, is going to be a fun addition to Elliebelly Yarns.  I can't wait to play with its potential some more, but it's clearly a winner for shawls.

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Sharing My Stash

Need a little knitting eye candy to get you through the week?  I thought I would share some of my new Plucky Knitter stash with y'all.  Yes, I may have overspent at Glamping, and I've bought a bit of additional yarn off of the Plucky Reserve. I had to remind my angel baby husband that while some women buy expensive clothing or get take out for dinner every night, I buy yarn.  He's dubious, though.

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This is some of Plucky's new "Small Batch" speckled yarn on Bello, a fingering weight cashmerino base.

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Snug Worsted is a Plucky base that incorporates Alpaca and is very round and smooth.  This yarn is earmarked to become a pair of hats and is in a color that was available for a limited period of time.  I'm so glad I snagged some!

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This is Plucky's lace weight yarn, Sophisticate.  It has mohair in it and I am deathly allergic to mohair.  But, I rubbed some against my face at Glamping, and then spent part of an evening with some tucked into my shirt against my neck (it was that kind of weekend).  Amazingly, no problems.  A lot of people had claimed they were okay with Sophisticate despite a mohair allergy, but I was skeptical.  I'm so glad it turned out to be true!  This yarn is going to be incorporated into a striped sweater.

image from images4-e.ravelrycache.com

This lovely scummy color is in Plucky's newest base, a bulky version of their rustic spun, worsted weight Scholar, called Cambridge.  This one is destined for cast on later this week for Michele Wang's new today Cambridge Hat pattern.  I admired knit up samples of this hat at Glamping and am going to cast on as soon as I can get my hands on needles in the correct size.

I hope you find something to inspire your own fall knitting here.  When I woke up to cool fall weather in Washington, D.C. Sunday morning, I was ecstatic.  Unfortunately, it's still warm at home in Alabama, but all it took was that one bit of chill air to remind me that winter is coming and it's time for knitter to knit!

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A Slow Sleeve

This week has been a family week for me, with a long overdue trip to DC with my second son. I really enjoyed the old photos of Presidents' wives knitting in the early 1900s at the Newseum. And all of the beautiful views in the city.

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Not much knitting happened although I did get far enough along with the Two Track sweater to experience it's interesting construction, adding in the front left and front back simultaneously with an exposed side seam and knitting the ribbed lower edge of the sleeve.

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The directions were confusing to me so I followed them literally and it seemed to work out. I've started the second sleeve so I can repeat the process for the right side before I forget how I did it the first time.

image from http://joycevance.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341ce9cd53ef01bb09494109970d-pi

After this, it's just me and miles of stockinette for a long time so this should be a great counterpoint to my fairisle sweater.

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The Blocked Swatch: My Best Skill As A Knitter

After years of knitting projects that came out different sizes than I expected, I converted to swatching and most importantly, to blocking my swatches.  You always need to swatch. Always. Different needles, changes in your personal gauge over time; it all impacts your knitting.  Unless it's a shawl, and you truly don't care about the finished sized, the couple of hours you invest in proper swatching always pay off.

Unblocked swatch

I'm getting ready to knit the new Two Track sweater pattern in The Plucky Knitter's Lodge Worsted, a yarn spun from 60% Merino, 20% Cotton, 10% Silk, 10% Linen/Flax.  It's my first outing with this new yarn, so a swatch was essential.  A local knitting friend loves this blend and I had purchased some on her recommendation.  This meant I was lucky enough to have it on hand when this pattern came out.  The body of the sweater is written for size 8 needles.  I'm a loose knitter, so I swatched with 7's in the shorter area and 6's in the longer portion of the swatch you see above.

This is how I swatch: Cast on the number of stitches the pattern suggests should equal four inches, plus four additional stitches.  Knit for two rows.  On the next row, knit the first two stitches, purl across and then knit the last two stitches.  Next row, knit all stitches.  Repeat these two rows until you have at least the minimum number of rows the gauge swatch suggests will equal four inches in length, ending with a knit row.  Knit all stitches for two more rows.  You're done!  You've created a two-stitch garter stitch border all the way around the edge of your swatch.  This will keep it from rolling in and make it easier to measure.  Now, measure across the stockinette portion of the swatch and see if you've got four inches.

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And, predictably, I don't.  I've got something between 3.25 and 3.5 inches, on the size 6 portion of the swatch.  The part knit on size 7 needles is closer to 3.5 inches.  So, you might think I should knit on the size 8 needles the pattern calls for.  But, everything changes radically when the swatch is blocked.

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This swatch was soaked in sudsy water, rolled in a towel to remove excess moisture, and then pinned.  I treated it just how I'll treat the finished garment.  And look at the stitches open up!  With the silk, linen and cotton content in this yarn, it was fairly predictable that it would grow, and it did.  The swatch is still wet, and I need to let it dry and unpin it before taking its final measurements, but I'm guessing the size 6 needles will be just right.

Note: This process works just as well when you need to swatch a lace pattern or a cable.  If you want to swatch with different sized needles in the same swatch like I did, create a garter row (knit two rows back to back) to demarcate the area in between them.  

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Key Covers

Do you:

   A. Have lots of key?

   B. Have lots of keys that look alike?

   C. Come home with your hands full of purse/briefcase/knitting bags and other cr@p you cart around all day and struggle to pull out your house key because it's hard to find in the mix  of all of your other keys with about one-half of a functioning hand that isn't taken up holding all the stuff?

Or, do you just like pretty knit things that take no time but brighten up your life?

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Ten minutes, and one small scrap of yarn later, I had this cute little key cover.  Thank to Liat Gat for her easy to follow instructions and free pattern. My project notes are here in case you want to make one (or ten) for yourself.  The yarn is The Plucky Knitter's Bello in Small Batch 014.

 

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Finished, But Not Blocked

I finished my fairisle hat from Janine Bajus's class at The Plucky Knitter's Glamping Retreat this afternoon.  Kudos to my youngest kid for needing to visit the pediatrician today, which gave me all the time I needed to cast off, while having a nice talk with him.

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It is not blocked yet, nor have I committed to the Alpaca pom pom from Toft, which is lightly tacked in at the moment.  But really, I'm so excited that I couldn't wait another minute to share it with you.  I knitted this!  It's fairisle!

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The truth is, if you're on the fence about trying a fairisle project, it's just not as hard as it looks.  If you want to be all fancy about it, you can visit this video from the Philosopher's Stone and you'll be capable of knitting fairisle with yarn in both hands before you can say "stranded knitting."  And you do need to know to keep the strand of yarn you are not using while you knit with the other color loose — if you pull it tight in back your resulting project will be very small and you will be sad.  But once you know this is in issue, you can do some quick googling and your strands in back will be just right.

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The inside is almost as pretty as the outside.

This hat is a pretty good fit for me as is, so I'm going to give it a gently steam blocking to even out the stitches and weave in all of those ends when I get a moment.  I'll be back with better photos later this week when it's all done.

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