just a peek..

Artsy Fartsy Mitten Cuff

Hello, I am a swatch

…at some of what I’m up to lately: reknitting my Estonian-style mittens, writing the pattern as I go, and swatching with some St-Denis Nordique, for a new yoked sweater design.

I’m quite tied up on the teaching front at the moment, between the writing tutoring, the ESL tutoring, and taking over on the lecturing front in the class I’m co-teaching, so this blog may be a bit quiet for awhile until I catch my breath a bit. I hope November is treating you all well so far!

 

remember this?

Just a quick post today, since I’ve got lots of work to get done, and have been knocked flat by what I hope is only a minor cold (it would certainly be bad timing for it to be anything else, since I take over on the lecturing in the class I’m co-teaching next week). Anyway, remember how I was knitting a modernized gansey, way back in July? Well, I’ve picked it back up again, and just yesterday finished the saddle for the left shoulder, leaving me with only the right shoulder, and a bit of garter around the neckline to go. Here’s what it looks like:

(Obviously I have some ends to weave in, too!)

I couldn’t be happier with the fit! I knit a seamless set-in sleeve, maintaining the stitch patterning as best I could, but instead of completely closing the sleeve at the top, I took the tiny little baby cable that runs up the center of the sleeve, and carried it across as the tiniest of saddles to join the front and the back. I wasn’t entirely sure this was going to work as well in real life as it did in my head, so it was quite a relief to have it come out so nicely.

Well, that’s it for now! Back to lecture-prepping, housekeeping, and most importantly of all, RESTING. Have a lovely Sunday, everyone!

 

rhinebeck recap.

Oh, how to summarize something so big and overwhelming and amazing in a blog post? It just can’t be done. So, I’ll just try to hit on the highlights:

The Trip to Rhinebeck (Friday):
I made the mistake of not taking dramamine, thinking I could somehow handle 5 hours in the car without it. WRONG. But, that particular misery aside, I spent much of the trip just oohing and ahhing at the gorgeousness we were driving past. The trees! The hills! The river! It was somewhat reminiscent of my home along the Mississippi in MN, but also strikingly different, with the trees and rocks perhaps a bit more severe. In any case, it was absolutely stunningly gorgeous, and the Hudson River Valley region is now towards the top of my “places I would not mind living” list. The 5 hour drive was the final straw for my left leg, though; I’d been having issues with the nerve damage in that leg all week, but all that sitting just killed me, so I was stuck needing to use my cane at the festival the next day. C’est la vie!

The Festival (Saturday):
The forecast had been quite ominous, predicting sleet and other such misery. While it wasn’t at all warm, it was not nearly as bad as it could be, and bundled up well, I was able to make it through the day wearing my beloved Rhinebeck cardigan as my outermost layer:

Here’s what I wore: my double-thick hat, knit back before I started this blog; 2 layers of long sleeve thermal shirts underneath my cardigan; my bulky alpaca brioche stitch scarf, also knit back before I started this blog; Mr. Estonian Mitten and his partner (knit back at the very beginning of this blog), with gloves under them for part of the day; Smartwool tights, knee high socks, and Bogs boots under my heavy cords; and of course, my cane. I took that picture after the lunchtime Ravelry meetup (in the same spot as gleek!), which was a blast. I had so much fun meeting everyone! It was like the internet had come to life, all of these people I’ve commented and chatted with were suddenly right there in front of me. I may have squealed just a little bit when I caught sight of C, who was wearing the sweater I knit for her!! I met so many people that afternoon: Mai, Tina, Danielle (whose sweater I wanted to steal!), Adrian, Cheryl (my partner in yoked sweater obsession), Pam (whose new sweater is AMAZING), the whole Ravelry crew, and about a million other people who were all totally awesome and I promise I’m not leaving any of you off the list on purpose, I just can’t think of everyone right now. I’m linking to other people’s photos, because I didn’t take very many at all…trying to handle a camera and a cane at the same time just didn’t really work for me.

At the meetup, I got a Ravelry username button, which I pinned to my hat because I didn’t want to pin it through my cardigan:

Obscure German words do not make the best usernames when it comes to conveying them to other people, but now I can just show them my button!

My husband was there with me, and was such a fabulous sport about meeting all of my knitting friends. He looked quite dashing in his handknits, I though. osloann got great photo of the two of us (isn’t my husband a handsome guy?), in our handknit hats, for part of her hats collage. He was wearing the hat I knit for him back in Ohio, along with the Seamless Hybrid cardigan I knit for him last winter.

Another highlight of my Saturday at Rhinebeck was meeting Clara Parkes, and getting a signed copy of her newest book, “The Knitter’s Book of Wool”. I’m loving it so far! Of course, I also loved her “Knitter’s Book of Yarn”, so that’s probably no surprise.

We didn’t just see people, of course, but also lovely fiber-bearing animals! My favorite was this sheep:

I’m 99% sure that’s a Cotswold. I just absolutely adore the “dreadlocks” they’ve got going on over their eyes…they remind me of muppets or something!

And of course, we saw all sorts of lovely yarns and fibers and other goodies in the vendor booths, but I didn’t actually buy anything. I know, that sounds crazy, but I have plenty of yarn to play with here at home. I still really enjoyed getting to touch and feel all of these things I’ve only ever read about online.

I got lots of compliments from people about my cardigan, which made me really happy, but what surprised me was how many people commented on my mittens, as well. For the record, I am working on turning both into patterns, but am slightly overwhelmed by all of the non-knitting parts of my life right now, so it may be awhile. I need to do some serious thinking about how to resize a cardigan pattern with such a large motif as that maple leaf, and it’s been so long since I knit the original mittens that I need to knit another pair just to remind myself of what I did while I write the pattern!

Dinner (Saturday):
The day at the festival was completely exhausting; being on your feet for over 6 straight hours, in fairly cold weather, when you’re already having some neuropathy problems, is just plain painful, even if you’re having a lot of fun! So we ended up leaving a little early, and taking some time to rest before meeting up with Steph and company for dinner at a lovely vegetarian restaurant nearby. I did a terrible job of making note of who all was there, but I really enjoyed meeting everyone, and having delicious vegetarian food.

The Ravelry Party (Saturday):
Of course, we weren’t done after dinner! We headed to the Ravelry Party, which was already quite full of people by the time we got there. I’m a bit claustrophobic in big crowds, so it was somewhat overwhelming, and I always worry that I’m awkward at big social events like that, but it was still really nice to get to chat with people like Cirilia and Ysolda (whose Bob head/mitts/tail was the star of the whole day!). And of course, I also talked to plenty of the people I’d talked to earlier in the day at the Ravelry meetup, especially Cheryl. We ended up standing in line for the bus with Jess and her husband, and it was nice to chat with them as well, even though we were all pretty darn cold and tired at the point!

The drive home (Sunday):
With Sunday being my husband’s birthday, we had grand plans of going on a hike in one of the parks in the region to celebrate before driving home, but not only was the weather a lot yuckier than on Saturday, we were both SO incredibly beat from the busy day on Saturday that we could barely walk! So, we just drove home. It was a lovely drive, although I was asleep for most of it thanks to actually taking my dramamine this time around :)

 

still here

Just dropping by the blog to say hello. I’ve been knitting (specifically, on the purple gansey, which is inching ever closer to completion), and thinking through some designs as well, but am also very busy, and have been (unsuccessfully) fighting against exhaustion, achiness, and congestion that I just can’t kick. It’s been a dreary week here (although today, which is when I took that picture you see above, has been glorious), so I don’t have much in the way of photographic evidence of said knitting endeavors. C’est la vie.

So, it’s October now, and that means Socktoberfest, among other things. It’s funny how socks have just completely fallen off my radar lately. I just can’t get my mind off sweaters. Designing them, and knitting them. I’ve got ideas for a few non-sweaters in my head, too (including a sock!), but it’ll be awhile before I can find the time and energy to write and knit them up. I do have one sock on the needles right now: my “tutoring sock”, for those times when my students decide not to show up for their appointments and I have to kill time in the tutoring office. We’ll see if I finish it up before the month is out…I actually hope I don’t, because I enjoy tutoring, and like it when my students show up!

October also means Rhinebeck. I’m so excited about going there this year, but also nervous. I just don’t always handle big crowds very well, and if I’m still feeling under the weather, it could be pretty tough. But I’m really eager to meet so many of you in person, and I’ll be honest, I’m eager to show off my Rhinebeck cardigan, too. I wore it three times last week, that’s how much I love it.

 

happy fall, y’all.

I figure today’s as good a day as any to debut my newest sweater:

I’ve tentatively named this design “Haapsalu Autumn”, Haapsalu being the town in Estonia from which the nupp/lace motifs that inspired the maple leaf design came. Here are the details:

Ravelry Project Page
Pattern: My own, inspired by the Haapsalu style lace described in Nancy Bush’s “Knitted Lace of Estonia”.
Yarn: Beaverslide Dry Goods Worsted Weight, in “Clearwater”.
Gauge: 4 sts and 6 rows to the inch.
Needles: size 8 Denise Interchangeables and Knitpicks Harmony dpns
Time to knit: August 19th-September 19th. Exactly one month!

Y’all, the Beaverslide. It is amazing stuff. Delightfully wooly to knit with, complete with little bits of vegetable matter (which may bother some people, but not me!). But the knitting isn’t even the best part. The best part is what happens after it gets a bath. This yarn blooms like you would not believe. The knit stitches turn into this soft, cohesive fabric, and the nupps just pop. It’s amazing. I can’t recommend this yarn highly enough.

I ended up finding a set of relatively light weight pewter buttons, with actual holes in them, rather than a shank. I really like the look of the silver against the dark teal, so I’m quite happy with my choice, although I’m sure it would have looked lovely with any of the buttons you lovely readers suggested on my last post, too. For those who have asked, I do intend to write this up as a pattern for sale, in multiple sizes. It may take me awhile, though, since the size of the leaf motif is so large that it makes resizing and shaping a bit difficult to think through.

Today was not the best day for a photoshoot (it was raining on me the entire time), but I just couldn’t resist showing this sweater off on the first day of Autumn. Happy Equinox, everybody! (And especially to my husband, since today marks the start of our 19th season together as a married couple!)

 

just a quick update

I don’t have a whole lot to say, but since Thursdays are my “work at home” day, I actually have a chance to write on the blog, so I figured I’d take advantage of it. The semester is moving along at a steady clip, and I’m pretty much constantly on the edge (well, over the edge would be more accurate) of exhaustion. This is nothing unusual; it’s just par for the course when it comes to trying to maintain a more-than-full-time schedule with a chronic illness. C’est la vie. Things are going fairly well, at least! I just end up having no time after I get home for anything but dinner before I fall asleep, so my non-worky life is pretty boring at the moment.

But! I do have a small update for y’all on the knitting front. My Rhinebeck cardigan is inching ever closer to completion, and today I had the brilliant idea of trying to photograph it in front of our upstairs window, to let the light shine through the maple leaf lace motif. Alas, my first attempt was a bit of a failure, but I still like how it turned out, so I’ll share it with y’all:

(Why yes, I’m in my pajamas. Why change into real clothes, when working from home?) Eventually I was able to rig things up, threading the ends of my needle through the loops of the curtain, so that I could get a photo in which the maple leaves actually show up:

I am absurdly, inordinately delighted with how the maple leaves turned out. All that’s left to do is finish the neckline, and then pick up stitches for the buttonbands. Oh, and then…buttons. I am so terribly, horribly indecisive about buttons. I just don’t know what would look best. Wood? Pewter? Something plainer, like matching plastic buttons? I’m currently leaning towards these buttons, because I like how the motif almost looks a bit maple-leaf-ish, and the little nupp-like details, but if any of you lovely readers have a button suggestion for me, feel free to speak up, because I am pretty darn clueless about buttons.

 

i heart nupps

Why hello there, blog! I just cannot seem to find the time to update this thing more often than about once every 1-2 weeks. Oh well. In the time since I last wrote, I’ve survived a couple of symphony rehearsals and a variety of scheduling nightmares, answered endless emails from students in the class I’m co-teaching, and hosted my brother and his wife for a wonderful visit here over Labor Day weekend. We ate good food, watched some movies and TV, and played a lot of Rock Band (which they kindly brought along with them). I really enjoyed getting to have them here!

On the knitting front, I’ve joined the sleeves to the body of my Rhinebeck cardigan, knit half a yoke, ripped out a yoke, and started over again, with reworked chart. It’s going better this second time around, so I figured I’d share some photos with y’all. Here’s the back of the sweater, partway through the yoke:

(I’m showing you the back, since it’s easier to spread that part out on the needles…we’re still in “too many stitches for the needle” territory until some more serious decreasing happens). The bit of lace you can see is the central point of the maple leaf nupp/lace motif I doodled out. I’m so excited to see more of it knit up, and to see whether it looks as much like a maple leaf when knit up as it does in chart form!

The nupps make for rather slow going (although I’ve got a nice routine now, using a much smaller dpn to do the p5tog on the wrong side after the nupp rows, which helps). I don’t mind, though, because the texture they create is wonderful. Here’s a closeup of the nupps and lace:

And here’s an even-closer-up:

We’ll see how long it takes me to finish this up given how busy I am this semester, but I’m about 99% sure I can have an awesome new cardigan to wear at Rhinebeck, assuming it’s cool enough by then. Here’s hoping!

 

…and I’m back.

I finished comps on Thursday at 5pm, but took several days to recover to even marginally normal status. I’m still feeling terribly wiped out and exhausted, and a little bit under the weather, and I have no idea what to think about what I wrote for my exam. I suppose it’s better to just not think about it at all, until I get feedback. Which could be awhile, given how these things tend to go here. I’ve got plenty of other things to be thinking about, anyway, what with classes starting today! I’m co-teaching a class this semester, which I’m very excited about. Our first meeting is tomorrow, but I think we’re ready. Tonight is my first symphony rehearsal since last Spring, and I’m looking forward to seeing all of my orchestra friends again. But given that I barely practiced at all this summer (comps reading tends to swamp out everything else), I’m a little worried that I’m not going to be able to play well enough!

The day I finished comps, a box arrived from Webs, containing some yarn I’d ordered for swatching purposes. Remember how I told y’all that I had a bunch of ideas involving roositud and vikkel braids, and that I wanted to try out the new St-Denis Nordique yarn? Well, here’s both:

The blue-green yarn is St-Denis Nordique, in “Blue Eggshell”, and the white yarn is Classic Elite Fresco, a lovely blend containing some angora, in White. The Blue Eggshell color is pretty much my favorite color ever in the whole wide world of colors. I was interested in seeing how the halo of the Fresco looked in a roositud motif, against the nice clean stitch definition of the Nordique. It turns out, the look is pretty lovely:

That’s just a little roositud motif I doodled up, hoping to evoke both flowers and snowflakes, if such a thing is possible. I held the Fresco doubled, both because that’s a good idea when you’re doing roositud (which is basically just weaving yarn back and forth in your knitting to create designs as you knit), and also because the Fresco is a finer yarn (at least in my hands) than the Nordique, which is called a sportweight, but knits up pretty happily at DK weight, as well. I decided to teach myself how to do vikkel braids, as well, still with the Fresco doubled:

I love it! I probably should have tried to follow the directions for the “3 color” braid (which allows for the row above the braid to be entirely one color, instead of alternating as in the braid) instead of the “2 color” braid, but in any case, it’s a neat little detail, and one that I look forward to using. I’m envisioning something like that roositud motif, circling the yoke of a sweater, with a line of vikkel braiding where the hem/cuff/neckline ribbing joins the body of the sweater.

I’m still debating what I want to do with all of the design ideas that are in my head (and in Stickies on the desktop of my Mac, since I don’t trust my head all that much these days!). I’m tempted to put some stuff together to submit to various places that publish patterns, but at the same time, I’m perfectly happy to just keep pretty much knitting “for myself”, and writing things up if people are interested. I like being able to do things on whatever schedule I can handle. But it’s awfully tempting to try to get a pattern published somewhere, just because I know more people would see it that way, and that’s kind of an exciting thought. But the other problem is that most of the ideas I have are for things that are more appropriate for fall or winter, and I know that’s not how things work when it comes to pattern publishing…right now I’m pretty sure everyone is looking for spring and summer designs. So maybe that will have to wait, anyway. We’ll just see.

I’ll leave you with a photo of my progress on the cardigan I’m knitting for Rhinebeck. It’s actually slightly further along than this, since I took this picture on Sunday and knit a bit on it yesterday evening. I’m hoping to be ready to join at the yoke this weekend, and start knitting the awesome maple-leaf nupp/lace motif that I’ve sketched out.

Happy September, everyone!

 

nupps!

I finished reading everything on my comps list at the beginning of the week.  Since my exam doesn’t start until Monday, that meant getting a little under a week for putting my notes and thoughts together, and most importantly, resting and relaxing before the big event.  The day I finished my last reading, I spent the evening knitting this:

I’ve had this idea burning in my brain for awhile now, ever since I got that Nancy Bush book I was talking about in my last post.  I’m going to be using a modified nupp/lace motif, writ large in Beaverslide worsted weight (in the most gorgeous “Clearwater” color), in the yoke of a cardigan.  I just cannot get over that gorgeous combination of lace and texture, especially at a much heavier gauge.  It makes me absurdly happy.  So happy that I just could not help myself, yesterday…I spent much of the day knitting and watching old episodes of “This American Life” from our Netflix “Watch Instantly” queue.  And now I have most of the body of a cardigan knit, a cardigan that I hope to wear at Rhinebeck. (EDIT: Looking at my swatch now, I realize that, with a few more modifications, that nupp/lace motif could be turned into a stylized maple leaf, very appropriate for Rhinebeck and the season it takes place during, and I am now determined to make that happen. EDIT (one hour later): And now I have charted out a nupp/lace maple leaf. It is so perfect it makes me giddy!).

I am so obsessed with all things Estonian at the moment; as I mentioned in my previous post, I have a ton of design ideas incorporating traditional Estonian colorwork, texture, and lace stitches in somewhat unexpected ways.  This cardigan is just the first of many.  I’ll probably knit up my ideas, piece by piece, regardless of what anyone says, but I am curious whether you dear blog readers would enjoy seeing me knit up (and possibly write up patterns for) a series of Estonian-inspired sweaters/vests/skirts/etc.  What do you think?  Does that sound like fun?  I’ve thought through which yarns in my stash would work for some of my designs, and bought a few skeins of yarn for swatching purposes, too.  I’m debating whether I want to try submitting some designs someplace, but I also like the idea of just knitting up whatever ideas I have on my own pace, self-publishing patterns if there’s sufficient interest.

Don’t worry, this doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten about the other projects/designs on my plate…I’m still working on babyStripes!, and the modernized gansey, and I also still intend to write up a pattern for Garter Whimsy at some point in the very near future. For right now, though, the easiest project for me is this new cardigan; I know my measurements much better than I know the measurements of a Hypothetical One Year Old Baby, and am so familiar with yoked sweater construction at this point that I can kind of go on autopilot, using the sweater as my canvas for playing around with things like nupp and lace motifs. We’ll see how things shake out, after I’ve taken my comps…I suspect there’s going to be quite a burst of energy on the knitting front come September, but since I’m actually going to be teaching (and not just TAing) this coming semester, I’ll probably still be pretty busy.

Since this is probably the last post I’ll write up until after comps are over, I’ll close by sharing some excitement from our garden:

We harvested our first three tomatoes last night! We (like so many others in the north east) were struck with late blight, and had to hack away large portions of our tomato plants, so we’re very grateful to be getting any tomatoes at all. We’ve also been able to harvest some cayenne peppers, and we’ve got green peppers and eggplants still growing, which will hopefully make it to harvest-time intact. Not bad for our first year figuring out this veggie-gardening thing, really.

Well, see y’all on the other side of comps! I hope everybody has a lovely end of August. You know, to the extent that the hottest, muggiest couple of weeks of the year can be lovely. Anyway. Farewell for now!

 

oh, blog, I’ve missed you.

This is what I’m up against

I have been so busy reading for comps, and getting so psychologically drained in the process, that it’s been to difficult to update the blog. And, for that matter, keep up with any of your blogs. Well, that’s not true…I’m reading them, but just don’t have the brainpower to comment with anything besides “ooh, pretty!”. There isn’t a whole lot of updating to do, since with all the reading, the knitting time has been fairly limited, but I’ve got a few things to show you, and a few things on my mind, knitting-wise, that I’d best get off it soon so as to not be distracted during comps.

First off: I’ve decided to abandon the Tour de Gansey, part trois. I know, I said I wouldn’t, but I have to. Not the knitting of the gansey (in fact, I’ve got an update for you, just below), but the Tour-themed posts. It’s just that with the Tour long over now, it’s not really worth the extra mental energy it takes to write posts in my pseudo-sports announcer voice. It’s exhausting enough to just write in my own voice, I assure you!

But see, I have made progress on it! I finished the second sleeve a couple of days ago, and am ready to join. But I may wait to finish this until September, after I’ve taken my comps…there’s a lot of thinking to be done in terms of how to execute seamless set-in sleeve shaping (with the teensiest saddle, carrying that central cable up across the shoulder), and I don’t have the brainpower left to do it, I don’t think.

The other project I’ve been working on is babyStripes! I’m “test-knitting” the 1yo size of the pattern I have yet to write. It’s more fair to say that I’m writing the pattern as I go, using the 1yo size as my starting point. Anyway, here’s that:

As you can see, I knit the bottom hem flat, and then cast on extra stitches to join and knit in the round. It will be steeked, down the road. You may notice, in that photo, that there are purl columns on either side of the steek stitches. I’m switching yarns for the stripes in the purl stitch on one side, carrying the yarns up the side, and will use the purl columns as a nice place to pick up stitches for the button band, post-steeking. Here’s what the inside looks like:

You can’t see this detail in the photos, but I cast on extra stitches at the bottom of the sweater, and decreased them across the back after a few inches…this detail is intended to leave room to go over the top of a diaper, since I know those can get rather bulky!

Ok, so with those two current projects out of the way, what else do I want to put in this brain-dump of a post? Maybe I’ll split it up by topic, with headers:

On becoming an aunt
We got news from my husband’s brother and his wife that we are going to be an aunt and uncle! This is pretty exciting, I have to say. The baby is due in February, I think. Anyway, being a knitter, I of course have been thinking of what I should knit for this…”neicephew”? Why oh why does English not have a gender-neutral word for the offspring of a sibling (or sibling-in-law)? I want to get their input before I start knitting away, of course. I’m selfishly keeping the babyStripes! test-knit for my Hypothetical Future Child, so it will have to be something else.

On the new Interweave
Every time I’m about to decide to let my subscription lapse, they come out with something great like this most recent magazine. It’s seriously great. There are some fabulous patterns in there, and some great articles about sustainability and domestic yarn production. I’m particularly taken with the Freyja yoked sweater (does that shock anyone?), but there are lots of lovely things in here.

On Jared Flood’s new book
Y’all have probably already heard about this, but Jared Flood, aka “brooklyntweed”, has a new book. It looks pretty awesome. I have always loved his style, and I think we are of a similar mindset when it comes to updating classic designs and such. Anyway, I’m excited for him!

On Veronik Avery’s new magazine and yarn
You guys have heard about Veronik Avery’s new new magazine, right? And the new yarn, too? I am downright giddy about some of the patterns (like that green shawl), but it’s the yarn I’m even more excited about. A nice, sturdy, wool-lover’s sport/dk yarn? Yes please! I’m only sorry that I’m not tutoring this summer, because that means I don’t have the money to buy some. I have several design ideas that I think would work beautifully in it. Speaking of which…

On design inspiration
A little while ago, I ordered “Knitted Lace of Estonia”, and everyone who has recommended it to me was right…it is a gorgeous book, and full of inspiration. The funny thing is, what it’s inspiring me to think up are yoked sweater designs. Oh, I know, that’s not actually very surprising at all given my yoke obsession, but seriously, I have several design ideas, either utilizing traditional lace motifs or techniques from my other Nancy Bush book on Estonian knitting, like roositud and vikkel braids. I’d love to write up a little pattern collection of pieces inspired by traditional Estonian knitting, but the dual problems of lack of time and lack of sufficient funds to acquire the yarn to do so are getting in the way. I do have yarn that I think will work for one of the lacy designs, at least, so you may see some of that, once life has gotten a little less crazy around these parts.

On Rhinebeck
We made our hotel arrangements last week, so we’re definitely in! Lots of stuff in the area is already booked up, by the way, which I suppose I should have expected, but didn’t. So we’re staying a little ways away from the actual festival. That weekend is also my husband’s birthday, so it’ll be nice to take a little “mini-vacation” down in the Catskills. It’s a bit of a drive, considering the fact that we live in the same state, but that’s ok, because it should be a very pretty one. Anyway, if you’re planning to be there, let me know! I’d love to meet you lovely blog readers in person.

 

le Tour de Gansey, part trois: Stage 7

Today may be the final day of the Tour de France, but this Tour isn’t finished yet! We’ve just finished the body (for now), so now it’s time for…

Stage 7: Sleeve #1

We’re going a bit non-traditional this year, and entering the sleeve stages a bit early, and from the opposite direction as in a traditional gansey. Which is to say, we’re knitting these sleeves from the bottom up. This stage began with the Channel Island cast-on, just as the body did. Here you have some very close-up footage of what that cast-on looks like:

I just cannot get enough of those little garter picots. Again, a split, overlapping garter welt was worked, with the welts overlapped to form the beginning of a baby cable that would run up the inside seam:

Motifs were borrowed from the body to create the designs on the sleeve. Here you can see the pine tree motif, as well as a baby cable running up the outside of the sleeve. There’s some excitement in store for that cable, further along in the Tour, but you’ll just have to stay tuned to find out what.

The sleeves on this gansey are going to be short sleeves, a look which is not entirely untraditional. The wearers of traditional ganseys were primarily fishing folk, and some of them chose to knit their sleeves shorter in order to avoid the mess of fish guts on their lower arms. The eventual wearer of this gansey has no intention of dismantling fish while wearing this gansey (or at any other time), but still liked the idea of a short-sleeved gansey.

Well, that’s all for this first sleeve stage! Stay turned for Stage 8, where we will see sleeve #2 all the way through to its completion.

 

le Tour de Gansey, part trois: Stage 6

We got a little peek of what’s to come in this stage last time, but now we’re really here…

Stage 6: (faux) Gussets

You may recall from last year’s tour how much our knitter loved her underarm gussets. Well, the trouble with creating a more modernized, fitted gansey, is that set-in sleeves don’t really warrant a gusset. But our knitter could not bear to be gussetless, and so incorporated faux gussets as a design element in this sixth stage:

As you can see, the baby cable running up the side seam was split, and instead of increasing stitches in between the two legs, as would be necessary for an actual gusset, the legs were cabled outwards, with purl stitches filling the center. The end result looks very much like the beloved underarm gussets of last year, though without any actual increasing done.

With that, the body section of the gansey is finished, and now it must wait for sleeves. This is a different method of construction than in a traditional gansey, where the body would be split at this point, and knit up to the shoulders, with sleeves picked up and stitches knit down. Stay tuned for coverage of some sleeve action in Stage 7!

 

le Tour de Gansey, part trois: Stage 5

Apologies for the long delay between coverage of the last stage and this one, folks…our knitter is also in the process of preparing for her comprehensive exams, which requires reading some 100+ papers (where “paper” sometimes means “100+ page book chapter”) in the span of less than two months in order to be ready to write intelligent answers and justify her continued existence as a graduate student. So the knitting time, and the mental energy for blogging about said knitting, is a bit thin on the ground here these days. But enough of that…on to our coverage!

Stage 5: Waist Shaping (the ascent)

Just like the cyclists in today’s stage of the Tour de France, today’s stage involves a fairly intense ascent. At the end of the last stage, we were in the short section of flat territory between the end of the descent into the waist. But today, we climb back up to our original number of stitches, so as to increase back to the bust circumference, covering some curves in the process:

Dangerous Curves

Throughout this stage, the switchback motif of the waist shaping panels required constant attention, due to the ever-changing number of stitches. Here’s a side view of the gansey, so that you can get a good idea of the shaping that took place in this stage:

There you can also see the reverse maneuver executed at the waist in the tire-track motif section surrounding the cabled side seam. Notice how the motif reverses direction, serving to further highlight the waist of the eventual wearer of the gansey.

As with the Tour de France, it’s always good to take a little bit of time to just admire the marvelous scenery, especially in these mountain stages. Check out this glorious texture:

Here’s the current standings in le Tour de Gansey, following Stage 5:

We’re nearly to the undearm! If you look closely in this last picture, you can get a hint of what’s to come in Stage 6:

Stay Tuned! It’s rather likely this Tour will go on beyond the end of the Tour de France, given our knitter’s current busy schedule and limited knitting time, but fear not, this Tour will not be abandoned!

 

le Tour de Gansey, part trois: Stage 4

With that little diversion back into Stripes! territory done with, let’s get back to our Tour coverage! When we left off, our knitter had just completed Stage 3, the establishment of the pattern motifs and seam stitches of the body. Next up, it’s…

Stage 4: Waist Shaping (the descent)

Waist shaping? In a gansey? Yes, we’re going a bit non-traditional here this year, adding a bit of modern, fitted shaping to the traditional gansey. There’ll be more where that came from, too, when we reach the sleeves. But for now, let’s focus on today’s stage. Unlike the mountain stages of our intrepid cyclists, when shaping a waist, it is customary to descend (to a smaller number of stitches) before ascending (back up to the chest measurement). As such, today’s stage covers the descent into the waist. Here you can see how this is achieved through the use of a “waist-shaping panel”:

In this gansey, our knitter is using vertical panels of pattern motifs, separated by narrow columns of garter rib, and has made the panel closest to the column of stitches running down from under the armpit the “waist shaping panel”. The descent into the waist involved some rather tricky combinations of regularly placed decreases and necessary pattern motif modifications. As you may be able to see, the pattern motif used in this panel is intended to evoke the switchbacks of the mountain stages, and it required a bit of careful planning to get them to zig and zag and join together just so in order to fit into the ever smaller number of stitches allotted to that panel as we inched toward the waist.

Here you can see the status of the gansey at the end of Stage 4:

Stage 5 begins with an easy flat section, but quickly ramps up into a massive ascent, ending with the same number of stitches around the needle as we had before beginning today’s descent into the waist. But for that, you’ll have to stay tuned!

 

Stripes! is now available!

Thanks to the fantastic efforts of my test-knitters and the friends who helped me edit the pattern, Stripes! is finally available as a Ravelry download. You can also visit its Pattern Page here on this blog.

I am so excited to be able to offer this pattern/tutorial! I decided not to make it free, which was something I agonized over a bit. But in the end, if I believe that creative people deserve to be compensated fairly for their work (which I do), then it makes no sense for me to not accept compensation myself. To alleviate my discomfort with charging for the pattern, I have decided to donate 20% of the proceeds to Heifer International to help support their efforts towards sustainability and the alleviation of hunger and poverty around the world. Heifer International is one of my very favorite charitable organizations, and I’m happy to use pattern sales to increase my charitable donation budget.

I hope those of you who have been eagerly awaiting this pattern will be delighted with the final result!