CogKnition » Sweaters

Tangled Yoke Cardigan

CogKnition — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 23:45:24 +0000

Pattern: Tangled Yoke Cardigan by Eunny Jang, from Interweave Knits Fall 2007
Yarn: Rowan Felted Tweed in color 142 “Melody”, 6 skeins
Needles: Addi Turbos, US 5 (3.75mm) and US 4 (3.5mm)

Just in time for summer! It’s unusually chilly today in Houston, so I grabbed the opportunity to wear the finished sweater for the first and last time until December.

I promptly started sweating. But did I change? No. Instead, I opened the windows and let the 40-degree outside in.

Quick project notes:

Yarn—I loved working with this yarn, and it’s very warm. Highly recommended
Pattern—The pattern is very well written and easy to follow. This is my fifth Eunny pattern and I’ve come to expect nothing less from her.
Finishing—This sweater must be blocked before wearing. There’s a lot of puckering and wrinkling around the cabled yoke when it first comes off the needles. That all evens out after a proper wet-block.
Modifications—I lengthened both the body (and thus the button band) and the sleeves to accomodate my freakishly long torso and arms. I also narrowed the sleeves at the wrist for a more fitted look. Used 8 buttons instead of 9 for the sake of mathematical simplicity.

According to my Ravelry project page, I finished the knitting on this in February. Yes, it takes me a whole month to install a button band. This is why I made puppy eyes at my grandma the last time I had to do it.

Attempt #1
Critical errors:

Buying the wrong width of ribbon, which meant I had to sew two strips together side-by-side.
Buying the wrong kind of ribbon, which meant that it was a nightmare to work with.
Not buying enough ribbon.
Failing to measure. Twice. Actually, thrice. I first produced a button band that was much too short, and then produced two more that weren’t the same length. And then I cut the buttonholes before confirming they actually lined up with the buttons.

There was much cursing. And perhaps some wine.

Continue reading Tangled Yoke Cardigan (135 words) »

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Big Sack Sweater

CogKnition — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 21:24:03 +0000

Pattern: Big Sack Sweater, by Jenna Wilson, Stitch ‘n Bitch
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Merino Chunky, #402, 19 skeins
Needles: US 8 and 10.5

So I haven’t been knitting much. But I need to post something with a picture to test the feed readers. And then the godawful bitter cold* gave me a flash of inspiration. So I present to you a blast from the past, the Big Sack Sweater.

This was my very first sweater ever, chosen specifically for the following properties:

No shaping. It’s a big sack.
No need for fitting. It’s a big sack.
No complicated construction. It’s a big sack. With raglan sleeves.

And being the dedicated beginner I was, I knit a big gauge swatch for it anyways. I was right on the money. This probably made me overconfident for future sweaters.

I knit this sweater largely while I was scanning research subjects at the fMRI center for my first-year research project. Everything went pretty smoothly up until the neckline. (It’s a big sack. Hard to screw up.) I had no idea how to pick up a certain number of stitches. So I just sort of picked up stitches willy-nilly until I’d gone all the way around the neck opening, and knit the neck. The result was a neckline that was much too big. I finally fixed it this summer, arguably the first step in my great frogging adventure.

This sweater is hella awesome when it’s hella cold.

—–
*Perhaps what I really should say is this:

For those of you who live south of the 40th parallel, or who are blessed with moderate temperatures thanks to the ocean, OMG IT WAS SO COLD I DIDN’T LEAVE MY HOUSE FOR DAYS. I HAD TO CHOOSE BETWEEN HYPOTHERMIA AND AN ASTRONOMICAL GAS BILL.

For those of you who live north of the 40th parallel, like everyone back home who actually saw below-zero (that’s zero Fahrenheit) temperatures…well, it was a bit nippy, but tolerable. I just put on a sweater.

What can I say, cold tolerance is a badge of honor where I come from.

Rogue 2.0

CogKnition — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 05:06:42 +0000

Just to remind you all, the old Rogue had fit issues:

Too big, too baggy, despite adventures in extreme sweater laundering. Thus, a frog and a re-knit. This is what she looks like now:

Pattern: Rogue, by Jenna Wilson
Yarn: Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran, Hemlock, approx. 14 skeins
Needles: Addi Turbos, US 7 (4.5mm)

And now I have a confession to make. Remember when I said I got gauge? I was nowhere near getting gauge. I had knit the gauge swatch on US 7s and was getting just under 5 stitches and just over 7 rows to the inch instead of the required 4.5 stitches and 6 rows.

But I decided that was a good thing, what with my new motto of “when in doubt, go small.” At the gauge I was getting on US 7s, I would wind up with a 34″ bust if I knit the 35.5″ size sweater. I thought this would be just about perfect, and I would do the math to add the extra length.

The width of the sweater did turn out just about perfect. There is zero ease at the bust and a smooth fit through the waist and hips. The shoulders and sleeves are fitted, but not tight. The drape of the fabric is much nicer as well.

Continue reading Rogue 2.0 (118 words) »

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Hourglass Sweater 2.0

CogKnition — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 06:37:57 +0000

Pattern: Hourglass Sweater, Last-Minute Knitted Gifts, 33″ size
Yarn: Noro Cash Iroha, #85, 10 skeins
Needles: Addi Turbos, US 8 (5mm)

Oh, this is so, so much better. Let me remind you again of how it used to fit:

Why on earth did I ever think this fit well?

I love the fit of the new sweater, though I am a little bit concerned about the sleeve length. The length looks fine in the photo above, but the shoulders and upper arms stretched out as I wore the sweater, causing the sleeves to shorten. Ideally, I’d like to have another inch so the sleeves completely cover my wrists. I’m trying to block the sleeves a bit longer, but I can always take the sleeve apart in the middle and insert a few rows if I need to.

I made a few minor adjustments to the pattern. First, I skipped all the turning rounds and did up all the hems as I went so the only seams I had to do were the underarm seams. Second, I worked two extra decrease rows at the neck so the opening wouldn’t be too wide.

The main lesson learned from my adventures in knitting Hourglass twice: When in doubt, go small.

It’s a lesson I’m slowly learning with my regular wardrobe as well. Fitted looks nice. Baggy looks sloppy. Negative ease is good, particularly in clothes that will stretch out with wear.

On to Rogue, and NaKniSweMo!

Other entries about Hourglass Sweater 2.0:

Cable and Seed Stitch Jacket

CogKnition — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 21:49:14 +0000

Pattern: Cable and Seed Stitch Jacket, by Debbie Bliss, Debbie Bliss: The Baby Knits Book, 6-12 month size
Yarn: Plymouth Encore, #9621, 2 skeins
Needles: Addi Turbos, US 8 (5mm)

Yay, baby sweaters!

This is a super fast and super easy knit and the finished sweater is super cute. I just hope the baby actually turns out to be a girl. The parents couldn’t tell from the ultrasound if the baby is a girl or a boy who is really, really, really shy about flashing the world his private parts.

(Accidental) Modifications
The pattern only calls for 7 buttons. Frankly, you could probably get away with having only five. But thanks to my Amazing Math Prowess, I put in 8 buttonholes, so 8 buttons it was.

Also, the pattern calls for over 600 yards of a worsted weight yarn to finish this size; I needed less than 400.

See the pretty ribbon reinforcing the button band?

Yeah, I didn’t do any of that. I didn’t sew the buttons on either. My grandma was visiting, so I approached her with my arms full of sweater, ribbon, thread, and buttons, and a hopeless puppy look on my face, and she installed all that for me. And she taught me how to attach buttons securely. Hooray for grandmas!

Other entries about the Cable and Seed Stitch Jacket:

Sweater Life Cycle

Harvard Square Cardigan

CogKnition — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 15:49:44 +0000

Pattern: Harvard Square Cardigan, from Knitting for Baby, 9-month size
Yarn: MC—Baby Pure DK (#502), CC1—Sirdar Snuggly DK (#0377), CC2—Plymouth Dreambaby DK (#201), 1 skein each
Needles: Addi Turbos, US 6 (4mm)

Aww, another itty bitty sweater! Baby sweaters are so quick, yet so gratifying.

This project represents a few firsts for me

first time doing a lot of itty bitty stripes, and
first time doing a button band and buttons.

The stripes are skinny enough that I just carried the colors up the sides, rather than cutting and having to weave in eleventy billion ends.

The buttons are knit on like beads, and then reinforced with thread.

Continue reading Harvard Square Cardigan (255 words) »

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Cable and Rib Sweater w/Hood

CogKnition — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 16:45:44 +0000

Pattern: From Debbie Bliss: The Baby Knits Book
Yarn: Elann Peruvian Highland Wool, #3103, 7 skeins
Needles: Addi Turbos, US 7 (4.5mm)

Itty bitty clothes! I love it! I unfortunately don’t have an appropriately-sized model for the sweater, so you’ll just have to imagine some cooing baby wearing it in Mongolia.

Continue reading Cable and Rib Sweater w/Hood (171 words) »

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In Rogue

CogKnition — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 09:38:08 +0000

Now that this blog has been up for a week and a half, it’s about time I established some knitting cred. So if you’re one of the non-knitting readers that randomly wandered in from Thought Bubbles, watch out, because I’m about to prove I’m a real knitta.

Rogue. I fell in love with Rogue the first time I laid eyes on the pattern and I vowed to knit it someday, after I had a few sweaters already under my belt.

First, some praise for Jenna Wilson: the pattern for Rogue is amazing. I found it extremely clear and easy to knit from, even though I’d never used a charted pattern before, and it really does cover everything you need to know.

Every time I had a problem, it was because I hadn’t actually bothered to, y’know, read the pattern. Oh, and one time it was because I was dense, not realizing that to k1, p1, k1 in the same stitch, you…k1, p1, k1…in the same stitch. Duh.

Continue reading In Rogue (1,382 words) »

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CogKnition » Sweaters

Tangled Yoke Cardigan

Big Sack Sweater

Similar Posts:

Rogue 2.0

Hourglass Sweater 2.0

Similar Posts:

Cable and Seed Stitch Jacket

Similar Posts:

Harvard Square Cardigan

Cable and Rib Sweater w/Hood

In Rogue