After numerous days of storms and cloudiness what with Tornado Alley looking more like Tornado Main Street, the weather finally cooperated long enough to get some finished photos.

Circumnavigated Cardigan- she is done and she is cozy. To recap- this pattern was originally published in Knitter's Magazine #10 and is now available for purchase directly from the designer, Medrith Glover (more info here). I also knit this as part of the year long KAL with the Dallas Hand Knitters Guild. This pattern is really more like a very detailed guide. You can use any yarn in any gauge and make any size, it's all calculated by you with your measurements. It gives you lots of room to play with ideas, but when I say detailed I mean it- it's thorough to say the least. Oh and did I mention it was completely seamless, including the side pockets? Yeah, I thought it was a cool pattern. I do love unique construction.

So of course, I had to make some of my own mods. :)

• The pattern calls for 6 inches of ease, while I wanted a comfy sweater that was easy to wear over almost anything- that was a bit much. So I cut mine down to about 2 inches (by pretending my measurements were actually 4 inches smaller, and then followed the pattern as written - easy and mentally indulgent).


• I did add a little bit of waist shaping but this is one thing I didn't do as much as I'd like. I should have started the shaping during the pockets; by the time they were joined I realized it was a little late to do much.


• The colorwork is an obvious change, I added simple stripes and after a few failed attempts decided duplicate stitching on the stars on the front worked the best.


• The pattern calls for binding off then picking up for the start of the top down sleeves but I preferred the more seamless look and didn't want it competing with the stripes. For a provisional cast on I had just knitted several rows in the contrast color then switched to the main color, cutting out the contrast when ready to work in the other direction. While a little more work, this seemed to eliminate any change in tension issues.


• The button band is worked in garter st in the pattern but here I chose to use double knit- much more on that in this post


• I also used double knit for the sleeve hems, here using black for the inside color which allowed me to add another star at each end. So the inside cuff is the contrasting black a la Elizabeth Zimmerman style. On these I joined the two layers with kitchener stitch in the main cherry color.

The double knit sleeve detail- unfortunately trying to take a photo of the inside of your sleeve proved difficult. But the cuff inside is the reverse, black with a red star.

I did just notice my hair is covering the other two stars, oops. Oh well, you can see them in previous posts that are all complied here for your back-reading pleasure.
ETA: I've put up a tutorial for the double knit button band here.

Posted by Jen at 09:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (34)

I'm so happy I picked up this Clover mini-circular, me loves it lots. I like double points and all, I suppose I'm just use to tidy little sock stitches and working these sleeves on 8's with the entire sweater body weighing it down was just jacking my gauge all up. A close up of the needle is pictured here in Knitter's Review. I had thought it might be kind of awkward but to me, it's not at all. Easy round and round TV knitting!

Posted by Jen at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

My circumnavigated cardigan now has a neat little button band.

The 'suggested' instructions in the pattern have it worked in garter stitch, but I'm just not that big of fan of the garter. I like the more tailored look of a folded hem. Sewing down that entire edge however, was something I wanted to avoid. Plus I think it defeats the point of a cleverly designed seamless garment. I wanted to pick up, knit, bind off and be done.

Hello Double Knit, nice to see you again.
I had swatched several different types of button holes, seeing what I liked best and what could possiblly be converted to double knit. I settled on the self-reinforcing button hole (found in Barbra Walker's treasury among other places). Another benefit of working this in double knit was I wouldn't have to fiddle with getting the two buttonholes on each layer lined up and be all floppy as in a true folded hem. After some more dk swatching I came up with a variation to use both strands at the same time so the two layers are held together. A very sturdy button hole and band materialized, mission accomplished.

The bind off creates a neat little tailored vertical line of stitches at the edge as well.

I simply continued it for the collar. I like to think this technique keeps in the spirit of the original garment.

Posted by Jen at 07:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

Well look at that, some knitting on the knitting blog. It's the completed body of the Circumnavigated Cardigan to be exact, awaiting button band and sleeves. The crazy stripe/intarsia/stranding mish-mash wasn't really working, thus deciding to employ Occam's razor I went with simple duplicate stitch instead.
Some thoughts on the project of late...

Mental Notes Transcribed
- If you find yourself thinking "Stitch markers- we don't need no stinking stitch markers!", remember yes, you do- you really really do.
- A small idea swatch really is easier to work up in the long run than ripping out 300+ stitch rows after "just winging it".
- Do actually read what row you're to bind off on (re: ripping out 300+ st rows)
- Get second opinion on motifs

Which brings me to the colorwork (or blackwork in this case?)

Ok seriously- what does it look like to you? I always end up second guessing motifs I create as I know what it's suppose to be, but feel it will be sort of like trying to point out cloud figures. "No see, over here, and that spot right there- do you see it?" "Oooh, ok um- yeah I can kinda see that".

So honestly, tell me what you think. I'd rather know now than get a "Nice sweater- but what's that blob?"

Posted by Jen at 01:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (19)

The circumnav cardi needed some cosmetic surgery.
The construction calls for a provisional cast on, where you knit up for the folded pockets, then pick up the live CO stitches and work down for the bottom ribbing. The pattern recommends a crochet chain cast on and despite having no ill feelings toward crochet it just hates me. So I tried out the Looped Cast-On. After knitting a few rows after picking up the stitches it became apparent that for me at least, this cast on should've been done on needles about 5x smaller. The row was drastically enlarged and well, looked like crap.
(The start of the ribbing obscures the row a little, but trust me, it was bad in person.)

Surgery commenced. Using a spare needle, I started tightening up a stitch at a time, pulling the excess yarn out. It was oddly gratifying, seeing each little stitch straighten up. You can see the loop of excess yarn in the middle. At the end of the row I loosened the cast on slipknot and pulled out the extra string. I just roughly measured it; I think I removed about 6 feet out of that one row!

The after shot, with the bottom ribbing all complete and now ready to continue upward. The underarms call for a similar treatment. I'll be swatching some different techniques this time.
It was good practice for the upcoming grafting however.

Posted by Jen at 02:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

The beginnings of my Circumnavigated Cardigan, or the "Cast on and work 1,657 sts" section.

It's the front, back and another front equivalent for the pockets that are worked at the same time all crammed on there. It's a neat trick but does not do much for visual progress.

Tops of the pockets joined! I know, it doesn't look much different, but believe me it feels so much quicker to work now. The next part will be to pick up the provisional cast on and work down for the ribbing, joining the pocket bottoms. It should then start to bare more resemblance to a sweater than a tangled strip of seaweed.

I plan to get some good travel knitting time in starting tomorrow. Where are we going? Vegas baby! Mr. Pieknits is going on business and so I hopped on that opportunity. Now to go pack the knitting bag- what? Isn't that what you pack first?

Posted by Jen at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Yes, it's just a swatch.

Not much knitting to actually show unfortunately, but I'm looking forward to this upcoming project. This swatch is for Medrith Glover's clever Circumnavigated Cardigan. If you have not heard of this, it's worth checking out. It is a completely seamless cardigan including worked in pockets. I do love interesting construction and this is an extremely versatile "pattern". It's more along the lines of Elizabeth Zimmerman's percentage method. It is more structured however, and therefore offers a little more help the EZ's more vague think-for-your-self style, so a nice middle ground. The cardigan is this year's group project for the Dallas Hand Knitter's Guild and should be interesting to see all the many variations. I'm planning to size mine down a little, adding some waist shaping, changing borders and adding a few horizontal stripes in black.

The yarn is KnitPicks good ol' Wool of the Andes and I love this color - Black Cherry. I'm really sold on their new heathered colors; they add such a depth to the color and have picked up a ball in Arctic Pool as well for a new sweater design.

In other news, have you seen the new holiday postage stamps? There's a little blurb on the bottom of the link. Seems even the USPS has caught on to the resurgence of knitting. I imagine there will be many a hand knit gift stamped with these.

Posted by Jen at 01:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)