It’s even hot here in Northern Ontario but I have made some progress.
The green V is getting some love.
Shelridge 80/20 fingering
That’s another 4 inches, at least. Ha, in my dreams.
I have started extra wiggle room for my hips starting above my waist, working increases on either side of the back only. Now I will work increases on the front and back, every inch or so, to get an extra 3-4 inches around the hips. It gives me something to keep track of which seems to help it go faster.
The V sleeves here are both 6.5 inches long. If this was one sleeve I would be almost done! OK, so keep on truckin’.
Waxwing yarn co.
I started a new wrap.
Shelridge 80/20 fingering
I have finished one triangle in two colors and started on the second one. It will look something like this.
Maybe this drawing, where I’m trying to show where the green will go, will help? OK, maybe not.
Anyway, it will become clearer as I get a little further on. So far, nice easy garter stitch. Good for watching video podcasts, car knitting, etc.
You have probably seen it but if you haven’t, I published the Just For You V Pullover pattern, even though I haven’t finished the sleeves!
It’s available for free at Debgemmellmods store on ravelry.
No one seems to have minded the “no sleeves” thing but I am knitting them now, two at a time. I heard it builds character to finish things. I’m not sure I need more character but here I go anyway.
Waxwing Wool Co.
This is how they sit on my lap when I knit them both at the same time. I work them on two circulars.
This is a video of the last time I did this.
Have you tried it?
There is no way around the fact that knitting in fingering weight wool takes a very long time!!!
I’m afraid I have not made any further progress on the green one, or anything else.
The kids and our grandson were up for a week and lots of board games, group meals and general busyness ensued. Not much knitting at all. Summertime at the lake, wouldn’t miss it for anything.
I am making some, progress that is, on several fronts.
I’m at my summer camp in Northern Ontario. I had big plans to build a new bunkie (an outbuilding for sleeping) this year so my son and partner could have their own place but maintenance has to come first. I have been cutting brush. It was about 4’ high. Now the mosquitos are less bothersome and I can see the lake. Yay.
I have also made progress on both my sweaters.
This V-Neck Pullover is a joy to knit. The green marker is where I was last week. Are you impressed by my progress? I am, ha, ha.
Here is how the twisted stitch design is shaping up at the sides. I’m loving it.
I will post the pattern next week.
The faux Lunenburg I’m knitting is also much further along.
It’s not nearly long enough yet.
I also have my circular saw and screw gun out because the front of my cabin needs to be resurfaced. It takes all the weather that comes off the lake and is now leaking. I’m going to do a sort of board and batten look. Very early days but I can see it’s going to cover the old seams very well, phew.
My job is the woodwork part and my husband is doing the painting. Three different colours of green on it right now, LOL
I hope you are also making some progress on whatever summer projects you have going.
Here I am in July knitting a circular yoke for my son-in-law. It seemed like a good idea at the time but the weather is not exactly cooperating.
This is my second Lunenburg by Amy Christoffers.
Briggs and Little Sport
This time I didn’t follow the rules. I printed the chart in black and white.
This is only a part of the chart. I didn’t want to give it all away since this is a paid pattern.
Now the fun begins. What colours to put where? At one point I started into a red/green area. Oops, looked a little too Christmasy so ripped that back and tried to keep those two colours away from each other.
It was an interesting exercise and I will do it again.
I decided I could make some changes for a men’s version. I think most people are knitting for a woman, themselves I hope.
I knit the yoke 1/2 inch longer and then worked more short rows at the bottom of the yoke. I searched around and found a suggestion for starting them in the centre of the sleeve and making the short rows longer and longer towards the front. It gave me more room to get some extra rows in. The back is now about 1.5 inches longer.
Men need a bit more length in the back for thicker shoulders. I am also going to taper the body so it’s narrower at the hip. I’ll see if this works when it’s done. Here’s a side view.
I think you can see that there is quite a difference between the front on the right and the back on the left of the photo. I’ve separated the sleeves and am now working round and round and round and round. Yes, it’s going to feel like I’ll be doing this forever!!! Maybe knitting for someone 5’11” inches tall in the summer wasn’t one of my best ideas?!
Meanwhile, I mentioned on my last post that I needed some progress markers and several days later my sister made me some. Thanks Lyn.
Hempton by Hemp for Knitting
Now I do feel like I am getting somewhere on this Twelve-Point Circular Yoke.
I also have finished the body of this V-Neck Pullover. Yay. It’s all wrinkled because I stuffed it into a small project bag. Blocking it here at camp will be interesting: cold lake water and the sun.
Cedre by Waxwing Yarn Co
It seems like summer has arrived in Northern Ontario so progress may slow down. I heard someone say that they had several projects on the go so worked on a different one every day. That sounds good to me so that’s my plan going forward.
I wish I had some of those progress marker things to put in my knitting. Knitting lots of stockinette stitch can seem like you knit and knit and knit and never make any progress at all. I have 2 projects that are all stockinette.
I really enjoy exploring different ways of constructing sweaters, especially the no-sew variety. I am not much of a fashionista. Did I use that word correctly? Anyway, I’m not a fashion designer, I am a knitting construction engineer. It does lead to lots of plain knitting since I don’t always consider decorating my latest construction with something interesting. I think the construction itself is interesting enough. Does that make sense?
I have been working on a combination of stash busting and making my designs a little more appealing to the eye.
I added stripes to my latest Twelve-Point Circular Yoke to jazz things up and to use up the last of my Hempton hemp/cotton blend yarn. I wrote it for helical knitting, as a stash buster, but now I am knitting 6 round stripes and, wow, I love this one.
I have part of the last Hempton ball left. I have a Hiya Hiya interchangeable set of needles with double the tips and cables, since I inherited my mom’s set to add to mine. So after the sleeve split, I was able to knit a teal stripe on the body and then a teal stripe on both sleeves, look at what I had left, and do it again. Alas, that’s it for the teal. Good stash busting though!
I’m also at the same point, the point of no more stripes, on the V-Neck Pullover. Again, using up the left-over balls of Waxwing wool. This pattern is written but there is no finished pullover yet.
I have made it to the hip shaping. For this pullover, I knit the Body straight to the narrowest part of my torso (which is now above my natural waist, sigh), and can work some increases for a little extra wiggle room.
Now I’m counting rounds between the sets of side increases. That’s OK. It gives me something to track how much progress I’m making. I work 4 increases in one round, one on either side of the imaginary side seam at both sides, knit 1″ worth of rounds (9 rounds), work one more round with 4 increases, and then 2″ worth of rounds (18 rounds). I repeat the increases and 2″ worth of rounds for the desired length of the pullover. I can usually get around 12 to 16 extra stitches for my hips on top of the generous amount of ease for the body. All good.
The break in the stockinette stitch knitting is working on my V-Neck Pullover with the twisted stitches. See, I can add in some visual interest if I work at it.
Once I split for the sleeves, I also added this stitch pattern as a panel under the arms. The twisted stitch panels make knitting this very much more interesting and I love twisted stitches.
I’m not very far along so nothing to look at under the arms yet but it’s going to be great.
I’ve finished the charts. I did them by hand and photographed them so I hope they show up well enough. I’m putting this pattern out for free so I haven’t bought a chart program. Sorry.
It is suddenly summer here after many days of rain. We are enjoying the sun and getting out on the water. I hope you are having a lovely summer. I know Ontario is having a heat wave so maybe not too much knitting is getting done.
I’m so excited to be here in Northern Ontario. I look forward to it every year. I especially like being outside most of the time. Once we are here at our cabin, it takes several days to get everything sorted: empty out all the stuff we store over the winter in the cabin, clean up after the mice, do some laundry (mouse related), set up our water, grocery shop, etc. Now the weather is heating up, it’s a pleasure to be here.
Here’s a video tour of me in my happy place.
As you can see my V-Neck Pullovers are progressing well. I’m loving the stripes.
Waxwing, a rustic fingering weight wool
The difference in the two fingering weight sweaters makes my knitting very interesting. The rustic wool by Waxwing is somewhat more forgiving. I’m using it to try to get more practice not looking as I knit. It’s sort of working. Can you do that?
This green one is in Shelridge 80/20 fingering and because it’s a superwash the yarn is lighter and much smoother.
The pattern for this one is sitting for a couple more days as I work myself up to doing the charts for the twisted stitch pattern.
I love twisted stitches so I’m enjoying this no end. How do you feel about them? Love twisted stitches or not so much?
The pattern was working out great and I was really happy with it. I’ve sketched out the charts and they are working, too. Can you hear the “but” coming? I was so distracted by the pattern and the charts that I screwed up my stitch count. Argh. I started my Bust Shaping too early and had to rip back.
I’ve spend the last hour carefully taking out about 8+ rounds. I didn’t want to wreck my pattern. I have almost figured out where I am now. Almost. I think. It may be time to take a break.
On the good news side, I have progressed with my striped version of the V-neck. I am using up wool by Waxwing I had left over from my mitts. I’m happy that that’s working out.
I’ve split for the sleeves, as you can see. That’s a moment, isn’t it?! Now it looks like a sweater.
I only use the raglan lines as a guide. I put the exact number of stitches I need for my actual arm circumference on spare yarn. You can see that my sleeve is slightly inside my raglan markers. All good. This is explained in the pattern which I think I will be able to load up in the next week or so. Then, on the Divide Round I cast on the amount of ease I would like for my pullover. I cast on 2.5″ worth of stitches at each underarm for a total 5″ of ease for this pullover.
It seems to be a good fit, a bit oversized which is what I like.
This is going to be my car knitting project to get up to camp where I will be for the summer. The wool is so forgiving, as far as slight changes in tension go, so perfect for the car, ferry and then more car travelling tomorrow.
Change of location for the summer. I hope your summer is going great. Cheers, Deb
I’ve started a couple of new projects since I found that knitting one or two things is w-a-y to monogamous for me. I did a video. It’s at the end of the post.
Did I show you my third Twelve-Point Circular Yoke yet? I had some Hempton yarn left over. I have enough to knit my daughter a striped version. This is so much easier than the helical version. The simple stripes are 6 rounds deep. How easy is that?
I used the RL1 and LL1 lifted increases for the points. I think they look really nice. One more stripe to go before I can take the sleeves off.
The new project I wanted to tell you about is the Any Gauge V-Neck Pullover. I’ve started knitting two of them, of course. This is a top down worked in any gauge of yarn. You start with the ribbed neckband, then you work short rows up again the neckband. As you work, the V shape is made.
One is using left over wool from the mitts I knit. This is fingering weight rustic wool by Waxwing.
Big stripes of bright colours. I’m loving this. Don’t stripes make everything go faster?!
Next stripes are navy, light blue, medium green and then lime green. Bold!
I’ve made some progress on the short rows. I’ve added a panel of twisted stitches to this one. They follow the slant of the V and get wider and wider as you work down the V. This is an experiment!
I’ve never charted the short row section for this type of neck before. You may see this as a modification to the pattern or maybe not. I’d have to hand write the chart because it is weird. We’ll see if this works out or not.
All of these are in the pile of projects to take with me. I also have another Lunenburg to finish for my son-in-law. He chose green, red and grey Sport by Briggs and Little for his colours. I added in some black too. I didn’t follow the colour changes on the chart exactly, ok, hardly at all, so it looks really different from the one I made myself.
I printed the chart in black and white and then just change colours when I wanted. It’s freeing and, well, sort of worked out.
I’d like to try it again with some variegated wool that would do all the colour work for me. No ends to sew in. I know lazy, lazy but it could work really well and I already bought some Lichen and Lace wool to do it! LOL.
So here I am still planning on knitting several sweaters over the summer. Am I setting us up for a really hot, humid one?
There is one problem though. Where do you begin to work the heel for your desired length of foot?
I have come up with a solution, using a standard type of Short Row heel that gives you that 45 degree line on the heel.
Timber Yarns
I use a wrap short row heel but the shadow short row heel or the german short row heel all work.
Can you see that the heel and the toe look somewhat similar?
I have come up with an idea of how you can use the size of the toe to figure out the length of the short row heel.
Here’s my video.
I wrote up Sock Freedom, an idea for a Toe-Up Sock with a Short Row Heel. It’s a Project Page. There is no stitch by stitch pattern but the project page will give you instructions for taking the measurements and applying them to your sock.
It also includes a modification, of course, for giving you a bit more space for the instep if you need it. I do. You can make a slight gusset for more stitches on the top of the foot so it’s wider where the heel is.
This is totally working for me. Let me know if this is helpful.
Deb Gemmell: Top Down, Gauge Free and more 