Tag: cardigan

Home again, home again, jiggety, jig

Hi. How was your summer? I took some time off at my northern ontario cabin. Read lots of books, swam a little bit, kayaked and generally took it easy. I hope your summer has been good too.

I did do some knitting.

My 6×6 Cardigan is finished. OK, you might notice it’s not quite finished. I need to sew on the buttons and sew in the ends. Argh, my least favourite part of the whole enterprise. But today I bought buttons so that’s progress. And I went to a knit night and spent my time sewing in the ends. Look at me, being a knitting Adult!

I have made progress on my purple lacey version too. Since this is a bigger size I decided to try something different to extend the raglan lines after the divide row. I’m calling this “fading the raglan lines”.

I think this is going to work. I also have incorporated extra decreases down the sides to take away the extra bust increases I had added earlier. You can also see that I worked some increases for hip shaping too.

I’m so excited to be so close to the bottom of the body. Yay. Next the sleeves. That will involve several evening of tv watching. Moving along. Fall and sweater season is near.

Cheers, Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free patterns by Deb

deb.gemmell on instragram

6×6 – Design Journey Extra Bust Width

I have more techy talk for you. That’s where I am right now.

I had a couple more tech issues that have been swimming around my brain, looking for a solution. I think I have a couple, solutions that is.

It is progressing.

Issue #1 is how to get extra width across the Bust. I need it and maybe you do too.

This cardigan is set up to have 4″ of ease on the body. That’s a really standard amount of ease (ease is the amount that the body of the sweater would be larger than your actual body). This amount of ease generally works for most of us. The ease on this pattern (and most of my other patterns) is added as underarm stitches cast on when your work the Divide Row. Two inches worth of stitches are cast on at each underarm.

This amount of cast on stitches at the underarm means that when you go to work the sleeve, you will pick up one stitch for each of those cast on stitches for 2″ of ease on your sleeve. A really good amount of ease for your sleeve.

But is the 4″ of ease for the body of your cardigan enough across your bust?

It’s not enough for me. I would like a little extra width across the bust area so that the cardigan is not stretched there and buttoning up my cardigan won’t cause gaps at the buttonband.

As I was knitting the yoke I was pondering just this question. This is what I have decided to add to the Modification Pages as an option for added bust width.

I worked 4 increases across each front (3/4″ worth of stitches on each front). That, at my gauge, gives me 1.5″ of extra width across the bust for a total of 5.5″ of ease around my cardigan at the bust. Just what I need. I will decrease these extra stitches away at the imaginary side seam as I get closer to my waist.

I think that takes care of one of my design issues. Next is what to do with those raglan lines when it’s time to do the Divide Row. Can I leave just leave them be? Can I continue the raglan lines down the body in some way?

What do you think? A good idea? Let me know.

Cheers, Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free patterns by Deb

deb.gemmell on instagram

6×6 Cardigan – Design Journey Lace version

I can’t seem to leave the lace patterns on my swatch alone. I keep looking at them and wondering how they would look in this cardigan.

I ditched the chunky weight red sample. It’s history.

A new lace version is born. I’ve cast on and am merrily working the Double Ridges with eyelets.

This is in DK weight yarn by Shelridge Yarns. A pleasure to knit with. It went sooo fast. It’s actually purple, not blue, but my camera obviously likes blue. I can’t wait to get started on the lace stitch patterns.

More chat if you want to watch:

Two, two, two cardigans in one. I’ve got to get back to them. See ya’. Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free patterns by Deb

deb.gemmell on instagram

6×6 Cardigan – Design Journey

What do I want this cardigan to look like? That probably matters, right? For me, the challenge is the construction, but in the end the sweater has to be something you want to put on, LOL.

This is the general idea.

Time to do some swatching. Quite frankly, not my favourite activity but I persevered for several mornings, trying out some different ideas.

I did sort out what I liked and didn’t like (more in the video below). Now this cardigan is going places. It’s so much fun to knit.

Here’s the chat.

Cheers, Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free patterns by Deb

deb.gemmell on instagram

6×6 Design Journey – Getting the Neckband right.

I do have some sort of plan for this cardigan, but as usual, the details elude me.

This is my first sample which is basically what it will look like but …

… it’s not quite right.

It took a little knitting and lots of thinking in between, but 3 samples later, I think I have it figured out.

I’m knitting a cardigan. YAY, here we go. Cheers, Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free patterns by Deb

deb.gemmell on instagram

6×6 Square Neck Cardigan

I am on to a new idea: a cardigan with a square neck opening. It will be a pseudo crew neck, I guess.

I’m also experimenting with videos. There are three here. Let me know what you think. It’s so much easier for me to talk, rather than write, about a new idea. (You may have to turn the volume up. No idea how all this works yet.)

The Back of Neck is 2″ narrower than the two fronts added together, as they would be if they were buttoned up. It will be interesting to see how the neck fits.

Here is the cast on with green raglan markers in place and two yellow markers to delineate the buttonbands.

Here we go, my first try with the short rows across the back of neck. They seem to be working fine.

I did a video of a really easy way to work short rows in a ribbed neckband.

I’m excited. Are you on the edge of your seat? LOL!!! Cheers, more next time. Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free patterns by Deb

Deb.gemmell on instagram

Deadlines

Quite often, when I have a deadline, I lose interest in my project. It becomes work and not play. Does this happen to you?

You would think, that giving myself deadlines wouldn’t work this way but it does. I guess, trying to do anything knitting-wise in a hurry is not a good idea. Making knitting fabric is just slow going and trying to move it along faster is frustrating. I also find the same thing with writing patterns. Forcing the writing doesn’t make it go any faster in the long run.

I have been pushing myself to finish this Any Gauge V-Neck Cardigan. Last night I went on a 5 hour Youtube binge to get the last of the sleeves done. I’m tired today but happy to show you it is done, or mostly. I have to sew in ends and find some buttons but the knitting is finished.

But … I bet you saw that coming, the writing is stalled big time.

If I got you started with the V-neck, I bet, with a few photos, you could finish the rest, right? I’m sure you could.

I’m going to give myself a week off, look for some buttons, maybe sew in the ends (that might be a stretch), knit on my socks and see if the writing improves next week. Note to self: having some finished sweater photos would help a lot.

Wish me luck! Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free patterns by Deb

Deb.gemmell on instagram

Stabilize the Back of Neck of a Top Down

My favourite way to begin a Top Down garment is with the ribbed neckband. I’m not enamored with picking up stitches around the neck opening and would rather just jump right in and get going.

This is going to be a new Any Gauge project: a V-neck cardigan.

The Back of Neck in this type of Top Down tends to stretch. I have been experimenting with ways to make a firm edge across the Back of the Neck on the last row of the ribbed Neckband. Here it is.

Let me know if you try this. I think it’s working for me.

Cheers, Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free patterns by Deb

More Videos by Deb on Youtube

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Stripes 3×3

I’m stashbusting. I have quite a few 50g skeins of Shelridge 80/20 fingering wool and it’s going into a cardigan.

I’m going to work 3×3 stripes. Three colours, three rows of each. This is especially terrific if you are working back and forth. You’ll see why very soon.

Getting started is fairly straightforward. Three rows of each of the three colours: yellow, blue, and ending with the purple on the left side.

Now for the next stripe: Yellow.

On the left side, when I finish the purple stripe, the yellow yarn is ready to work. There is no other colour strand available. The yellow stripe will end on the right side. What colour is available to knit with on the right side? You got it. The blue is available.

Three more rows of blue finishes on the left, and the purple is there waiting to be worked.

Is this not perfect? Each time you finish a 3 row stripe, the next colour is there waiting in the wings for you to pick up and continue.

You can twist the waiting colour around the colour you are working with once during each stripe to keep the carries neat and tidy. You are carrying yarn up both front edges of your cardigan. I think this is a great advantage. I always worry if carrying the colours up only one side that that side will tighten up. This way they are even.

To add some extra interest to the 3×3 stripes, on a wrong side row, I knit one of the rows of each stripe to get some texture happening. It also cuts down on the amount of purling I have to do on this cardigan.

Top Down Cardigan knitting has begun.

Cheers and happy knitting into spring. Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free knitting patterns by Deb

Deb on instagram.

Finish one, Cast On for another

Here we go. This is the knitting merry-go-round. I just finished a large project: the Family Crew Neck. I hadn’t knit one for myself. Now I have one, yay! I was also knitting one for my grandson at the same time. I did quite a few blog posts about them: use the tag Family Crew Neck.

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Two sweaters going at the same time, I know, craziness but both are finished now so … of course, I cast on another sweater! I can’t help myself. Maybe I need help?!

This is Shelridge Yarns 80/20 fingering in navy and is part of my 2024 knitting goal of adding fingering weight sweaters to my wardrobe. Now that spring is beginning I’m inspired to get going on this.

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If you’re a sock knitter you know how this goes. Cast off a one sock, cast on another. Not to be outdone, I did that too. After a larger project, it’s satisfying to knit a smaller project, not that socks are especially small but they seem to be after a sweater.

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This is Timber Yarns sock yarn. I love those stripes and because of them, I tried an afterthought heel. Not new exactly, but not a heel I usually like to do. I was somewhat surprised but it worked out great. I will do this again now that I tried them again.

Now I need to go to my local yarn store to get some more yarn. I’m going to show you how this Shallow V-neck Cardigan works as I go along, and navy is not going to photograph well enough to do that. Something thicker would be good for knitting a ‘companion’ second cardigan.

Cheers, Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free knitting patterns by Deb

Deb.gemmell on instagram