Donegal sweater finished at long last

Almost to my surprise I finally finished my "Donegal" sweater, an Alice Starmore design. My Ravelry project page tells me I cast on in July 2013 - and it seems I haven't touched it since perhaps February 2015. For whatever reason I suddenly got it out the day before yesterday for a diagnosis. Good news: only 1/4 of a sleeve left to knit. Great news: no moth holes! It only took two evenings to finish it, so I wonder what made me put it aside for almost two years - I usually accelerate towards the end of a project. Maybe there was something I've chosen to forget, like getting the colour changes all wrong for a few rows? We'll see.

One thing I do remember is having difficulties deciding where and how to end the front and back for a shoulder join without major pattern cracks and collisions. I even think I modified the chart slightly, which feels practically sacrilegous. (Meddling with a Starmore chart!) Perhaps I get a needle and some leftovers to embroider stitches so that the lines near the neckband meet. To me it looks as if someone took a bite, which in a way is rather charming.

shoulder join

The negative thing is that I ended up with sleeves that are too wide: to get where I wanted in the chart I had to knit more rows than I otherwise would have done. On the other hand, it turned out an oversized sweater (or perhaps I'm undersized?) so it doesn't matter much.

Since summer I've been toying with brioche scarves, using increases, decreases and short rows to achieve zigzag effects. These three scarves are all made with Visjö yarn from Östergötlands ullspinneri, extremely addictive wool.

Z scarves

The past few months I've been teaching unusually much (two weekends a month at HV in Stockholm, for example) which is fantastic. Only a few years ago I never would have guessed there'd be so many opportunites to teach knitting, so I count myself extremly lucky being able to combine my profession and my lifelong hobby. This blog gets to starve, though - imagine dreary posts about my writing instructions. I'd rather write about my private projects here, even though they are few and far between these days, "they" referring to projects as well as blog posts ;-)

Happy knitting!


En av många fördelar med att ha ett frikostigt antal projekt på gång samtidigt är att det plötsligt kan gå väldigt snabbt att avsluta ett av dem. För mig är det något av en gåta varför jag har låtit tröjan Donegal ligga i nästan två år fast det bara var ungefär en fjärdedels ärm kvar. Ärmarna har jag stickat direkt på kroppen, så det var inte ens någon montering kvar. Nå, härom kvällen fick den komma ut och nosa i alla fall, och med så pass lite arbete kvar tog det faktiskt inte mer än ett par kvällar att få den klar. Tack och lov kunde jag inte hitta några gnaghål eller så!

Däremot minns jag att jag fick fundera en del på hur jag skulle få ihop det över axlarna med så få mönsterkrockar som möjligt. Visserligen hittade jag ett bra varv i diagrammet, men jag fick rita om det lite för att inte påbörja nya mönsterformer som bara skulle bli stympade direkt. Det innebar också att jag stickade några fler varv än jag annars skulle ha gjort, så tröjan är i största laget - speciellt ärmarna. Det går nog inte att lura någon att tro att det döljer sig kraftiga bicepsmuskler under dem.

Annars har jag lekt med patentstickning en hel del, kombinerat ökningar och minskningar på olika sätt för att få lite roliga former på halsdukar. Tre av dem syns på fotot ovan, samtliga i Visjögarn från Östergötlands ullspinneri. 

Det blir inte så många plagg som förr, och därför inte heller så många uppdateringar här. Det beror framför allt på att jag har fått fler uppdrag som kursledare i stickning än jag hade vågat drömma om, så mycket av min sticktid går åt till att tänka ut uppgifter, skriva instruktioner till dem och teststicka. Det är otroligt givande att arbeta med kurser, men den processen ser jag inte som överdrivet blogg-kompatibel.

Twined & brioche projects

Today my friend Andrew gave me a charming tatting book from 1944 - there are many beautiful patterns in it, so I feel like getting my shuttles out again. I don't have the nails to match them, but at least I do have a new twined knitting project to match the cover.

The patterns are from A History of Hand Knitting by Richard Rutt, actually the very same cushion I got last post's pattern from, but I'm using thicker yarn and needles. Or, rather, not as thin: 500 metres/100 gr wool-silk blend and 2 mm needles.

Gauge curious? 54 stitches = 10 cm/4 in

Yesterday I added a finishing touch to a pair of twined mittens I finished last year. They were slightly too wide, so I felted them by hand and now they fit perfectly - and the fact that I love both grey and stripes doesn't hurt.

For the mittens I used wool from Östergötlands ullspinneri. It works beautifully for brioche knitting too, and I've made two brioche scarves recently using their variegated wool. (Knitting with 4 mm needles almost felt like cheating now that I've been into 1.25 - 2 mm for a while.)

With felted twined mittens and two scarves I should be well prepared for Midsummer - it normally gets rather cold then, or perhaps that's just my impression?

Mosaic sweater progress

It took some thinking and rethinking (not to mention knitting and reknitting) before I made up my mind about the sleeves. I decided patterned sleeves would be too much of a good thing; instead they would be grey with slipped stitches to create vertical lines like the ones in the body, the one in the centre elongating the line created by the shoulder join.

Here's the first attempt - or, rather, the third one, but the first one I took a photo of:

The slipped-stitch lines are evenly spaced, with the same number of stitches between them as there are between the lines on the back and front. A good idea in theory but less so in practice; it would look just fine if the sleeve was a separate unit (a not particularly useful garment) but attached to the body it simply doesn't look very tidy.


Here's the final arrangement, where the lines blend with the mosaic pattern repeats. This solution entailed narrower centre panels, but I actually think it looks as if this might be the original thought rather than a solution:

Right now I'm thinking of different mosaic pattern ideas for the cuffs to add some colour to them. Also, I will probably also add something to the provisional neckband.

The explorer

At long last I'm working on a mosaic knitting project. I've been interested in using the technique beyond swatches for quite a few years but not until now did I come up with the right mix of ingredients.


Kose (Visjö wool from Östergötlands ullspinneri) is a favourite colourway of mine, changing gradually from brown to different shades of green - beautiful on its own but in my opinion even more so against a neutral background like very light grey. Got the colour combination. Pattern next.

Labyrinth pattern

Marianne Isager (ever read that name here before?) has designed quite a few garments using mosaic knitting and slipped stitches, for example a child's sweater "Labyrinth" in her book Inca Knits. I always loved Greek key patterns, and this one works well with the Kose colour changes.

Rice fields pattern

For comparison I also cast on to try (a modified version of) Isager's "Rice Fields" from Japanese Inspired Knits, and must say I prefer it in spite of my love of Greek keys: the structure adds an element I like, and the overall effect will be a lot lighter. But what really made it an easy, practically natural, decision was the Japanese key word.

You see, I suddenly remembered why they named this colourway Kose: Chie Kose is a Japanese designer who asked the spinnery for this particular combination of these particular shades. Joining the two Japanese aspects felt like the obvious choice - and in my book a whiff of Danish never hurts.

Cabbage cowl

Cowl in progress, a photo by Asplund on Flickr.

I hardy ever buy self-striping yarn (too much of a control freak) but couldn't resist this wool from Östergötlands ullspinneri, thinking it would be fun to brioche knit. (I've had a crush on the greyish brown wool for quite a while, and am happy with the combination.) I wanted to make a cowl similar to the Camel cowl I made recently but with two colours. It suddenly reminded me of cabbage leaves, so I'll call it Cabbage cowl. Can you tell I'm addicted to brioche knitting?

Edited to add
I do like it when things match, so this was a nice (but slightly uncanny) discovery:

matchmaking

It reminds me of three sweaters I've made that matched different walls at work.