Shoulder joins - montering vid axlarna

shoulder straps, a photo by Asplund on Flickr.

It has taken me quite a few weeks to figure how to knit the shoulder straps to achieve what I have in mind: a strap that has the right width and length with a pattern that looks nice and will blend nicely with the sleeve pattern.

The cast-on is provisional: I will unpick it and use the live stitches to knit the neckband. I caught the live stitches of the last row when picking up stitches around the armhole to make the shoulder strap continue seamlessly into the sleeve.

My intention is to pick up stitches along the strap sides, knit a row and then do a three-needle bind-off to join strap and body. (Mainly to avoid sewing, but I think it will look and feel nice too.)

Natasha's cardigan is finished! In this case I used the three-needle bind-off method for a shoulder join and added a neck gusset - I learnt how to make such gussets from Alice Starmore's book Fishermen's Sweaters.

Three-needle bind-off and neck gusset; fram- och bakstycke avmaskade tillsammans och halskil.

If I may say so myself and I may, since this is my blog ;-) I think Natasha's cardigan is one of my best efforts! She won't receive it just yet, though. I will be talking about how I modify patterns at my LYS Litet nystan on 31 January, and this is a good example of it. Here's what the original design looks like. Nothing wrong with it - I just can't help changing a few things here and there.

This is possibly related to jazz being my favourite kind of music - I think it's so exciting hearing how the same composition can sound completely different (but still familiar) when different artists put their personal stamp on it. Or how the same artist can interprete the same composition in different ways.

"Thorsten fiskares tröja" (bygger på ett mönster av Celia B. Dackenberg) har legat i träda ett par månader medan jag har funderat på hur jag skulle få till axlar och ärmar; jag visst hur jag ville att det skulle se ut, men det är ju inte alltid samma sak som att veta hur man ska bära sig åt. Å andra sidan är det sådant som jag tycker är roligt med stickning - när jag lyckas lösa problem känner jag att jag utvecklas. 

Jag tycker att sadelärmar är snyggt och bekvämt, och jag tyckte att det skulle passa på den här tröjan. Tricket var att få till rätt storlek med ett snyggt mönster som dessutom övergår på ett fint sätt i mönstret på ärmarna. Först gjorde jag en provisorisk uppläggning: den kommer jag att peta bort när det är dags att sticka halskanten, så att det inte blir någon skarv i övergången. När jag plockade upp maskor runt ärmhålet för att sticka ärmarna fångade jag upp sadeln på halva vägen, så att det inte blir någon skarv på den sidan heller.


För att fästa sadeln vid fram- och bakstyckena tänker jag plocka upp maskor längs kanten, sticka ett varv och sedan maska av dem tillsammans med maskorna på fram- respektive bakstyckena. 


Natasha's kofta blev klar nyligen och jag måste säga att jag är väldigt nöjd. Fotot ovan visar axeln: jag maskade av fram- och bakstycke tillsammans och kombinerade detta med en liten halskil. Detta är en finess jag lärde mig - som så mycket annat - i boken "Fiskartröjor" av Alice Starmore. 


Det dröjer ett par veckor innan Natasha får sin kofta. Den 31 januari kommer jag nämligen att prata om hur jag ändrar i beskrivningar när det är stickkafé på Litet nystan, och det här projektet är ett bra exempel att ha med. Inte för att det är något fel på originalet, tvärtom - jag kan bara inte låta bli!

Natasha's cardigan; unfortunately, the bad light doesn't do the colours justice.

Adding even more to my stash

Cardigan in progress, a photo by Asplund on Flickr.

What to do when you can't decide how to go on with your sweater(s)? Well, you can always cast on to make another one!

Even though (useful expression!) I shouldn't (also good!) really (one more!) keep adding to my stash before I've knitted up more of it, I just couldn't resist some of the many gorgeous things I found at GarnGalleriet.

To be honest, I even told myself it was my duty to get knitting-related things for what I earned leading knitting workshops. And I bought the argument without making a fuss. Here's what I got:

A pattern book, 5 hanks of blue wool, 3 hanks of white cashmere, 5 hanks of green wool, a cardigan kit

Solveig Hisdal's "Wedding cardigan" may be my top favourite design from her book Poetry in Stitches. I'm modifying the pattern in different ways, though, mainly to avoid long floats with both strands. Just one is ok, but two is too time-consuming to catch.

I recently found pretty Japanese pears on sale at Litet nystan and decided to use them in this project. Instead of the original's yellow pearls among the yellow leaves, I've added a row of green and blue pearls near the picot edge.

The yarn is thin, and the instructions in the kit tell you to use two strands. Instead, I'm using one strand and thinner needles (2 mm/US 0) - and more stitches. I did this to make the cardigan lighter and because I believe four strands in all might make it too warm to wear very often. And simply to see if it works!

PS I recently started and finished a vest with some yarn bought a few years ago, which shows I am capable of using my stash - and which means it's ok to add to it whenever I like ;-)

The Dangers of Yarn Hunting

Ulla's cardigan
Originally uploaded by Asplund

Some five years ago I promised my friend and colleague Ulla a cardigan. There is a design in Solveig Hisdal’s “Poetry in Stitches” (Dikt i maskor) that I thought would suit her, except I wanted different colours and a slightly different shape. (The original design is in purple, pink, green, mustard and white; quite spectacular but not Ulla’s colours.) She liked the leaf pattern too, and we decided I'd go yarn hunting for something suitable.

Every time I saw a yarn shop I checked it out to see if the right yarn would be there waiting. I knew I would find it eventually, I just didn’t know when and where – but the sooner the better, of course!

One day in a town in Småland, a province in the southeast of Sweden, I came across a shop I hadn’t entered before. I went inside, saw there was nothing for me there (mostly fabrics, only one shelf of yarns and it didn't take much more than a glance to see they weren't what I was looking for). What would you have done? Well, I turned around, nodded to the woman behind the counter and was about to open the door to leave.

“Didn’t you find anything?” she asked in a tone of voice that wasn’t exactly friendly.
“No, afraid not,” I replied – kindly. “I’m looking for thin yarn, wool, 2-ply,” I added – still kindly, but to make it clear I wanted something that just wasn't available there.
“Does it have to be 2-ply wool?” she snapped. “Won’t bouclé do just as well?” (My question mark; it didn’t really sound like a question the way she said it.)
“No, I’m afraid not,” I replied – still kindly, but a bit surprised to say the least. Especially considering what pattern I intended to knit; I still find it extremely difficult to imagine that leaf pattern knitted with bouclé... “Sorry, but 2-ply wool was what I had in mind.”
“Well! That’s the worst kind of customer, those who know what they want before they enter!” That was news to me, but I couldn’t really think of anything to say. Besides, she might be joking.
“There was a woman in here before who wanted green fabric, and I showed her every single one I had, but nothing was good enough for her. It’s like that all the time: when I have striped fabrics everybody wants single-coloured, and when I have single-coloured they want checkered! ”

Why why why didn’t I think of saying something about the worst kind of salesperson, those who try to make customers buy things they don’t want, until after I had left? As far as I can remember, I didn't say anything but just left.

So, no yarn that day - but at least I got a good story and a useful quotation. Whenever someone who has heard it says something like “I’ve been looking for this or that but can’t find it,” the reply is obvious: “Won’t bouclé do just as well?” It still makes me laugh!

I don’t think Ulla minded she had to wait until I had been to my old reliable LYS "Yll o tyll" in Uppsala. Of course, I found what I wanted there, wonderful wool (a wool-silk blend if I remember correctly) that she was pleased with – and she enjoyed the story too.

For those who want to know the original Swedish words:

Måste det vara tvåtrådigt ullgarn? Går det inte lika bra med bouclé?