DesigKnit

I can’t believe that I forgot the punchline in my last post! Branden snapped this photo as we made our way back to the car on Sunday afternoon after the second day of the festival. (Click to embiggen.)

The license plate kind of sums it all up, huh?

The fall colors sweater was not finished in time for Rhinebeck. In fact, I have been so swamped with work this week that it still isn’t any further than it was at Rhinebeck. (It also doesn’t help that I decided to pull back one sleeve a couple of inches to tweak it a bit. Perfectionism strikes again.)

In the end, it really didn’t matter whether the sweater was done or not, though. I have plenty of sweaters to wear, and the festival wasn’t any different with or without it, so we managed to have plenty of fun anyway. I was much better than usual about taking pictures. And, since Branden was along this year, together we have a pretty big collection of things to show (and some video that he took from his phone.)

It turns out that we arrived just in time; Thursday and Friday were wet and rainy, but for the weekend, the weather turned glorious. The fall colors were out in full display.

Everywhere we turned, we were met with oranges and golds.

Our first stop of the day was the fleece sale,

where I fell prey to some beautiful crimp.

That lock belongs to a 7-lb Romney-Corriedale cross (from Melanie Chittenden at Dutch Hollow Farms in NY), in a dark chocolate brown. I started washing it today, and boy, do I have a lot of fleece. It’s a tiny bit tipped in places (looks like it has a little sunburn), but otherwise it’s in absolutely beautiful condition and is really very clean.

After the fleece barn we went over to the Golding booth to ooh and ahh over their spindles, all neatly lined up in rows.

And then Ellen took a turn on their new mini travel wheel.

Of course, since Ellen tried it I had to try it too, and it is a very comfortable little wheel. It spun a huge range of weights with no problem; all the way from heavy/bulky yarn down to laceweight or even cobweb without changing the settings. I love my Kromski, but this is a great little wheel.

After the Golding booth, we made a beeline for Yarns International. Both Ellen and I had fallen in love with their natural colored shetland designs last year, and were eager to take another look. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a booth with so many stunning shop samples. They sell their patterns as kits, with a blend of their farm Shetland and Jamieson’s when they need a different color.

The samples themselves are very well knit up, but the colorwork designs are really just amazing. The shop owner was gracious enough to let me snap a few photos, just to give you a sense of the array that they have available. Take a peek at their website; they have even better photos there (I really love the sheep blanket about halfway down the page).

Really, it’s like knitted poetry. Every color has a very specific role to play, and without it the design just wouldn’t sing. I could spend hours just studying how they put all those patterns and colors together. I didn’t end up buying a kit, because I know myself and I wouldn’t knit it from the pattern. And, because I wouldn’t be knitting from the pattern, I would end up having the wrong ratio of colors in the yarn, and it would sit in the stash forever. Perhaps sad, but almost certainly true. For now, I’ll content myself with just looking at those beautiful patterns.

Browsing through shop samples is one of my favorite parts of the festival. The items themselves are seldom things that I feel that I must knit, but it’s really interesting to see all the different ideas, and find out what other people are doing with the same materials. I really liked these asymmetric shawls, for instance:

And the lace in this booth was absolutely amazing (and again, the sheer number of beautifully executed shop samples.)

I also made a stop at Spirit Trail Fiberworks, where I picked up a small skein of silk/tencel that is destined to become a woven scarf with a cone from my stash. The picture is a little dark here (it is a very gray day), but it gives you a good sense of the color of the dark, saturated yarn.

I wasn’t looking to buy much yarn this year – I have a lot in stash, and I’ve been spinning most of what I knit in the past few years – but I did want to get some goodies that might go into the drum carder when I do finally get one. To that end, I picked up some Bombyx top, some silk caps (on the right in the picture below – like Mawata, except much bigger), and some firestar, which I hear takes dye like a dream. I imagine that there will be some fun experiments from these in the months to come.

We spent a good half hour talking with Otto Strauch (of Strauch drum carders), and I’m pretty sure that there is a Strauch double wide in my future. It’s big enough to do 3-4 ounce batts, which are big enough to sell, so I think there may be some fun things in store for the DesigKnit Etsy shop, as soon as I manage to find some time away from work and a little room to breathe.

I also picked up a few ounces of roving that I thought I needed for my spinning class on Sunday morning. It turned out that they provided the fiber, though, so I have some green and blue of an unknown wool (probably merino or corriedale) that may also make its way into a blend, or possibly a marled yarn.

I had been planning to visit the Briar Rose booth during their Sunday sale, but I realized on Saturday that my spinning class was at the same time. So, we stopped by Briar Rose to pick up my one anticipated yarn purchase of the trip. Turns out that it was a really good thing we went early; the booth was so full of people that we had to wait 5-10 minutes just to squeeze in. I was really sad to find out that my favorite yarn (Legend) has been discontinued, so I went with the slightly heavier weight Fourth of July. It was hard to find three skeins that matched, but we picked out a blue-green colorway that I liked a lot, and got in line. Just as we got to the cashier to pay, I saw this sitting on a chair behind the counter. I had to ask if it was reserved for someone, and by a minor miracle it was not. Someone had taken just one skein of the dye lot and left the rest, and the booth had been so busy they hadn’t had time to put it out yet. I wasted no time in switching that out for the brighter green, and can’t wait to cast on for a new coffee and charcoal Briar Rose sweater.

We ended up going back to the Briar Rose booth on Sunday afternoon, too, and Chris had put out a huge tub of her dyed rovings as seconds; all the short bits and pieces that she can’t quite sell for whatever reason (as a dyer, I really sympathize). The seconds were marked down to $1.50 an ounce, so I went a little crazy and bought what I thought would be a few ounces. I thought I was restraining myself by putting it in a little bag (they kept asking if I wanted a bigger one, and I kept saying no), but it turns out you can fit a lot of fiber in one little bag.

Twenty ounces, to be exact. Roving is like the fair’s maple cotton candy that way; it’s so light that you don’t feel like you’re getting a lot of it, until all of a sudden you realize just how much you’ve had. (It was also really fun walking around eating the white maple cotton candy and having everyone think you were munching on wool. Joce, we tried bringing some home to ship to you, but it had completely deflated by Monday morning. You’ll have to come in person to get that one, I’m afraid.)

I’m thinking that Chris’ roving might also make good fodder for the carder, since some of it is a little compacted by the dyeing (which is exactly why it was seconds in the first place). At twenty ounces, I have enough for a pretty substantial project, and with some creative pairing might even get enough yardage for a sweater. And it really does all fit in that little bag. See?

While I was digging around in the roving bin, Branden took a quick video of how busy the booth was. This is the Sunday afternoon crowd, waaay less busy than Saturday’s had been.

Here’s another video of the crowds on Saturday.

It’s always a little hard for me to convey the sheer size of Rhinebeck, but I think these videos do a pretty good job of giving you a sense of the fair.

There was an apparently impromptu alpaca (llama?) parade

And some very cute faces in the show barns

And, of course, there was a sheep shearing. This first video is the “before”:

and here’s the “after”:

You’d hardly believe that’s the same sheep, would you? She went right back into her pen and started scratching her shoulders on the bars…you could tell she’d been wanting to do that for a while.

We also spent some time watching the sheep dog trials. It always amazes me how fast the dogs move.

And then we ended the day waiting for our group under the maple trees.

Sunday was a quieter, less shopping-heavy day. I took two classes (Drafting methods, where I made my peace with worsted spinning, and Seams for sewing handwovens…I really need to get weaving!). While I was in class, Branden poked around the town and festival a bit on his own. One of the women in our group had found some beautiful cones of fingering-sock weight wool, and Branden went over to check them out for me. It turns out that they were out of cones, but he asked the shop owner if he could take a photo to show me the colors. They got to talking about how hard it it to take photos that do colors justice (Branden has a lot of experience with this from the shop), and before he knew it she’d given him a skein of each of their colors. We’re both a little amazed by her generosity, and I’m really looking forward to working up something with these beautiful colors from Sheldridge Farms. They’re very nicely heathered, and I think they’ll work up into something great.

And that, I believe, pretty much sums up Rhinebeck. It was a really fun (and really busy) two days. As always, the best part about the festival was the people we were with, and we had a great group this year. If you’re dying to hear more, head over to Jan and Ellen’s new podcast to hear all about it from them. (I believe I’m even quoted in there somewhere…I really do need to go have a listen and see if Jan managed to make me sound halfway intelligent. After two days of crowds like that, this introvert is lucky to be able to put two words together!)

Here’s looking forward to 2013!

When I started the fall colors sweater, I had the crazy thought that I might finish it in time for Rhinebeck. I quickly pushed that idea to the back of my mind, knowing that that was a lot of knitting on very small needles for just a few weeks, and that this is a busy time at work for me. That way lies craziness.

And then the knitting went faster than I had thought it would. It kept flying along, and I started to think that maybe, just maybe, it would work out.

It’s been just on the very edge of possible the whole way through this sweater. Just outside the realm of the completely achievable, but also not quite far enough to be in the impossible.

I don’t do deadline knitting. The fastest way to make myself unhappy with a project is to add pressure where it doesn’t need to be, so I have kept pushing the thought aside, knitting on with a “we’ll see” attitude.

Last week, I thought that I’d be able to make it. The weekend was pretty open, and progress was pretty good. Then a bunch of things came up, and the weekend wasn’t as open as I’d hoped. I made good progress on Monday night, though, finishing the front zipper bands and neck so that I could block the sweater overnight. On Tuesday, I installed the zipper.

That left just the sleeves to finish and graft, and things were looking good. I started to think that I probably would make it.

Then our department meeting ran over last night, and someone needed to talk to me afterwards. I got home an hour and a half later than expected, and 2.5 hours later than usual. So much for the final sleeve.

I worked from home today, and was hoping that work would go quickly and maybe I could make up some time there. But work takes infinite amounts of time, and just prepping my class for tomorrow and Monday took several hours, and then I had to write a practice exam and two real exams for next week. Three 5 page exams took 7 hours to write, format, and proof (they’ll also take about 14 hours to grade, if it’s like the last one, but that’s a problem for next weekend). These are things that would often happen on weekend time, but can’t because I will be gone this weekend. There’s also a pile of grading I’ll have to catch up on next Monday to “make up” for having two days off. Between packing to leave and baking a cake (it’s Branden’s birthday), there wasn’t much time left for knitting.

We’re leaving straight from work tomorrow. If it’s not done tonight, it’s not done at all.

And so, I am knitting away, with only hours left to go, and it is clear that I am not going to make it. There are two inches left on one sleeve, and about eight on the other. Both sleeves need to be grafted on, ends woven in, and the sweater needs to be blocked again. The blocking is the hard part; I can do the finishing on the way out there, but it takes more than a day to dry because the fabric is so thick. I’m hoping for dry air so that I can wear it on Sunday, but I’m not holding my breath.

If I’m lucky, I’ll make some progress on the train tomorrow, and there’s a good chance that I will at least finish the sweater at Rhinebeck. But at this point, I think I need to throw in the towel and say that it won’t quite be done in time. So close!

This weekend, I worked away on the sleeves for the fall colors sweater. Then, we went and got supplies for the finishing (zipper, grosgrain ribbon in case the hem insists on flipping up after its finished, and bias tape to tack down the steek edges).

Last night, I cut the last steek.

Look at all those floats! They make the fabric beautifully thick and warm.

The edges are picked up, button bands, collars, and sleevecap shaping knit.

The sweater needs a good blocking, a couple of sleeves, and a zipper. (And, of course, the ends woven in.)

All along, this project has been just far enough along for me to hold out the barest of hopes of finishing for Rhinebeck, and also not quite far enough along for me to be sure that I can make it. We leave on Friday. Chances?

Despite my trepidation about steeking the fall colors sweater sight unseen, I have to say that it is kind of fun to watch a design emerge one steek at a time. I started out with the lower side panels (the hem to the armpit).

Once the steek was cut, I picked up stitches all along the side, and then knit my way up the underarm panels with short rows, adding in some shaping as I went.

As I got nearer to the armpits, I reached the point of no return. I needed to steek the armholes to be able to maneuver the knitting to finish those short rows. I took one last careful look to make sure that there was nothing that I needed to pull back and reknit in the neck area, and snipped.

When the side panels were done, I picked up stitches around the arm holes for the sleeves.

Then, I put some quick machine stitches in the neck steeks, and went for the grand finale.

It’ll clearly need some ribbing to hold the collar flat, but I’d say it’s a pretty good fit. The neck falls just about exactly where I wanted it, and it’s a good width, too. The sweater is possibly a tiny bit broad in the back shoulders, but it’s hard to tell for sure  without the weight of the arm in place. I’ll have a closer look at that tomorrow, and decide whether or not to try to fold that steek a bit further over to bring those seams in a little.

They don’t look so bad here, though, so maybe it’s just the angle of that first shot. It’s hard to tell with the steek stitches all rolled up inside the body; it bulges in a weird way, but will calm right down once those steeks are tacked in place.

I really like how the square neck turned out, and am very happy with the colorwork band position on the back panel. I wasn’t sure exactly where that would fall in the final garment, but I think it’s just about perfect.

There’s also a tiny bit of bulging in my first side panel; I probably picked up a few too many stitches near the hem. I may snip a stitch, drop down, and work back up, but I haven’t decided yet if it’s enough to bother me.

All in all, though, I think it’s coming out very well for something knit blind from the armholes on up. Two sleeves and one steek left to go!

I love steeks. This is my third sweater that uses them, and I just love being able to knit in the round as I prefer, and then magically turn my sweater into a cardigan. In fact, I love all things to do with surgery on my knitting – it speaks to the tailor in me. (I would love to teach a class on the various ways to cut, unravel, unpick, and otherwise surgically alter your knitting…they’re such wonderful techniques to have in your design repertoire.)

That said, I am feeling just a teensy bit of trepidation about this:

See that misshapen lump of knitting? Somewhere between a sweater body and a potato sack with holes?

That’s the completed colorwork section for the fall colors sweater. Depending on how you count, there are either 4 or 7 steeks involved in this one piece of knitting (some of the steeks are split into multiple sections to add ease where necessary).

There are two steeks that run up the sides of the sweater where I will insert the green side panels. Those get split at the armpit to add ease to the arm shaping.

Then there’s the neck steek. (One in the front, one in the back.)

This is where it gets tricky. I measured the neck opening carefully before deciding on a final number of stitches, but there’s no other way to know if it will turn out as expected until I snip those steeks open. By then, it will be too late to go back and fix if things are wrong.

I did go ahead and finish the shoulder seam grafts, just to reassure myself that the pieces would at least fit together, but between steek bands covering the arm holes and steek bands holding the neck opening closed, there’s really no way to tell what this garment will look like until it’s cut. I’d call it blind faith, but at least I took measurements first, right?

I do like the way the patterns come together at the shoulder. The original plan was to have them continue uninterrupted up and over the shoulder, joining the front and back seamlessly. This was all well and good until I misread my chart. I only realized what I’d done about 2″ later, and decided that that one design detail wasn’t important enough to me to rip back 2″ of colorwork with yarns carefully interlocked every 4-5 stitches.

Going from this to the actual garment should be relatively easy; just a few snips here and there, and everything will be freed and should fall nicely into place. I’m really excited to see how it turns out. I’m also a little terrified that something will be wrong. This has to be one of my craziest garment projects yet.

But then, just look at how nicely knitting in the round has preserved the color changes in the yarn:

A result like that has to be worth some risk, right?