Presenting Ingrid

I finally got some pictures of my Ingrid that I can share, she has actually been finished for a couple of days now, but lighting in my house did not do the cables justice! If you know how to get cables to show nicely when using the flash on your camera can you give me some tips?

Without further ado, presenting Ingrid by Jeri Riggs. (ravelry and blog links)

For those new to the party, this was knit with yarn that was gifted to me at Christmas. My deal with everyone who doesn't knit has always been, give me yarn and I will give you a finished object!

Stats:
Yarn : Plymouth Encore and I used all but a few yards that were sent to me!
Size 9 (US) needles
Worked to size 38
No closures yet, I wasn't sure if she wanted buttons or zipper and not only will I let her decide once she has the sweater, she is clever enough to add them herself!
Techniques: Top Down, seamless, set in sleeves, cables, provisional cast on, cabled cast off, reversible cables.

Here is a shot of those reversible cables.

And some shots showing the reason that TDQ isn't going to keep this one!!

It is just too big for her!
As there is still a little time before the start of the Knit Along, I scoured my stash looking for enough yarn to knit Ingrid in a slightly smaller size for myself.

Guess what?

My stash failed me!

I have enough yarn to knit socks for everyone I know, including myself, and enough yarn for shawls to keep everyone wrapped in cashmere, silk and wool.

What I don't have?

Worsted Weight!!!

I guess my love of small needles and fine yarn got the best of my stash. So, what was a bored knitter to do?
Meet Inga, seriously stolen from the pattern Ingrid, but in DK weight!

The math for the cables was driving me nuts so I opted to use a yarn with the same wpi's as what I really wanted to use and knit without most of the cables and then use cabled swatch to create a percentage system to come up with the for real sweater.

I have just picked up the stitches for the sleeves and put the piece on one needle here, now all I have to do is keep my notes straight for when I want to knit the cabled version.

~M

Moving right along

For the followers of Ingrid's progress, we are sort of in the middle of the 12th page of the pattern. By sort of I mean, I hit the bottom of it once, went back to the middle and when I have finished this sleeve will be back in the top/middle again.

The top of page 12 has you starting the waist shaping, I worked my way through all the decreases and the first set of increases before that ball of yarn ran out. Perfect opportunity to work on sleeves!!

The first one is done and the second has reached the point where I am working through sleeve decreases. It is times like this that I realize I am not the brightest bulb in the pack, all I have to do is count to six rounds and work a decrease, then count to six again.

There has been tinking to get back to the sixth row several times now!!

Who knew it was so hard to count to 6?

Having read some notes on Ravelry when it came time to cast off the first sleeve I arranged things so that it was on a cable row and rearranged the stitches before casting them off. Wanna see?

It certainly avoided any flaring at the cuff, and is still flexible enough to get over my hand with room to spare.

In other knitting news, Metamorphosis is starting to heat up. Swatch charts were posted yesterday, but I think that there is still time to join if you want to!

I have swatched two different yarns, one for the pullover, one for the cardigan.
BB Toes in Maine Blueberry and Knit Picks Shadow held double in Cattails.
I used size 4 needles for these swatches, but might swatch again trying on 3's to see if I like that fabric for BB Toes, and maybe go up to a 5 on the Shadow. I got gauge on the Shadow, but the fabric feels a little dense to me, and I have confidence that if I am close to gauge, even if I am not spot on, I can adjust a sweater to fit!!

Happy Knitting!!

~M

Bottom of the Eleventh

Page that is!

My Velma's Ingrid is slowly growing into a cardigan. I tried it on myself and I think it is just the right amount of too big to fit the intended recipient!

Now I have to decide if I am going to put the body on hold and work the sleeves, or a sleeve and back to the body then the other sleeve, or keep going on the body until I reach the "just right" length and move on to the sleeves.

Now scroll back up and take a good look at the cables that run down the opening of the front...got that pictured really well in your head?

Take a look at the other side!
Pretty clever, I say! So clever that I think I will be stealing this chart to use on something else later this year.

I showed you the start of DS#2's sweater a week or so back. I haven't touched it since.

Why?

Because if you want to watch tv at my house you can see this :

And boys who throw things at tv screens don't deserve hand knit sweaters, computer time or video games.*

Which means that Ingrid is my only active knitting project at the moment. All that will change when we get past collecting materials for the Bad Cat Knit Along, but until then I am dragging an adult size sweater to and from work each day.

Rather convenient that I got this in the mail to help!
Salsamelie won a cone of yarn from me in the ColourMart Fall Knitting contest and sent me this bag as a Thank You.

Perfect timing as I needed a knit toting bag this week.

Off to do some more knitting!

~M

* and you would not believe how mean the fact that I will not run out and buy another tv makes me!!

Progress shot

Actually from last evening, the last row for the size 38 on page 10! 4 more pages to go. :)

As to if this is a fitted sleeve or raglan sweater, on one of the pages the pattern does say to "Begin raglan shaping", but depending on the size you are working that shaping could be as few as 3 increase sets. I don't think it really counts! These sleeves will be fitted and "set in" without any of the hassle of fitting a sleeve.

The most amazing thing about this sweater I haven't even shown you...maybe tomorrow! That edge cable has another complimentary cable on the back side.

Ok, off to salvage what I can of my house. 11 year olds throwing temper tantrums leave a terrible mess.

~M

New Beginnings

Did you have a nice New Year's? Mine was good, nothing too exciting, but good.

New Year's give everyone a fresh start, if they decide to take it, and my fresh start for this year was to learn a new technique.

This past year I knit several top down, raglan cardigans, but you know, there is something about the fit of set in sleeves that I love. Enter Jeri with an answer! A few needle gymnastics and she has created a top down, fitted, set in come raglan sleeve sweater. Actually, she has patterns for a couple of them on Ravelry, but I dove in with Ingrid.

As you can see, I am not too far into the actual knitting, but that would be page 9 of a very well written 14 page pattern!

Jeri is also half of the team that is bringing Metamorphosis KAL to life. Materials lists and measurement worksheets are up on the group, I just need to find a helper for my own measurements...anyone got a young, handsome, handy with a tape measure, male they want to loan me? No ? Then TDQ will have to do it.

I still need to stash dive for those projects...yes projects! If you thought all that was coming was a transformed lace sweater you would be wrong. Three shawls or two shawls and a scarf, along with two sweater versions could mean a lot of yarn!

Speaking of yarn, my Ingrid is being knit with gift yarn, which can mean only one thing.....when I am through with it someone get's their yarn back as a finished object!

I am off to stash dive, you never can tell what might be lurking in there!

Here's hoping your New Year is off to a good start!

~M