FO: Buchanan Tee

I finished a fantastic little summery top a couple weeks ago.

It's the Buchanan sweater from Kate Davie's wonderful little book appropriately titled "Yokes".   The last sweater I made of hers was the whimsical Owls pullover.  Sadly, I left it in storage and I want it back (along with that denim pencil skirt, ugh, sometimes I just miss my stuff).

There are several winners in the Yokes book.  Loads of simple, creative designs that would be flattering to most- there is quite a bit of waist shaping worked into these patterns, which, hello, I can't do without.

This was designed with a heavier wool in mind- a mohair blend!- but I couldn't do a short-sleeved top in wool.  In my mind, it called for cotton, specifically some of my jealously hoarded long-discontinued Rowan Calmer.  It behaves like wool but it's nice and light weight, making it perfect for summery little tops that you dream of wearing.  Lately, I've been in a "suns out, why am I freezing?" sort of place so it hasn't gotten any real use yet.  I can't wait.  Tomorrow is a warmer day according to the Met office.

I loved the colorwork on the Yoke of this.  It's much bolder and graphic than traditional fair-isle yokes.

All-round, a winner.

FO: Some catchup in the waning afternoon light

Hello again!   Here I am, I'm back in London.  I have a lot to talk about, and sometimes I have a hard time organizing my thoughts, so forgive me if I'm all over the place in the coming weeks.  Life has not been boring, and I foresee it not being dullsvile any time soon.

So, I made a bunch of stuff.  I thought I should post about it, if only to make me feel better about sending them into the ether.

First up was a crazy impulse knit.  I saw a sample knitted up at John Lewis, saw the yarn deeply discounted in a bin next to the sample, and a few days later I had created this:

It's called the Rhea top, and it's too big!  Yargh.  Bulky yarn (Rowan All Seasons Chunky, a cotton/poly blend) and an open-work pattern meant it was really hard to get gauge and guess how much ease I needed.  In the end, it was way too much.  I'm going to frog this back and re-knit it in a smaller size on smaller needles because I think that this could very easily become an oft-worn summer favorite if it fits right.  It's kind of 80's in the styling, and the cable drop stitches and texture, and I just want to wear this while walking the boardwalk.  I will try again.  

See that?  That's the Scottish Highlands right there, and we made it out the other side alive.  Also, a Windschief hat.

Stephen West makes such great unfussy patterns.  He's been my go-to for hat patterns lately- I tend to make a stockpile of them with no one particularly in mind, and then give them lavishly once the right people appear.  This one is a simple slip-stitch pattern that gracefully arcs around a series of decreases and pared increases, giving it an interesting asymmetrical swirl.

I used a skein of Madeline Tosh dk in "Granite".  It's luxuriously soft merino, and although Tosh is known for doing bright, beautiful colors better than anyone, I loved the tones in the greys on this.  It's superwash, so it's been a good hiking hat, with no fading or color bleeding after multiple washes.  


I spent the summer plugging away on this:

It's the Lace Saddle Tee, heavily modified.  The original pattern just had lace on the sleeves, but I went whole-hog and echoed the lace pattern up the side seams.

I love the way it looks, but again: it's too big!  It fits kind of weird- the front looks okay, but there is all this extra fabric in the back.  I really don't even know how to correct that in the knitting process.  It fits my hips and waist just fine, and I did have some shaping thrown in, but somehow I created too much fabric in the back.

I'm still wearing it though.  I used some very precious Rowan Calmer- a cotton/poly blend that behaves more like wool than unyielding cotton, and this continues to be my favorite non-wool yarn to work with.  The sunshiny lemony yellow makes me happy.

This was also my first attempt at saddle shoulders, which were fun to make but hard to explain.  It took a few tries to get it right, but I like the way they fit.

Finally, this.  I made Groot.

I'm not a fan of the huge amount of comic-book movies that come out every summer.  I didn't grow up on comics.  I spent the first half of the "Avengers" movie not knowing that Bruce Banner was the Hulk, and was probably the only one surprised when Bruce got angry and made the transformation.  Pop culture princess I am not.  

However, I did get dragged into Guardians of the Galaxy this summer, and despite being very confused about back story and bad guys, it was a fun show.  There was a tree named Groot who ended up being the hero of the day, and he dances to the Jackson 5 (as we all should), and when I saw someone had written a pattern to make your very own Groot, I nerded out and got to work.  Finally, a use for that super scratchy yarn from Greenland that I bought in Copenhagen that no one would ever be able to touch without cringing and possibly crying from the pain of it all.  He worked up quite fast, and I had to buy safety eyes and pipe cleaners, and then re purposed a pot  from Ikea that had some rosemary in it that didn't quite make it through multiple periods of neglect.  I had opened up a throw pillow and used some of the stuffing in that instead of buying a bag of polyfill, and then sewed the pillow back up and no one is the wiser that it's missing a bit of umph.  Finally, when it came time to plant him, his giant head flopped over drunkenly.  So I went into the kitchen and got a metal BBQ skewer, put the knob end well down into the gravel, and then heartlessly impaled my creation.  He now stands quite upright.  That smile is fixed.  He's dying on the inside.

Want to make one?  You should, because I'm not going to make another one even though I've gotten dozens of "I want one!" requests.  It's easy; I barely know how to crochet and it only took a few hours.  Here's the instructions on Twinkle Chan's blog.

I've made a few more things, but haven't photographed them yet.  Soon.  I think.

But, cheers to all that.  I find that I miss sitting down to write, and I'm working on getting some post about our hikes and travels up soon enough.  After a cold and dreary August, September was fantastic weather and I took advantage fully.

FO: Rusted Root

Oh, the dreaded Summery Sweater!

Dreaded because it usually means silk or cotton or linen is called for, and my hands will ache the entire time with the dreaded inflexibility of it all.

Alas, I discovered Rowan Calmer before it was unceremoniously discontinued, so I have a nice little stash of it squirreled away. It's cotton and acrylic micofiber blended together, but it's plied tightly and bouncily so the yarn has enough give that it's closer to wool in feel. I picked up the last 4 skeins at the bottom of the bargin bin last summer at Le Bon Marché, an ultra luxe department store in the 6th. I picked this top because it was knit top-down, so if I was tight on yardage, it would just be a little cropped.

I love the cherry-red color and I love the fit. It's a snug raglan tee, but stretchy and comfy, and as long as I don't wear something terribly low-waisted, it will keep my stomach covered.

The puffy little cap sleeves make this.

The pattern is Rusted Root from Zephyr Style. Despite the tight gauge on US 5 needles, I had this done in a week and a half without really even hustling. I used every single last bit of the 700 yards of Calmer.

Soldes!

Twice a year, in July and January, Paris because more of a zoo than usual. It's time for Soldes! The twice-annual state regulated clearance sales create a shopping frenzy. Even my American ex-pat friends, with the dollar weak to the Euro, take advantage and splurge.

Department stores have bouncers and roped off lines as people go in for discount Dior and Chanel. Shoe departments look like someone might lose an eye. Fitting rooms are a tangle of bodies and silk and linen as everyone jostles for that perfect, and cheaper than usual, designer piece.

Every store window announces it, and sometimes leaves the manequins naked just to prove a point.

Places like Hermes become madhouses, with limits on how many scarves you can buy and showing up to the sale with something already from Hermes being worn. There's a whole new set of tourist in town, specifically here for the designer sales.

I took advantage to pick up some more kitchen items that I was lacking- a whisk and spoons and a cheese grater. I know, boring, right? But I also found a really cute silk dress for an astounding 10 euro that I'll be showing off soon enough. Aside from that, my taste run a little too rich, even with the soldes. A silk scarf at 40% off was still 700 Euro, a cashmere and merino blanket for 900, cushy oversized bath towels that cost 150 Euro a piece, shoes discounted at 70% would still reign as the most expensive shoes I've every worn. The department stores here are a bit much for me to handle. I'm keen on staying away.

I found it was also a good time to pick up a few necessities, like sunscreen and lotions. It's kind of like the city is having a rummage sale. If you go early in the day, the crowds aren't all that bad either.

As the month grinds on, the discounts get bigger, but the stock noticeably sadder. The enviable fall collections start becoming more of the focus.

All the major department stores and even some of the bigger grocery stores have gorgeous yarn departments and notions. The summer yarns are all way discounted as well. I couldn't resist picking up some cherry-red Rowan Calmer (discontinued! The horror of it all!) for just a few Euros a skein.

FO: Phyllo Yoked Pullover

I had to get my eyes dilated at the ophthalmologist on Friday, which left me looking freakishly stoned.



Part of me wanted to just sit in a dark room and wait for it to wear off, but I had much too much to do. So everything I saw that afternoon was blurred and accompanied by a bright glare, which made me start to think I was stoned.



Anyway. The gin and tonics probably didn't help.

I finished the Phyllo Yoked Pullover from Norah Gaughan's Knitting Nature.



I love sweaters like this- you go on for almost forever in plain stockinette stitch, and then BAM there's a pretty and unique design element that pulls it all together. It's based on the Phyllotaxis Spiral found in plants- sunflowers, pinecones, daisy, asters and mums- they all have a spiral pattern that runs both clockwise and counterclockwise to form a lattice.



It's a fairly simple lace pattern with the decreases built in so the spiral is uninterrupted. When I get cooking on something like that, I can't put it down. It's addictive.





I didn't do any major modifications except for the sleeves. The way they were written, they were going to be hourglass shaped. Big belled cuffs that taper to the elbow. I'm a big fan of rolling up my sleeves (or at least having the option to) so I nixed the sleeve design and just did a plain sleeve with decreases every 10 rows until I hit the number I needed to get them to fit in with the yoke.



It's really just a lovely sweater. And the yarn...Rowan Calmer almost makes me feel silly for all the smack I've talked about hating cotton and how it hurts my hands. It's made up of 75% cotton, 25% acrylic microfiber. The Microfiber makes it silky soft and gives it a bit of drape. It is elastic enough hide stitch inconsistencies better than 100% cotton. Love. Love. Love. It's lightweight and comfortable to wear as well.

The specs: I used 8 skeins of Rowan Calmer in "Refresh"- about 1400 yards- for the 40" size. I used US size 6 needles. It is knit and pieces and seemed up before you attach everything on one long circular needle for the yoke. It could have been modified to knit in the round, but the front is shorter than the back to make the neck dip lower in the front, so you would have to plan on that.

WIP- Phyllo Yoked Pullover

I just can't seem to help myself- as soon as I have one sweater off the needles, another one gets cast on right away.

I impulsively cast on for the Phyllo Yoked Pullover.



It's from Norah Gaughan's book "Knitting Nature". I bought the book when it first came out a few years ago, but let it sit on the shelf until I felt confident enough to tackle a project. Her patterns tend to have unusual construction elements or some sort of crazy cable or lace pattern that looks harder than it actually is.



This pattern is fairly simple- you knit the body and sleeves in plain stockinette, attach everything on one circular needle, and then start the yoke pattern. There are decreases worked into the pattern so the spiraling diamonds get progressively smaller as you work your way up to the neck.



It is also very addicting...I haven't put this thing down since I started it a couple weeks ago.

Since it's the season that requires me to try non-wool yarns, I decided to give Rowan Calmer a shot. It's a cotton/microfiber blend. I'm really quite pleased with it...cotton usually hurts my hands because I find it tough and inflexible, but the microfiber really does wonders to make this soft and almost silky.



Meanwhile the Escargot mitts are languishing away at the bottom of my knitting bag. I need a sunny afternoon to sit in the park and finish those already.