Eased sweater by Alicia Plummer, and associated life limbo

The plans for this sweater sprung fully formed a year ago, in Flagstaff, when I fell in love with the colourway Pocion of Malabrigo Mecha.  I bought all the supplies and thought the sweater might not even be too hard for me.  Then it had to stay behind due to the usual luggage constraints of my life.

Fast forward to my stuff, idling with my parents in Seattle.  I was feeling relatively competent with knitting after my four months in Nepal.  I thought maybe I could whip this out in a few weeks before leaving Seattle to wait out my visa-limbo in New Zealand.  I got the body halfway done before I left...the rest of the sweater was a lazy process dependent on the weather not being too hot or sticky to knit.  New Zealand summer hasn't made me in a hurry to finish this warm jersey!

I skipped all length below the waist, assuming that I wouldn't want any hip shaping.  Otherwise I followed the pattern knitting for the second smallest size.  I think I tend to size down too much in my knitting - things fit but with a lot of negative ease.  This too.  When I tried it on before starting the sleeves I was a little worried I had gone overboard with shortening the waist.  When I wear it I am definitely pulling it down a lot.

It was a great project to move on with - a few new things but mostly stabilising the knowledge I have and not too overwhelming.  Working with size 10 needles also makes things go along really fast.  The weather kept me at a slow pace, but finally, it's done!! In fact, just the day the weather hit 9 degrees, I put it on and wore it for two days before even thinking about blocking it, or weaving in the one last loose end.  I will do those things eventually but of course now it's too cold and nothing dries - but I want to see whether I can pull it a bit longer.

Cable earwarmer in Malabrigo rios

I felt so confident after making myself handwarmers!  Plus I was still wearing my legwarmers every day!  And nothing could be as boring as the cowl that I finished.  I've never progressed through skills like this before in knitting and the feeling of confidence - that I could start a project and conceivably finish it successfully - is really addictive.

So I decided to try using up the rest of my Malabrigo Rios and making my friend Helen, who is obsessed with knits, an earwarmer.  I saw her wearing one a few months ago and she's moving to the depths of northern Scotland soon so I reckoned she needed another one. Plus this gave me a chance to try out another new skill - cables!

I trawled Ravelry, as always, for something that fit my criteria and came up with this free pattern: the Chevron cable headband by Kirsty Grainger.  I wanted something with clear cables but not with too many of them and this fit the bill.

I cast on initially using size 4.5mm needles, as the pattern recommends, and knitted about three rows before deciding I thought it was too loose, so I sized down to a 4.  I was happy with that.  I found the c4 cable pattern to be pretty accessible, although of course with an extra tool in my hand things seemed to go awfully slow, I definitely gained confidence with the pattern as I saw my beautiful cables emerge!  This was a really fun project for that reason - I got faster as I went along, and I couldn't believe that I was making such a nice result! 

I got to the end and kind of winged it regarding sewing the ends together.  The join looks a bit rough but I think it's not going to be too visible, and it will hold pretty well.  I used a tapestry needle and the ends from the earwarmer and just weaved it through the obvious loops on each side.  I am not sure how you are supposed to knit pieces together.  There's always something more to learn in knitting!

Anyway my success with this bolstered me to pick my Miette back up.  That's a project I started over a year ago, when I was living in Arizona, and then put down early on.  Because of the lace, plus being a sweater, it seemed overwhelming!

Also this earwarmer took very little yarn.  I made two legwarmers and this from two balls of Malabrigo rios and I still have half a ball left - probably enough for another earwarmer! 

Simple Legwarmers in Malabrigo Rios

This pattern is called Simple Legwarmers, by Wendy Easton.  It’s a free pattern available on Ravelry.

I followed the pattern, casting on 52 stitches, but got the idea from a different pattern to do k1p1 cuffs for about 7 rows. 

These are really easy so there’s not too much to say about them.  I chose the pattern because I had this yarn: Malabrigo Rios (in hojas) and I did not have size 3.5 or size 4 needles, which limited me from a bunch of other nice patterns.  This was the best compromise based on the yarn and needles I had, plus cold legs (I didn’t want something too difficult.) 

I measured from ankle to knee and that’s how long I made them. I used size 4.5 Chia Goo bamboo sock needles for the cuffs, and have to report that the short needles made for socks piss me off, my stitches kept falling off.  Also these needles are really sharp.  I used size 5 Addi in the round for the rest, using the shortest cord that my amazing kit had in it (the Addi click turbo kit, a birthday present from my mum!)  It was a bit alarming to see the legwarmers stretched on the needle but of course they shrink back down fast.

I used Jeny’s super stretchy bind off which is now, rather embarrassingly, the only one I know. 

I didn’t block them because I couldn’t see the point. I get that blocking makes scarves longer.  But is there a reason to use it on tubular things like legwarmers before they stretch out of shape? 

Anyway I put them on and have only taken them off to sleep.  It’s no joke living in a village with no heating - emergency upcoming project is handwarmers and I’m embarrassed to admit that I’m getting very 19th century chilblains on my feet because I just can’t feel them half the time.

I mentioned on Ravelry that if I were going for fashion I would prefer legwarmers in a finer weave and I will get on with those lace ones as soon as I can access the supplies.  (Er and the time…)  But for simple warmth these do, and I think when I return to civilisation I will block them (to make them smaller) and then wear them squashed down as per the photo below.

And the Malabrigo rios is as always delightful to work with, warm and chunky to wear.
On Ravelry too!

Variations on a Colourway, Andi Satterland cropped sweater

While I was waiting to finish my first version of this sweater...I already started the second one.  I bought this beautiful Malabrigo yarn in Port Townsend, WA last October with the plan to make the same thing again.  I thought it must be like making a dress, that after the first time you have the hang of the pattern and it won't feel so terrifying.  I debated making something else and cast on the Miette, but my experience with the lace at the beginning was terrible so I decided to return to the original plan and garner some lace experience elsewhere (like with scarves and Craftsy lessons!)

Using this wool I could already see after the first piece that it would end up a lot bigger than sweater number one.  (Not a bad thing.) I didn't swatch anything, and I still made a size S, the second smallest, based on my measurements.

I had to stop it right after the first section, because I only had the one size US 8 needle and it was needed for another project.  Having limited supplies and nothing to do but knit was quite good for my skills because I had to finish each project before moving on - no more half-done socks lying around!  Also making things for people with imminent departure was good added the stress to finish my projects on time.  The bad thing is that I didn't think through this entire project from the beginning, colourwise, and my one colourway had a lot of variation.  

Anyway spring started blossoming so it was time to get on with it. I was completely shocked by how quickly it went.  I finished up the first ball of yarn and started on with the second, and then was a bit sad as the colour was so washed out.  After a few rows I switched to ball three, which had predominantly greens and blues rather than greens and purple.  I had bought a skein of the colourway Purpuras, which is purple and magenta, but I wasn't feeling it.  I also didn't want to do the wave-design at the bottom because my two-colour alternation technique is wrong (I assume) and the inside yarn kept attaching to my bra and making me worry that I was going to break my beautiful sweater.  I thought this yarn was busy enough without that detail.  I debated for awhile but realised my accidental yarn order had decided for me, as the final ball of yarn was deeper blue, purple, and green, and so I decided to try and do a colourway gradation.

I was less scared knitting this sweater so I made more mistakes as well as working faster.  I don't really understand when you put the sweater into the round and add stitches in the middle of your work - my thread tail stays stuck to the end of the round, and my new added stitches are on the other "half" of the work, taking a second round before it really becomes one unit and with this stretched out yarn tail in the way.  My ssk must be wrong as it creates a decorative extra line (which I just left in, whatever).  And the crowning glory was when I decided I should try it on, and naturally ripped out a few rows of stitches that I couldn't get back.  I got them on my needles but there was a big hole that I tried to weave shut later.

trying to block it smaller...

These are the before-blocking pictures

I realised too that this is the point when I'm ready to move on to different sweaters - to see how someone else does things.  This tutorial made the sweatermaking process feel less scary because each piece of instruction was far away from the next one, so you couldn't look ahead too much and get nervous.  When it's all written out on one piece of paper and you don't understand the abbreviations that you'll need in 10 rows, it seems too daunting to even start.  But now I'm irritated by things on this sweater that are NOT different than my first one - like binding on for the sleeves, should it always look a little...detached?  I'm finally ready to try something different.

The fit prior to blocking was good, but still had extra fabric around the upper chest and shoulders.  I was hoping that by blocking in hot water it would get tighter.  When I put it in hot water it actually relaxed and seemed soooo big...oh no!  I tried to block it smaller somehow. 

That didn't work!  It's still got extra fabric around the shoulders.  Unfortunately I made the short rows on the right shoulder really loose and it makes a big difference.  But I know it's really mainly noticeable to me!  Overall this sweater is more practical than the blue one because it's longer, but it's been an interesting lesson on how the same pattern can make really different sweaters.